Bi 
 
 V..
 
 I DEAL A 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH GRAND 
 
 Author of "HEAVENLY TWINS," Ett 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 OONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO. 
 407-435 DEARBORN STREET.
 
 L'esprit ne BGJ.S garantit pas 
 des sottises de notre humeur. 
 
 - VAUVEX ARGUES, 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 You ask me, perhaps, even you who are all charity, why 
 parts of this book are what they are. I can only answer 
 with another question : Why are we what we are ? But I 
 warn you that it would not be fair to take any of Ideala's 
 opinions, here given, as final. Much of what she thought 
 was the mere effervescence of a strong mind in a state of 
 fermentation, a mind passing successively through the 
 three stages of the process : the vinoits, alcoholic, or excit- 
 able stage; the acetous, jaundiced, orimbittered stage; and 
 the ) ut ref 'active, or unwholesome stage ; and also embody- 
 ing, at different times, the characteristics of all three. But, 
 even during its worst phase, it was an earnest mind, seek- 
 ing the truth diligently, and not to be blamed for stumbling 
 upon good and bad together by the way. It is, in fact, not 
 a perfect, but a transitional, state which I offer for your 
 consideration, a state which has its repulsive features, but 
 which, it may be hoped, would result in a beautiful de- 
 posit, when at last the inevitable effervescence had 
 subsided. 
 
 But why exhibit the details of the process? you may ask. 
 To encourage others, of course. "What help is there in the 
 contemplation of perfection ready made? It only dis- 
 heartens us. We should lay down our arms, we should 
 struggle no longer, we should be hopeless, despairing, 
 reckless, if we never had a glimpse of growth, of those 
 " stepping-stones of their dead selves " upon which men 
 mount to higher things. The imperfections must be
 
 iv PREFACE, 
 
 studied, because it is only from the details of the process 
 that anything can be learned. Putting aside the people 
 who criticise, not with a view to mending matters, but be- 
 cause a 
 
 low desire 
 
 Not to seem lowest makes them level all ; 
 
 the people who judge, who condemn, who have no mercy 
 on any faults and failings but their own, and who, 
 
 if they find 
 
 Some stain or blemish in a name of note, 
 Not grieving that their greatest are so small, 
 Inflate themselves with some insane delight, 
 
 and would ostracize a neighbor for the first offense by rul- 
 ing that one mistake must mar a life anybody's life but 
 their own, of course ; who have no peace in themselves, no 
 habit of sweet thought ; whose lives are one long agony of 
 excitement, objection, envy, hate, and unrest ; the decently 
 clad devils of society who may be known by their eternal 
 carping, and who are already in torment, and doing their 
 utmost to drag others after them. Putting them aside, 
 as any one may who has the courage to face them for 
 they are terrible cowards and taking the best of us, and 
 the best intentioned among us, we find that all are apt to 
 make some one trait in the characters, some one trick in 
 the manners, some one incident in the lives of people we 
 meet the text of an objection to the whole person. And a 
 state of objection is a miserable state, and a dangerous 
 one, because it stops our growth by robbing us of half our 
 power to love, in which lies all our strength, and which, 
 with the delight of being loved, is the one thing worth 
 living for. When we know in ourselves that love is 
 heaven, and hate is hell, and all the intervals of like and 
 dislike are ante-chambers to either, we possess the key to 
 joy and sorrow, by which alone we can attain to the mys- 
 Jery that may not be mentioned here, but beyond which 
 ecstasy awaits us.
 
 PREFACE. 7 
 
 This is why such details arc necessary. 
 
 Doctors-spiritual must face the horrors of the dissecting- 
 rooin, and learn before they can cure or teach ; and even 
 we, poor feeble creatures, who have no strength, however 
 great our desire, to do either, can help at least a little by 
 not hindering, if we attend to our own mental health, 
 which we shall do all the better for knowing something of 
 our moral anatomy, and the diseases to which it is liable. 
 We hate and despise in our ignorance, and grow weak ; 
 but love and pity thrive on knowledge, and to love and 
 pity we owe all the beauty of life, and all our highest 
 power.
 
 "Ideala" is the name of an unconventional young 
 English woman possessed of many ideas, which she ex- 
 presses freely and at length ; they refer chiefly to the 
 marriage relation, social immorality, the education of 
 women, and the equality of men and women. Her story is 
 a brief and familiar one ; she is tempted to leave a brutal 
 and unfaithful husband for the protection of a man she 
 loves, but is prevented taking the step through the wise 
 counsel of a friend. She leaves her husband's roof, how- 
 ever, and after a year spent in China returns to England to 
 devote the remainder of her life to the weak and erring of 
 her own sex. "Ideala" appears again in "The Heavenly 
 Twins." REVIEW.
 
 ID E ALA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SHE came among us without flourish of trumpets. She 
 just slipped into her place almost unnoticed, but once she 
 was settled there it seemed as if we had got something we 
 had wanted all our lives, and we should have missed her 
 as you would miss the thrushes in the spring, or any other 
 sweet familiar thing. But what the secret of her charm 
 was I cannot say. She was full of inconsistencies. She 
 disliked ostentation, and never wore those ornamental fidg- 
 ets ladies delight in, but she would take a piece of price- 
 less lace to cover her head when she went to water her 
 flowers. And she said rings were a mistake ; if your hands 
 were ugly, they drew attention to them; if pretty, they hid 
 their beauty ; yet she wore half a dozen worthless ones 
 habitually for the love of those who gave them to her. 
 
 It was said that she was striking in appearance, but cold 
 and indifferent in manner. Some, on whom she had never 
 turned her eyes, called her repellant. But it was noticed 
 that men who took her down to dinner, or had any other 
 opportunity of talking to her, were never very positive in 
 what they said of her afterward. She made every one, 
 men and women alike, feel, and she did it unconsciously. 
 "Without effort, without eccentricity, without anything you 
 could name or define, she impressed you, and she held you 
 or at least she held me, always expectant. Nothing
 
 8 IDEALA. 
 
 about her ever seemed to be of the present. When she 
 talked she made you wonder what her past had been, and 
 when she was silent you began to speculate about her 
 future. But she did not talk much as a rule, and when 
 she did speak it was always some subject of interest, some 
 fact that she wanted to ascertain accurately, or some beau- 
 tiful idea, that occupied her ; she had absolutely no small- 
 talk for any but her most intimate friends, whom she was 
 wont at times to amuse with an endless stock of anecdotes 
 and quaint observations : and this made people of limited 
 capacity hard on her. Some of them called her a cold, 
 ambitious, unsympathetic woman ; and perhaps, from 
 their point of view, she was so. She certainly aspired to 
 something far above them, and had nothing but scorn for 
 the dead level of dull mediocrity from which they would 
 not try to rise. 
 
 "To be distinguished among these people," she onca 
 said, " it is only necessary to have one's heart 
 
 Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 
 The love of love. 
 
 There is no need to do anything ; if you have the right 
 feeling you may be as passive as a cow, and still excel them 
 all, for they never thrill to a noble thought. " 
 
 "Then, pity them," I said. 
 
 " No, despise them," she answered. " Pity is for afflic- 
 tion, for such shortcomings as are hereditary and can 
 hardly be remedied for the taint in nature which is all 
 but hopeless. But these people are not afflicted. They 
 could do better if they would. They know the higher 
 walk, and deliberately pursue the lower. Their whole 
 feeling is for themselves, and such things as have power to 
 move them through the flesh only. I would almost rather 
 sin on the impulse of a generous but misguided nature, 
 and have the power to appreciate and the will to be better, 
 than live a perfect, loveless woman, caring only for myself, 
 like these. I should do more good. "
 
 IDEALA. 9 
 
 They called Ideala unsympathetic, yet I have known her 
 silent from excess of sympathy. She could walk with you, 
 reading your heart and soul, sorrowing and rejoicing with 
 you, and make you feel, without a word, that she did so. 
 It was this power to sympathize, and the longing she had 
 to find good in everything, that made her forgive the 
 faults that were patent in a nature with which she was 
 finally brought into contact, for the sake of the virtues 
 which she discovered hidden away deep down under a 
 Slowly hardening crust of that kind of self-indulgence which 
 mars a man. 
 
 But her own life was set to a tune that admitted of end- 
 less variations. Sometimes it was difficult even for those 
 who knew her best to detect the original melody among 
 the clashing chords that concealed it ; but, let it be hidden 
 as it might, one felt that it would resolve itself eventually, 
 through many a jarring modulation and startling cadence, 
 perhaps, back to the perfect key. ^ 
 
 I saw her first at a garden-party. She scarcely noticed 
 me when we were introduced. There were great masses 
 of white cloud drifting up over the blue above the garden, 
 and she was wholly occupied with them when she could 
 watch them without rudeness to those about her ; and even 
 when she was obliged to look away, I could see that she 
 was still thinking of the sky. 
 
 "Do you live much in cloud-land ?" I asked, and felt 
 for a moment I had said a silly thing ; but she turned to 
 me quickly, and looked at me for the first time as if she 
 saw me and whan I say she looked at me, I mean some- 
 thing more than an ordinary look, for Ideala's eyes were 
 a wonder, affecting you as a [poem does which has power 
 to exalt. 
 
 "Ah, you feel it, too," she said. "Are they not beauti- 
 ful ? Will you sit beside me here ? You can see the river 
 as well down there, beneath the trees." 
 
 I thought she would have talked after that, but she did 
 not. Wher !> spoke to her once or twice she answered ab-
 
 10 IDEALA. 
 
 sently ; and presently she forgot mo altogether, and began 
 to sing to herself softly : 
 
 Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea 
 
 Thy tribute wave deliver ; 
 No move by thee my steps shall be 
 
 Forever and forever. 
 
 Then suddenly recollecting herself, she stopped, and 
 exclaimed, in much confusion : 
 
 " Oh, please forgive me ! That stupid thing has been 
 running in my head all day and it is a way I have. I 
 al vays forget people and begin to sing." 
 
 She did not see in the least that her apology might/ have 
 been considered an adding; of insult to injury, and, of 
 course, I was careful not to let her know that I thought it 
 so, although I must confess that for a moment I felt just 
 a trifle aggrieved. I thought my presence bad bored her, 
 and was surprised to see, when I got up to go, that she 
 would rather have had ir.e stay. 
 
 She cared little for people in general, and had few lik- 
 ings. It was love with her, if anything ; but those whom 
 she loved onco ?ho loved aiv."..y. , ru'ver cliraiging in her 
 affection for them, however badly they might treat her. 
 Arid she had the power of liking people for themselves, 
 regardless of their feeling for her ; indeed, her indifference 
 on this score was curious. I once heard a lady say to her : 
 
 ' ' You are one of the few young married ladies whom I 
 dare chaperon in the?e degenerate days. No degree of 
 admiration or worship ever seems to touch you. Is it real 
 or pretended, your unconsciousness?" 
 
 " Unconsciousness of what?" 
 
 "Of the feeling you excite." 
 
 "The feeling I excite?" Ideaia seemed to think a mo- 
 ment, then sin* answered gravely : " I do not think I am 
 conscious of anything that relates to myself, personally, in 
 my intercourse with people. They are ideas to me, for the 
 most part men especially so." 
 
 That way she had of forgetting people's presence was
 
 IDEALA. 11 
 
 one of her peculiarities. If she liked you she was content 
 just to have you there, but she never showed it except by 
 a regretful glance when you went away. She was very 
 absent, too. One day I |found her with a big, awkward 
 volume on her knee, heated excited, and evidently put out. 
 
 " Is anything the matter!" I wanted to know. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered, desperately; "I've lost my 
 pen, and I'm writing for the mail." 
 
 *' Why, where are you looking for it ? " I asked. 
 
 She glanced at me, and then at the book. 
 
 "I I believe," she faltered, " I was looking for it among 
 the p's in the French dictionary." 
 
 On another occasion I watched her revising a manuscript. 
 As she wrote her emendations she gummed them on over 
 the old copy, and she was so absorbed that at last she put 
 the gum brush into the ink-bottle. Discovering her mis- 
 take, she gave a little disconcerted sort of laugh, and took 
 the brush away to wash it. She returned presently, ex- 
 amining it critically to see if it were perfectly cleansed, 
 and Laving satisfied herself, she carefully put it back in 
 the ink-bottle. 
 
 But perhaps the funniest instance of this peculiarity of 
 hers was one that happened in the Grosvenor Gallery on a 
 certain occasion. She had been busy with her catalogue, 
 doing the pictures conscientiously, and not talking at all, 
 when suddenly she burst out laughing. 
 
 " Do you know what I have been doing ? " she said. " I 
 wanted- to know who that man is "indicating a gentle- 
 man of peculiar appearance in the crowd " and I have 
 been looking all over him for his number, that I might 
 hunt up his name in the catalogue!" 
 
 Her way of seeing analogies as plausible as the obvious 
 relation of p to pen, and of acting on wholly wrong conclu- 
 sions deduced from most unexceptionable premises, was 
 another characteristic. She always blamed her early edu- 
 cation, or, rather, want of education, for it. 
 
 " If I had been taught to think " she said, " when ray
 
 12 IDEALA. 
 
 memory was being burdened with historical anecdotes torn 
 from the text, and other useless scraps of knowledge, I 
 should be able to see both sides of a subject, and judge 
 rationally, now. As it is, I never see more than one side 
 at a time, and when I have mastered that, I feel like the 
 old judge in some Greek play, who, when he had heard 
 one party to a suit, begged that the other would not speak, 
 as it would only poggle what was then clear to him." 
 But in this IJeala was not quite fair to herself. 
 It was not ahvays-although, unfortunately, it was oftenest 
 at critical moments that she was beset with this inability 
 to see more than one side of a subject at a time. The odd 
 thine about it was that one never knew which side, the 
 pathetic or the humorous, would strike her. Generally, 
 however, it was the one that related least to herself per. 
 sonally. This self-forgetfulness, with a keen sense of the 
 ludicrous, led her sometimes, when she had anything 
 amusing to relate, to overlook considerations which would 
 have kept other people silent. 
 
 " I saw a pair of horses running away with a heavy 
 wagon, the other day," she told us once. " It was in Cross 
 street, and there was a child in the way there always is a 
 child in the wayl and, as there was no one else to do it, I 
 ran into the road to remove that child. I had to pull it 
 aside quickly, and there was no time to say, ' Allow me* 
 in fact, there was no time for anything and in my hurry 
 I lost my balance and fell in the mud, and the wagon came 
 tearing over me. It was an unpleasant sensation, but I 
 wasn't hurt, you know; neither the wheels nor the horses 
 touched me. I got very dirty, though, and I have no doubt 
 I looked as ridiculous as I felt, and for that I expected to be 
 tenderly dealt with ; but when I went to ask after the child, 
 a few days later, a neighbor told me that its mother was out, 
 and it was a good thing, too, as she had been heard to declare 
 she would ' go for that lady the next time she saw her, for 
 flingin' of her bairn about.' " 
 When she had told the story, Ideala was horrified to find
 
 IDEALA. 18 
 
 that tfee fact, which she had overlooked, of her having 
 risked her life to save the child struck us all much more 
 forcibly than the ingratitude that amused her. 
 
 Although her sense of humor was keen, it was not 
 always, as I said before, the humorous side of a subject 
 that struck her. I found her one day looking utterly mis- 
 erable. 
 
 " What has happened?'' I asked. " You look sad." 
 
 "And I feel sad,'' she answered. " I was just thinking 
 what a pity it is those gay, pleasure- loving, flower -clad 
 people of Hawaii are dying out!" 
 
 She was quite in earnest, and could not be made to see 
 that there was anything droll in her mourning poignantly 
 for a people so remote. 
 
 Another instance of her absent-mindedness recurs to me. 
 The incident was related at our house one evening, in Idea- 
 la's presence, by Mr. Lloyd, a mutiial friend. A clever draw- 
 ing by another friend, of Ideala trying to force a cabman to 
 take ten shillings for a half-crown fare one of the great 
 fears of her life being the chance of not giving people of 
 that kind as much as they expected had caused Ideala to 
 protest that she did understand money matters. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we all know that your capacity for business is 
 quite extraordinary," Mr. Lloyd said, with a smile that 
 meant something. And then, addressing us all, he asked: 
 " Did I ever tell you about her coming to borrow five shill- 
 ings from me one day? Shall I tell, Ideala ?" 
 
 "You may if you like," Ideala answered, getting very 
 red. " But the story is not interesting." 
 
 We all began to be anxious to hear about it. 
 
