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Toua laa autraa axamplairaa originaux sont filmis an commandant par la premiAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d'impraasion ou d'lllustration at an tarminant par la darniira paga qui comporta una taila amprainta. Un daa symbolaa suivants apparaftra sur la darniira imaga da chaqua microficha, salon la caa: la symbols — ^ signifia "A SUIVRE", la aymbola V signifia "FIN". Laa cartaa, planchas, tablaaux, ate, pauvant Atra fiimia A daa taux da rMuction diffirents. Lorsqua la documant aat trop grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul clichA, il est film* A partir da I'angia sup«>riaur gaucha, da gaucha A droita, at da haut an bas, an pranant la nombra d'imagas nAcassaira. Las diagrammas luivants illustrant la mAthoda. ratt elure, A : 2X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ADRIFT: A STORY OF NIAGARA. BY JULIA DITTO YOUNG. 'M PHILADELPHIA. J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 1889 Copyright, 1889, by J. B, Lippincott Company. 4-3GST ta Vlilliam Bean HotnelU. ADRIFT: A STORY OF NIAOARA. CHAPTER I. " And wherever we turn, and whatever we do, Still that horrible sense of the dijH connu." Owen Meredith. On a certain April evening a year or so ago the city of Buffalo had evidently incurred the displeasure of the powers who dispense the weather, and was suffering — shall we say as usual ? — all the outrages which Boreas, Frey, and the other storm-creators could inflict. The wind howled and tore through the trees as if anxious to strip them of their early buds, and to a fanciful observer the incessant rain might have seemed like a cruel and heavy lash laid upon the few shrinking pedestrians. There were doubtless numerous tenements in the city whose inmates were incommoded by the tem- pest, inasmuch as the chill breath of the wind through crevice and keyhole is not a welcome vis- itor, and as water has a disagreeable tendency to trickle through pervious roofs. But there were also many residences, on the contrary, whose internal comfort was only enhanced by the contrast between 3 ADRIFT. the cold and damp without and the light, heat, and fragrance within. Among the latter was a small house in a fashionable street, owned and occupied by Mr. John Forrester, a gentleman who had been destined by his parents to adorn the legal profession, but who had after a few years' trial abandoned it for the more immediately lucrative occupation of banker and broker. The emoluments of his chosen calling had been considerable, and now, in his thirtieth year, he was able to live in a style which was the height of luxury compared with the manner of his existence a decade previous. It was very much to his gratifi- cation that this result had been obtained without in- tense application to books or any burning of the midnight oil except that consumed in social and convivial gatherings. " The beauty of my business," he was wont to say, " is that it's not necessary to crowd the mind with unimportant facts. I'm not required to say at a mo- ment's notice who it was that discovered the circu- lation of the blood, or in what year Martin Luther was born, or to air my ignorance of Magna Charta. No ; I let the dead past slip by, and concern myself only with the things of this hour, or at most the things of this week or this month. I read the news- papers, of course, — in them we find the cream of all literature, ancient and modern, separated from the skim-milk of metaphor anJ poetry, and expressed in that terse American vernacular which beats all other languages for going straight to the point !" Such being Mr. Forrester's opinion, it was but natural that on this rainy April evening he should ADRIFT, t be reading a newspaper. On the other hand, it would have been equally surprising to find him seated in a room so well supplied with books as al- most to deserve the title of librnry, only that the partner of his home was a lady whose views on this as on most other subjects were diametrically opposed to her lord's, Mrs. Forrester being intensely, impar- tially devoted to French, German, and English liter- ature. The room was well furnished, and littered with works of art in various stages of progress. An Ariadne, lumpy and dropsical-looking, reclined on the mantel-shelf, incompletely evolved from the sur- rounding clay. A heap of bright silks lay on a table beside a piece of ruby plush, one incipient bud thereon alone revealing that, fortune favoring, its lustrous surface would some time be enriched by a spray of wild roses. On an easel in the corner was a half-finished crayon head of Dante ; the unskilful draughtsman having been unable to reproduce the well-known melancholy droop of mouth and eyelids, the great Florentine's usual lugubrious expression was replaced by a sort of smirk which could not fail to make the judicious grieve. Besides these articles and the implements required in their execution, books, letters, pamphlets, and newspapers were strewn about in a careless confusion from which one might infer the presiding genius of the apart- ment to be a woman of versatile tastes and manifold intellectual resources, as well as a very untidy house- keeper. Mr. Forrester brought to the perusal of his news- I* i ADRIFT^ paper the same habits which made him a successful business-man. He knew instinctively what items would appeal to his interest, and read those only ; but read them, whether trivial or important, with a quick and thorough mental grasp which lefl in his memory not a series of shadowy impressions, but a distinct array of facts. Having thus mastered every- thing that was of value to him in the paper, he folded it neatly and put it down on the table, across which he looked in silence for some moments at his wife. Presently she also laid aside her book, — a novel in French, — and remarked in that language that she was bored, weary, and sad. Mrs. Forrester rarely resorted to a foreign tongue to express her senti- ments; never, indeed, unless with the express pur- pose of annoying her husband. On this occasion she was foiled in the endeavor, for he replied only by an amiable and interrogative smile, whereat she relented and observed in English, — "Jack, I'm tired, I'm stupid, I'm unhappy! There's no pleasure to be had out of books any more ; they get duller every year." " That's my own opinion precisely 1" Mr. Forres- ter began, with emphasis ; but he was promptly in- terrupted by his wife, who seldom let any statement pass unchallenged, even when it was in direct con- firmation of her own views. " John Forrester, I'm surprised at your temerity l" she said, severely. " You to say one word against books, — you, that never open one, except check- books and ledgers! When I say they get duller every year, I merely mean they seem so to me." R^ ADRIFT. St 1 " Perhaps, my dear, you read too much," sug- gested the gentleman, tentatively. " Nonsense, Jack 1 I read compaiatively little now. Two novels a day was my allowance a year ago; but they have lately palled upon me so that I can hardly read one a week through to the bitter end. Even in my best estate I could never bring myself to begin at the beginning." " How ivould it do to read something solid, — some government reports or common council proceed- ings?" said Mr. Furrester, still tentatively. This was acknowledged only by a derisive glance. " No," continued the lady ; " I know perfectly well what is the matter with me, — I have not enough to do. My brain and hands are alike idle. These last few years, since my life has been devoid of real, use- ful occupation, I have not felt contented at all. I have actually been thinking. Jack, that I should like to dismiss the girls and do my own work again." '^ Again, Bella ? I was under the impression that when we formerly dispensed with servants the work simply wasn't done at all." Mrs. Forrester, lost in a maze of agreeable memo- ries, ignored this interpolation. "And you know, Jack," she went on, musingly, " that after our little dinners were over " " And very little dinners they used to be, too !" said Jack, with a retrospective groan. "You didn't do much cooking, Bella; I was a living — no, an al- most dead proof of that. Though, to do you justice, I must say I never saw your equal at getting up a meal of tea and soda-crackers." 8 ADRIFT. " Well, anyway, after dinner I would change my dress and sit down at my desk all alone, and go slowly through the French grammar." " I highly approve of that portion of your project. I don't think you are nearly as proficient in French as you pretend to be, and it would certainly be bene- ficial to you to go through the grammar again." *' Of course I do not dream of doing that !" in- stantly rejoined the lady. " But I have lately felt profoundly interested in Dante, and I don't see why I should not read him in the original." " Now, Bella, just stop right where you are!" said her husband, vainly endeavoring to impart an angry and authoritative ring to his pleasant voice. " Long self-discipline, long humbling of a naturally proud spirit, has at last enabled me to listen patiently to unintelligible remarks in French and German ; but I draw the line at Italian !" " Ah, well, that's not 'Essential. I won't quarrel about a trifle " " No ? Really, Bella, you are certainly not your- self if you do not seize upon any pretext whatever for quarrelling !" " The main thing I am anxious about," explained Mrs. Forrester, with a good deal of earnestness, " is whether it would or would not be a good thing for me to do my own housework again. I often feel as if my mission in life was no higher than washing dishes." " On the contrary, I am convinced that your genius does not at all find its fitting medium of ex- pression in that homely employment," said Mr. For- 1 ADRIFT. iK raster, solemnly. " You can do anything better than washing dishes. Don't trouble yourself to reply, Bella, — the shock of finding you for once in accord with me might unhinge my reason." Bella laughed, somewhat reluctantly. "To tell the truth. Jack," she confessed, " If I were so unfor- tunate as to engage a servant who would break and burn and tear things in the reckless fashion that I used to do, I wouldn't keep the creature in the house two hours." She ceased to laugh, and, let- ting her serious eyes rest on her husband's, said, gravely, " I'm p>ositively ashamed to tell you this, Jack, it's so absurd, so grotesque : but do you know nothing brings back so plainly the dear old times, the early years of our marriage, as to smell in the street the odors of scorching cake or potatoes or milk escaping from some kitchen. I knew these scents so well of old I can distinguish them all." " You won't mind my mentioning what I con- ceive to be the best result of your culinary efforts, Bella ? They enabled me to acquire a peculiar gas- tronomic accomplishment : I can never be deceived in a restaurant, in my own house, or at a friend's table ; I know unerringly when a thing is ill- cooked I" Bella joined in his laugh at this, but after a mo- ment she said, soberly, — "Jack, I'm really unhappy, and you don't help me ; you don't suggest anything." " You know, dear, you wouldn't pay the least at- tention to anything I did suggest," her husband said, gently. 10 ADRIFT. " No, of course not ; still, I should like to hear what you have to say." " Well, then, Bella, as for letting t' : servants go, you would he ready in a week's time to crawl on your hands and knees from the Terrace to Cold Spring to get them back again. It's altogether out of the question. Why don't you complete some of the work you have lying about here ? I wish you had a little of my industry and zeal, dear; whatever I happen to be doing seems to be for the time the most interesting and valuable thing in the world. Finish your mirthful Dante over there, for instance ; subdue his risible muscles." " Is that all you have to say to me ?" exclaimed Mrs. Forrester, with flashing eyes. '' Is that the best advice you can offer to a perplexed and dis- tracted mind, the best balm you can provide for a stung and tortured soul ? Finish my mirthful Dante, indeed ! Yes, I will finish him, — behold I" She rose from her chair, snatched the portrait from the easel, stabbed an eraser several times through Dante's abnormally cheerful countenance, and, crump- ling the paper, tl rew it into the blazing grate. Then she rang the bell, and when the servant appeared thrust into her hands the embryonic embroidery. "There, Mary! cut the plush in two and give half of it to cook ; it will make you each a lovely bonnet next fall. And take the silks too ; I'll give you some pieces to-morrow, and you can begin a crazy quilt. Let it be your lifcwork." Mary began to stammer her thanks, but Mrs. Forrester cut her short and dismissed her from the -IS ^ ADRIFT. II room. She bethought herself, however, to call after the retreating g'rl — a somewhat lavish generosity towards domestics having taughf- her that that class appreciate gifts exactly in proportion to their money value — that the plush was six dollars a yard. Then she looked around for fresh opportunities of icoiio- clasm. " There's your Ariadne with the Mtimt>s*' sug- gested Mr. Forrester, entering into his wife's spiri^. " I'll help you to demolish it. It's quite in my line, — broke her, — see ? He put Ariadne on the tiled hearth and glanced about in search of some weapon that might serve as the beheading axe. " It reminds me of Hezekiah destroying the Isra- elites' gods ; only I never cared for the things," re- marked Mrs. Forrester. " No, it's more like the execution of Marie Stuart. — Ah !" as the poker neatly struck off Ariadne's head. " It's too realistic. I wish I hadn't let you do it, Jack !" Jack regarded his wife with eyes that were only half amused. " I never heard of an imagination to beat yours, Bella," he observed. " Fancy detecting any resemblance between the human form divine and this thing!" When he had reduced the statuette to fragments, he strolled aimlessly about the room for a few mo- ments, in an undecided manner very unusual with him, casting several hesitant glances towards Mrs. Forrester, which she carefully avoided meeting. Finally he went out into the hall and put on his hat and overshoes. 12 ADRIFT. " Going out, Jack ?" inquired his wife, indifferently. " Only for a little while. You do not mind, do you, dear?" " Certainly not !" "Allow me to give you due credit, Bella, for a decided reform in this matter recently," said Mr. Forrester, donning his overcoat. " It's not very loiig ago that you entered a violent protest against my ever going out in the evening. Now it doesn't seem to make the least difference to you." *' He has noticed it at last !" was Mrs. Forrester's inward thought. Aloud she said, " You are sure you like the changCj Jack ?" " Of course I do !" he said, warmly. " It's a magnificent thing to feel one's marriage only a convenience and a pleasure, not a fetter!" He came in, stooped and kissed her forehead as she reclined in her chair, and went out into the rainy night. * Mrs. Forrester sat quite still where ne left her, gazing into the fire with a moody, cloudy face which indicated that her mind was " plunged in a gulf of dark despair." She was, indeed, very unhappy, the more so, perhaps, because she had nothing on earth to be unhappy about; she often acknowledged to herself that if she had a real grief to meet and battle with she could never be so wretched over it as she was over her imaginary woes. She understood per- fectly that her discontent sprang partly from idleness, and had for some years found relief in social duties and severe intellectual pursuits, but both these dis- tractions had ceased for some time to interest her. ADRIFT. I A She had taken up, one after another, several occu- pations which delighted many of her acquaintances, and not until this evening had she admitted their futility. The project of dismissing her servants was not more senseless than a dozen others she had ad- vocated with a view to providing employment for herself. None of these schemes, hov\^ever, had af- forded her any satisfaction, and to-night no attraction occurred to her sufficient to draw her eyes from the fire. She was at that critical period of a woman's life — to which there is in the existence of a man no cor- responding season of danger and difficulty — when the illusions of early youth, the novelty of marriage, the first freshness of love for her husband, have worn off, and before the reign of a peaceful, quiet maturity has begun. Tilany women are tided over this period by the cares of an increasing family, and their early vows of love and allegiance are strengthened by the coming of children. But Bella had never had a child ; she had been an orphan since her babyhood ; there was no one in particular to whom she could turn and cling ; it seemed as if the end of the world had come and she was the last person in it. When her thoughts reverted to her husband, she said, im- patiently, " Jack doesn't understanc^ me !" with a sense at the same time that his not understanding her was greatly to his credit. " If he could, I should think he had gone crazy !" she averred. She her- self could not analyze her feelings ; she knew only that she was without strength or hope, that she had no ambition, no motive of life, no guiding principle a ? 14 ADRIFT. of conduct. She was conscious of a ceaseless un- satisfied longing, none the less real because she knew not what she longed for. She gave herself up to these desultory musings for some time, then rose with a weary sigh, and after making the circuit of the rooms in a i :?stless pre- occupied manner put on her rubbers and gossamer and went out on the veranda. There were wide spaces between the neighboring houses, and she could see the city lamps stretching in a vast bright circle around her. Over the way figures flitted to and fro behind lace-draped win- dcivs; a street-car rattled and tinkled along in the distance. She felt alien to the whole multitudinous life of the city; the encircling lamps seemed co hem her in, to bar h©r from seeking a happier life that might lie — where ? Anywhere ! perhaps just beyond their fi.ery circle. A longing to get away from all she had ever known possessed her so fully that she had actually to put a restraint upon herself to keep from running out into the storm. Her eyes fell upon the asphalt pavement of the street, — it looked curiously like a river to her, with its wide rain-washed surface sparkling and shining beneath the long rows of lamps ; and there flashed into her mind the thought of a real river, and of a certain house upon its bank. Why should she not fly to that magnificent scene, and to the serene at- mosphere of that house ? She stood there thinking of it until she saw Jack hurrying up the walk. " I suppose this ghostly black cloak makes me look like Romola?" she called, lightly. Mrs. For- ADRIFT. n rester rarely found herself in a position to which her varied reading offered no parallel. " You look like a naughty little girl who wants another attack of pneumonia," said her husband, with as near an approach to asperity as he ever permitted himself to apply to her. He marched her into the house and took off* her waterproof and rubbers be- fore he divested himself of his own. "Jack," said she, firmly, as one prepared for oppo- sition, " I have made a very strange resolution thii evening. I am going to spend the summer^ the whole long summer, mind you," — a vision, whose sweetness Jack only half acknowledged, rose before him, of one hundred placid days, one hundred calm evenings, unruffled by the tears, smiles, caprices, whims, and tempers of his charming wife, — " with your cousin Diana." " Gracious, Bella ! I thought you detested my cousin Diana." " So I do ; of course I do. But I like her as well as one woman ever does another. The main point is that I'm going there." " In my opinion, the main point is that you are going up-stairs this minute. Your hands are icy cold, and I dare say you have taken a chill," said Mr. Forrester, with unfeigned anxiety in his tones. " Go and take a warm bath, and before you are asleep Til bring you some hot brandy and water." "Very well," said Bella, meekly. Half-way up- stairs she paused and reiterated, " I'm going to Diana's !" " All right !" returned Jack. To himself he added, |6 ADRIFT. I I li- as he went in search of the brandy, " And hang me if I'll be very sorry r A little later, when Bella sat up in bed and reluc- tantly sipped the contents of a «teaming goblet, she said, with unwonted humility and gratitude, — " You're too good to me, Jack ; such unflagging kindness would spoil a saint. ' A woman, a spaniel, and a walnut-tree, The more you beat 'em, the better they be.* You should have tried the knout !" " Should have, Bella ? Why do you speak in the past tense ? Surely it's not too late now." " Yes, it is," declared Bella; " ages, eons too late!'* fi-'. ii CHAPTER II. '* This is her picture as she was,— It seems a thing to wonder on, As if mine image in the glass Should tarry when myself am gone." ROSSETTI. That Mrs. Forrester had firmly resolved upon doing a tiling was usually a very good reason for expecting th at she would not do it. It was, there- fore, with incredulous eyes that her husband watched her elaborate preparations for departure, which seemed to him unnecessarily extensive and thor- ough. He told her she had a good deal of temerity ADRIFT. '7 to go about and make formal P. P. C. calls upon all her acquaintances. " You are going twenty miles " " Twenty-two, if you please," corrected Bella, who insisted that the statements of other people should be characterized by the strict accuracy which never marked her own. '* Well, twenty-two, then ; and you probably will not remain away more than three days; and it really does seem absurd to make all this fuss. To judge from your impedimenta, as C.nesar calls it, you might be going to Europe." ** Ah, Jack, in one sense I am going a great deal farther than that !" said she, mysteriously. He did not comprehend her meaning any more clearly than she did herself, but he felt Uiicoinfortable, neverthe- less ; he recognized thai these enigmatical remarks tended to destroy domestic repose. Bella continued to make ready for her sojourn with a singular energy and concentration of purpose. She renovated and replenished her wardrobe, there being no event with which a woman is connected, whether birth, death, marriage, or journeying, that does not afford a valid reason, or at least a plausible excuse, for this process. She discharged the house- maid and arranged for the cook to do the lessened labor of the house. She locked tlie piano, purchased an immense amount of fine stationery, — for she took great pride and pleasure in letter-writing, — and finally, one sunny May afternoon, all her prepara- tions were completed, even to the assumption of her travelling dress. She had summoned her most in- w tf, <\ i8 ADRIFT. timate friend, Viviette Bromley, to share her last luncheon at home, and that repast being finished, the two sat together in the drawing-room for the few expectant minutes which always precede the coming of th>^ carriage. Mrs. Bromley was both in person and character a very attractive, lovable woman. She did not at all look her thirty years, and her pretty face bore no abiding traces of the bitter grief she had felt for the loss of her husband five years before. This grief still remained a fresh, unhealed wound, and her in- ner life was dedicated to ceaseless mourning for her dead ; but the first absorbing bitterness of bereave- ment was past, and once more her heart was " at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize." She diffused a certain indefinable radiance of sweetness and light about her wherever she moved, as natu- rally as a flower gives forth its fragrance. She was incapable of exerting any influence other than a helpful and blessed one. Her tact was exquisite, and, while she would not sacrifice truth to flatter a friend, she had a rare and agreeable habit of saying only things which were delightfully acceptable to her interlocutor ; all other topics were eliminated as by magic from her conversation. She was witty with the wit that illumines and vivifies rather than scorches and stings. Perhaps her greatest charm consisted not in the comparatively common power of making others forget themselves, but in winning them to dwell upon themselves, to unbosom to her their troubles, aspirations, and despairs, and then re- warding their confidence by comfort or encoura^je- 1 i ' '.'iiiiJ "n'mmmmmm ADRIFT. 19 ment such as can only spring from a divinely sym- pathetic nature. Every person who thus confided iu Mrs. l^romley felt that his interests were of vital im- portance in her eyes, and was thenceforward and forever her devoted friend. She had a slight, girlish figure, dark-brown hair, and beautiful large eyes of the same color, uniformly tender and gentle in ilieir expression. To look upon the chastened sweetness of her face was to be satis- fied and at peace. Though so long a time had elapsed since her husband's death, she still wore mourning, and not even Bella, whose shafts few es- caped, had ever dared to hint that this protracted adherence to the habiliments of woe was owing to their becomingness. Nevertheless the fact remains that no other attire would have been so becoming to Mrs. Bromley as her severely plain black dress, with its mute explanation of the haunting pain that some- times made her brown eyes grow dreamy and retro- spective. " Viviette," said Mrs. Forrester, impressively, " I shall return to Buffalo either very much better — or very much worse — or not at all. ,1 will not come back the same wretched, irresolute creature that I go. Perhaps you think" — suspiciously — "that I couldn't be very much worse ?" " On the contrary, dear, I think you couldn't be very much better," said Viviette, affectionately. "As to your not coming back at all, that possibility I refuse to contemplate." ** It's quite on the cards, I assure you," said Bella, with gloom. " And I shouldn't much mind, only I f \ B.