 " Judge for yourselves, 1 ' Mr. Lloyd said. " One day the 
 head clerk came into my private room at the bank, looking 
 perplexed and discomfited. ' Please, sir,' he said, ' a lady 
 wishes to see you.' 'A lady,' I answered. ' Ladies have no 
 business here. What does she want ?' ' She would not say 
 BIT, and she would not send in her name. She said it did 
 not matter.' I began to wonder what I had been doing.
 
 14 IDEALA. 
 
 'What is she like?' I asked. He looked all around as i* 
 in search of a simile, and then he answered : ' Well, sir. 
 she's more like a picture than anything.' ' Show her in,' I 
 said." 
 
 Here the story was interrupted by a shout of laughter. 
 He laughed a little himself. 
 
 " I should have been polite, in any case," he declared, 
 apologetically. " The clerk ushered in a lady whose extreme 
 embarrassment made me sorry for her. She changed color 
 half a dozen times in as many seconds, and then she hurled 
 her errand at my head in these words, without any previ- 
 ous preparation to break the blow : ' Mr. Lloyd, can you 
 lend me five shillings?' and before I had recovered, she 
 continued : ' I came in by train this morning, and I've lost 
 my purse, and can't get back if you won't help me at 
 least I think I've lost my purse. I took it out to give six- 
 pence to a beggar and and here is the sixpence !' and 
 she held it out to me. She had given her purse to the beg- 
 gar and carried the sixpence off in triumph. You may well 
 say, ' Oh, Ideala !' " 
 
 "And Mr. Lloyd was so very good as to take me to the 
 station, and see me into the train," Ideala murmured; "and 
 he gave me his bankbook to amuse me on the journey, and 
 carried Huxley's ' Elementary Physiology,' which I had 
 come in to buy, off in triumph." 
 
 But with all her self-forgetfulness there wers> moments 
 in which she showed that she must have thought deeply 
 about herself, weighing her own individuality against 
 others, to see what place she occupied in her own age, and 
 how she stood with regard to tha ages that had gone be- 
 fore ; yet even this she seemed to have done in a selfless 
 way, having apparently examined herself coolly, critically, 
 lairly, as she might have examined any other specimen of 
 humanity in which she felt an interest, unbiased by any 
 ; ;>.l regard. 
 
 "People always want to know if I write, or paint, or 
 play, or what I do," she once said to me. " They all ex-
 
 IDEALA. 15 
 
 pect me to do something. My function is not to do, but to 
 bo. I make no poetry. I am a poem if you read me 
 aright." 
 
 And, again, in a moment of despondency, she said : 
 
 " I am one of the weary women of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. No other age could have produced me." 
 
 \Vhen fehe said she did nothing she must have meant she 
 was not great in anything, for her time was all occupied, 
 and those tilings in which she was interested were never so 
 well done without her help. If any crying abuse were 
 brought to light in the old Cathedral City ; if any large 
 measure of reform were set on foot ; if the local papers 
 suddenly became eloquent in favor of some good move- 
 ment, and adroit in their powers of persuasion; if burdens 
 had to be lifted from the oppressed, and the weak defended 
 against great odds, you might be sure that Ideala was busy, 
 and her work could be detected in it all. And she was 
 especially active when eff arts were being made to find 
 amusement for the people. 
 
 " That is what they want, poor things," she would say. 
 " Their lives are such a dreary round of dull, monotonous 
 toil, and they have so little sun to cheer them. They 
 ought to be taught to laugh, and have the brightness put 
 into themselves, and then it would seem as if they had 
 been relieved of half the atmospheric pressure beneath 
 which they groan. Think what your own life would be if 
 day after day brought you nothing but toil ; if you had 
 nothing to look back upon, nothing to look forward to, 
 but the labor that makes a machine of you, deadening the 
 power to care, and holding mind and body in the galling 
 bondage and weariness of everlasting routine." 
 
 She thought laughter an unfailing specific for most of 
 the ills of life. 
 
 " We can none of us be thankful enough for the sensa- 
 tion,", she said. " Nothing relieves the mentaj^ppression, 
 which does such moral and physical harmTlike mirth ; of 
 course, I mean legitimate laughter, not levity, nor the ill-
 
 16 IDEALA. 
 
 natured rejoicing of small minds in such subjects foi 
 sorrow as their neighbors' faults, follies, and mistakes. 
 What I am thinking of is the pleasure without excitement 
 which there is in sympathetic intercourse with those large, 
 loving natures that elevate, and the laughter without 
 bitterness which is always a part of it." 
 
 Like most people whose goodness is neither affected nor 
 acquired, but natural to them, Ideala saw no merit in her 
 own works, and would not take the credit she deserved for 
 them ; nor would she have had her good deeds known at 
 all if she could have helped it. But knowledge of these 
 things leaks out somehow, although probably not a third 
 of what she did will ever be even suspected. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SPEAKING to me of women one day, she said : 
 " Certainly, they are vainqtietirs dts vainqueitrs de la 
 terre in any sense they choose ; but the pity of it is that 
 they do not choose to exercise their power for good to any 
 great extent. I agree with Madame Bernier if it were 
 Madame Bernier who said : ' L'ignorance ou les femmes 
 sont de leurs devoirs, Tabus qu'elles font de leur puissance, 
 leur font pedre le plus beau et le plus pr ecieux de leurs 
 avantages, celui d'etre utiles.' But hundreds of other 
 quotations will occur to you, written by thoughtful men 
 and women in all ages, and all to the same effect ; it is 
 impossible to overestimate their restraining aud refining 
 influence as the companions and mothers of men and 
 almost equally impossible to make them realize their re- 
 sponsibility or care to use their strength. I would have 
 every woman feel herself a power for good in the .land 
 and if only half of them did, what a world of difference it 
 would make to everybody's health and happiness I But 
 women should, as a rule, be silent powers. There are, of 
 course, occasions when they must speak and all honor to 
 those who do so when the need arises but our influence is
 
 IDEALA. 17 
 
 most felt when it is quietly persistent and unobtrusive. 
 There is no social reform that we might not accomplish if 
 we agreed among ourselves to do it, and then worked each 
 of us using her influence to that end in her own family, 
 tmd among her own friends, only. I once induced some 
 ladies to try a littie experiment to prove this. At that time 
 the gentlemen of our respective families were all wearing 
 a certain kiud of neck-tie. We agreed to banish the neck- 
 tie, and in a month it had disappeared, and not one of those 
 gentlemen was ever able to tell us why he ha4 given it up. 
 We don't deserve much credit for our ingenuity, though," 
 she added, lightly. " Men are so easily managed. All you 
 have to do is to feed them and flatter them." 
 
 " I think that hardly fair," I commented. 
 
 " What ? The feeding and flattering ? " 
 
 " No, the conspiracy." 
 
 "Well, that occurred to me, too afterward, when it 
 was too late to do anything but repent. At the time, I 
 own, I thought of nothing but the success of the experi- 
 ment as-an example and proof of our will-power." 
 
 "You considered one side of the subject only, as per 
 usual, when you are eager and interested," I softly insinu- 
 ated. 
 
 She frowned at me thoughtfully ; then, after a pause, 
 she resumed : 
 
 " Ah, yes ! You may be sure there is a great deal of 
 good motive-power in women, but most of it is lost for 
 want of knowledge and means to apply it. It works like 
 the sails of a wind-mill not attached to the machinery, 
 which whirl round arid round with incredible velocity and 
 every evidence of strength, but serve no better purpose 
 than to show which way the wind blows." 
 
 This question of the position of women in our own* day 
 occupied her a good deal. 
 
 " The women of my time," she said to me once, " are in 
 an unsettled state, it may be a state of transition. Much 
 that made life worth having has lost its charm for them.
 
 18 IDE ALA. 
 
 The old interests pall upon them. Occupations that used 
 to be the great business of their lives are now thought 
 trivial, and are left to children and to servants. Princi- 
 ples accepted since the beginning of time have been called 
 in question. Weariness and distrust have taken the place 
 of peace and content, and doubt and dissatisfaction are 
 the order of the day. Women want something ; they are 
 determined to have it, too ; and doubtless they would get 
 it if only they knew what it is that they want. They are 
 struggling to arrive at something, but opinions differ 
 widely as to what that something ought to be ; and the re- 
 sult is that they have divided themselves into three classes, 
 not exactly distinct ; they dovetail into one another so 
 nicoly that it is hard to say where the influence of the one 
 set ends and the other begins. There are, first of all, the 
 women who in their struggles for political power have 
 done so much to unsex us. They have tried to force them- 
 selves into unnatural positions, and the consequence has 
 been about as pleasing and edifying as an attempt to make 
 a goose sing. They clamor for change, mistaking change 
 for progress. But don't let the puzzling dovetail confuse 
 you. The people I speak of are not those who have so 
 nobly devoted themselves to the removal of the wrongs of 
 women, though they work together. But the object of 
 all this class is good. They wish to raise us, and what 
 they want, for the most part, is a little more common 
 sense aa is shown in their system of education, for in- 
 stance, which cultivates the intellectual at the expense of 
 the physical. powers, girls being crammed as boys (to their 
 great let and hindrance also) are crammed, just when 
 nature wants all their strength to assist their growth ; the 
 result of which becomes periodically apparent when a 
 number of amiable young ladies are let loose on society 
 without hair or teeth. But the thing they clamor for most 
 is equality. There is a great deal to be said in favor of 
 placing the sexes on an equal footing, and if social conven- 
 tions are stronger and more admirable than natural in.~
 
 IDEALA. 19 
 
 stincts and doubtless they are the thing should be done; 
 but the innate perversity of women makes it difficult for, 
 I know this : that whatever the position of a true woman, 
 and however much she may clamor for equality with men 
 in general, the man she herself loves in particular will 
 always be her master. 
 
 " But such ridicule as this party has brought upon itself 
 would not have mattered so much had nothing worse come 
 of it. Unfortunately, there seems to be no neutral ground 
 for us women : we either do good or harm; and I hold that 
 first class responsible for the existence of those people who 
 clamor for change of any kind, regardless of tfie conse- 
 quences. Their ideas, shorn of all good intention, have 
 resulted in the production of a new creature, and have 
 made it possible for women who have the faults of both 
 sexes and the virtues of neither to mix in society. The 
 bad work done by the influence of this second class is only 
 too apparent. It is to them we owe the fact that there is 
 less refinement, less courtesy, less of the really good breed- 
 ing which shows itself in kindness and consideration for 
 others, and, Heaven help us ! even less modesty among us 
 now than there was some years ago. 
 
 "These are the women, too, who spend their time and 
 talents on the production of cleverly written books of the 
 most corrupt tendency. Their works are a special feature 
 of the age, and are doubly dangerous because tney have 
 the art of making the worst ideas attractive, by presenting 
 them in forms too refined and beautiful to shock even the 
 most delicate. 
 
 " Besides these two classes, there is the third, which is 
 more difficult to define. It is the one on which our hope 
 rests. The women who belong to it are dissatisfied like 
 the others, but they are less decided, and therefore their 
 dissatisfaction takes no positive shape. They also want 
 something, and go this way and that as if in search of it, 
 but they are not really trying for anything in particular. 
 They do good and evil indiscriminately, and for the
 
 20 1DEALA. 
 
 motive : they find distraction in doing something any- 
 thing. But the desire to do good is latent in all of them : 
 show them the way, and it will make itself apparent." 
 
 "But what is the reason of all this dissatisfaction?" I 
 asked. " Why don't you go to your husbands and brothers 
 to be set right, as of old ?" 
 
 ".Ah ! when you ask me that, you get to the first cause 
 of the trouble," she answered. "The truth is, that w,e 
 have lost faith in our men. They claim some superiority 
 for themselves, but we find none. The age requires people 
 to practice what they preach, and yet expects us to be 
 guided by the counsels of those whose own lives, we know, 
 have rendered them contemptible. They are not fit to 
 guide us, and we are not fit to go alone. I suppose we 
 shall come to an understanding eventually either they 
 must be raised or we must be lowered. It is for the death 
 of manliness we women mourn. We marry, and find we 
 have taken upon ourselves misery, and life-long widoxvhood 
 of the mind and moral nature. Do you wonder that some 
 of us ask : Why should we keep ourselves pure if impurity 
 is to be our bed-fellow ? You make us breathe corruption, 
 and wonder that we lose our health." 
 
 "But why do you talk of. the death of manliness? 
 Men have as much courage now as they ever had." 
 
 " Oh, of course mere animal courage; there is plenty 
 of that, but that is nothing. A cat will fight for her kit- 
 tens. It is moral courage that makes a man, and where 
 do you find it now? Are men self-denying? Are they 
 scrupulous to a shadow of the truth? Are they disinter- 
 ested? How many gentlemen have you met in the course 
 of your life ? I know about half a dozen." 
 
 "What do you call a gentlemen, then?" I asked, in 
 surprise. " What make's a man one ?" 
 
 "Why, truth n, of course," she answered; 
 
 "the one is the nioac ennobling and the other the most 
 refining quality. As a child I used to think ladies and 
 gentlemen never told stories ; it was only the common
 
 IDEALA. 31 
 
 people who were dishonorable, and that was what made 
 them common. Helas ! one lives and learns." 
 
 " I don't think the world is worse than it ever was," I 
 said dryly. 
 
 "Not worse, when we know so much better," she an- 
 swered, with scorn. "Not worse, when we have learned 
 to see so clearly, and most of us acknowledge that 
 
 It is our will 
 Which thus enchains us to permitted ill ! 
 
 It is nearly two thousand years since Christianity began 
 its work, and it is still unaccomplished. Do you kuow, I 
 sometimes think that all this talk of virtue, and teaching 
 of religion, is a kind of practical joke, gravely kept up to 
 find a church parade of respectability for states, a profes- 
 sion for hundreds, and a means of influencing men by 
 making a tender point in their nervous system to be 
 touched, as with a rod, when necessary a rod that is held 
 over them always in terrorem. We all talk about morality; 
 but try sorae measure of reform, and you will find that 
 every man sees the necessity of it for his neighbor only. 
 Goodness is happiness, and sin is disease. The truism is as 
 old as the hills, and as evident; but if men were in earnest 
 do you suppose they would go on forever choosing sin and 
 its ghastly companion as they do? Do you know, there 
 are moments when I think that even their reverence for 
 the parity of women is a sham. For why do they keep us 
 pure? ~ Is it not to make each morsel more delicious for 
 themselves, that sense and sentiment may be satisfied 
 together, and their own pleasure made more complete ? 
 Individuals may be in earnest, but the great bulk cf man- 
 kind is a hypocrite. When the history of this age is written* 
 moral cowardice and self-indulgence will be found to have 
 been the most striking characteristics of the people. There 
 is no truth to be found in the inward parts." 
 
 But Ideala did not often adopt this tone, and she would 
 herself check other people who were preparing to assume
 
 22 IDEALA. 
 
 it. She had a favorite quotation, adroitly mangled, to suit 
 such occasions. 
 
 " When we begin to inculcate morality as a science, va 
 must, discard moralizing as a method," she declared; and 
 she would also beg us to stop the hysteria. "It is the 
 mortal malady of all well-beloved measures," she said; "and 
 it spreads to an epidemic if the affected ones are not sup- 
 pressed at once to prevent contagion." 
 
 But, although she spoke so positively when taken out of 
 herself by the interest and importance of a subject, she 
 had no very high opinion of her own judgment and power 
 to decide. A little more self-esteam would have been 
 good for her ; she was too diffident. 
 
 " I have not come across people on whose know ledge I 
 could rely," she told me. " I have been obliged to study 
 alone, and to form my opinions for myself out of such 
 scraps of information as I have had the capacity to acquire 
 from reading and observation. I am, therefore, always 
 prepared to find myself mistaken, even when I am surest 
 about a thing for 
 
 What am I? 
 
 An infant crying in the night : 
 An infant crying for the light : 
 And with no language but a cry !" 
 
 In practice, too, she frequently, albeit unconsciously, 
 diverged from her theories to some considerable extent ; as 
 on one occasion, when, after talking long and earnestly of 
 the sin of selfishness, she absently picked up a paper I had 
 just cut with intent to enjoy myself, took it away with her 
 to the drawing-room, and sat on it for the rest of the 
 morning as I afterward heard. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IDEALA held that dignity and calm are essential in a 
 woman, but, like the rest of the world, she found it hard to 
 attain to her own standard of cxi-f Hence. Her bursrs of 
 ere followed by fits of depression, and these
 
 IDEAL A. 23 
 
 again by pcriccl?of indifference, when it was hard to rousa 
 her to interest in anything. She always said, and was 
 probably right, that want of proper discipline in childhood, 
 was the reason of this variableness, which sh'3 drplorod, 
 but could neither comhat nor conceal. Temperament must 
 also have had something to do with it. Her nervous sys- 
 tem was too highly strung ; she was too sensitive, too 
 emotional, too intense. She reflected phases of feeling 
 with which she was brought into contact as a lake reflects 
 the sky above it, and the bird that skims across it. arid the 
 boats that rest upon its breast ; yet, like the lake's, h.pr 
 own nature remained unchangpd ; it might be darkened 
 by shadows, and lashed by tempests till it r^iged, but the 
 pure element showed divinely, even in its wrath, and the 
 passion of it was expended always to some good end. 
 