* ! N \ 20 ADRIFT. think you would miss mc, — for you do love me a little, do you not, Vivictte ? Now don't tell me, as Di. Johnson did lioswcU, to write down that you do and paste it where I can see it I" " Bella, such a doubt is very painful to me," said the other, in tender reproach. " You know that I care more for you than for any one else on earth except my children !" " I never did really doubt it, Viviette ; I couldn't !" said Bella, earnestly. " But I thank you for the as- surance just the same. — There's the carriage I and there's Jack I" Mr. Forrester entered with cordial greetings to Mrs. Bromley and a kiss for his wife, to which she submitted meekly, having long since outlived one of her girlhood's dearest theories, — namely, that a kiss should be exchanged between married people only in the most sacred privacy, and that the presence of a third person at this sacramental salute was prof- anation. Then she turned to the window and sol- emnly watched the driver as he carried her trunks down the walk. " I hate to see a heavy weight taken away out of a house," she said, pettishly. ** It reminds me of such disagreeable things." " "hat feeling is shared by many people," said Mrs. Bromley. " The worst of all is seeing a piano removed ; you know it takes four men to carry it. — You foolish Bella, what are you shuddering about ? It doesn't mean anything." " It does in my case," insisted Bella, as the three went out to the carriage, " for I have a presentiment K^^j ADRIFT. ft that amounts to a conviction, — I shall never see my home again." She paused on the stepping-stone and turned to gaze at the pretty house. The clematis-vines that a little later would veil the veranda from the street were already putting forth tender sprouts ; dahlias and lilies, unswathed from their winter wraps, were beginning to rejoice in the spring sunshine; the little lawn, guiltless of fence, sloped greenly to her feet. " It's a good home, and I have been very happy there," she said, quietly, no more heeding the open- mouthed driver than if he had been a fly. '* But it's all over now, — I shall never see it again." She en- tered the carriage, and the others, following her, saw that she had lost color and that her eyes were full of tears. " Bella, Bella ! you make me tired," said her hus- band, in the most patient and amiable of tones. " Plave you ever gone on a journey, however short and safe, without making this same melancholy pre- diction ?" " Don't tease her, John," said Viviette, mischiev- ously, " or she may be tempted to justify her fore- bodings." " I think myself I had better not brood over my troubles too much at Diana's," remarked Bella. *' They say that people come there from all over the world to commit suicide." " To Diana's ?" queried Jack. " Goodness, no ! to the village. A lady from Chicago was at one of the hotels there a few years m ii' I ill II Xti ■M 22 ADRIFT, ago. Suddenly she disappeared, and they found in her room a note saying she had been irresistibly impelled to seek that place for the purpose of de- stroying herself." "Well, it is certainly a spot for suicide made easy," said Viviette. " Even if one goes there with- out any such intention at all, I think the fatal facil- ity of the deed in itself lures people. One single plunge and the felo-de-se is relieved of all further responsibility." Bella looked with troubled eyes out upon the wide, wind-swept streets through which they were rapidly rolling. " I think it's very inconsiderate of you, Viviette, to utter such melancholy prognostica- tions," she declared, gravely. The power to soundly rate her friend was in her estimation one of the dear- est privileges of their intimacy. " Viviette never thought of prophesying anything whatever," interposed Mr. Forrester, pacifically. " No one has a more wholesome dread of death than you, Bella, who talk so lightly of it ; and neither Viviette nor I would permit you to go to Diana's if we were not absolutely certain that you will keep well out of danger." While Mrs. Bromley was warmly acquiescing in this the carriage stopped at the depot. Mr. For- rester bought his wife's ticket, checked her baggage, and found her a pleasant seat in the train. She looked up at him with a flice of comical dismay. " Why, it does actually seem as if I were going, after all! I never realized it until this moment!" she laughed. ADRIFT. 23 I.CT ♦•No ent !" " It's not too late to back out now !" said Jack. " Did you ever know me to change my mind ?" she cried, disdaining the suggestion. " There's the bell ! Good-by, Jack ! good-by, Viviette !" She be- stowed impartial kisses upon her friend and husband, and they hurried out of the car, pausing in the depot to wave their hands at her and to watch the train move off, creeping slowly at first, increasing its speed with every rod, and finally vanishing around a curve in a flying mist of steam and smoke. Jack drew a long breath and turned to his companion. ** You will be very lonely, John," she said, with unconscious irony. " Will you dine with me at six this evening? There are no inducements." " You and the little girls are inducements enough for me," said the gentleman, sincerely and gallantly. He accepted Mrs. Bromley's invitation with grati- tude and escorted her to the carriage. When she had gone he stood a {q^n moments on the sidevalk, glancing idly here and there. He was not irreso- lute, — John Forrester was never that; he simply paused the better to enjoy the singular and exquisite flavor of freedom. Though it was three o'clock in Exchange Street, — an exceptionally busy hour and locality, — though cars, carriages, and pedestrians thronged by in furious haste, it seemed to him that a great tranquillity had descended upon all things. In a word, he was afraid of his wife ; he had, of course, no vulgar fear of her anger or displeasure; but he was bound to her in the slavery of the strong to the weak. He was extremely anxious to under- stand her moods, constantly on his guard to avoid 24 ADRIFT. giving her pain, ever fearful of disappointing or an- noying her in some unforeseen way. The fact that in spite of al' these precautions Bella was still un- happy was the only cloud upon his sunny, pros- perous existence. It wafi therefore with undeniable relief that he looked forward to a brief season wherein Bella's happiness would not be his especial charge ; to a few days at least during which she would present no startling and unexpected demands on his patience, forbearance, and tenderness. His face was lighted with satisfaction, and as he walked up to his oflfice the occasional ncds he bestowed on acquaintances were accompanied by beaming smiles. Mrs. Forrester, left alone, settled herself com- fortably and gazed out of the window. In common with those of other people, Bella's blessings bright- ened as they took their flight, and at that moment she held the opinion that the airy city she was so swiftly traversing was the most delightful abode on earth. The route lay for a little distance along the beach of Lake Erie ; Bella had often passed there on stormy autumn days when the wind-tossed waters were dashed against the car windows, but to-day tiny wavelets lapped peacefully against the stones of the breakwater, and the wide expanse of the lake danced and glittered under a gentle breeze. A little farther on the lake melted imperceptibly into the broad, blue, majestic Niagara River. On its oppo- site bank lay the sleepy little village of Fort Erie, with its picturesque windmill and long rows of pop- lar-trees; the ferry-boat was steaming diagonally across the rapid current. The train slipped by " The ADRIFT. 2f Front," one of the most beautiful of the city parks, on whose green slope children were playing, and then glided along in the sh idow of the historic bluff, its summit crowned with the gray ruins of Fort Porter. Bella glanced at the lumbering canal -boats, and wondered if any romance could possibly be con- nected with one of them ; her eyes dwelt appre- ciatively on the slender emerald length of Squaw Island; the willows and elder bushes growing on it seemed almost to spring from the bosom of the river, so slight was their foothold of earth. A little later, out in the open country, viridescent fields al- ternated with mile after mile of rosy peach-orchards ; every tree was a light and fluttering cloud of delicate pink, and even the twigs, full of fresh-running sap, were a dark yet vivid red. Bella raised the window to inhale the sweet almond-like odor; she felt indis- tinctly that she would be perfectly contented if she could always have a blossoming peach orchard to look at. She herself was rather pleasant to look upon, al- though her habitual dissatisfaction with all things of course included her personal appearance, and she considered her own face and form to be utterly un- attractive. She was of medium height, with a well- rounded figure which only the most ill-natured of her acquaintances deemed too plump. She had a great quantity of auburn hair, whose very luxuriance was a source of annoyance to her, and a bloomy complexion that yet retained, in spite of her twenty- seven years, its pretty childish way of changing con- stantly from pink to white and back again. She had B 3 26 ADR/FT. gray-blue eyes, good teeth, a ready and engaging smile, and a general air of health and well-being which, however trying to a young woman posing as a martyr, was yet extremely admirable in the eyes of an unprejudiced observer. Her attire was invariably selected with a taste that amounted to absolute art. It might be inex- pensive, unfashionable, or even careless, but it was always becoming. She had a fine sense of color, not only instinctive, but also carefully trained, and it was one of her delights (this grief-stricken creature had a surprising number of them, after all !) that the beauty of color v^'as so universal. " It's a beauty that's always to be seen !" she was accustomed to say with enthusiasm. " You can't raise your eyes without encountering it. If every- thing else fails, there's the sky 1" She brought this skill in chromatics to her aid in choosing her gowns, and never wore an unlovely hue in silk or velvet, wool or cotton. A patch on a poor woman's calico dress was a far less offensive sight to her than the line of brilliant yellow silk which so many misguided blondes wear in the neck of their seal-skin jackets, thereby quite overpower- ing whatever little gold their hair might otherwise boast. That any woman should be so ignorant, so lost to her own interests, as not even to lay her un- gloved hand upon a piece of goods whose purchase she was contemplating, was a fact utterly beyond Bella's comprehension. On this sunny May afternoon she wore a brown woollen dress and a brown straw hat ; the latter was -■K ADRIFT. 2; surmounted by a plumassary of golden and reddish brown tints, some of which exactly matched her hair, while others accentuated its lights and shadows. She carried a bro^/n shopping-bag and umbrella, and held in her hand the inevitable French novel, which, however, could not win her gaze from the heaven- blue river. The railway, after coquettishly approaching and retreating from the stream several times, finally re- turned to it for good and ran along its bank. The river at this point is apparently as si.iooth as a lake, and its treacherous surface offers no indication of danger. Bella watched it thoughtfully until the vil- lage intervened and the brakeman shouted, — " Niagara Falls !" CHAPTER III. " I low happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought. And simple truth his utmost skill ! Whose passions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death; Untied unto the worldly care Of public fame or private breath !" Sir Henry Wotton. The most noticeable thing about the slender young lady who met Mrs. Forrester as she de- scended from the train was that she was attired in the height of style and the perfection of good taste. 28 ADRIFT. This is no small distinction in an age and country where every one dresses well. She was apparently not moved to any agitation or eagerness by the ar- rival of her cousin's wife, and merely said, in cool, even tones, — "How do you do, Bella?" " How do you do, Diana ? I suppose we ought to kiss, but as the children say, ' Let's don't !' " "Very well," said Miss Forrester. "Give me your checks, if you haven't lost them, and I will see about having your trunks sent home." She attended to this, and to several other little matters about the depot, in the calm, unhurried manner habitual to her, while Bella stood in the door-way watching the passers-by. Many of these were evidently tourists, who gave to the pretty little town a factitious appearance of wedth and elegant leisure. Bella formulated on the instant a theory that she could distinguish the visitors from the resi- dents by the superior elevation of expression to be found in the faces of the latter. " To live all their lives within sight and sound of that magnificent work of God ! Surely it must not only ennoble the mind, it must chisel into the very flesh a grandeur akin to its own !" But after carefully scanning a score of counte- nances, she was forced to abandon her fancy, con- cluding that the children were no more cherubic, the maidens no more seraphic, the middle-aged men and women no less careworn and given to the things of this world, than those of other communities. Miss Forrester, having transacted her business, now ADRIFT. 29 came out, followed her guest into the low basket phaeton, took up the lines, and drove away, " We shouldn't have had nearly so far to drive," she remarked, in a tone distantly suggestive of re- proach, " and it would have been a great saving of time " " You are always so anxious to save time, Diana!" the other interrupted. " My only object on earth is to get rid of it." " If you had gone on in the train to the next station, Suspension Bridge," continued Miss For- rester. " But I knew you wouldn't, so I came here." " No, of course I wouldn't," said Bella, decidedly. " And it's always a wonder to me that other people can rush right by Niagara Falls. I think, whatever their errands, they ought to pause here a little space, and make at least in their hearts a mute reverence to the glory and the beauty of this spot, as a Cath- olic bows to the altar before he leaves the church !" Miss Forrester turned and regarded her cousin's wife as if she were an unsolvable riddle. " You are as full of your queer ideas as ever, Bella," she said, tolerantly. " Do you call that an idea, Diana ? It's very kind of you, I'm sure." Diana was silent a moment. She was one of those unfortunate persons whose words, though never deliberately offensive, yet never by any chance produce other than a disagreeable effect. She was dimly conscious of this fatality of speech, and was always making feeble and futile efforts to overcome it. She made one now. 30 ADRIFT. "And you are looking as blooming and jolly as ever, Bella !" Now, no woman ever lived who liked to be called jolly, and even the complimentary epithet blooming was distasteful to Bella, implying as it did an enjoy- ment of life which it was her constant endeavor to disclaim. ' Diana, you're too hateful !" she exclaimed, softening her words by a smile. " You knoiv I pre- fer to be called pining. I'm simply wretched, and I like to look so. Do you suppose that if I had pos- sessed the smallest measure of contentment in Buffalo I would have come down here ?" " Well," said Diana, inhospitably, " it's perfectly inexplicable to me why you ha7>e come." " It's equally so to me, I assure you," returned Bella. " But I'll try to explain my mental condition to you, Diana, so far as I comprehend it myself. I am in a very morbid state ; really, I think I should have had a brain fever this spring, only, as Jack said, I hadn't enough brains to have it with. Nothing seems a desirable thing to do, to see, to know. The sources of action are dead in me." Miss Forrester heard these symptoms with pro- found interest. " It sounds as if you were going crazy," she observed. " Yes ; that's what I feared. At last I thought of you, Diana, I thought your society would prove a tonic to me. You know you will not pet and in- dulge me as Jack does. And it will be good for me, too, to spend the summer listening to the leonine roar of the great cataract; it will make ^ ADRIFT. 31 \y as :alled ►ming injoy- ror to limed, I pre- and I d pos- jnt in rfectly turned ndition self. I should :k said, lothing r. The me realize my own littleness and think less about myself." " Yes," assented Miss Forrester. After a pause she added, dubiously, " But you know, Bella, we can- not actually hear the noise of the Falls in my house." "The principle is just the same," declared Bella. *' Did it never occur to you, Diana, that even as that Liemcndous sweep of limpid water must purify the circumambient air, so too it must exalt and vivify its moral and intellectual surroundings?" "No," said' Diana, emphatically, "it most cer- tainly never occurred to me." And she secretly rejoiced that she was undisturbed by any such chi- merical reflections. A space of silence ensued ; for, contrary to all es- tablished traditions, these two women were capable of protracted periods of utter speechlessness. Each sincerely liked the other, yet found it quite impossi- ble to thoroughly understand and respect her, and whenever their clashing opinions imperilled harmony they were accustomed to resort to a policy of abso- lute quiet, which was only broken after the lapse of some minutes by the introduction of a more peace- ful subject. Miss Forrester was a type of the large and con- stantly increasing class of young American women who do not marry, not because they have no oppor- tunities, but simply because they do not wish to do so. Time was when the unmarried woman of ma- ture years was represented in novels and dramas as being imbued with a frant'c desire to take unto her- self a mate ; but if any similar portraitures are given 32 ADRIFT. to the world nowadays, be assured they are false and wholly forcif^n to the spirit of the a^e. A school- teacher once wittily remarked that she would not exchange a sixty-dollar position for a ten-dollar man, and in a lower grade of society, a pretty little housemaid being chidden by her mistress for not re- warding an ardent and faithful swain by the bestowal of her hand, said, naively, " Ah, yes, ma'am, I know I could have as good a husband as ever lived if I was willing to take in washing!" Women of all conditions are in these practical days competent to thus dispassionately consider the relative advantages of single and wedded life to a degree which was un- dreamed of fifty years ago, and with results so un- favorable to marriage that the entire extinction of the race is quite predicable from this cause. While the existence of a husband would not have been so inimical to Miss Forrester's pecuniary in- terests as to those of many women, she yet saw no reason why she should admit a clumsy and probably untidy man into the privacy of her pretty home. She had no slightest conception of the subtle, irre- sistible attraction towards one of the other sex which makes marriage — with whatever vista ot future pov- erty, neglect, and disappointment — the most natural and inevitable thing in life. Whether she would ever meet the one man who could make this seem possible to her was an open question. She was the fortunate possessor of an exquisitely slim girlish figure of medium height, equally far re- moved from angularity or redundancy. Her com- plexion was of a clear, transparent pallor seldom ADRnr. 33 illumined by a flush of color ; her eyes were large, brown, and of a deceptive softness and timidity, and her hands and feet were delicately small. Her man- ner was refreshingly simple and direct, and she had kept till now, in her thirty-first year, a marvellous candor and childlikeness of expression, chiefly be- cause she had been subjected to only one aging in- fluence, — that of Time, who is always slow to put a destroying finger on the facial beauties which illness, anxiety, thought, and sin have never molested. Miss Forrester's serene existence had been devoid of trouble, and she was by nature incapable of entering into the woes of others, — she had read " The New- comes," and had not cried over the Colonel's death, which is a convincing proof of her insensibility. Her detractors said that the placid youthfulness of her countenance was but the external reflection of an inactive mind and an unimpressible spirit ; still, the fact remained that she looked young. Although Miss Forrester possessed all the attrac- tions above enumerated, she was surprisingly free from their correlative blemish, vanity. She never opened her wide brown eyes to their fullest extent, nor slightly projected a dainty kid boot from beneath her dress, nor practised a spell akin to Vivien's " charm of waving hands " because of the whiteness and fragility of those members. These and similar tricks of manner which render the charms of some women a burden to their friends were unknown to Miss Forrester. She was not, however, devoid of the equally absorbing if less immediately personal vanity of dress. She was intensely devoted to her 34 ADRIFT. clothes, and expended upon them hours of mental application and large amounts of money, asking nothing in return save that they should be stylish and pretty. Diana did not even demand of her nu- merous integuments that they should heighten her own attractiveness ; their intrinsic beauty sufficed for her. There are many women of this stamp, who are less concerned over a line in the cheek than a wrinkle in the corsage. Perhaps, though, this is because the one is unavoidable, while the other is not. It was as well for strangers not to inquire too closely into Miss Forrester's pedigree, for the sub- ject was fraught with some embarrassment to even that calm and self-poised young lady. The identity of her progenitors was involved in the densest ob- scurity, and this circumstance had caused the only anxiety and pain her unruffled life had known. Even this was not a source of serious trouble to her, for while an imaginative girl might have tor- tured herself with the fear that her infant slumbers were induced by some such malison as Charles Lamb has perpetuated, or have revelled in the proud belief that her remote ancestors were Crusaders and the more immediate ones dukes and earls, Diana took a middle course, and held that her origin might probably be traced, were it worth while to attempt the task, to persons poor but eminently re- spectable, who, dying of an epidemic within a few hours of each other, had bequeathed their baby girl to their benefactor, Mr. Marcy Forrester. The one thing that made this simple hypothesis untenable ADRIFT. 3S was the extreme difficulty of imagining Mr. Marcy Torrcstcr in the hght of a benefactor. This gentleman, who was Diana's guardian, how- ever he became so, had placed her in a New England boarding-school at the tender age of three months, and had paid without a murmur the large charges which the keeping of the infant necessitated. Here Diana remained — being one of those docile creatures who " stay put " — not only until she graduated at twenty, but for two years longer, pursuing special studies in botany and in designing. At last, how- ever, her patience was exhausted, and she wrote a somewhat peremptory letter to her guardian, who had occasionally visited the school during the prog- ress of his ward's education, demanding some varia- tion of her monotonous life. To this very reasonable requisition Mr. Forrester promptly responded by arranging for her to accompany a wealthy and cul- tured family of his acquaintance on a three years tour through Europe. At its conclusion he sought an interview with Diana, in which he informed her that failing health compelled him to abandon the gay, nomadic, bachelor's existence he had led so long, and that he proposed to establish a peaceful home for his declining years. Would she grace that home with her gentle presence, as his own daughter might have done ? She would, and did, and the house which Mr. Forrester purchased upon the American bank of Niagara River, a mile or so below the Whirlpool, owed to Diana during the short period in which she was its mistress an ele- gance and precision in its appointments to which it 'm. 36 ADRIFT. never thereafter attained. Diana was soon shocked by the laxity of her guardian's views, and weary of the struggle with his lifelong habits of idleness and untidiness ; Mr. Forrester was simultaneously weary of the severe and impeccable young woman whose like he had religiously avoided all his days, and shocked at his fatuity in burdening himself with such a companion. Therefore it will readily be seen that it was a very easy thing to effect a separation at the end of a year. Diana accepted from her attached guardian a small tract of land, adjoining his own grounds, and proceeded to i)uild a house upon it. Mr. Forrester breathed freely once more; cigars, pipes, bottles, began to app:;ar everywhere, and ob- jectionable French novels were scattered about in the unrebuked confusion dear to their owner's ill- regulated mind. Diana tasted the full enjoyment — never, alas ! un- mixed with perplexity and disappointment — to be found in planning, building, and furnishing a house. She designed her fireplace, and her door and win- dow of stained glass, and embroidered her portieres v.'ith her own hands, and when all the work was ac- complished she felt justly proud of it. She had lived there five years now, long enough for the cul- tivation of a profusion of vines and shrubs upon the lawn, and of a small garden in the rear of the house. Beyond this garden was a narrow space of earth covered with evergreens and willow trees, which ended abruptly at the very verge of a sheer precipice of three hundred feet, along whose base the river ran sullenly, only just recovering quiet after its ADRIFT. 37 awful tumultuous passage through the Whirlpool. One might look from the road upon the pretty little house wreathed by the budding vines and darkly framed by the pines beyond, without ever suspecting that a careless walk at nightfall under those trees might result in complete bodily annihilation. " How lovely the place is looking !" said Bella, as the horse came to a half before it. " Do you realize, Diana, that we've not spoken a word for two miles ? I'm glad that we both can exercise the golden gift of silence. When one is thinking deeply a chance interruption may leave the mind untuned for hours, may break a precious train of reflection that no earthly power can ever cause to be resumed. Isn't it so?" ** I don't know. I don't think my reflections have ever seemed particularly precious to me," said Diana, dubiously, as she secured the horse to await the coming of Mr. Forrester's servant, who twice a day brought his master's phaeton over for Miss For- rester's use, and twice a day came to take it away. Then she led the way up to the house, and, turning on the threshold, said, with simple cordiality, " Wel- come, Bella ! I hope you will spend a pleasant sum- mer here." " I know I shall," said Bella, following her hostess in-doors. The hall was unique, picturesque, and of extravagantly large dimensions. A stranger would certainly have inferred from its size that he was en- tering quite a palatial residence instead of a little frame house. The mural decorations and the dra- peries were chiefly blue and olive; the walls were 4 "1 % 38 ADRIFT. further enriched by several good pictures. The hall was comfortably furnished, and lacked not easy- chairs and a lounge. The stairs ascended in one corner ; half-way up they made an abrupt turn, and the little square landing thus formed was illuminated by a tiny circular window of brilliant stained glass, to which Diana referred as a rose, a mangold, or a Catherine-wheel window, according to the degree of conversance with ecclesiastical architecture she sup- posed her interlocutor to possess. The effect of this little window, with the sun shining fi'll upon it, was as of a bright and cheery greeting. The parlor, on the right of the hall, was entered through a wide door-way hung with portieres which presented a dull blue surface to the hall and a warm crimson to the parlor, for this latter room was fur- nished in crimson and olive; whatever was not of one or the other of these two colors was of a hue distantly related to them. There was a piano, a spirited bronze horse and rider on the mantel-shelf, and there was in the fireplace of Diana's designing a fire whose merry sparkle seemed to repeat the kindly welcome of the little rose window. Books there were in plenty, for Diana read a good deal, albeit in that perfunctory way which makes reading a duty not a delight ; and the room also contained a sufficiency of pictures and pretty chairs and plush wall-banners. Beyond was the dining-room, re- deemed from commonplaceness by a rather singular sideboard designed by Miss Forrester in order to display to the greatest advantage about thirty china plates painted by herself There was, besides, an ADRIFT. 