 But even her love of the beautiful was earned to excess. 
 It was a passion with her which would, in a sturdier age, 
 have been considered a vice. She delighted in the scent of 
 flowers, the song of the thrushes m the spring, color, and 
 beautiful forms. Doubtless the emotion they caused her 
 was pure enough, and it was natural that, highly bred, 
 cultivated, and refined as she was, she should feel these 
 delicate, sensuous pleasures in a greater degree than lower 
 natures do. There was danger, however, in the overeduca- 
 tion of the senses, which made their ready response inevi- 
 table, but neither limited the subjects, nor regulated the 
 degree, to which they should respond. But it would be hard 
 in any case to say where cultivation of love for the beauti- 
 ful should end, and to determine the exact point at which 
 the result ceases to be intellectual and begins to be sensual. 
 
 I have sat and watched Ideala lolling at an open window- 
 in the summer. The house stood on a hill, a rivpr wound 
 through the valley below, and beyond the river the <imd 
 sloped up again, green and dotted with trees, to a range of 
 low hills, crested with a fringe of wood. 
 
 Do you know what there is beyond those hills?" Ideala 
 HB&ed me once, abruptly. " J don't know ; but I love to
 
 24 IDEALA. 
 
 believe that the sea is there, and that the sun is sinking 
 into it now. Sometimes I fancy I can hear it murmur." 
 
 And then followed a long silence. And the scent of 
 mignonette and roses blew in upon her, and the twilight 
 deepened, and I saw her grow pale with pleasure when the 
 nightingale began to sing and then I stole away and never 
 was mis-ed. 
 
 She would lie in a long-chair for hours like that, scarcely 
 moving, and never speaking. At first I used to wonder 
 what she thought about ; but afterward I knew that at 
 such times she did not think, she only felt. 
 
 I have some pictures of her as she was then, dressed in 
 a gown of some quaint blue and white Japanese material, 
 with her white throat bare I was just going to catalogue 
 her charms, but it seems indelicate to describe a woman, 
 point by point, like a horse that is for sale. I have some 
 other pictures of her, too, as she appeared to me one hot 
 summer when I was painting a picture by the river, and 
 she used to come down the towing path to watch me work, 
 and sit beside me on the grass for hours together, talking, 
 reading aloud, reciting, or silent, according to her mood, 
 but always interesting. It was then I learned to know her 
 best. And I am always glad to think of her as I used to 
 see her then, coming toward me in one particular gray 
 frock she wore, tight fitting and perfect, yet with no detail 
 evident. It was like an expression of herself, that dress, 
 so quiet to ail seeming, and yet so rich in material, and so 
 complex in design. The wonder ami the beauty of it 
 grew upon you, and never failed of its eil'oct. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHEN I first knew Ideala her religious opinions were all 
 unsettled 
 
 " I neither believe nor disbelieve," she told me ; " I am 
 
 in a state of don't know ; or perhaps it would be more ex- 
 
 i act to say that I both doubt and believe at one and the
 
 IDE ALA. 25 
 
 eame time. T go indifferently to either church, Protestant 
 or Catholic, and am thankful when any note of music, or 
 thrill of feeling in the voice, or noble sentiment, elevates 
 me so that I can pray. But I am told that both Catholics 
 and Protestants consider me a weak waverer, and call me 
 incorrigible. Sometimes I can not pray for months to- 
 gether, and when I do it is generally to ask for something 
 I want, not to praise or give thanks. But what a blank 
 it is when one can not pray ; when one has lost the power 
 to conceive that there is a something greater than man, to 
 whom man is nevertheless all in all, and to whom we may 
 look for comfort in all times of our tribulation, and for 
 sympathy in all times of our wealth I To be able to give 
 thanks to God when one is happy ia the most rapturous, 
 and to be able to call upon Him in the day of trouble is the 
 most blessed, state of mind I know. Yet I believe we should 
 only pray for the possible. The leafless tree may pray for 
 the time of tyids and blossoms ; will the time come the 
 sooner ? Perhaps not , but it will come." 
 
 " I must confess," she said, on another occasion, " that I 
 do have moments of pure skepticism ; but when I can not 
 believe in the existence of a God and a beyond, I feel as if 
 /he sky were nearer, and weighed upon me, so -that I could 
 not lift my head." 
 
 She thought religion consisted much more in doing right 
 than in believing right, and set morality above faith ; but 
 I think she had a leaning toward the Eoman Catholic re- 
 ligion nevertheless. 
 
 " It is a grand old faith," she said, " only it has certain 
 ramifications with which I should always quarrel, notably 
 that of the Sacred Heart with which Catholics deface their 
 lovely Lady in the churches. I always feel that such bad 
 art can not be good religion. When the Roman Catholic 
 religion commanded respect it expressed itself better as in 
 the days when it carved itself in harmonies of solid stone, 
 and wrote itself in tint and tone on glowing canvases, and 
 learned to speak in thundering mass and mighty hymns of
 
 26 IDEALA. 
 
 praise I There are people who think these new shoots pood 
 as a sign of life in the tree, and this consideration might 
 perhaps make their appearance welcome ; but a great deal 
 of strength is expended on their production, and it would 
 be just as well to lop them off again. The old tree wants 
 pruning and cutting back occasionally, and it is a false 
 sentiment that is letting it fall to decay for the sake of 
 these struggling branches. 
 
 " There is another thing, too, for which we should all 
 quarrel with the Catholic religion. I think the fact has 
 already been noticed by some writer ; at all events it is 
 evident enough to have occurred to any one. I mean the 
 fact that the Church, by its narrow views about education, 
 and its most unspiritual ambition for itself, has retarded 
 the world's progress for centuries by interfering with the 
 law of natural selection. As a matter of course, for ages 
 all the best men went into the Church ; it was the only 
 career open to them ; and so they left no descendants." 
 
 At our house, on another occasion, when the Roman 
 Catholic religion happened to be under discussion, she 
 launched forth some observations in her usual emphatic way. 
 There were only two strangers present, a lady and her hus- 
 band. Ideala asked the lady, who was-sitting next to her, 
 if she were a Catholic, to which the lady answered, " No " ; 
 and Ideala, satisfied, proceeded to remark : 
 
 " It may be the true religion, but it certainly is not the 
 religion of truth. The doctrine of expediency, or the lati- 
 tude they allow themselves on the score of expediency I 
 don't quite know how they put it but it has much to 
 answer for. I never find that my Roman Catholic friends 
 are true, as my Protestant friends are. There is always a 
 something kept back, a reservation ; a want of straightfor- 
 wardness, even when there is no positive deception I can't 
 describe the thing I mean, but it is quite perceptible, and 
 causes an uneasy feeling of distrust, which is all the more 
 tormenting from its vagueness and want of definition. The 
 low-class Roman Catholics, I llnd, never hesitate if a lie
 
 IDEALA. 27 
 
 will serve their purpose ; and Roman Catholic servants are 
 notoriously untrustworthy. That, of course, proves nothing , 
 for one knows that low-class people of any religion are not 
 to be depended on still, there is no doubt that one finds 
 deception more rife among Catholics than among Protest- 
 ants, and one wonders why, if the religion is riot to blame.'- 
 
 My sister, Claudia, had tried to catch Ideala's eye, and 
 stop her, but in vaia ; and the lady next her broke out the 
 moment she paused : 
 
 ' ' Indeed, you are quite wrong. You can not have known 
 many Catholics. They are not untrue." 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I have knovn numbers," Ideala answered ; " I 
 speak from experience. Yet it always seems to me that the 
 Roman Catholic religion is good for individuals. There is 
 pleasure in it. and help and comfort for them. But then it 
 is death to the progress of nations, and the question is . 
 Would an individual be justified in adding a unit more for 
 his own benefit to a system which would ruin his country ? 
 I think not." 
 
 Here, however, she stopped, seeing at last that something 
 was wrong. 
 
 "What dreadful mistake did I make this evening?" she 
 asked me. afterward. " Mrs. Jervois declared she wasn't 
 a Catholic ." 
 
 " But her husband is," I answered ; " and he heard every 
 word." 
 
 Ideala groaned. 
 
 Not long afterwaru TIrs. Jervois wrote and told us she 
 had entered the Catholic Church. 
 
 " I had, in fact, been received before I went to you," 
 she confessed. 
 
 " Thera ! " Ideala exclaimed. " It is just what I said. A 
 want of common honesty is a part of the religion ; and you 
 see she had begun to practice it while she was here." 
 
 " What an eternal lie it is they preach when they tell us 
 life is not worth having," she said to me once, speaking of 
 preachers generally. ' ' I have heard an oleosaccharine priest
 
 28 IDEALA 
 
 preach for an hour on this subject, detailing the worthless- 
 ness of all earthly pleasures, with which he seemed to be 
 intimately acquainted his appearance making one suspect 
 that he had not even yet exhausted them all himself and 
 giving a florid account of the glories of the life to come, 
 about which he appeared to know as much but to care less; 
 just as if heaven might not begin on earth if only men 
 would let it." 
 
 One day I had to warn her about acting so often on im- 
 pulse. She heard what I had to say very good-naturedly, 
 and after thinking about it for a while, she said : 
 
 " "What a pity it is one never sees an impulse coming. 
 It is impossible to know whether they arise from below, or 
 descend from above. I always find if I act on one that it 
 has arisen ; and as surely if I leave it alone it proves to 
 have been a good opportunity lost. And how curiously 
 our thoughts go on, often so irrespective of ourselves. I 
 was in a Roman Catholic church the other day, and the 
 priest a friend of mine, who looks like the last of the 
 Mohicans minus the feathers in his hair ; but a good man, 
 with nice, soft, velvety brown eyes preached most im- 
 prrssively. He told us that the Lord was there there on 
 that very altar, ready to answer our prayers ; and, oh, 
 dear ! when I came to think of it, there were so many of 
 my prayers waiting to be answered ! I ' felt like ' present- 
 ing the n all over again, it seemed such a good opportunity. 
 And then they sung the ' O salutaris Hostia' divinely so 
 divinely that I thought if the Lord really had been there He 
 would certainly have made them sing it again and I could 
 not pray any more after that. You call this rank irrever- 
 ence, do you not ? J do. And I wish I had not thought it. 
 Yet it was one of those involuntary tricks of the mind for 
 which I can not believe that we are to be held responsible. 
 The61ogians would say it was a temptation of the devil, 
 but they are wrong. The first cause of these mental lapses 
 is to be found in some habit of levity, acquired young, and 
 not easily got rid of, but still not hopeless. But prevention
 
 IDEALA 2* 
 
 is better than cure, and children should be taught right- 
 mindedness early. I wish I had been. Happy is the child 
 who is started hi life with a set of fixed principles, and 
 the power to respect." 
 
 I used to wish that there might be universal religion, but 
 Ideala did not share my feeling on this subject. 
 
 " I suppose it is a fine idea," rhe said ; " but while minds 
 run in so many different grooves, it seems to me far finer 
 for one system of morality to have found expressions enough 
 to satisfy nearly everybody." 
 
 She had very decided views about what heaven ought to 
 be. 
 
 "The mere material notion of abundance of gold and 
 precious stones, which appealed to the early churchmen, 
 has no charm for us," she declared. " We must have new 
 powers of perception, and new pleasures provided for us, 
 such, for instance, as Mr. Andrew Lang suggests in an 
 exquisite little poem about the Homeric Phsecia the land 
 whose inhabitants were friends of the gods, a sort of heaven 
 upon earth." 
 
 And then she quoted : 
 
 The languid sunset, mother of roses, 
 
 Lingers, a light on the magic seas ; 
 The wide fire flames as a flower uncloses ; 
 
 Heavy with odor and loose to the breeze. 
 
 # -..'# * 
 
 The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing, 
 
 Heard afar over moonlit seas ; 
 The siren's song, grown faint with winging, 
 
 Falls in scent on the cedar-trees. 
 
 "Those lines were the first to make me grasp the possi- 
 bility of having new faculties added to our old ones in an- 
 other state of existence," she said, " faculties which should 
 give us a deeper insight into the nature of things, and en- 
 able us to discover new pleasures in the unity which may 
 be expected to underlie beauty and excellence in all their 
 manifestations, as Mr. Norman Pearson puts it. Did you 
 ever read that paper of his, * After Death,' in the ' Nine-
 
 80 IDEALA. 
 
 teenth Century ' ? I-t embodies what I had long felt, but 
 could never grasp before I found his admirable expression 
 of it. ' I can see no reason,' he says, in one passage in 
 particular, which I remember word for word, I think ; it 
 gives me such pleasure to recall it' I can see no reason 
 for supposing that some such insight would be impossible 
 to the quickened faculties of a higher development. With 
 a nature material" so far as the existence of those faculties 
 might require, but spiritual to the highest degree in their 
 exercise and enjoyment ; under physical conditions which 
 might render us practically independent of space, and 
 actually free from the host of physical evils to which we 
 are now exposed, we might well attain a consummation of 
 happiness, generally akin to that for which we now strive, 
 but idealized into something like perfection. The faculties 
 which would enable us to obtain a deeper and truer view 
 of all the manifestations of cosmic energy would at the 
 same time reveal to us new forms of beauty, new possi- 
 bilities of pleasure on every side ; and to take a single in- 
 stancethe emotions to which the sight of Niagara now 
 appeals might then be gratified by a contemplation of the 
 fierce grandeur of some sun's chromosphere or the calmer 
 glories of its corona.' That satisfies , does it not ?" she added r 
 with a sigh. " It suggests such infinite possibilities." 
 
 One day, when she was making herself miserable for 
 want of a religion, I tried to comfort her by talking of the 
 different people whose lives had been good, and pure, and 
 ncble, although they had had no faith. 
 
 "I suppose my principles are right," she said; "but if 
 they are, they have come right by accident. The children 
 of the people are sent to Sunday-schools, and taught the 
 difference between right and wrong ; we seem to be expect- 
 ed to know it instinctively. I think if I had learned I 
 might have profited, because I cling so fondly to the one 
 principle I ever heard clearly enunciated. It was on the
 
 IDEA LA. 31 
 
 sin of shooting foxes ; and I can not tell you the horror I 
 have of the crime, even down to the present day. But, 
 now I think of it, I did receive two other scraps of religious 
 training. My governess taught me the Ten Command- 
 ments by making me say them after her when I was eat- 
 ing bread and sugar for breakfast, before going to church 
 on Sunday. The thouc lit of them always brings back the 
 flavor of bread and sugar. And the other scrap I got from 
 a clergyman to whom I was sent on a single occasion when 
 I was thought old enough to be confirmed. He asked me 
 which was the commandment with promise, and I didn't 
 know, so he told mo ; and then I made him laugn about a 
 horse of mine that used to have great fun trying to break 
 my neck, and after that he said I should do. I did not 
 agree with him, hov7, ver, and I positively refused to be 
 confirmed until I knew more about it. My mother said I 
 was the most disagreeable child she had ever known, which 
 was probably true, but as v n argument it failed to con- 
 vince. It was her last remark on the subject, happily, and 
 after that the tiling was allowed to drop." 
 
 Ideala was fourteen when she refused to be confirmed, 
 for conscientious scruples, and although she made light of 
 it in this way, she had suffered a good deal and been severe- 
 ly punished at the time for her refusal, but vainly, for she 
 never gave in. 
 
 Li after-life she held, of course, that Christianity was the 
 highest moral revelacion the world had ever known ; but 
 when she saw that legal right was not always moral right, 
 I think she begau to look for a higher. 
 
 By baptism she belonged to the Church of England, but 
 she seems to have thought of the sacrament always with 
 the idea of transubstantiation in her mind. She spoke of 
 it reverently, but had never been able to take it, and for a 
 curious reason : she said the idea of it nauseated her. She 
 felt that the elements were unnatural food, and therefore 
 she could not touch them ana ibis feeling never left her 
 bat once, when she was dangerously ill, and yearned, as
 
 S2 IDEALA. 
 
 she told me, for the sacrament more than for life and 
 health. Day and night the longing never left her ; but, 
 not having; been confirmed, sh3 did not like to ask for it, 
 and as she recovered, the old feeling gradually returned. 
 
 Religious difficulties always tormented her more or less. 
 As she grew older she felt, with Shelley, that belief is in- 
 voluntary, and a man is neither to be praised nor blamed 
 for it ; and she was always ready to acknowledge with Sir 
 Philip Sidney that " Reason can not show itself more rea- 
 sonable than to leave reasoning on things above reason"; 
 but nevertheless her mind did not rest. 
 
 I have also heard her quote, " Credulity is the man's 
 weakness, but the child's strength," and add that in mat- 
 ters of faith and religion we are all children, and I have 
 thought at tines that she had been able to leave it so ; but 
 something always fell from her sooner or later which 
 showed that the old trouble was rankling still as when 
 she told me once : " I have never heard the Divine voice 
 which his called you and all my friends. I listen for it, 
 but it does not speak. I call, but there is no reply. 1 
 wait, but it does not come. The heaven of heavens is 
 dark to me, and the yearning of my soul meets no re- 
 sponse. Will it be so forever ?" 
 
 No, not forever but she was led by tortuous ways, and 
 left to work out her own salvation in very fear arid trem- 
 bling, till the dear human love was given to her in pity to 
 help her to know something of that which is Divine. And 
 then, I hope, above the trouble 6f her senses, and the tur- 
 moil of the world, the Divine voice did call her, and she 
 was able at last to hear. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IDEALA often recurred to the subject of work for women. 
 
 " There aie so inauy thousands of us/' she said, " who 
 have no object in life, and nothing to make us take it seri- 
 ous. My own is a case in point. I am not necessary,
 
 IDEALA. 33 
 
 even to my husband. There is nothing I am bound to do 
 for him, or that he requires of me, nothing but to be 
 agreeable when he is with me, which would not interfere 
 'with a serious occupation if I had one, and is scarcely 
 interest enough in life for an energetic woman. My 
 household duties take, on an average, half an hour a day ; 
 and everything in our house is done regularly, and well 
 done. My social duties maybe got through at odd mo- 
 ments, and the more of a pastime I make them the better 
 I fulfill them ; and, with the exception of these, there is 
 nothing in my life that I can not have done for me by 
 some one better able to do it than I am. And even if I 
 had children I should not be much more occupied, for the 
 thin<rs they ought to learn from their mothers are best 
 taught by example. For all practical purposes, parents, 
 as a rule, are bad masters for any but very young children. 
 They err on the side of over-severity, or the reverse. So, 
 you see, I have no obligations of consequence, and there is, 
 therefore, nothing in my life to inspire a sense of respon- 
 sibility. And all this seems to me a grievous waste of Me. 
 I remember Lord Wensum telling me, when we discussed 
 this subject, that he was traveling once with a well-known 
 editor, and, noticing the number of villas that had sprung 
 up of late years along the whole line of rail they were on, 
 he said : ' I wonder what the ladies in those villas do with 
 their time ? I suppose their social duties are limited, and 
 they are too well off to be obliged to trouble themselves 
 about anything.' ' It is the existence of those villas,' the 
 editor answered, ' that makes the present profession of the 
 novelist possible.' But I think," said Ideala, " that those 
 women might find something better to do than to make a 
 profession for novelists/' 
 
 " But you do a good deal yourself, Ideala," I ventured. 
 
 " Yes, in a purposeless way. All my acts are isolated ; 
 it would make little difference if they had never been 
 done.'' 
 
 "Then you are not content, after all, to be merely a
 
 84 IDEALA. 
 
 poem?" I said, maliciously. "You would like to do as 
 well as to be ?" 
 
 She laughed. Then, after a little, she said earnestly : 
 
 " Do you know, I always feel as if I could do something 
 teach something or help others in a small way with 
 some work of importance. I never believe I was born just 
 to live and die. But I have a queer feeling about it. I atn 
 sure I shall be made to go down into some great depth of 
 sin and misery myself, in order to learn what it is I have 
 to teach." 
 
 She loved music, and painting, and poetry, and science, 
 and none of her loves were barren. She embraced them 
 each in turn with an ardor that resulted in the production 
 of an offspring a song, a picture, a poem, or book on some 
 most serious subject, and all worthy of note. But she was 
 inconstant, and these children of her thought or fancy were 
 generally isolated efforts that marked the culminating 
 point of her devotion, and lessened her interest if they did 
 not exhaust her strength. 
 
 Perhaps, though, I wrong her when I call her inconstant. 
 It seems to me now that each new interest was a step by 
 which she mounted upward, learning to sympathize prac- 
 tically and perfectly with all men in their work as she 
 passed them on her way to find her own. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SHE knew the poor of the place well, and took a lively 
 Interest in all that concerned them ; and occasionally she 
 would confide some of her own odd observations and reflec- 
 tions to me. 
 
 " On Sunday morning all the women wash their door- 
 steps," she told me ;" I think it is part of their religion." 
 
 And on another occasion she said : 
 
 " They have such lovely children here, and such swarms 
 of them, I am always hard on the women with lovely chil- 
 dren. People say it is envy, hatred, malice, and all un-
 
 IDEALA. 35 
 
 charitableness, that makes me so : but it really is because 
 I think women who have nice children should be better 
 than other women. It would be worse for one of them to 
 do a wrong thing than for poor childless me." 
 
 This conclusion may be quarreled with as illogical, but 
 the feeling that led to it was beautiful beyond question ; 
 and, indeed, all her ideas on that subject were beautiful. 
 
 She went once, soon after she came among us, to comfort 
 a ladv in the neighborhood who had lost a baby at its birth. 
 
 " It is sad that you should lose your child," Ideala said 
 to her ; " but you are better off than I am, for I never 
 knew what it was to be a mother." 
 
 She would have thought it a privilege to have experi- 
 enced even the sorrows of maternity. 
 
 Talking about the people, she told me : 
 
 " They draw such nice distinction?. They speak of c a 
 lady' and 'a real lady.' A 'real lady' is a person who 
 gives no trouble. If Mrs. Vanbrugh wants anything from 
 the butcher, and he has already sent to her house once that 
 day, she does not expect him to send again ; she sends to 
 him and she is ' a real lady.' Mrs. Stanton is also thought- 
 ful, but she is something more ; she is sociable and kind, 
 and talks to them all in a friendly way, just as if they were 
 human beings ; and she is something more than a real 
 lady 'she's ' a real nice lady.' 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Polter, at the fish-shop ? What a 
 fine- looking woman she is ! Middle-aged, intelligent, and 
 a very good specimen of her class, I should think. She 
 has eight children already, and would consider the ninth a 
 further blessing. Her husband is a good-looking man, 
 too, and most devoted. In fact, they are quite an ideal 
 pair with their eight children and their fish shop. He had 
 to go to Yarmouth the other day to buy bloaters, and 
 while he was away she went by the five o'clock train every 
 morning to choose the day's supply of fish for the shop, 
 and he was quite unhappy about it. He was afraid she 
 would ' overdo ' herself, and rather than that should happen,
 
 38 IDEALA. 
 
 he desired her to let the business go to the ahem ! He 
 made her write every day to say how she was, and was 
 wretched till he returned to relieve her of her arduous duties. 
 She made friends with me during the scarlet-fever epidemic. 
 Number eight was a baby then, and she was afraid he might 
 catch the disease and be taken to the hospital and die for 
 want of her ; and I sympathized strongly with her denun- 
 ciations of the cruelty of the act. Fancy taking little babies 
 from their mothers ! Barbarous, don't you think it ? One 
 day a lady came into the shop while I was there. She was 
 dressed in a bright pink costume, with a large hat all smoth- 
 ered in pink f Bathers. I thought of the Queen of Sheba, and 
 felt alarmed. Mrs. Polter told me afterward she was 'just a 
 lady,' rolling in recently acquired wealth, and 'as hard to 
 please as if she had never washed her own doorstep. It was 
 then I learned the difference between ' a lady' and ' a real 
 lady.' " 
 
 One of Ideala's exploits got into the paper somehow, and 
 she was annoyed about it, and anxious to make us believe 
 the account of the risk she ran had been greatly exagger- 
 ated. I was present when she gave her own version of the 
 story, which was characteristic in every way. 
 
 " I heard frantic cries from the river," she said. " Some 
 one was shrieking, ' The child will be drowned 1 ' and I ran 
 to see what was the matter. A man was tearing up and 
 down on the bank, a child was struggling in the water, and 
 as there was nobody else to be seen, he looked to me for as- 
 sistance I advised him to go in and bring the child out, but 
 the idea did not appear to commend itself to him, so he took 
 to running up and down again, bawling, ' The child will be 
 drowned I ' And indeed it seemed very likely ; so I was 
 obliged to \jo in and bring it out myself. The man was over- 
 joyed when I restoredit to him. He clasped it in his arms 
 with every demonstration of affection ; and then he looked 
 at me and became embarrassed. He evidently felt that he 
 ought to say something, but the difficulty was what to say. 
 At last a bright idea seemed to strike him. His countenance
 
 IDEALA. 87 
 
 cleared, and he spoke with much feeling. ' I am afraid you 
 are rather wet,' he observed ; aud then he left me, and a 
 sympathetic landlady, who keeps a little public-house by the 
 river, and had witnessed the occurrence, took me in and 
 dried me. She gave me whi-ky and hot water, and enter- 
 tained me for the rest of the afternoon. She is a remarka- 
 ble woman, and I should visit her often were it not for her 
 love of, and faith in, whisky and hot water. I told her there 
 are five things which make the nose red viz., cold, tight- 
 lacing, disease of the right side of the heart, dyspepsia, and 
 alcohol, and the greatest of these is alcohol ; but she says 
 a little color anywhere would be an improvement to me, and 
 I feel that I can have nothing in common with a woman 
 who has such bad taste in the distribution of color." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IDEALA'S notions of propriety were altogether unconven- 
 tional. She never could be made to understand that it was 
 not the proper thing to talk familiarly to any one she met, 
 and discuss any subject they were equal to with them. 
 
 " It is good for people to talk, and natural, and therefore 
 proper," she said, " If I can give pleasure to a stranger by 
 doing so, cr he can give pleasure to me, it would not be 
 right to keep silent." 
 
 She carried this idea of her duty to her neighbor rather 
 far sometimes. 
 
 I remember her telling me once about two old gentlemen 
 she liad traveled with the day before. 
 
 " The sun came in and bothered me, and one of them 
 offered to draw the blind," she said, " and he remarked it 
 was rather a treat to see the sun, we have so little of it 
 now ; and I said that was true, and told him how I pitied 
 the farmers. I had to stay in my room the other day with 
 a bad cold, and I amused myself watching one of them at 
 work in some fields opposite. The state of his mind was 
 expressed by his boots. On Monday the sun was shining,
 
 88 IDEALA. 
 
 the air was mild, and it seemed as if we were going to have 
 a continuance of fine weather, and the farmer appeared of 
 a cheerful countenance, and his boots were polished and 
 laced. On Tuesday there was an east wind, veering south, 
 with showers, and his boots were laced, but not polished. 
 On Wednesday there was fros^, fog and gloom, and they 
 were neither laced nor polished. On Thursday there was 
 a snowstorm, and he had no boots at all on ; and after 
 that I did not see him, and I wondered if he had committed 
 suicide in which case I thought the jury might almost 
 have brought in a verdict of 'justifiable felo-de-se.' And 
 when I told that story the other old gentleman shut his 
 book, and began to talk, too. And I said I thought the 
 weather was much colder than it used to be, for I could 
 remember wearing muslin dresses in May, and I could not 
 wear them at all now ; but I did not know if the change 
 were in the climate or in myself perhaps a little of both 
 though, indeed, I knew that, to a certain extent, it was 
 in the climate, which had been very much altered in differ- 
 ent districts by drainage, and cutting, or planting altered 
 for the better, however, as a rule. And one old gentle- 
 man had heard that before, but did not understand it ex_ 
 actly, so I explained it to him ; and then I talked about 
 changes of climate in general, and the formation of beds 
 of coal, and the ice period, and sun spots, and the theory 
 of comets, and about my husband getting up to see the 
 last one, and going out in a felt hat and dressing-gown 
 with a bed-candle to look for it and about that dream of 
 mine, did I tell you? I dreamed the comet came into our 
 drawing-room, and the leg of a Chinese table turned into 
 a snake and snorted at it, and the comet looked so taken 
 aback that I woke myself with a shout of laughter. And 
 then we talked of popular superstitions about comets, and 
 dreams, and ghosts particularly ghosts, and I told a num- 
 ber of creepy stories, and one old gentleman pretended he 
 didn't believe in them, but he did, and so did the other 
 without Any pretense ; and we talked about Darwinism,
 
 IDEALA. 39 
 
 and the nature of the soul, and Nihilism, and the state of 
 societyand and a few other things. And they were 
 such dear, delightful old gentlemen, and they knew such 
 a lot, and were so clever ; and one of them was a railway 
 director, and the other couldn't let his farms, and was 
 bothered about his pheasants, and wanted to have the trains 
 altered to suit him. I should so like to meet them both 
 again." 
 
 " And how long did all this take, Ideala?" 
 
 " Oh, some hours. I fancy their dreams would be rather 
 confused last night," she added naively. 
 
 " Poor old gentlemen I" said I. 
 
 This sociability and inclination to talk the matter out, 
 and, I may say, a certain amount of innocence and lack of 
 worldly wisdom into the bargain, betrayed her occasionally 
 into small improprieties of conduct that were not to be 
 excused, and would possibly not have been forgiven in any 
 one but Ideala. But such things were allowed in her as 
 certain things were allowed ia certain people not because 
 the things are right in themselves, but because the people 
 who do them see no harm in them. There are people, too 
 who seem to enjoy the privilege of making wrong right by 
 doing it. Society, however, only accords this privilege to 
 a limited and distinguished few. 
 
 When Indala saw for herself that she had done an un- 
 justifiable thing, she was very ready to confess it. I always 
 fancied she had some latent idea of making atonement in 
 that way; It never mattered how much a story told against 
 herself, nor how much malicious people might make of it 
 to her discredit, she told all, inimitably, and with scrupu- 
 lous fidelity to fact. 
 
 One day she was standing waiting for a train at the sta- 
 tion at York, and in her absent way she fixed her eyes on 
 a gentleman who was walking about the platform. 
 
 Presently he went up to her, and, without any apology 
 r show of respect, remarked : 
 
 " I am sure I have seen you before."
 
 40 IDEALA. 
 
 "Probably," Ideala rejoined, as if the occurrence were 
 the most natural thing in the world, " but I do not remem- 
 ber you. Perhaps if I heard your name " 
 
 c Oh, I don't suppose you ever heard my name," he said. 
 
 " In that case I can never have known you," she an- 
 swered calmly. " I never know any one except by name. 
 I suppose you are an Englishman ? '* 
 
 " Yes," he said eagerly ; " I am in the Fifth " 
 
 " Ah, I thought so 1" she interrupted, placidly. " Eng- 
 lishmen in the Fifth, and some other regiments, are apt to 
 have but the one idea " 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " And that is a bad one." 
 
 He looked at her for a moment, and then, hat in hand, 
 he made her a low bow, and left her without another word. 
 
 " I think he felt ill, and went to have some refresh- 
 ment," she added, when she told me. 
 
 From what happened afterward, I am sure that at the 
 time she had no idea of the real significance of the position 
 in which she found herself placed on this occasion. But, 
 as a rule, if she did or said the wrong thing, she became 
 painfully conscious of the fact immediately afterward in- 
 deed, it was generally afterward that she grasped the full 
 meaning of most things. She was ready with repartee 
 without being in the least quick of understanding ; she had 
 to think things over, and even then she was not sure to do 
 the right thing next time. 
 
 " Mr. Graves is ten years younger than his wife," she 
 told me once, "and only fancy what I said one day. It 
 was in his studio, and she was there. I declared a woman 
 could have no sense of propriety at all who married a man 
 younger than herself that no good could possibly come of 
 such marriages and a lot more. Then I suddenly remem- 
 bered, and you can imagine my feelings. But what do 
 you think I did? I went there the next year, and said the 
 same thing again exactly I "
 
 tDEALA. 41 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 'WHEN we -were a small party of intimate friends, and 
 Ideala was quite at her ease with us, it was pleasant to see 
 her lolling, a little languidly as was her wont (for physically 
 her energy was fitful;, in the corner of a couch, look- 
 ing liappy and interested, her face, which was sad in re- 
 pose, lighted up for the time with amusement, as she 
 quietly listened' to our talk, and observed all that was 
 going on around her. Even when she did not speak a word 
 she somehow managed to make her presence felt, and, as 
 a rule, she spoke little on these occasions. But sometimes 
 we managed to draw her out, and sometimes she would 
 burst forth suddenly of her own accord, with a torrent of 
 eloquence that siUnced us all; and even when she was 
 utterly wrong she charmed us. !Her chance observations 
 were generally noteworthy either for their sense or their 
 humor. It was only her sense of humor, I think, that 
 saved her from being sentimental ; but she gave expres- 
 sion to it in season and out of season, and would let it 
 carry her too far somelimes, for she made enemies for her- 
 self more than once by the way she exposed the absurdity 
 of certain things to the very people who believed in them. 
 Every lapse of this kind caused her infinite regret, but the 
 fault seemed incurable ; she was always either repenting of 
 it or comnutting it, although, having so many quirks of 
 her own, she felt that she, of all people in the world, 
 should have dealt most tenderly with the weaknesses of 
 others. 
 