39 absurd corner-cupboard, also of original design, in which the mistress of the house kept, carefully guarded, several decanters of the very choicest home-made blackberry wine. Bella walked into the parlor, hesitated a moment between two arm-chairs, — one olive relieved by crimson, the other vice versa, — chose the former as being more in harmony with her complexion, and sank into it. " Yes, I shall certainly be contented here," she murmured. " Here adverse influences can find no admission ; the/ cannot tear and rend and make of no avail our hopes, our purposes, our carefully gleaned grains of knowledge." " Yes, it's very quiet here," responded Diana, ab- stractedly. Then, with animation, " That hat suits you well enough, Bella, but it hasn't a bit of style !" CHAPTER IV. " Here health returns in sickness ; And mirth returns in heaviness ; Town in desert, forest in plain, — All earthly joy returns in pain." William Dunbar. Sixty years before the date of this chronicle, when Buffalo was but a straggling hamlet not yet fully re- covered from the severe scorching it had received at the hands of the British a decade previous, a young man named Forrester who owned a small farm on I! 40 ADRIFT, the outskirts of the village had said of his two little sons, — " Marcy is bound to succeed in life ; John is equally bound to fail," This prophecy, based on the yielding gentleness of the one and the indomitable greed and selfishness of the other, had, from a worldly point of view, been fulfilled. John lived a quiet, humble life, and the traditional wolf always prowled uncomfortably near his door. He married for love a tender, timid little thing as poor as himself and correspondingly ill adapted for battling with the world. Both wearied early of the struggle for existence and gave it up in despair in the very prime of their age, bequeathing to tlieir only son and bv 'r a few books, some worth- less old furniture, and a quantity of debts sufficient to swamp the boat of almost any young voyager along the river of time. It certainly seemed at first as if John Forrester, Junior, were to follow in his fither's unlucky footsteps, especially as he also com- plicated his difficulties by marrying a dreamy, vis- ionary young girl whose chief characteristic was a colossal and amazing incapacity for doing anything useful. He attempted the practice of law, but soon recognizing his unfitness for it, he wisely resolved to abandon it, and boldly entered the golden fields of speculation, with such fortunate results that very soon Bella's ignorance of domestic duties was sup- plemented by the skill of trained servants, and her husband's digestion was no longer imperilled by toxical compounds of her preparation. Marcy Forrester, on the other hand, had com- tmmfm mmm m i W!iiii.u, i Jii iii iiJii"UBi. ' » ^ ADRIFT. 41 passed ever/ object of his ambition, such as these objects were. He had not cared to win power, dis- tinction, immense wealth, or any dF the earthly- prizes for which men commonly strive much harder than for the heavenly ones. He had simply wanted tc enjoy himself, and for the space of half a century he did so to the utmost. As he expressed it, he condensed at least one hundred years of man's ordi- nary living into half that number. At an early stage in his career he mastered several means of procuring the first and most indispensable require- ment of a voluptuary's life, — money, — which means, if often questionable, were at all events successful. Having soon exhausted the somewhat limited oppor- tunities for pleasures lawful and otherwise afforded by his native town, he left it for the older and wickeder civilization of Europe, and while John For- rester was treading the thorny path of ill-paid indus- try in Buffalo, his brother Marcy skipped lightly along the primrose path of dalliance in various foreign cities, excelling the natives of each one in the particular form of dissipation which was its own peculiar boast. This brilliant series of triumphs came to an abrupt end one night at Monaco, after a long and exciting evening during which he had as- tonished the by-standers by play equally rash and lucky. He attempted to take up the heap of gold and notes he had won, but his hand refused to obey him ; he would have sprung to his feet in bewildered rage, but he could not ; he tried to utter an impotent curse, — instead, the muscles of his face contracted in a grotesque laugh. They carried him away, some 4* K if 5 .)! 42 ADRIFT. one took his place, and the trivial incident was soon forgotten. But it is highly improbable that all the pleasure of Marcy Forrester's life counterbalanced the anguish of mind iie endured that night and for many nights and days thereafter. When the thought of death had been unavoidably thrust upon him he had always put it aside with an optimistic faith that it would come to him suddenly, mercifully, in thf fulness of time, when he should be just a little weary of his long care-free life, and almost ready to relinquish it. He never dreamed of this, — that he should be stricken down in middle life by a malady which left him, to all intents and purposes, an un- buried corpse, in the world but no longer of it. Vainly the physicians endeavored to reassure him ; he foresaw that henceforth he must " sit like his grandsire carved in alabaster," and never again be as he had been. This melancholy foreboding was confirmed upon his celebrating his complete recovery by imbibing about one-fifteenth of his former allowance of cham- pagne, for even this mild indulgence so stimulated the over-wrought heart and irritated the diseased nerves that a second attack of paralysis supervened. As usual, the relapse was more dangerous than the first illness, and it was the mere wreck and shadow of himself that six months later tottered aboard an American-bound steamer. He had ne^'er burdened himself with a wife, aver- ring that he admired women too much collectively to devote himself to one, but now he longed for the feminine sympa^'^iy and petting that lightens the m ADRIFT. 43 dreariest invalidism. It was at this juncture he bought the house on the river-bank and persuaded Diana to adorn it with her presence. He probably- owed so much of health as he regained to her strict surveillance of his food, drink, exercise, and hours of retirement, for which he was just as grateful as might be expected ; he took a violent dislike to her, and when she departed to her own house his only emotion was one of unqualified relief. His solitude was sometimes enlivened by the visits of his former companions, whom he invariably either envied or despised, according as their physical con- dition was better or worse than his own. He sud- denly developed a fondness for literature, read a great deal in several languages, and was writing his Memoirs, in whose pages he lived over again his selfish, aimless, vapid life, which was, after all, illu- minated by one good deed. Spending a day or so in Buffalo while negotiating for the purchase of his house he had naturally looked up his nephew, whom he had never seen. He was pleased with the young fellow, and so charmed with Bella that instead of obeying his first impulse to sneer at John's modest efforts in speculation, he ac- tually assisted him with advice and even with the sinews of war itself. This was the beginning of the young man's good fortune, and was the cause of much self-laudation on bis uncle's part. Bella and Marcy Forrester from that time kept up a vigorous correspondence on a wide range of topics. When he was settled in his new home he invited her to visit him and make Diana's acquaintance. The (1. J •ii <. i Vj' r: 44 ADRIFT. two young women immediately became friends after a fashion, and ever after, when Bella's own home was for any reason distasteful to her, she was accus- tomed to take refuge in Diana's. " I must run over this evening and see Uncle Marcy, Diana," she said, as they sat together in the early dusk on the first day of her visit. " He will think it very strange and unkind if I do not." " You are not always so careful of people's feel- ings," commented Diana. " No," said Bella, " I admit it. But he is different. It's pathetic to see that old man sinking into his grave hated by all who know him, and I wouldn't for worlds disabuse him of the notion that I at least love him." " You should not permit him to take comfort in a falsity, an absurdity," said Diana. " You do not love him." " Certainly I do not ; but I pity him and I under- stand him, which is more than you are able to do, Diana." "Thank heaven, yes I" said Diana. "And I may add that I have the poorest opinion of any one who prides herself upo'^ understanding Marcy Forrester." According to the usual custom of these prudent young women when their conversation threatened to become tinged with bitterness, they permitted a sud- den silence to supervene, and it was not until Bella had put on her hat and wrap that Diana spoke agam. " Shall I send some me with you, Bella?" " No, thanks ; I prefer to walk over alone, and ipPPP»P«WPlWffi»^WUI.l.ilill.l I a'^;jjaiw.i^ . ll(W WIwa il lW i » l >(»'!W^.v M»l l^ ^ « ^ « ^f» «>'*^'^ ADRIFT. i% off graceful verses and bright stories as easily as a spider spins silk. It is often said that no class of cultured people read so little as writers do, but this charge was not true of Mr. Brooks. He read omniv- orously and enjoyed every book that he read, being alike delighted with the dainty conceits of Her- rick, the grossness of Congreve, or the sublimity of Milton. It was, however, in literature only that he pos- sessed this ready sympathy and comprehension. He could not understand the better impulses which ac- tuated his fellow-men, nor, in truth, did he greatly care to do so. The motives of Jerome Harvey's life in particular had been a puzzle to him ever since they were children. He did not, like Don Quixote fighting the windmills, set himself to combating the evil tendencies of the age; he thought it simply fatuous to erect an impossible standard of virtue and then to exhaust one's self in perpetual futile endeav- ors to live up to it. He had the poorest opinion of mankind, Stephen Brooks included, and this opinion his own conduct constantly tended to confirm rather than to alter. Women he regarded as immeasurably the inferiors of men, and of his own mother, a house- hold saint " oftener upon her knees than on her feet," he had once said, — '* I know nothing about her girlhood and youth. Of course she is good now; at fifty, what else is left for a woman ?" The remark was made when he and Jerome were little more than boys, and the latter had promptly knocked him down for it. This was the only in- e! tfiS' 5* ADRIFT. stance where the hostile calm of their relations was broken by a blow. Stephen Brooks was not so tall as his friend, but, on the other hand, he was slightly heavier. His closely-cropped hair was black, his skin a clear brown inclined to flush readily, and it was a moot point among the fair ones of his acquaintance whether his heavily-fringed eyes were black or dark- est blue. The closest inspection of these lustrous orbs was required to determine that the last-men- tioned hue was theirs; it is, however, simple jus- tice to state that numerous ladies were competent to decide th^ matter. These two utterly dissimilar characters had had exactly the same environment from earliest infancy. Thirty years before they are introduced to the reader, the Rev. Joseph Brooks, pastor of a poor little church in a poor little New England village, was, in common with his wife and the rest of the community, moved to exceeding wonderment by the unaccounta- ble behavior of a man who was lodging at the only tavern in the place. This man wore garments of exaggerated shabbiness, although he had the best accommodations the house afforded, and spent money, according to the simple notions of the place, like a prince. His coarse red hair and beard, taken in conjunction with his pallid brown skin and sparkling black eyes, were obviously false, and the whole village agreed — for once — that the man was disguised, and that the disguise was a very poor one. But if his appearance was singular, his conduct ADRIFT. 