 She knew how narrowly she escaped being sentimental, 
 and would often joke about her danger in that respect. 
 
 " This lovely summer weather makies me sickly senti- 
 mental," she told me once. " I feel like the heroine of a 
 three-volume novel written by a young lady of eighteen, 
 and I think continually of him. I don't know in the least 
 who he is, but that makes no difference. The thought of 
 him delights me, and I want to write long letters to him.
 
 43 IDEALA. 
 
 and make verses about him the whole day long. And he 
 wants me to be good." 
 
 She had two or three pet abominations of her own, any 
 allusion to which was sure to make her outrageous false 
 sentiment and affectation of any kind were among them. 
 She had little habits, too, that we were all pleased to fall in 
 with. Sitting in the corner of a couch, and of one couch 
 in particular in every house, was one of these ; and people 
 got into the way of giving up that seat to her whenever 
 she appeared. I think it would have puzzled us all to say 
 why or wherefore, for she never said or looked anything 
 that could make us think she wished to appropriate it ; 
 she simply took it as a matter of course when it was offered 
 to her, and probably did not know that she invariably sat 
 there. 
 
 Ideala was a splendid horsewoman, and swam likoa fish; 
 but she was not good at tennis or games of any kind, and 
 she did not dance, for a curious reason: she objected to be 
 touchei by people for whom she had no special affection. 
 She even disliked to shake hands, and often wished some 
 one would put the custom out of fashion. With regard to 
 dancing, I have heard her say, too, that she sympathized 
 entirely with the Oriental feeling on the subject. She 
 thought it delightful to be danced to, to lie still with a pleas- 
 ant companion near her who would not talk too much, and 
 listen to the music, and enjoy the poetry of motion coolly 
 and at ease. 
 
 " I love to see ' the dancers dancing in tune,'" she said ; 
 " but to have to dance myself would be as great a bother as 
 to have to cook my dinner as well as eat it. I suppose it 
 is a healthy amusement indeed, I know it is when you 
 take it as I do: for when all you people come down the 
 morning after a dance, with haggard eyes and no power to 
 do anything, I am as fresh as a lark, and have decidedly 
 the best of it." 
 
 She \va^ not good at games, because she was not ambi- 
 tious. She did not care to have her skill commended, and
 
 IDEALA. 4S 
 
 was concent to lose or win with equal indifference so long 
 as only the honor of the thing was involved ; but when the 
 stakes were more material she showed a vice of which 
 she was quite-conscious. 
 
 " I daren't play for money," she said to me. " I never 
 have, and I have always said that I never will. All the 
 women of my family are born gamblers. My mother has 
 often told me that regularly, when she was a girl, the day 
 after she received her allowance she had either doubled it 
 or lost it all; and before she was twenty she hadn't a jewel 
 worth anything in her possession and my aunts were as 
 bad. One of them staked herself one night to a gentleman 
 she was playing with, and he won, and married her. 
 Gambling was more the custom then than it is now, but 
 for me it is as much in the air as if it were still the fashion. 
 When there is any talk of play I feel fascinated, and when 
 I see a pack of cards the temptation is so irresistible that 
 I have often to go away to save my resolution." 
 
 Which made me think of a favorite quotation of Less- 
 ing's, from ' Minna " : " Tout les gens d'esprit aimentle 
 jeu a la folie." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IDEALA 's low esteem for ''mere animal courage "was 
 probably due to the fact that she possessed it herself in a 
 high degree. Yet -soon after I met her I began to suspect, 
 and was afterward convinced, that something in her man- 
 ner which had puzzled me at first arose from fear. There 
 was that in her life which made her afraid of the world, 
 which would, had it guessed the truth, have pried with 
 curious eyes into her sorrow, and found an interest in see- 
 ing her suffer. The trouble was her husband. She rarely 
 spoke of him herself, and I think I ought to follow her ex- 
 ample, and say as little about him as possible. He was 
 jealous of her, jealous of her popularity, and jealous of 
 every one who approached her. He carried it so far that 
 she scarcely dared to show a preference, and \\ as even
 
 44 IDE ALA. 
 
 obliged to be cold and reserved with some of her best 
 friends. I was a privileged person, allowed to be intimate 
 with her from the first, partly because I insisted on it when 
 I saw how matters stood, and partly because my position 
 and reputation gave me a right to insist. I never had oc- 
 casion to brave insults for her sake, but, like many others, 
 I would have done so had it been necessary. Her friends 
 were constantly being driven from her on one pretext or 
 another. People would have taken her part readily enough 
 had she complained, but complaint was contrary to her 
 nature and her principles. Some, who suspected the truth, 
 blamed her reticence; but I always thought it right, and on 
 one occasion, when we approached the subject indirectly, 
 I told her " Silence is best." I ought to have qualified the 
 advice, for she carried it too far, and was silent afterward 
 when she should have spoken that is to say, when it had 
 become evident that endurance was useless and degrading. 
 
 She fought hard to preserve her dignity, and was deter- 
 mined tha<; " as the husband is, the wife is," should not be 
 true in her case. But he did lower her insensibly, never- 
 theless. As her life became more and more unendurable 
 she became a little reckless in speech; it was a sort of safety- 
 valve by means of which she regained her composure, and 
 I soon began to recognize the sign, and to judge of the 
 amount she had suffered by the length to which she after- 
 ward went in search of relief, and the extent to which suf- 
 fering made her untrue to herself. 
 
 As a rule, when with him, she was yielding, but she had 
 fits f determination, too, when she knew she was right. 
 One night, as they were driving home from a ball together, 
 her husband suddenly declared that he would not allow her 
 to be one of the patronesses of a fancy fair which was to 
 be held for a charitable purpose, although she had already 
 consented, and he had made no objection at the time. 
 
 " But why may I not?" Ideala asked. 
 
 "Becau-e I object. Do you hear? I will not have it, 
 and you must withdraw."
 
 IDEALA. 45 
 
 " I must decline to obey any such arbitrary injunction,' 
 She answered quietly. 
 
 He detained her on the doorstep until the carriage had 
 driven round to the stables. 
 
 " Now, are you going to obey me?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, if you give me a reason for what you require," 
 she answered wearily. 
 
 " Oh, you are obstinate, are you?" he rejoined in a jeer- 
 ing tone. '' Well, stay n the garden and think it over. 
 Perhaps reflection will make you more dutiful. I shall tell 
 your maid you will not want her to-night. "When you 
 have made up your mind you can ring." 
 
 And so saying, he walked into the house and shut the 
 door upon her. 
 
 It was a summer night, but Ideala felt chilly with only a 
 thin shawl over her ball-dress. She walked about as long 
 as she could, but fatigue overcame her at last, and she was 
 obliged to lie down on one of the garden seats. She 
 wrapped the train of her dress round her shoulders, and lay 
 looking up at the stars. The air was heavy with the scent 
 of flowers. The night was very still. Once or twice the 
 rush of a passing train in the distance became audible, and 
 the ceaseless, solemn, inarticulate murmur of the night was 
 broken by a nightingale that sung out at intervals, divinely. 
 
 Ideala never thought of submitting ; she simply lay there, 
 waiting without expecting. The night air overcame her 
 more and more with a sense of fatigue, but she could not 
 sleep. She saw the darkness fade and the dawn appear, 
 and when at last the servants began to move in the house, 
 she watched her opportunity and slipped in unobserved. 
 She went to one of the spare rooms, undressed, rang, and 
 ^ot into bed. When the bell was answered, she ordered a 
 hot bath and hot coffee immediately. The maid supposed 
 she had slept there, and seemed surprised ; but as her mis- 
 tress offered no explanation she could make no- remark : 
 and so the matter ended. 
 
 But I do not think Ideala suffered much on thai occasion.
 
 -iv IDE ALA. 
 
 Her strong young womanhood saved her somewhat and 
 there was a charm for her in the beauty of the night and 
 the novelty of her position, which a less healthy organism 
 would not have appreciated had it been able to discover 
 it at such a time. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IDEALA had been married eight years, and two months 
 after that night the long-delayed hope of her life, which 
 she had begun to believe was beyond hope, was at last 
 realized. Her child was a boy, and her joy in him is some- 
 thing that one is glad to have seen. But it was short lived. 
 I do not know if her husband was jealous of her happiness, 
 or if he thought the child was more to her than he was, or 
 if he were merely making a proposition, by way of experi- 
 ment, which he never meant to carry into effect probably 
 the latter. At all events, he went to her one day when the 
 child was about six weeks old, and told her he thought she 
 must give up nursi-ag him. 
 
 The mother's nature was up in arms in a moment. I 
 suppose she had not quite regained her strength, for she 
 had been very ill, and,. being weak, she was excitable. 
 
 " I will not give my baby up ! How caa you think it ?' 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, well," he answered coolly, " just as you like, you 
 know. But I should think you'd better for the child's 
 sake, at least." 
 
 " It isn't true. I don't believe it," she said piteously. 
 
 " Ask the doctor, then," and he sauntered out, smiling, 
 and perhaps not dreaming that she would. 
 
 But " for the child's sake" had alarmed Ideala, and she 
 sent for the doctor. It was hours before he could come to 
 her, and, in the mean time, not knowing that her state of 
 mind would affect the child, she had fidgeted and fretted 
 herself into a fever, and when the doctor saw her he could 
 only confirm her husband's verdict.
 
 IDE ALA. 47 
 
 " I am afraid you must give up nursing," he said. " You 
 are in such a nervous state it will do the child harm. 
 But he's such a fine fellow ! He'll thrive all right you 
 needn't be frightened." 
 
 Ideala said nothing, but she sat in her own room night 
 after night for a week, and heard the child crying for her, 
 and could not go to him and even when he did not cry she 
 fancied she heard him still. I think as the milk slowly 
 and painfully left her, her last spark of affection for her 
 husband dried up too. 
 
 TLe child died of diphtheria some time afterward, and in 
 a little while Ideala, who was then in her twenty-sixth 
 year, returned to her old pursuits and no one ever knew 
 what she felt about it : 
 
 For, it is with feelings as with waters 
 
 The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb ! 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MY widowed sister, Claudia, was one of Ideala's most 
 intimate friends. She was a good deal older than Ideala, 
 whom she loved as a mother loves a naughty child, forever 
 finding fault with her, but ready to be up in arms in a 
 moment if any one else ventured to do likewise. She was 
 inclined to quarrel with me because, although I never 
 doubted Ideala's truth and earnestness (no one could), 
 knowing her weak point, I feared for her. I thought if 
 all the passion in her were ever focused on one object she 
 would do something extravagant a prediction which 
 Claudia, with good intent, rashly repeated to her once. 
 
 Claudia was mistress of my house, and she and I had 
 agreed from the first that, whatever happened, we would 
 watch over Ideala and befriend her. 
 
 My sister was one of the people who thought it would 
 have been better for Ideala to have talked of her troubles. 
 When I praised Ideala's loyalty, and her uncomplaining; 
 devotion to aa uncongenial duty, Claudia said :
 
 48 IDEALA. 
 
 "Loyality is all very well ; but I don't see much merit- 
 in a life-long devotion to a bad cause. If there were any 
 good to be done by it, it would be different, of course ; 
 but, as it is, Ideala is simply sacrificing herself for nothing 
 and worse, she is setting a bad example by showing men 
 they need not mend their manners, since wives will endure 
 anything. It is immoral for a woman to live with such a 
 husband. I don't understand Ideala's meekness ; it amounts' 
 to weakness sometimes, I think. I believe if he struck her 
 she would say, * Thank you,' and fetch him his slippers. I 
 feel sure she thinks some unknown defect in herself is at 
 the bottom of all his misdeeds." 
 
 " I don't think she knows half as much about his mis- 
 deeds as we do," I observed. 
 
 "Then I think it would be a charity to enlighten her," 
 Claudia answered decidedly. " One can't touch pitch with- 
 out being defiled, and when it is too late we shall find she 
 has suffered 'some taint in nature,' inspire of herself. Will 
 you kindly take us to the palace this evening ? The bishop 
 wants us to go in after dinner, and Ideala has promised to 
 come, too." 
 
 Ideala was fastidious about her dress, and being in one 
 of her moods that evening, she teased Claudia unmercifully, 
 on the way to the palace, about a blue woolen shawl she 
 was wearing. 
 
 "A delicate and refined nature expresses itself by nothing 
 more certainly than elegant wraps," she said, parodying 
 another famous dictum ; ' ' and I should not like to be able 
 to understand the state of mind a lady was in wheu she 
 bought herself a blue woolen shawl ; but I could believe 
 she was suffering at the time from a temporary aberration 
 of intellect only, if she wore it af terward, the thing would 
 be quite inexplicable." 
 
 Claudia drew the wrap round her with dignity, and made 
 no reply ; then Ideala laughed and turned to me. 
 
 " Certainly your friend," she said, alluding to n young 
 sculptor who was staying with me, " can ' invest his por-
 
 TDEALA. & 
 
 traits with artistic merit.' Claudia's likeness in the Ex- 
 hibition is capital, and the fame of it is being noised abroad 
 with a vengeance. But I think something should be done 
 to stop the little newspaper-boy nuisance ; the reports they 
 spread are quite alarming." 
 
 " Ideala, what nonsense are you talking about sculptors 
 and newspaper -boys?" Claudia exclaimed. 
 
 " I'll tell you," said Ideala. " There was a small boy 
 with a big voice standing at the corner of the market-plac .? 
 this afternoon. He had a sheaf of evening papers under 
 his arm, and was yelling with much enthusiasm to an edi- 
 fied crowd : ' Noose of the War ! Hawful mutilation of 
 the dead ! Fearful collision in the Channel ! Eighty -eight 
 lives lost ! Narrative of survivors ! Thrilling details 1 
 Shindy in Parl'ment ! Hirish members to the front again 
 'Orrible haccident in our own town 1 The Lady Claudia's 
 bust!'" 
 
 "Ideala, how dare you?" but just then the carriage 
 stopped, and we had to get out. 
 
 The good bishop met us in the hall. Ideala positively 
 declined to go up stairs when he asked her. 
 
 " It is too much trouble," she said, not seeing in her 
 absence what was meant. " I would rather leave my things 
 here." 
 
 " But I am afraid I must trouble you," tho bishop an- 
 swered in despair. " The fact is, my wife is not so well 
 this evening, and she was afraid of the cold, and is staying 
 in her own sitting-room ." 
 
 The "sitting-room" was a snug apartment, warm, cozy, 
 luxurious, and we found a genial little party of intimate 
 acquaintances there when we arrived. Ideala's husband 
 was not one of them. He did not take her out much at 
 that time. Probably he was engaged in some private 
 pursuit of his own, and insisted on her going everywhere 
 alone to keep he out of the way. A little while before he 
 would scarcely allow her to pay a call without him. But, 
 as a rule, whatever his mood was, she did as he wished
 
 50 IDEALA. 
 
 and provoked him sometimes, I think, by her patient com- 
 pliance ; a little resistance would have made the exercise of 
 his authority more exciting. 
 
 When we entered the sitting-room, "an ominous silence 
 fell on the group," which was broken at last by one of the 
 ladies remarking that a kind heart was an admirable thing. 
 Another agreed, and made some observations on the merits 
 of self-sacrifice generally. 
 
 " But some people are not satisfied with merely doing a 
 good deed," a gentleman declared, with profound gravity. 
 " They think there is no merit in it if they do not suffer 
 for it in some way themselves." 
 
 There was a good deal more of this kind of thing, and 
 we were beginning to feel rather out of it, when presently 
 the preternatural gravity of the party was broken by a 
 laugh, and then it was explained. 
 
 Ideala had gone to a neighboring town one day by train, 
 and before she started a poor woman got into the carriage. 
 The woman had a third-class ticket, but she was evidently 
 ill, and when the guard came and wanted to turn her out, 
 Ideala took pity on her, insisted on changing tickets, and 
 traveled third-class herself. The woman had been to the 
 palace, and described the incident to the bishop's wife that 
 morning, and the had just told her guests, wondering who 
 the lady could have been, aud they in turn had put their 
 heads together and decided thac there was no one in the 
 community but Ideala who would have done the thing in 
 that way. 
 
 " But what else could I have done'?" she asked, when 
 she saw we were laughing at her. 
 
 " Well, my dear," said the bishop, who always treated 
 her with the kind indulgence that is accorded to a favorite 
 child, " you might have paid the difference for the woman, 
 and traveled comfortably yourself , don't you know ? " 
 
 Ideala never thought of that. 
 
 Presently the dear old bishop nestled back in his chair, 
 and with a benign glance round, which, his scapegrace son
 
 IDEALA. 51 
 
 said, meant, " Blesss you, my children I Be happy and good 
 in your own way, but don't make a noise 1 " he sunk into 
 a gentle dose, and the rest of the party relapsed into trivial 
 gossip, some of which I give for what it is worth byway of 
 illustration. It shows Ideala at about her worst, but 
 marks a period in her career, a turning-point for the better. 
 She was seldom bitter, and still more rarely frivolous, after 
 that night. 
 
 " Clare Turner will take none of the blame of that affair 
 on his own shoulders," some one remarked. 
 
 " Mr. Clare Turner is the little boy who always said, ' It 
 wasn't me !' grown up," Ideala decided, from the corner 
 of her couch. " He is a sort of two-reason man." 
 
 " How do yon mean 'a two-reason man,' Ideala ?" 
 
 " Well, he has only two reasons for everything : one is 
 his reason for doing anything he likes himself, which is 
 always a good one ; and the other is his reason why the rest 
 of the world should not do likewise, which is equally clear 
 to himself. He thinks there should be one law for him 
 and another for everybody else. I don't believe in him." 
 
 " Nor I," said one of the gentlemen. " Underhand 
 bowling was all he was celebrated for at school ; he bowled 
 most frightful sneaks all the time he was there." 
 
 "Talking about Clare Turner," Charlie Lloyd put in, 
 " I've brought a new book of poems author unknown. I 
 picked it up at the station to-day. There's one thing in it, 
 called 'The Passion of Delysle,' that seems to be intense ; 
 but I've only just glanced at it, and don't really know 
 what it's like. Shall I read it ?" 
 
 "Oh, do 1" was the general exclamation, and we all set- 
 tled ourselves to enjoy the following treat. 
 
 Charlie began softly : 
 
 O day and night 1 O day and night ! and is this madness ? 
 O day and night I O day and night ! and is this joy ? 
 Whence comes this bursting sense of life, and love, and 
 
 gladness, 
 
 This pain of pleasure, perfected, without alloy? 
 Lo, flowing past me are the restless rivwrs,
 
 53 IDEALA. 
 
 Or swelling round me is the boundless son ; 
 Or else the widening waste of sand that quivers 
 In shining stretches, shuts the world from me 
 Or seems to shut it, while I would that what it seems 
 might be. 
 
 O day and night 1 O day and night ! this mountain island, 
 This saintly shrine, this fort 1 scarce know what 'tis 
 
 yet 
 This sand, or sea-girt, rocky, town-clad, church-crown'd 
 
 h'ghland, 
 
 This dull and rugged gem in golden deserts set, 
 Has some delicious, unknown charm to hold me, 
 To draw me to itself and keep me here ; 
 The old gray walls, it seems, with joy infold me 
 Or is it I that make the dead stones dear, 
 And send the throbbing summer in my blood through all 
 things near? 
 
 O day and nipht ! O day and night I where else do flowers 
 Open their velvet lids like these to greet the light ? 
 Or raise such sun- kissed lips aglow to meet cool showers ? 
 Or cast more subtle scents abroad upon the night ? 
 These trees and trailing weeds that climb the cliff -side 
 
 The dusky pine trees, draped with wreaths of vine, 
 Make bowers where love might lie and list the sea-voice 
 
 deep. 
 
 And drink the perfumed air, the light, like wine, 
 Which threads intoxication through these hot, glad veins 
 of mine. 
 ****** 
 
 O day and night 1 O day and night ! I sought thi* haven, 
 From placo, and power, and wealth I flew in search of rest; 
 Tlipy forced and bound me to a hard, det 
 Who mocked my loathing with his head upon nr 
 With deathless love 1 moaned for my young lover ; 
 To make m>; great 'im from n- 
 
 And foully wrought witti shame his name to cover 
 My lx>y, my lord, my prince I In vain they lied ! 
 But should I always suffer for their false, inhumau pride? 
 
 day and night t O day and night ! I left them flying, 
 
 1 fled by day and night as flies the nomad biv 
 Across the silent land when light to dark \\ as dying, 
 And onward like a .spirit lost across the seas ;
 
 IDEALA. 53 
 
 And on from sea and shore thro' apple-orchards blooming, 
 
 Till all things melted in a moving haze. 
 
 And on with rush and ring by tower and townlet gloom- 
 ing. 
 
 Ii\- wood, and field, and hill, by verdant ways, 
 While dawn to midday drew, and noou Avas lost 1:1 sunset 
 blaze. 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night ! light once more 
 
 waxing. 
 Still on \\ ith courage high, tho' strength was well-nigh 
 
 spent; 
 
 Grim specters of pursuit the wearied brain perplexing, 
 Fear-fraught, but ever met with spirit dedolent, 
 The landscape reeled there came a sense of slumber, 
 And myriad shadows ro&e and wanned and waned, 
 And flitting figures, visions without number, 
 Took shape above the land till sight was pained, 
 And floated round me till ac last the longed-for goal I 
 
 gained. 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night J With rest abound- 
 ing, 
 
 The soothing sinking down on hard-earned holy rest, 
 With grateful ease that grew from all the calm surround- 
 ing, 
 
 A langui 1, dreamful ease, my soul became possessed. 
 The hoarse sea-wind comes soughing, sighing, singing, 
 Its constant message from the patient waves, 
 While high above cathedral bells were ringing, 
 Or falling voices chanted hymns of praise, 
 And all the land seemed filled with peace and prorxvised 
 length of days. 
 
 * * # * * 
 
 day and night I O day and night t once, all unheeding, 
 By sun and summer wind with tender touch caressed. 
 
 1 wandered where the strains, the sacred strains, were 
 
 pleading, 
 
 And, kneeling in the fane, my thoughts to prayer ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 And softly rose the murmur'd organ mystery, 
 And swelled around the colonnaded aisle, 
 Where smiled the pictured saints of holy history 
 On prostrate penitents who prayed the while: 
 I could not pray there, but I felt that God Himself might 
 smile.
 
 34 IDEALA. 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night ! while I was kneel- 
 ing, 
 There came the strangest sense of some loved presence 
 
 A reawakening rush of well-remembered feeling 
 Thrill'd thro' me, held me still, with vague expectant 
 
 fear. 
 
 Half turn'd from me, there stood beside the altar, 
 Where incense-clouds nigh veiled him from my sight, 
 A fair-haired priest, my quickened heart-beats falter I 
 Or is he priest, or is he alcoyte, 
 Or layman devotee who prays in novice robes bedight ? 
 
 day and night 1 O day and night ! whence comes this 
 
 For all unreal seem day and night and life and death, 
 And all unreal the hope that sets my senses reeling, 
 And stills my pulse an instant, checks my lab'ring breath, 
 Yet louder rolls the mighty organ thund/ring, 
 And downward slopes a beam of light divine, 
 The perfumed clouds are cleft ; he looks up wond'rm.^ 
 Looks up what does he there before the shrine ? 
 He could not give himself to God, for he is mine, is mine ! 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night I I go forth trembling, 
 He did not meet my eyes, he never saw my face, 
 My bosom swells with joy and jealousy resembling 
 A war of good and evil waged in holy place. 
 No longer soft the day, the sun in splendor 
 Pours all his might upon this green incline; 
 
 1 lie and watch the cirrus clouds surrender, 
 Their glowing forms to one hot kiss resign 
 
 Bow could he give himself to God when he is mine, is 
 mine? 
 
 O day and night 1 O day and nightl beneath your glory 
 
 The crimson flood of life itself has turned to fire 1 
 
 The rugged brows of those old rocks, storm-rent and 
 
 hoary, 
 
 A.re quivering in their grim surprise at my desire, 
 The mother earth, throbbing with pain and pleasure, 
 Would sink her voices for the languid noon, 
 But light airs wake a reckless maddening measure, 
 And wavelets dance and sparKle to the tune, 
 And mock the mocking malice of yon day-dimm'd gibbous 
 tnoon.
 
 IDEALA. 35 
 
 O day and night I O day and night ! a fisher maiden 
 
 Is wandering up the path to where unseen I lie; 
 
 She comes with some light spoil from off the shore t<j- 
 
 laden, 
 
 And softly singing of the sea goes slowly by. 
 And slowly rise great sun-tipped white cloud masses, 
 Sublimely still their shadows flit and flee : 
 How silently the work of nature passes 
 The roll of worlds, the growth of flower and tree ! 
 Angels of God in heaven! give him to me! give him to met 
 
 day and night I O day and night ! the hours rolling 
 Bring ev'ry one its change, its song, or chant, or chime : 
 Now solemnly their sounds a distant death-knell tolling, 
 And now the bells above beat forth the flight of time. 
 
 1 lie, unconsciously each trifle noting, 
 The far-off sailors toiling on the quay. 
 
 Or o'er the sand a broad-wing'd sea-bird floating, 
 Or passing hum of honey-laden'd bee 
 Angels of God in heaven ! give him to me'! give him to me t 
 
 day and night ! O day and night I the scene surround- 
 
 ing 
 
 Grows dim and all unreal beneath the sunset glow ; 
 And all the heat and rage pass into peace abounding, 
 
 1 moan, I fear no more, but wait, while still tears flow, 
 The warm sweet airs scarce move the flowerets slender, 
 A pause and hush have settled on the sea, > 
 
 A bird trills forth its Jove song low and tender : 
 O bird, rejoice ! thy love and thou art free 
 Angels of God in heaven ! give him to me ! give him tome I 
 
 O day and night I O day and night ! ye knew it ever ! 
 Ye saw it written in the world's first golden prime I 
 And smiled your giant smile at all my rash endeavor 
 To snatch the cup unfili'd from out the hand of Time. 
 He comes, O day and night ! Spirits attending, 
 Swift formless messengers my ev'ry sense apprise ! 
 He comes ! the bright fair head o'er some old book low 
 
 bending ! 
 
 Dear Lord, at last ! his eyes have met my eyes 
 A gleam of light goes quivering across the happy skies I 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night ! Love sits between us. 
 Far out the rising tide comes sweeping o'er the sand.
 
 58 IDE ALA. 
 
 The murmurous pine-trees lend their purple shade to 
 
 screen us, 
 
 And breathe their fragrant sighs above the quiet land. 
 And, like a sigh, the sunset blaze is over, 
 The folding gray has veiled its colors bright ; 
 While swift from view fade out the gulls that hover, 
 As round us sinks at last, on pinions light, 
 The dark and radiant clarity of the beautiful still night. 
 
 O day and night 1 O day and night ! no words are spoken. 
 Such pleasant joy profound no words could well express, 
 Hi-< xvau'l'rmg fingers smooth my hair in silent token, 
 And all my b^ing answers to the tender mute caress. 
 My head is resting on his breast for pillow, 
 And as by music moved my soul is thrill'd ; 
 Flow on and clasp the land, O bursting billow I 
 O breezes, tell the mountains many rill'd ! 
 Our hearts now know each other, and our hope is all fuJ- 
 fill'd. 
 
 O driy and night I O day and night ! no shadow crosses 
 This long'd-for solemn hour of all-forgetful bliss ; 
 No chilling thought, or stalking dread arising, tosses 
 A poison'd drop of bitterness to spoil the ling'ring kiss ; 
 Mo mem'ries past or future fears assailing 
 As soon might doubt bedim the stars that shine I 
 Or souls released rsach Paradise bewailing 
 Tin- >ud of pain, and clemency divine : 
 The glorious present holds us ; I am his and he is mine! 
 ***** 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night ! and was it madness? 
 Lo ! all is changing, even sky, and sea, and shore ; 
 The heaving water ebbs itself away in sadness, 
 The waves receding sigh, ' Delight returns no more 1" 
 Far down the East the dawn is dimly burning, 
 Its first chill breath has shivered thro' my frame, 
 And with the light comes cruel Thought returning, 
 The air seems full of voices speaking blame ; 
 Another day commences, but the world is not the same I 
 
 O day and night ! O day and night I its rushes pass'd us. 
 We stand upon the brink and watch the strong deep tide, 
 And shrink already from the howls that soou must blast 
 
 us. 
 The world that sins uuchidden, and the laws that would 
 
 divide.
 
 IDEALA. 57 
 
 ' O Love, they rest in peace whom ocean covers J" 
 One plunge, one clasp supernal, one long kiss ! 
 Then downward, like those old Italian lovers, 
 Descend forever through the long abyss. 
 And float together, happy, all eternity like this ! 
 
 The charm of the reader's voice had held us spell-bound, 
 and the poem was well received ; but after the usual com- 
 pliments there was a pause, and then Ideala burst out, im- 
 petuously : 
 
 " I am sick of those old Italian lovers," she said ; " they 
 float into everything. Their story is the essence with which 
 two-thirds of our love literature is flavored. We should 
 never have received them in society ; why do we tolerate 
 them in books ? I like my company to be respectable, even 
 there ; and when an author asks me to admire and sym- 
 pathize with such people he insults me." 
 
 " They must be brought in, though, for the sake of con- 
 trast," somebody observed. 
 
 " They should be kept in their proper place, then," she 
 answered. " You may choose what you please to point a 
 moral, but for pity's sake be careful about what you use to 
 adorn a tale." 
 
 " Moral or no moral," said the young sculptor, " 1 think 
 a new poem of any kind a thing to be thankful for." 
 
 " And do you call that kind of thing new ?" said Ideala. 
 *' I should say it was a fine compound of all the poems of 
 the kind, and several other kinds, that have ever been 
 written, with a dash of the peculiarly refined immorality 
 of our own times, from which nothing is sacred, thrown in 
 to make weight. Such writing, 
 
 Like a new disease, unknown to men, 
 Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, 
 
 and saps 
 
 The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse 
 With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young. 
 
 It is the feeling of the day accurately defined. Xobody 
 tf for love and peace now. The cry is for the indul-
 
 $8 IDEALA. 
 
 gence of some fiery passion for an hour, and then perdi- 
 tion ! if you like since that is the recognized price of it " 
 
 " Our loves are more intense than they used to be," said 
 the sculptor, sighing. 
 
 " Love I" Ideala answered. " Oh, do not desecrate ' the 
 eternal God- word love '! There is little enough of that in 
 the business that goes by its name nowadays. I am a lady 
 I can not use the right word. But it is none the less the 
 thing I mean because it calls blasphemously on God Al- 
 mighty to help it to fulfill itself." 
 
 "Well," said Charlie Lloyd, deprecatingly, "I didn't 
 offer this, you know, as an admirable specimen of what 
 our day can produce. I told you I hadn't read it, and now 
 that I have I don't suppose any one has offered it to the 
 public as a serious expression of sentiment." 
 
 "You do not think people write books about what they 
 really feel?" said Ideala. "I believe they do when the 
 feeling is shameful. If you want to keep a secret, publish 
 the exact truth in a book, and nobody will believe a word 
 of it. I think people who publish such productions should 
 be burned on a pile of their own works." 
 
 " The writer is young, doubtless," I said apologetically. 
 It gives one a shock to hear a woman say harsh things. 
 
 " He was evidently not too young to have bad thoughts," 
 said Claudia, supporting her friend ; " and he was certainly 
 old enough to know better. " 
 
 " He 1" ejaculated Ideala. " It is far more likely to be 
 she. Do you read the reviews ? You will find that all the 
 most objectionable books are written by women and con- 
 demned by men who lift up their voices now, as they have 
 done from time immemorial, and insist that we should do 
 as they say, and not as they do." 
 
 " I am afraid you are right," said Charlie Lloyd. "So 
 many of our best women I mean the women who are 
 likely to make most impression on the age are going that 
 "way now." 
 
 " But what horrids things you say, Ideala," one of th<
 
 IDEAL A. 5$ 
 
 ladies chimed in, " and you make everybody else say hor- 
 rid things. That ' Passion of Delysle' is not a bit worse 
 than Tennyson's ' Fatima ' and there's a lot more in it 
 that part about ' the roll of worlds,' you know, is quite 
 grand." 
 
 I always liked that idea," Ideala observed. 
 