57 was still more so. He had come to the tavern on a summer afternoon, driving a spirited young horse with one hand and holding in the other arm a crying child about a month old, which he carried into the sitting-room and loudly consigned to the tender mercies of any woman who would care for it. A nurse soon volunteering, the man paid her liberally in advance, and for some days gave himself no fur- ther concern about his infant charge. He told the crowd of loungers who witnessed his arrival that he was a widower, and that he meant to settle in the village if upon inspection he liked it. That such was really his intention was apparently borne out by the assiduity with which he questioned the inhabi- tants upon various points, — chiefly, it was discovered on comparing notes later, upon the character of the minister, Joseph Brooks. But on the fourth evening of his visit he abruptly called for his bill, paid it, had the horse harnessed and the child wrapped up, and at ten o'clock drove off in the same direction whence he had come. An hour later the Rev. Joseph Brooks and his wife were aroused from slumber by a tremendous pounding at their door. On descending, partly dressed and very much startled, they heard the sound of wheels rapidly retreating in the distance, and saw lying on the door-step the child of the mys- terious stranger. Mrs. Brooks snatched it to her breast and soothed its crying, while her husband de- tached a paper from the child's dress and read it aloud by the light of a candle : " I have been minded more than once to kill this ♦ « ^ I' ,1 58 ADRIFT. child. I do not know what stayed me, unless it was the hand of his dead mother. '• I have inquired about you, and learn that you are a man in a thousand for purity, for integrity, for zeal in good works. I intrust the child to you, with the one injunction to cultivate his moral faculties at the expense, if necessary, of all else. " The enclosed amount of money will be sent you annually. It is yours to use as you please. *' Call him Jerome Harvey." Mr. Brooks mechanically counted the roll of bills, — it contained rather more than his yearly salary. He saw himself and his overworked wifj suddenly raised from bitter poverty to comparative affluence ; he felt a keen delight at the tribute paid him, — the higher tribute since it caine from a bad, unscrupu- lous man ; and he said, solemnly, — " Mary, this child is no less a trust from God than our own little Stephen. May we be strengthened for our great task !" And when the infant was asleep in the crib be- side Stephen, then a year old, they prayed together over the children, and talked throughout the long night of how they should best train their precious charges for earth and heaven, and into what be- neficent channels they could turn the stream of wealth whose control was thus unexpectedly put into their hands. It never occurred to these simple souls that the money might not be sent ; nor would such a fear have been justified by the facts, for regularly once a year arrived a check signed by a prominent firm of lawyers in New York for the i.y fri>;;W«?«S*«**-: ADRIFT, 59 same generous sum that had been pinned to the baby's dress. Mr. Brooks met all inquiries with the statement that little Jerome's mother was dead, that the child had. been confided to himself, and that his "keep" was amply provided for, — of which latter clause the village poor soon had gratifying proof in the in- creased benefactions of their pastor. Stephen and Jerome grew up together amid the wholesome surroundings of a New England rural community. They had before them daily the exam- ple of two persons of the rarest piety, in whom self was crucified, and for whom life meant only an op- portunity of serving God and man. The two boys learned all that Mr. Brooks could teach them, and then completed their education at a college in a neighboring town, where was maintained the salutary if severe discipline which had governed their exist- ence at home. They graduated in a blaze of glory, Jerome because he had carried off some very high honors, Stephen because the witty and eloquent prize oration was his. The young men spent the summer weeks following Commencement at the homestead, and during these weeks Joseph and Mary Brooks recognized fully a fact which they had hitherto but dimly discerned, — namely, that in one case prayer and precept and training had failed of their effect. By the same uni- versal law of rotation which makes the son of a drunkard a total ..bstainer and his son again a drunkard, Stephen had revolted against the ascetic rules by which he had been brought up, and was a ■ ■■' -H I.X e. :■ ;iBu :ls,s'r,a 6o ADRIFT. renegade from his father's faith and practice. It required all the fortitude engendered in the minister and his wife by life-long habits of patience and sub- mission to support the anguish of this discovery. Their adoptive son was, on the contrary, all that the fondest hopes could desire. His feeling about his unknown parents had never been either bitter or indifferent. From boyhood he had said to himself in frequent ruminations on the subject, — " If they were worthy people, I must strive not to disgrace them ; if they were not, then I am equally bound to rise above the source from which I spring." This principle of conduct had led to the best re- sults, and Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, while almost heart- broken over their own son's apostasy, were yet able to rejoice that the little bud of humanity flung at their door so many years since had blossomed to such noble manhood. " Take care of Stephen, Jerome," said Stephen's mother, on the eve of the young men's departure for New York, where they had elected to enter the lists against fortune. " He is weak and unstable as water, — oh, that I should live to say it! Only your care can save him from being a mental and bodily wreck, as he is even now a spiritual one." " I will be an elder brother — more than a brother — to him, as you have been more than a mother to me," promised Jerome, kissing her little plain old face. And in the coming years he kept his word, though Stephen from sheer caution soon ceased to commit any but reasonably wild excesses. Jerome rarely 'T-^ %1^^-i ' ---*»■" * ■■7W--.-fW?^ff^-JF«*i**'*W»«^«"R^ ADRIFT. 6l let twenty-four hours pass without seeing his foster- brother, and regularly four times a year he took him as it were by the scruff of the neck and haled him up to the little New England parsonage. One of these visits, made in the sixth year of their sojourn in New York, was prolonged beyond its usual limits by the illness and death of Joseph Brooks, and still further protracted by the immediately succeeding demise of his wife. When his mother's funeral was over, Stephen thriftily proposed to sell the house. " Sell your birthplace, your boyhood's home !" cried Jerome, in righteous wrath. " You shall never do it, Stephen Brooks !" he declared, taking posses- sion of the title deeds in order that his vow could not be rendered nugatory. " Besides," he added, his indignation subsiding, " it will be a capital place to come to for a quiet honeymoon." " Yours, perhaps," said Stephen. " Marrying is not in my line." " It is certainly not in mine," said Jerome, gravely. The resolution not to marry had indeed been coincident with his earliest realization of his position. It was enough for one to live in hourly fear of dis- agreeable disclosures. He would never ask a girl to share this unpleasant expectation, nor risk transmit- ting to his children all manner of ancestral vices. No, he would never marry until the mystery of his birth was cleared up. And this he began to fear would never be. On his first visit to New York he had sought out the lawyers who annually sent the check for his 6 r »* 1.. 6. •■ \ 62 ADRIFT. maintenance. They willingly told him the little they knew. Once a year they received by mail a sum of money. It was sent in an unregistered enve- lope in the most careless manner. The money was always wrapped in a slip of paper inscribed, " For Jerome Harvey, care of Rev. Joseph Brooks, Green- wood, Vermont." A separate bank-bill bore the firm-name and was appropriated by them in payment for their services. All the papers and envelopes had been preserved. No two of the latter bore the same post-mark, which was usually that of some foreign city. The addresses and inscriptions had been formed by cutting words from newspapers, the type-writer not yet being evolved from its inventor's brain. Jerome looked over the bundle of papers atten- tively, then flung them down with a hopeless sigh. " I shall never touch any mor of the money," he said. " My dear Mr. Harvey !" remonstrated the lawyer. " Be assured the money would not be sent you had you not some moral or legal right to it." " I shall not use it," repeated Jerome. " But there is no means of notifying the donor of your intention. The money will continue to be sent, and it seems to me your duty to prevent its lying idle, to use it for some charitable purpose." After a few moments' reflection Jerome admitted the force of this observation, and directed that the money should be sent as formerly to his guardian. This was accordingly done until Mr. Brooks's death, since when Jerome had bestowed it oa various insti- ADRIFT, 6^ tutions for the care of orphans and foundlings. The practice of his profession — stenography — brought him an ample support. CHAPTER VI. " 'Twere little praise Did full resources wait on our good will At every turn." Robert Browning. W3, On the same sunny May day Bella Forrester had chosen for her exodus from Buffalo, Jerome Harvey was seated at his desk in his office. Stephen Brooks was also present. He usually wrote his articles in his friend's office, feeling that he conferred an honor upon Harvey by so doing ; but on this occasion he was not at work. He was leaning out of the open window, smoking, and contemplating the rushing throng in the street below, his own idle mood in de- licious contrast, as it seemed to him, to their eager hurry. "Telegraph boy's just turned into our stairway," he announced, presently. " You speak as if you were but yesterday from Greenwood, and a telegram was still a remarkable event," said Harvey. And so in this case it proved to be. The boy cartie into the room and departed ; Harvey tore open the envelope and read the message. He uttered no \t'x\ Hi 64 ADRIFT, exclamation, and it was not until some minutes later that Brooks, wearied at last by the sight of the ac- tivity in the street, turned from the window and ob- served the startling effect the telegram had produced. Harvey still sat motionless, gazing with wild eyes at the paper ; his face was alarmingly pale. " What's up, old fellow ?" said Brooks, shaking him roughly but not unkindly by the shoulder. The touch served to rouse Harvey from his abstraction ; the blood rushed into his face, and he sprang from his chair. " Read, read !" he cried, flinging the telegram on his desk and beginning to pace the floor in great ex- citement. Brooks took up the paper and read aloud : " Miss Diana Forrester, of Suspension Bridge, Niagara Co., N. Y., can furnish you with the in- formation you desire. Settle your affairs for a long absence and come at once." " Well," commented Mr. Brooks, " I must say the person who sent this message — you see it's not signed — recklessly disregarded economy. A letter or a postal would have done just as well, and " " No, no !" exclaimed Jerome, sitting down at his desk and beginning to put his papers in order. " Don't you see ? This Diana Forrester is probah'y my mother's sister, and perhaps she is dying. A letter would have lost twenty four hours." " Oh !" said Brooks, a light breaking in on him. "Then you think this telegram relates to your parentage ?" '-'4 '4 ADRIFT. 65 " Good heavens, yes ! What other information do I care for?" " I never thought you cared very much for that," said Brooks, much surprised at his friend's agitation. " Then you were dull, blind, a mere sightless clod !" cried Harvey, impatiently. " Not a day has passed since I was a boy that I haven't longed for news of my family as the one chief good of life. You to call yourself a writer, forsooth ! What can you invent or divine that will be of interest to hu- manity when you never guessed your bosom friend's one ambition ? The minds of men are a sealed book to you. Stephen, old boy, I can't face this knowl- edge, good or bad, quite alone. Come with me, will you ?" " Of course," said Stephen, who would have been quite as willing to go to Florida or Nebraska. " Half hasn't been said about the Falls that might be. Per- haps I shall write a novel there." " Perhaps you won't," returned Jerome, not ill- naturedly, but as if stating an accepted fact. " You know you will never have perseverance to write a novel. Go out, now, and get time-tables and our tickets." Brooks, catching something of his friend's eager- ness, went briskly out and executed these and other commissions, while Harvey wrote and despatched a number of letters. But with all their haste they were unable to take a train until the following morn- ing, and it was in the evening of that Jay, as they were approaching their destination, that Harvey walked up and down the smoking-car and Brooks t 6* I §( t??: I!: toil fcsf"' ^ «pi i IT ill' I -IB**. 66 ADRIFT. ":»■(■ compared him to a young Franciscan or Dominican monk, — whichever was most given to flagellations and fasting. " I don't like to see you so worked up, Jerome," he said, as Harvey at last flung himself into the seat. " I wish you'd prepare yourself to meet the worst." "Well, I don't know what you call the worst," said Harvey. " I've feared all manner of disgraceful things for thirty years; it can't be so bad to face only one of these contingencies." " Perhaps the whole thing is a hoax," suggested Brooks. •' Who would be so cruel?" said Harvey, to whom this possibility had not occurred. ** Lots of people, — some of the Greenwood girls, for instance, who are angry because you won't marry them." " Every one in Greenwood ought to perfectly un- derstand my not marrying." " They understand your feeling in the matter, and doubtless think it, as I do, equall)*^ morbid and ab- surd," rejoined Brooks. *' But this feeling isn't so strong as you think it is, Jerome ; if you once meet the right girl your objections to matrimony will vanish." Jerome looked at his watch. " We shall arrive at ten, — not too late for a business call," he observed. "What! would you rush into the presence of a dying woman — I believe you've quite settled that Miss Forrester is moribund — at that late hour? Im- possible !" protested Brooks. "A woman of feeling, dying or not, would gladly s(;«WBe;fW»»S9«» >«•«»■ -www- w**.