 "And and" the lady continued, " where she looks at 
 everything, you know. She was very properly seeking dis- 
 traction, and found it for a moment in the contemplation 
 of nature, and that softened her mood, so that when the in~ 
 evitable rush of recollection comes and forces the thought 
 of him back upon her, her feeling finds expression in a 
 prayer instead of instead of " 
 
 ' 'A blasphemous remonstrance," Ideala put in . " Oh, I 
 don't deny that there is just enough to be said in favor of 
 all these things to make them sell and this one has two 
 unusual points of interest. It opens with a riddle, and the 
 lady's lover is a priest, which gives an additional zest to th* 
 charm of wrongdoing, a aauce piqaante for jaded appe. 
 tites." 
 
 "Why do you call the opening verses a riddle ?"sai& 
 Charlie Lloyd. 
 
 " Because I fancy no one one will ever guess what kin<$ 
 of a place it was 
 
 This mountain island. 
 This saintly shrine, this fort 
 
 I forget how it goes on." 
 
 " Oh, the description of the place is not bad," Charlie 
 answered, after reading it over again to himself. ".1% 
 would do for the Mont St. Michael in Normandy." 
 
 " Well, let that pass then," said Ideala ; " also the dear 
 familiar ' subtle scents abroad upon the night. T But wha^b 
 does she mean by ' On with rush and ring ' ?"* 
 
 " She means the train, obviously." 
 
 " What an outlandish periphrasis 1 And how about 
 
 The rugged brows of those old rocks, storm-rent and hoary, 
 Are quivering in their grim surprise"?
 
 60 IDE ALA. 
 
 " That is a ' pa-thetic fallacy.' She is not speaking of the 
 things as tney were, but as they appeared to her excited 
 fancy. She chronicles her own death, though " 
 
 "So did Moses," said Ideala. "If you really want to 
 justify ' The Passion of Delysle,' I can help you. You see, 
 she was dreadfully badly treated by her friends, poor thing! 
 and her marriage after all was no marriage, because she 
 loved another man all the time ; and your husband isn't 
 properly your husband if you don't love him, love being the 
 only possible sanctification in fact, the only true marriage. 
 And then her lover, thinking he had lust her, became a 
 priest, and vows made under a misapprehension Jike that 
 can not be binding it would be too much to expect us to 
 suffer always for such mistakes. And then the world but 
 we all know how oruel the world is ! And appearances 
 were sadly against them, poor things ! No one "would ever 
 have believed that they had stayed out all night to discuss 
 their religious experiences. Suicide is shocking, of course, 
 "but still, when people are driven to it like that, we can only 
 be sorry for them, and hope they will never do it again I " 
 She nestled back more comfortably on her coach, and then 
 continued in an altered tone : " But it is appalling to think 
 of the quantity of machine made verses like those that are 
 imposed on the public year by year, verses the mere result 
 of much reading and writing, without a scrap of inspira- 
 tion in them, and as far removed from even schoolboy 
 efforts of genius as an oleograph is from an oil-painting. 
 Poets are as rare now as prophets, and inspiration has left 
 us for our sins. I think any fairly educated one of us, 
 with a tolerable memory and the habit of composition, 
 could write that ' Passion of Delysle ' again in half an hour." 
 
 "Oh, could they, though 1 " said Ralph, the son of the 
 house. "I dare bet anything you couldn't do ii yourself 
 in twice the time." 
 
 " Dare you?" she answered, with a little smile. " Well, 
 to adopt your elegant phraseology, Master Ralph, I bet I 
 will produce the same story, with the same conclusion, but
 
 IDEALA. 61 
 
 a different moral, in an hour since you allow me twice 
 the time I named if I may be permitted to write it in 
 blank verse, that is, and, of course, with the understand- 
 ing that what I write is not intended to be anything but 
 mere versified prose." 
 
 " Done with you ! " cried Ralph. 
 
 "Hush h hi" his mother exclaimed deprecatingly. 
 " Betting, and before the bishop, too ! " 
 
 " What the bishop don't know will do him no harm, 
 ma," said the youth, in a stage-whisper. "Sit down, 
 Ideala, and begin. It's ten minutes to ten now." 
 
 The bishop slept serenely; conversation flagged ; and 
 Ideala wrote steadily for about three-quarters of an hour ; 
 then she gathered up the manuscript, ros'e from the table, 
 and returned to her old seat. 
 
 "'The Passion of Delysle'has become 'The Choice,'" 
 she said. " Will you read it for rue, Mr. Lloyd? I think 
 it should have that advantage, at least." 
 
 Charlie took the manuscript, and read : 
 
 Once on a time, not very long gone by, 
 
 A noble lady had a noble choice. 
 
 The daughter of an ancient house was she, 
 
 Beauty and weakh, and highest rank were hers, 
 
 But love was not, for of a proud, cold race 
 
 Her people were, caring for naught but lands, 
 
 Riches, and power ; holding all tender thoughts 
 
 As weakly folly, only fit for babes. 
 
 The lady learnt their creed; her heart seem'd hard 
 
 She thought is so; and when the moment came 
 
 To choose 'twixt love, young love, and pride of place, 
 
 She still'd an unwonted feeling that would rise, 
 
 And saying calmly: " I have got no heart, 
 
 And lova is vain 1 " she chose to be the wife 
 
 Of sinful age, corruption, and untruth, 
 
 Scorning the steadfast love of one who yearn'd 
 
 To win her from the crooked paths she trod, 
 
 And break the sordid chains that bound her soul, 
 
 And sweep the defiling dust of common thoughts 
 
 From out her mind, until it shone at last 
 
 With large imaginings of God and good.
 
 62 IDE ALA. 
 
 She chose; no more they met: her life wag pass'd 
 In constant round of pomp and proud display. 
 But when he went, and never more there came 
 The love-sad eyes to question and entreat, 
 The voice of music praising noble deeds, 
 The graceful presence and the golden hair, 
 She miss'd the boy; but scoff'd at first and said: 
 " One misses all things, common pets one s.purn'd, 
 Good slaves and bad alike when both are gone 
 A 'small thing makes the habit of a life I " 
 But days wore on, and adulation palled. 
 She knew not what she lack'd, nor that she loath'd 
 The hollow semblance, the dull mockery, 
 Which she had gain'd for joy by choosing rank, 
 And money's worth, instead of peace and love. 
 
 Yet ever as the long days grew to months 
 
 More heavy hung the time, mo\ed slower by, 
 
 And all things troubled her and gave her pain, 
 
 And morning, noon, and night the thought would rise, 
 
 And grew insistent when she would not hear : 
 
 " One loved me ! out of all this crowd but one ! 
 
 And he is gone, and I have driven him forth ! " 
 
 Then in the silent solitude of night 
 
 An old weird story that she once had heard 
 
 Tormented her ; a story speaking much 
 
 Of a rock-island on the Norman coast, 
 
 A mountain peak rising from barren sand, 
 
 Or standing sea-girt when the tide returns, 
 
 And beaten by the winds on ev'ry side, 
 
 "With wall'd-in town, and castle on the height, 
 
 And high above the castle, strangely placed, 
 
 A gray cathedral with its summit tipp'd 
 
 By a gold figure of St. Michael crown'd. 
 
 With burnished wings and flashing sword that shone 
 
 A beacon in the sunset, seen for miles, 
 
 As tho' the Archangel floated in the air. 
 
 The castle and the church a sanctuary 
 And refuge were, to which men often fled 
 For rest or safety, finding what they sought. 
 And as the lady thought about the place, 
 A notion came that she would like to kneel 
 And pray for peace at that far lonely shrine. 
 The longing grew ; she rested not nor slept. 
 And should she fly and leave her wretched wealth?
 
 And if she fled she never could return ; 
 
 Yet if she stay'd she felt that she should die. 
 
 So go or stay, meant misery for her 
 
 But misery is lessened when we move. 
 
 Yes, she would go 1 and then she laugh'd to think 
 
 Of the wild fury of her harsh old lord 
 
 When he should wake one day and find her gone 
 
 Laugh* d 1 the rirst time for long and weary months. 
 
 By Mont St. Michael, on the Norman coast, 
 
 A restless river, changing oft its course, 
 
 Flows sullenly ; and racehorse- like the tide, 
 
 Which, going, leaves a wilderness of sand, 
 
 Comes rushing back, a foam-topp'd, wat'ry wall ; 
 
 And those who, wand'ring, 'scape tha quicksand's grip 
 
 Are often caught and drown'd ere help can come. 
 
 But fair the prospect from the Mount when bright 
 
 The sunshine falls on Avranches far away, 
 
 A white town straggling o'er a verdant hill ; 
 
 And on the tree-clad count: y toward the west, 
 
 On apple-orchards, and the fairy bloom 
 
 Of feath'ry tam'risk bushes on the shore, 
 
 Whilst high above in silent majesty 
 
 Of hue and form the floating ciouds support 
 
 The far-extending vault of azure sky. 
 
 Such was the shrine the lady sought, aud there 
 
 In mute appeal for what she lack'd she knelt, 
 
 Not knowing what she lack'd ; but finding peace 
 
 Steal o'er her soul there as she faintly heard 
 
 The slow and solemn chanting of the priests, 
 
 The mild monotony of murmured prayers, 
 
 And hush of pauses when she seemed to feel 
 
 The heart she deem'd so hard was melting fast, 
 
 And liste_n'd to a voice within her say 
 
 ' Love is not vain ! Love all things and rejoice ! * 
 
 And found warm tears were stealing down her cheeks. 
 
 The mystery ef love, of love, of love, 
 
 Of hope, of joy, of life itself she felt; 
 
 The crown of life, which she had sacrificed 
 
 In scornful pride for lust of power and place. 
 
 The lady bow'd her head, and o'er her swept 
 
 A wave of anguish and she knew despair. 
 
 " Could I but see him once again !" she moan'd, 
 
 " See him, and beg forgiveness, and then die!" 
 
 Did the Archangel Michael, standing there
 
 64 IDEALA. 
 
 Upon her left, in shining silver, hear? 
 
 Who knows ? Her prayer was answer'd like a flash ; 
 
 For at that moment, clear and sweet o'er all 
 
 The mingled music of the chanting choir, 
 
 There rose a voice that thrill'd her inmost soul : 
 
 It breathed a blessing; utter'd soft a prayer. 
 
 No need to look ; and yet she look'd, and saw 
 
 A hooded monk before the altar kneel, 
 
 A graceful presence, tho' in sordid dress. 
 
 And as she gazed the cowl slipp'd back and show'd 
 
 (But dimly thro' the incense-perfumed cloud) 
 
 A pure, pale face, a golden tonsured head, 
 
 And blue eyes raised to heaven. Then the truth 
 
 Was there reveal'd to her that he had left 
 
 The world to watch and pray for such as she. 
 
 Out of the castled gate she hurried forth ; 
 What matter'd where she went, to east or west ? 
 What matter'd peasant's warning that the sand 
 Was shifting ever, and the rushing tide 
 Gave them no quarter whom it overtook ? 
 'Twas death she courted, and with heedless step 
 Onward to meet it swift the lady fled. 
 Death is so beautif i:l at such a time, 
 When all the land in summer sunshine lies, 
 And lapse of distant waves breaks pleasantly 
 The silence with a soothing dreamy sound, 
 And danger seems no nearer than the sky, 
 He tempts us from afar with hope of rest. 
 She hurried on in search of death, nor heard 
 That eager footsteps followed where she went. 
 The voice that call'd her was not real, she thought, 
 But a sweet portion of a strange sweet dream 
 For now the terrible anguish quickly pass'd, 
 And sense of peace at hand was all she felt. 
 "O stopl" 
 
 Ah I that was real. She turn'd and saw, 
 Nor saw a moment till she felt his grasp 
 Strong and determined on her rounded arm. 
 ' Thou shalt not die 1 " he cried. ' What madness this ? " 
 " Madness ! " she echoed : " nay, my love, 'tis bliss 
 The first my life has known to stand here still 
 With thee beside me, and to wait for death. 
 I know my heart at last, but all too late 
 I may not love thee, I another's wife ; 
 Thou may'st not love me, thou hast wedded heaven.
 
 IDEALA. 65 
 
 We can not be together in this world ; 
 I can not live alone and know thee here. 
 And thou are troubled ! for beneath that garb 
 Thy heart beats ever hot with love for me ; 
 For love will not be quell'd by monkish vows. 
 But all things change in death ! so let us die 
 Thus, hand in hand, and so together pass, 
 And be together thro' eternity ! " 
 
 There was a struggle in the young monk's breast ; 
 He would not meet her pleading eyes and yield, 
 But gazing up. to heaven prayed for strength, 
 Strength to resist, and guidance how to act, 
 For death like that with her was luring sweet 
 A strong temptation, but he must resist, 
 And strive to save and show her how to live. 
 " We can not make hereafter for ourselves," 
 He answered softly : "all that we CPU do 
 Is so to live that we shall win reward 
 Of praise, and peace, and happy life to come. 
 Thy duty lies before thee ; so does mine. 
 Let each return, and toil and watch and pray. 
 Knowing each other's heart is fix'd on heaven, 
 And do the good we can ; not seeking death 
 Nor shunning it, but living pure and true, 
 With conscience clear to meet our God at last, 
 And win each ocher for our grf at reward." 
 The moving music of his words sunk deep ; 
 Her alter'd heart thrill' d high to holy thoughts. 
 " Be though my guide," she said. " My duty now 
 Shall bring me peace ; so shall I toil like thee 
 To \vin the love I yearn for in the end." 
 
 It might not be. The treach'rous working sand 
 
 Already clutched their feet, and check'd their speed) 
 
 And dancing, sparkling, like a joyful thing. 
 
 A glitt'rmg, glassy wall of foam neck'd wave 
 
 Toward them glided with that fatal speed 
 
 You can not mark because it is so swift. 
 
 No use to struggle now : no time to fly 1 
 
 He clasp'd her to him : " God hath will'd it thus. 
 
 Courage, my sister ! " " Is this death ? " she cried. 
 
 " Yes, this is death." " It is not death, but joy 1" 
 
 And as she spoke the spot where they were been 
 
 Became a wat'ry waste of battling waves : 
 
 Whil > high above the summer shone on 
 
 A passing sea-bird hoarsely shriek'd along I
 
 cs 
 
 ATI things were changed, with that vast change which 
 
 makes 
 It seem as tho' naught else had ever been. 
 
 " Well, done, Ideala ! " said Ralph, patronizingly : "you 
 certainly have a memory, and are quite as good at patch- 
 work as the author cf ' Delysle.' I could criticise on an- 
 other count, but taking into consideration time, place, 
 circumstances, and the female intellect, I refrain. That 
 is the generous sort cf creature 1 am. So, without ex- 
 pressing my own opinion further except to remark that, 
 though I don't think much of either of them, personally I 
 prefer ' Delysle.' The other is whotesoiier, doubtless, for 
 those who like a mild diet. Milk and water doesn't agree 
 with me. But I put it to the vote. Ladies and gentle- 
 men, do you or do you nol consider that this lady has won 
 her bet?" 
 
 "Oh, won it, most decidedly I " we all agreed. 
 
 "By the bye, what was the bet?" I asked. 
 
 "My pa's gaiters against Ideala's blue stockings. I re- 
 gret to sav that circumstances over which I have no con- 
 trol" and he glanc?d at the unconscious bishop "prevent 
 the immediate payment of my debt unless, indeed, he 
 has a second pair ; " and he left the room hurredly, as if 
 to see. 
 
 IT a did not come back to us that evening, but I believe he 
 w r < to be heard of later at the sign of the Billiard and Cue. 
 
 " Well," sal sculptor, returning to the old 
 
 point or departure, "for mv own part, I find much that is 
 elevating Lu modern works." 
 
 " So do I," said Ideala ; " I find much that raises me on 
 
 " But even that eminence would enable you to look over 
 people's heads and beyond." 
 
 "It would," she answered, "if hu re didn't 
 
 a sense of security; but, as it is, when I am tirti- 
 ly set up, I find that all 1 can do is to look r.t my own 
 and tremble lest I fall. Modern literature stimulates ;
 
 IDEALA. 6? 
 
 it doesn't nourish. It makes you feel like a giant for a 
 moment, but leaves you crushed like a worm, and without 
 faith, without love, without hope. It excites you pleasur- 
 ably, and when you see life through its medium you never 
 suspect that the vision is distorted. It makes you think 
 the iconoclast the greatest hero, and causes you to feel that 
 you share his glory when you help him with your approval 
 to overthrow all the images you ever cherished ; but when 
 the work of destruction is over, and you look about you 
 once more with sober eyes, you find you have sacrificed your 
 all for nothing. Your false guide fails you when you want 
 him most. He robs you, and leaves you hungry, thirsty, 
 and alone in the wilderness to which he has beguiled you. 
 There is no need for new theories of life and religion ; all 
 we require is strength and courage to perfect the old ones.* 
 "What the mind wants is food it can grow upon, not stimu- 
 lants which inflate it for a time with a fancied sense of 
 power that has no real existence. But I have small hope 
 for our nation when I tliink of the sparkling trash that 
 the mind of the multitude daily imbibes and craves for. I 
 mean our novels. What a'fine affectation of goodness there 
 is in most of them ! And what a perfect moral is tacked 
 onto them I like the balayeuse at the bottom of the lady's 
 dress ; but, like the balayeuse, it is only meant to be a pro- 
 tection and a finish, and, however precious it may be, it 
 suffers from contact with the dirt, and sooner or later has 
 to be cut cut and cast aside, soiled and useless. Some 
 doggerel a friend of mine scribbled on one book in particu- 
 lar describes dozens of popular novels exactly : 
 
 O what a beautiful history ! 
 