«wv ADRIFT. 67 put a relative out of painful suspense," affirmed Harvey. Brooks laughed. "A relative, quotha! Why don't you call her your aunt and be done with it? It would be funny if Miss Diana Forrester should prove a fascinating young beauty, and no connection of yours at all. Though being only Miss, she can- not be very fascinating; that is reserved for the maritated and widowed women." " I cannot conceive how a man remembering such a mother as yours," said Jerome, " can entertain such odious ideas about women." " Mother was married, of course," said Stephen, penitently. " But she wasn't a bit fascinating, if that's what you want me to say." Jerome did not utter the retort which rose to his lips, for at that instant the brakeman shouted " Sus- pension Bridge 1" and the two young men left the train. They went to a hotel, and while they regis- tered Harvey could not refrain from asking the clerk if he knew Miss Diana Forrester. " Yes, sir; know her by sight." " Is she " — it was on his tongue to say " dying," but he substituted " well" just in time. " She was driving round town to-day." " Thank you," said Harvey, immensely relieved. He agreed with Brooks that there was no pressing necessity for calling that night, but as early next morning as his friend considered permissible, he set off alone and on foot to seek the decisive interview. He was admitted by the little maid-servant who performed the not very arduous labors of Miss For- ^TSi^.A It ■• \ ¥ 68 ADRIFT. M raster's establishment, and waited in the crimson and olive parlor while the mistress of the house scruti- nized his card in her sitting-room up-stairs. "Mr. Jerome Harvey! I don't know the name, Bella; I have no idea who he is." " Go down and find out," advised Bella. " Perhaps he asked for you ; strangers never pre- sume to intrude upon me in this way." " You had better hurry, — he may be stealing the tiles out of the fireplace," said Bella. And some- what alarmed for her treasures, Diana descended the stairs. One glance at her visitor reassured her : this tall, grave gentleman was not a thief. But his dignity and gravity were not incompatible with the character of a book-agent, and on the ^'.upposition that such was his vocation Diana regarded him with coldly questioning eyes. ** Miss Forrester, I believe ?" said Harvey. A very slight inclination of the head was the re- ply. " Permit me to apologize for disturbing you at so early an hour," he continued, a little disconcerted by the lady's frigidity. Diana, still entertaining the book-agent theory, made no sign that pardon was accorded. " As, however, I had every reason to believe that my call was expected, I ventured to select the earliest possible hour for making it," " You are entirely mistaken," said Diana, with great decision. " Not only was your call unex- pected, but I am quite at a loss what motive, unless ADRIFT. 69 A% one of idle curiosity, impelled you to come here at all." The young man flushed deeply. He was as- tounded ; he had not thought that this slender young lady with the soft brown eyes could speak in such distinctly repellent tones. ** You will admit," he said, handing her the tele- gram, " that my coming from New York City in re- sponse to this summons implies a motive of greater force than idle curiosity.' Diana read the message ; she thought it not im- probable that he himself had written it an hour pre- viously upon a blank procured at the office. Her mind reverted to its original fear of him, — perhaps even as she read the telegram he was examining the doors and windows with a view to a burglarious en- trance. " Even yet I do not see why you have sought this interview, nor why I should allow it to be pro- longed," said Miss Forrester. Harvey was in a rage. He felt that he would suf- fer anything rather than owe her any favors. But he was saved from uttering this feeling by a sudden sense of the ludicrous contrast between this calm young woman and the doting old aunt whom he had half expected to fall on his neck with tears and caresses. He smiled, and after an appreciable pause said, in as winning a manner as he could command, — " I perceive, Miss Forrester, that you did not sum- mon me here, and once more I ask pardon for this intrusion. But it is possible you can furnish me witli a clue to the sender of that message. You will W M «'W V"r ff J 'i . ' . r W agTI| ADRIFT. 8i hall. He did, indeed, pass a few moments after his friend left him in inspecting the curious hangings and furniture of that apartment ; then he resolved to explore the premises further, the consideration that he had no shadow of right to do so being, as usual with him, entirely inoperative. Not wishing to follow either Harvey or Celeste, he refrained from opening the doors through which these persons had vanished ; a third door he deter- mined to enter. But with his hand upon the handle of the door he paused, arrested by a sudden strange premonition such as poor Fatima ought to have felt on the threshold of Blue Beard's fatal closet. He knew for one instant that it would be better for him if he never opened that door ; the next instant he boldly turned the handle and entered the parlor. He saw a spacious room, brightly yet softly lighted by many wax tapers in crystal candelabra and delicate brass sconces ; a large chandelier, all a-glitter with quivering prisms, hung from the ceil- ing, which was painted to represent a pale-blue sky half veiled with pearly clouds. The walls were draped with azure silk, which the weaver's art had thickly strewn with white, pink, and creamy roses. The curtains were of pink silk ; the furniture, of an ivory whiteness arabesqued in gold, was upholstered with the same rosy silk. There was not a dark color or a straight line in the room ; beauty, luxury alone had been consulted in its decoration. It was a holi- day room, and Mr. Brooks's first thought was that his nineteenth-century business-suit was oddly out of place in it. / ♦■■• •■*., 82 ADRIFT. ill i- 'i Ei I ■ * His second thought was that the lady who turned away from the mirror on his entrance was more fhan worthy of her environment. The ample train swclj. - ing back from her graceful figure was of faint-green satin ; yellow lace draped the front of the gown, caught here and there with pearl beads. From the low square-cut corsage her neck, encircled with strands of small pearls, rose pure and white ; her hair was snowily powdered. The effect of the white and faintly-green costume was deliciously fresh and cool. Mr. Brooks regarded this charming apparition a moment in silence, closing the door behind him as if unconscious of his action. Then he said, — " I fear I intrude." " Not at all," said Bella, with calm politeness. " This is the reception-room ; the servant was quite right to usher you in here. But should you not have gone into the library? For I think — I may be wrong — but I think you are Mr. Jerome Harvey, of whom I heard a little this morning. Are you not?" " Good heavens, no ! I would rather be shot than be Jerome Harvey !" cried Mr. Brooks, startled into candor. " But permit me to make an inference in return, — I fancy you are Miss Diana Forrester." Bella shook her head, smiling. Loyalt}'- to her friend and hostess prevented her saying that she would rather be shot than exchange her identity for that estimable young woman's ; but she raised her eyes to the prism-hung chandelier with an expres- sion of devout gratitude as she replied, — "You too are mistaken. Still, since you are not ADRIFT. §^ Mr. Harvey, and I am not Miss Forrester, I suppose we ought to feei perfectly well acquainted?" The young man smiled as if he fully appreciated the force of this occult reasoning. " I am only too willing," he said, and a little silence succeeded. Neither of these persons, ordinarily so fluent of .speech, knew exactly what to say to the other. Stephen Brooks was in a manner overwhelmed by the unexpectedness and strangeness of this meeting. Bella felt that her masquerade, however pretty, was scarcely dignified, and she was more annoyed than pleased by the admiration in the stranger's eyes, — were his eyes black or dark, dark blue ? " But of course it is only my dress," she reassured herself. Presently Mr. Brooks ventured to remark, " When I came into the room I fancied for a moment that I was dreaming. It seemed impossible the Parisian salon of a hundred years ago could be so perfectly reproduced." " The illusion was of course dispelled the instant your glance rested on me," said Bella, with her sweet smile. " No ; when I saw you I imagined, I hoped that you were some gay marquise come back from the eternal shades for a brief bright hour, rather than a living woman." " You hoped so ?" said Bella. " And pray why ?" He hesitated. Then, — "Some day I will tell you," he said, quietly. An angry flush swept over Bella's face. This utter stranger to talk of " some day !" She did not ^i" \\ < '.)H' 84 '? )RIFT. %■' Hi 1 1 li rebuke his presumption in words, but she looked at him so steadily, so haughtily, that his eyes quailed. He did not dare speak again, and it was several minutes before she chose to reopen conversation on an impersonal topic. They talked of the weather and the river until Brooks heard Harvey's voice in the hall. He rose at once. " My friend is going," he said. " Allow me to re- gret that I must go too. Good-evening." Bella bowed coldly, and he left the room. She was still a little ofifended, but she soon forgot her re- sentment in thinking how agreeable it would be to relate this piquant adventukc to Jack and Diana. Diana would scold, but not Jack. As the young men walked back to the hotel, Harvey laid Marcy Forrester's invitation before Brooks. The latter advised acceptance thereof, concluding his argument in its favor in these words : ** And, as he says, the place is comfortable. You saw that I took a peep at the parlor. I opened the eyes of a.stonishment when I saw it, I assure you. It's a perfect gem." " No one in the room ?" asked Harvey. " No one," said Brooks. It is only the tyro in tender affairs who boasts of every word and glance he exchanges with a pretty woman ; the man of experience maintains at all hazards a discreet silence on the subject. CHAPTER VIII. This awful waste of waters wild and white, The liquid pearly spray dashed high in air, The turquoise depths, the wooded rocky height, To every soul a several message bear. To many a one the torrent's endless surge Shall seem the cruel voice of dark despair. To some a battle-cry, to some a dirge, While some a wedding-song shall hearken there. Some in that grand eternal thunder tone Shall hear an angel trumpet " God is great!" Some mark the echo of pain's helpless moan. Or list the sob of grief, the doom of fate. To me, the water's mad and hurrying press An image seems of strange confused distress. C When the young men had for two weeks partaken of Mr, Marcy Forrester's hospitality, they freely con- fessed to each other that the time had passed in an extremely agreeable manner. Harvey felt an un- wonted peace in the thought that in a few weeks at farthest he should receive the key to his life-long puzzle, and for the first time he ceased to fear that the revelations would be humiliating. As for Brooks, he had the faculty of enjoying himself in any circum- stances; he brov/sed upon Mr. Forrester's book- shelves, or listened to that gentleman's acute obser- vations, or accompanied his friend to call upon Mrs. and Miss Forrester, with apparently equal pleasure. For already these four persons were on terms, if not of intimacy, at least of great kindliness. There 8 85 k^4 ^. E t' r- (!., ^■: i:i 86 ADRIFT. i ■' > H N had been gay little dinners at Marcy Forrester's house, to which Diana had responded with a high tea; there had b^.n whist and euchre parties; there had been plans made for strolls and drives through- out the supremely picturesque vicinity. The first of these plans was carried into effect on a lovely day in mid-June. Mr. Forrester, to whom a walk around Goat Island was an impossible feat, declined to be of the party, but placed his carriage at their disposal. Philippe was happy, it being only when driving or going upon errands that he was permitted to assume modern American habiliments. Diana had at first shrunk from the appearance of evil involved in passing the whole afternoon with two young men. " But surely," Bella had argued, " you are old enough to protect me, and I'm married enough to protect you." And in consequence of this or some other consideration, Diana put aside her scruples. They left the carriage in the village and set out on foot to visit Goat Island. It was the first time they had all walked in company, yet it was seemingly by the volition of no one in particular that Mr. Harvey and Miss Forrester, Mr. Brooks and Mrs. Forrester, paired off together. They went first into Prospect Park, a beautifully- kept enclosure with noble trees and smooth green turf, situated just at the brink of the Falls. After the river sweeps over the precipice it turns at a right angle, so that the water is almost on a level with the land on one side of Prospect Park, while on the adjacent side it is one hundred and sixty-five feet ADRIFT. 87 below. The torrent dashes by with its old sleepless force, dissolving as it falls into feathery lightness ; the spray, like melted pearl, is wafted up in immense clouds. From the foot of the Falls great soft masses of creamy foam float away, looking from above like tiniest flecks on the turquoise water, " where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue plays into green." Im- mense black rocks rise like angiy sea-monsters out of the white waves that forever lash their dripping sides. Across the river the Canadian bank lies in shadow, and there are soft purple glooms between the dark pine-trees. The four advanced to the broad stone parapet which secures immunity from danger of falling, and gazed down into the abyss. '* Do you know," said Mr. Brooks, raising his voice in order to be heard above the roar of the cata- ract, " I've observed a peculiarity about this spot : one always thinks exactly the same thing he thought the previous time he was here." "Yes, I've noticed that, too," said Bella, "I've never looked over this parapet without feeling more strongly than at any other time in my life my own insignificance. I see that I am even a smaller speck in the scheme of creation than I fancied." " And I," said Harvey, " always recall those words : ' Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up.' " " I," said Diana, " invariably wonder why men do not find some means of economizing this tremendous force." *' Well," said Brooks," for my part I have never 4 I It it:-';. a; fl'i 88 ADRIFT. l! I stood in this spot without asking myself if ever any one on earth suffered such torture as poor Avery must have done, clinging to that old stump out there on the verge of the Fall. He knew that daring, in- genuity, money, were all employed in his behalf; again and again he must have thrilled with hope in some new expedient, only to shudder with despair at each fresh failure. Great heavens ! it's inconceiva- ble, — the horror of living eighteen hours suspended over that seething hell of waters, his life, his young bride, his place on the happy earth forever lost to him , iio'ciiing I^efore him but that awful death and the dark, dark future beyond. And yet all his misery was as nothing to that single instant when he felt his helpless hands relax and was torn away from his refuge with a scream which thousands of people echoed, and which none of them ever forgot !" " Do not speak, do not think of those things," said Bella, after a pause. " If one is in the mood for it, Niagara Falls seems only one great grave. What point along these banks has not been the scene of some suicide or fatal accident ?" " That's one of the chief charms of the place," de- clared Mr. Brooks, as they turned away and began to walk slowly along the bank towards the Goat Island bridge. "A great many people actually come here because it feeds their vanity. Accidents ? TJicy are not going to slip or stumble near the brink, nor step backwards ofifa bridge. Suicide? They haven't embezzled money, their health is good, their nerves unshattered. These worthies will tell you that all the tragedies which darken the records of Niagara ADRIFT. gp might have been avoided by the exercise of common sense such as they possess." " There may be something in what you say," ad- mitted Bella. " I myself have always a sense of my own sagacity when I am here. Death is so near, around me on every hand, and yet I escape it !" " That's exactly my idea !" said Mr. Brooks. He was delighted with this ready appreciation, and pro- ceeded with his accustomed fluency to explain vari- ous other workings of the tourist's mind. " I think the Falls are spoiled for any one who lives as near as Buffalo," remarked Bella, " by the necessity of taking all one's visitors here for a day. I average about six in a summer. They never say what they ought to ; I never heard a striking or original observation from any person on his first sight of the Falls." " Naturally ; it takes time to develop the full iin- pressivencss of the scene," affirmed Harvey, who with Diana formed the van of the little procession. " Doubtless your friends were grateful enough to you after they got home." " I don't know," demurred Bella, her mind evi- dently dwelling on past wrongs. " Now this very Goat Island bridge," she said, as they stepped upon it ; " people from the country always, always want to stand here and throw things in !" " The rural mind has not a monopoly of that desire," said Harvey, with his frank smile, " for I picked this up for that very purpose." And he flung a shingle into the racing water. They watched it whirled away in wide curves, now 8* u .J It.y. ■ ,1 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) '^ ^■■ i? / % Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 872-450 J >/<> '4^ lo \ m % QQ ADRIFT. tossed quite out of the water, now submerged, now leaping forward, just as many a hopeless wretch has been hurried on to destruction. V^hen the shingle was out of sight they crossed the bridge and were on Goat Island. Through the sense of true beauty and fitness in the family who so Ijng owned Goat Island, it has never been cleared into a grove or park, but yet re- tains the sylvan character it possessed hundreds of years ago. Great elm and oak trees tower overhead, their branches lovingly intertwined ; here and there the silver shaft of a birch gleams white against the greenery. Cedar and hemlock fling cut their fresh cool odor upon the air at every step; indeed, so in- separable is this odor from associations with the spot that a lover of the Falls never fails to be reminded of Goat Island by the scent of a sprig of hemlock. Beneath the trees grows an undisturbed tangle of vines and bushes; wild-flowers are as plentiful as they were when the place was an untrodden solitude ; soft, thick moss covers the gnarled roots of trees and richly borders the pathway. " This wood probably witnessed numerous love- scenes two centuries ago," said Mr. Brooks, senti- mentally. " Doubtless many an Indian youth * Laid his crystal bow aside, And his silver shining quiver,' to stroll with some dusky maid adown this path. Here they vowed their simple faith " ** You are mistaken," interrupted Diana's cold, calm tones. " There was not this nice, pretty path ADRIFT. 91 then ; the whole island w^s covered with an impene- trable undergrowth. Besides, the bridge itself is of comparatively recent date, and your young people could not have flown here." Mr. Brooks did not appear at all grateful for this information. "I believe the Indians sometimes rowed from the Canada shore over to the foot of the island, and climbed up the rocks. My lovers may have done the same," be returned, gayly enough ; but it was noticeable that he thencefor- ward slackened his steps and gave other evidences of a distaste for Miss Forrester's society. There existed between him and Bella a certain charming freemasonry happily not infrequent among widely-read people. One had only to make an allu- sion to any subject to find the other perfectly con- versant with it. They knew the song or story of all the forests in romance, and as they rambled on through the wood they peopled it with the shadowy shapes of Merlin and Rosalind, of Robin Hood and Oberon, of Dian and Adonis. They found this manner of conversation very pleasant, and refrained from overtaking their com- panions until they reached the little platform at the brink of the Fall. Here three of the party joined in inveighing against the initials rudely cut with pocket- knives which deface almost every inch of the railings and benches, and in declaring that these inscriptions could only be made by persons equally ignorant of the value of time and unable to appreciate the beau- ties of Nature about them. But Jerome Harvey dis- sented from this sweeping statement. \^\. 92 ADRIFT. " I remember seeing one inscription on this railing that was not cut idly or thoughtlessly," he said. " It was in May, 1877. It had been carved only a few days before I saw it, for the letters were perfectly fresh ; they were also skilfully formed. The words were, ^ Ida is with God.' Of course I shall never know whether Ida was sweetheart, wife, or daughter. The very mystery of it impressed me." " It was a touching impulse, to leave that simple memorial to a loved one amid this everlasting grandeur," said Bella. They walked on, pausing every now and then to look across or into the chasm from different points of view. Once Mr. Brooks 'ook a few perilous steps down the bank, to cut two willow switches for the ladies. Bella accepted one, and thanked him sweetly for it, but Diana declined hers, on the ground that it was against the rules to mutilate the shrubbery. One feels the sublimity of the Horseshoe Fall more keenly than that of the American. It is less approachable, less comprehensible ; no island di- vides its centre, so that one can stand as it were in the very heart of it ; no brave little steamer dares to draw n':iar its foot, nor venture into that vast circu- lar basin whose unsearchable depths imagination cannot picture nor plummet sound. There is no effect of veil-like lightness in the falling water here ; a deep unbroken mass of lucent green, it sweeps over the majestic curve with a weight which seems as if it would crush the very rocks to powder. A rainbow answers the summons of the sun and rises ADRIFT. from the drifting spray, the one tender, evanescent thing amid the awful unchanging magnificence. They gazed a long time upon this scene, then slowly sauntered on, and presently crossed the three bridges that connect the picturesque Sister Islands. When they reached the third of these little islands, Bella sat down upon a bench, saying she was tired ; she took off her large brown straw hat, and the breeze from the rushing water fanned her rosy cheeks and lifted the light curls on her forehead. Fatigue being one of the weaknesses to which Diana, fragile though she looked, was nobly su- perior, she did not care to linger long, but returned with Harvey to Goat Island. Bella and Stephen, thus left alone, were silent a little space. They had not chosen a very lovely spot for their {^vt moments' repose. The Third Sister Island is but little more than a mass of gray stone, and very scant vegetation has taken root there. The water a few rods up-stream is so much above the level of the island that it seems every moment as if in its headlong descent it would en- gulf the whole place and tear it away from its foun- dations. " A river is beyond all question the most beautiful body of water," Stephen presently remarked. "What is a brook, with its idiotic chatter ? A pond stag- nates; a lake, the ocean, get all and give nothing. But a river's calm progress blesses and purifies every mile it traverses." Bella not challenging these assertions, the young man went on : r m 94 ADRIFT. " And a river is a perfect simile of human life,— any river, but Niagara especially. The first few miles are like the peace of childhood ; the rapids represent the one great experience of a life, whether passion, crime, or noble endeavor; the cataract is the crisis of that experience ; the lower reach of the river is the succeeding existence, for a while tumultuous with regret or despair, but soon subsiding into the quiet of middle life, then sinking into the dull mo- notony of old age. And as the river ends in Lake Ontario, so life ends in death." " It is easy to pick flaws in your metaphor," said Bella, smiling, " the most obvious being that every life has more than one such exciting experience as you describe." " Yes," said Stephen ; " but there i"^ always one season supreme above all others, one period when we recognize that we enjoy, suffer, achieve, more than we have ever done or can ever do again. In that season we are in the rapids of our lives." Bella mused a moment. The time when she had keenly enjoyed and sharply suffered seemed very far behind her. Presently she said, — " Then I must have passed through the rapids long ago, I think." " Not so," said Stephen, not altogether lightly. "You are, I should judge, twenty-six or seven years old ; do you suppose you have yet lived your life out? There are, if I recollect aright, one or two shoals in Niagara River, up at Buffalo and Fort Erie, where the water glides along in shallow ripples ; you may have known some trivial experiences corre- i% 'm if! ADRIFT, ft* spending to them; but I do not believe you have gone through the rapids." Bella gazed up at him, reflecting that he did not look much of an oracle in his blue summer suit, with his straw hat pushed back from his dark and somewhat heavy face. Her perception of his im- pertinence was dominated by an irresistible mis- giving. "There is no doubt in my mind, I repeat," he continued, gravely, " that you, Mrs. Forrester, will some time know an intensity of life surpassing any- thing you can dream of now. And — who can tell? — it may be this very summer, perhaps." This time the impertinence was not to be ignored, and the lady resented it by rising and flinging the little willow switch as far from her as she could. It fell just short of the hurrying water, and lodged on a dripping, wave- worn rock. " I meant to keep it as a souvenir," she said. "But I will keep nothing that can remind me of your words." Even as she spoke she knew she could never forget them. Without replying, the young man stepped cau- tiously over one or two intervening stones and re- covered the switch. " Twice I have run some risk in getting this for you," he said, extending it towards her. The risk in either case had been trifling, but Mr. Brooks was not a man to underrate his own exploits. " I am sorry I offended you," he said, contritely. " Won't you accept this as a peace-offering ?" She hesitated. Both of them felt dimly that a ca »;■;-.