 Think vvhai, temptations they passed I 
 Each one more cruelly trying. 
 
 More tempting, indeed, than the last. 
 And what a, lessou it teaches ; 
 
 No passion from evn r s exempted 
 
 * She quite changed hsr mind upon th'spubject eventually, and 
 helrt that there was not only need of new theories, but good hope 
 that we should have them.
 
 68 IDEALA. 
 
 Whilst admiring the moral it preaches, 
 It makes you quite long to be tempted. 
 
 I agree with those that tell us that society is breaking up, 
 or will break up unless something is done at once to stop 
 the dissolution. We have no high ideals of anythiag. 
 Marriage itself is a mere commercial treaty, and only pro- 
 fessional preachers speak of it in other terms and those 
 young people, with a passion for each other, who are about 
 to be united a passion that dies the death inevitably for 
 want of knowledge, and wholesome principle, and self- 
 control to support it. Some of us like our bargains better 
 than others, but you can judge of the estimation in which 
 marriage is held when you see how much happiness people 
 generally find in it. If men and women were kept apart, 
 and made to live purely from their cradles, they would still 
 scarcely be fit for marriage ; yet any man thinks he may 
 marry, and never c^res to be the nobler or the better for it. 
 And when you see that this, the only perfect state, the 
 most sacred bond of union between man and woman, is 
 everywhere lightly considered, don't you think there is 
 reason in the fear that we are falling on bad times ? Oh, 
 don't quote the Romans to me, and the inevitable. We 
 know better than the Romans, and could do better if we 
 chose. But we have to mourn for the death of our man- 
 hood ! Where is our manhood ? Where are our men ? Is 
 there any wonder that we are losing what is best in life 
 when only women are left to defend it ? Believ^ m, 
 degradation of marriage is the -tune to which (lie whole 
 
 fabric of society is going to pieces " 
 
 "Eh, what I" exclaimed the bishop, waking up with a 
 .-tart" whole fabric of society going to pieces? Nonsense! 
 When so many people come to church. And then look at 
 all the societies at work for the for the ah prevention 
 of everything. Why. I belong to a dozen at least, myself: 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and the Rational 
 Dress Reform, for doing away with petticoats no, by the 
 bye, it is my wife who belongs to that. But, at any rate,
 
 IDEALA. 69 
 
 everything is being done that should be done, and you talk 
 nonsense, toy dear" looking at Ideala severely " because 
 you don't know anything about it." 
 
 " The faults we are hardest on in others are those we are 
 most conscious of in ourselves perhaps because we know 
 how easy it would be to conquer them," Ideala observed 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Oh, come now, my dear," said the bishop, beaming 
 round on all of us, " you must not believe what you hear 
 about society being in such a bad state. I know idle people 
 sry so, and it is very wrong of them. Why, I never see 
 anything wrong." 
 
 " Of course not," said Ideala. " "We are all on our best 
 behavior before you." 
 
 The bishop patted his apron good-humoredly. 
 
 " Well, now, take yourself, for example," he said. " I 
 am sure you never do wrong tell stories, you know, and 
 that kind of thing." 
 
 "Haven't I, thougn !'' she answered mischievously. 
 " Not thnt it was much us<>, for I always repented and con- 
 fessed ; and now I have abandoned the practice to the best 
 of my ability. It is horrid to feel you don't deserve the 
 confidence that is placed in you, bishop, isn't it ?" 
 
 " Ideala !" Claudia protested. 
 
 The bishop looked puzzled. 
 
 " I can assure you I have suffered agonies of remorse be- 
 cause, in an idle moment, I deceived my cat a big, com- 
 fortable creature, who used to come to me every day to be 
 fed, and preferred to eat out of my hand. He was greedy, 
 though, and snapped, and one day I offered him a piece of 
 preserved ginger, and he dashed at it as usual, and swal- 
 lowed it before he knew what it was. Then he just looked 
 at me and walked away. He trusted me. and I had de- 
 ceived him. It was an unpardonable breach of confidence, 
 and I have always felt that I never could look that cat in 
 the face again." 
 
 The bishop smiled and sighed at the little reminiscence.
 
 70 IDEALA. 
 
 " I think you are right, though, in one way, Ideala," he 
 presently observed. "The powers of light and darkness 
 are certainly having a hard fight for it in our day ; but we 
 have every reason to hope. 
 
 Oh, vet we trust that, somehow, good 
 Wilf be the final goal of ill." 
 
 " And, granted that the popular literature of the day is 
 corrupt," the young sculptor put in, " and that the stand- 
 ard of society is being yearly lowered by it, still there is 
 
 " But there is so little of it," said Ideala ; " I mean so 
 little that elevates. Most of the subjects chosen are not 
 worth painting ; and what profit is there in contemplating 
 a thing that is neither grand nor beautiful in itself, nor 
 suggestive, by association, of anything that is grand or 
 beautiful ? The pictures one generally sees are not calcu- 
 lated to suggest anything to the minds that need sugges- 
 tion most. The technical part may be good and gratifying 
 to those who understand it, but that is the mere trade of 
 the thing. "We prefer to see it well done ; of course, but if 
 the canvas has nothing but the paint to recommend it, the 
 artist might have saved himself the trouble of putting it 
 on, for all the good it does or the pleasure it gives." 
 
 " Oh, Ideala, do you know nothing of the charm of 
 color?" asked a lady who painted. 
 
 " I do," said Ideala, " but I may be supposed to have en- 
 joyed exceptional advantages. And it is hardly charm 
 we want to elevate us. There will always be enough , in all 
 conscience, to appeal to the senses. But there is an absence 
 even of charm." 
 
 " Many a noble thought has been expressed in a coat of 
 color," said the lady. 
 
 " I know it has," Ideala answered ; " and all best 
 thoughts give pleasure. I have been so thrilled by a noble 
 idea, well expressed, that I could do nothing but sit with 
 closed eyes and revel in the joy of it. But if such an ide
 
 IDEALA. 71 
 
 were placed before you, and you did not know the language 
 in which it was written, what good would it do you ? An 
 uneducated person seeing a picture of a donkey in a field 
 sees, only a donkey in a field, however well it may be 
 painted ; and I fancy very exceptional ability would be re- 
 quired to make any of us think a gray donkey sublime, or 
 believe an ordinary green field to be one of the Elysian." 
 
 * Talking about charm," the sculptor broke in enthu- 
 siastically, " I suppose you haven't seen the new picture, 
 ' Venus Getting Into the Bath ? ' That is a feast of color, 
 and realism, if you like. She is standing beside the bath 
 with a dreamy look on her face. Her lovely eyes are fixed 
 on the water. One arched and blue-veiaed foot is slightly 
 raided as if the touch of the marble chilled her. Her limbs 
 are in an easy attitude, and beautifully modeled. She is 
 represented as a slight young girl, and the figure stands 
 out in exquisite nudity from a background of Pompeian 
 red, and the dark green of myrtles. With one hand she is 
 holding aloft the masses of her rich brown hair the atti- 
 tude suggests the stretching of the muscles after repose ; 
 with the other'' bat here his memory failed him. " What 
 -'fling with her other hand ?" 
 
 ' Scratching herself I ' slipped from Ideala, involuntarily, 
 to hor own horror and the delight of some. But she re- 
 covered herself quickly, and turning to the good bishop, 
 vras looking mildly astonished and much amused, she 
 sal 1 : "There, my lord, is an instance of the corrupt state 
 of r.ociety in our own clay. You see, even your restraining 
 presence doesn't always keep us in order. I hope," she 
 whispered tome, " I'm not going to be made the horrid 
 example to prove the truth of all my theories." 
 
 Soon after this the party broke up. Claudia returned in 
 her wraps to say good-night to the bishop's wife. 
 
 " Claudia !'' Ideaia exclaimed, "you have forgotten that 
 detectable old blue shawl." 
 
 Claudia tried to stop her with a significant gesture, but 
 in vain. Ideala was obtuse.
 
 13 IDEALA. 
 
 " Claudia came out this evening in the most extraordk 
 nary covering I ever saw a lady wear," she said to the 
 bishop's wife. "I really think she must have borrowed it 
 from one of the maids." 
 
 " I am afraid you must mean the blue shawl I lent to Lady 
 Claudia the other evening,"' the bishop's wife replied, with a 
 hurt smile. 
 
 "Oh!" said Ideala, disconcerted for a moment. "But, 
 really, bishopess, you deserve to be upbraided. You should 
 set a better example, and not provoke us to scorn on the 
 subject of your shawls." 
 
 Later on, when I was alone with my sister, I said : 
 
 " Ideala did nothing but put her foot in it this evening. 
 What was the matter with her? I never heard her speak so 
 strongly before, except when she was alone with us. And I 
 don't think she ought to discuss such subjects with such 
 people; it is hardly delicate." 
 
 Claudia sighed wearily. 
 
 " Who knows what pain is at the bottom of it all?" she 
 said. "But one thing always puzzles me. Ideala rails at evils 
 that never hurt her, and yet she speaks of marriage, which 
 has been her bane, as if it were a holy and perfect state, 
 upon which it is a privilege to enter." 
 
 "Plenty of people have condemned marriage simply be- 
 sause their own experience of it has been unfortunate," I 
 answered; " but Ideala is above that. She will let no petty 
 personal mishap prejudice her judgment on the subject. 
 She sees and feels the possibility of infinite happiness in 
 marriage when there is such love and such devotion on both 
 sides as she herself could have brought to it; and she un- 
 derstands that her own unhappy experience need only be 
 exceptional." 
 
 " I wish it were I" sighed Claudia. 
 
 Some years later, Ideala confessed to me that she had 
 written "The Passion of Delysle" herself, but had had no 
 idea of its significance until she heard it read aloud that 
 night, and then, as she elegantly expressed it, she could
 
 IDEALA. 78 
 
 have cut her throat with shame and mortification, which I 
 consider a warning to young ladies not to trust to their 
 poetical inspirations, for if the shade of Shelley will par- 
 don the conclusion alas ! apparently, they know not what 
 they do when they write verses. 
 
 ' I can't think how you could have criticised it like that, 
 Ideala," I said, " now that I know you wrote it." 
 
 " Neither can I," she answered. 
 
 " You ought to have- confessed you had written it, or have 
 said nothing about it." I told her, frankly. 
 
 " Yes," she assented. " Not doing so was a kind of false- 
 hood. But neither course occurred to me." And then she 
 explained : " I never see the meaning of what I write till 
 the light of public opinion is turned upon it, or some cold 
 critic comes and damps my enthusiasm. When a subject 
 possesses me, and shapes itself into verse, it boils in my 
 brain, and my pen is the only way of escape for it, the one 
 safety-valve I have to ease the pressure. And I can't judge 
 of its merits myself for long enough after it is written, 
 because the boiiiug begins again, you see, whenever I 
 read it, and then there is such a steam of feeling I can not 
 see to think. For the verses, however poor they appear 
 to you, contain for me the whole poem as I have it 
 in my inner consciousness. It is beautiful as it exists 
 there, but the power of expression is lacking. If only I 
 could make you feel it as I do, I should be the greatest poet 
 alive." 
 
 It was -a trick of Ideala's to miss the true import of a 
 thing often an act of her own until ttie occasion had 
 passed, or to see it strangely distorted, as she frequently did 
 at this time though that gradually ceased altogether as 
 she grew older ; but it was this peculiarity, so strongly 
 marked in her, which first helped me to comprehend a cu- 
 rious trait there is in the moral nature of men and women 
 while it is still in process of development. Many men, 
 Frenchmen especially, have thought the trait peculiar to 
 women- La Bruyere declares that " Women have no prin-
 
 74 IDEALA. 
 
 ciples as men understand the word. They are guided by 
 their feelings, and have full faith ia their guide. Their no- 
 tions of propriety and impropriety, right and wrong, they 
 get from the little world embraced by their affections." 
 And Alphonse Karr says: "Never attempt to prove any- 
 thing to a woman : she believes only according to her feel- 
 ings. Endeavor to please and persuade: she may yield to 
 the person who reasons with her, not to his arguments " 
 opinions, however, which apply to men as often as not, and 
 only to the young, impressible, passionate, and imperfectly 
 educated of either sex. But there is scarcely a generaliza- 
 tion for one sex which does not apply equally to the other, 
 so perfectly alike in nature are men and women. The differ- 
 ence is only in circumstance. Reverse the position of the 
 sexes, require men to be modest and obedient, and they will 
 develop every woman's weakness in a generation. If a man 
 would comprehend a woman, let him consider himself; the 
 woman hus the same joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, pleasures, 
 and passions expressed in another way, that is all. But, 
 certainly, for a long time Ideala's guide was her feeling 
 about a thing. I have often said to her, when at last she 
 decided to take some step which had obviously been the only 
 course open to her from the first : 
 
 "But, Ideala, why have you hesitated so long? You 
 knew it was right to begin with/' 
 
 " Yes," she would answer. "I knew it was right ; but I 
 have only just now felt that it was." 
 
 She had never thought of acting on the mere cold knowl- 
 edge. For feeling to knowledge, in young minds, is like the 
 match t.o a fire laid in a grate ; knowledge without feeling 
 being as cheerless and impotent as the fire unlighted.
 
 IDEALA. 76 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 A LITTLE while after that evening at the palace we learned, 
 to our dismay, that Ideala's husband had taken a house in 
 one of the rough manufacturing districts, to which he meant 
 to remove immediately. Business was the pretext, as he had 
 money in some great iron works there ; but I think the 
 nearness of a large city, where a man of his stamp would 
 be able to indulge all his tastes without let or hindrance* 
 had something to do with the change. 
 
 Ideala had kept up very well while she was among us, 
 but soon after she went away we gathered from the tone 
 of her letters that there was a change in her which alarmed 
 us. Her health, which had hitherto been splendid, seemed 
 to be giving way, and it was evident that her new position 
 did not please her, and that, even after she had been there 
 for months, she continued to feel herself " a stranger in a 
 strange land." The people were uncongenial, and I think 
 it likely they regarded Ideala's oddities with some suspi- 
 cion, and did not take to her as we had done. She had not 
 that extreme youth which had been her excuse when she 
 came to us, and which, somehow, we had not missed when 
 she lost it ; and her habitual reserve on all matters that im- 
 mediately concerned herself must also have tended to make 
 her unpopular with people whose predominant quality was 
 "an eminent curiosity." 
 
 "They are far above books," Ideala wrote to Claudia ; 
 " what they study is one another, and in the pursuit of this 
 branch of knowledge they are indefatigable. When they 
 can get nothing out of me about myself, they question me 
 about my husband and friends, and it is in vain that I 
 answer them with those words of wisdom (I feel sure I mis- 
 quote them): 'All that is mine own is yours till the end of 
 my life ; but the secret of my friend is not mine own' they 
 persevere. 
 
 " Our house is near the town. Eighteen big chimneys 
 darken our daylight and deluge us with smuts when the
 
 76 IDEALS. 
 
 wind brings the smoke our way ; and besides the smoke, we 
 are subject to unsavory vapors from chemical works in the 
 other direction, so that when the wind shifts we only ex- 
 change evils. They say these chemical fumes are not un- 
 wholesome, and quote the death-rate, which is lower than 
 any other place of the size in England. In fact scarcely 
 anybody dies here. They go away as soon as they begin to 
 feel ill-perhaps that accounts for it. But those horrid 
 chemical fumes have a great deal to answer for. They have 
 killed the trees for miles around. It is the oaks that suffer 
 principally. The tops arfi nipped first, and they gradually 
 die downward till the whole tree is decayed all through. 
 The absence of trees makes the country bleak and desolate 
 and I cannot help thinking the unlovely surroundings affect 
 us all. The people themselves are unlovely in thought, and 
 word, and deed ; but I have found a good deal of rough 
 kindliness among them, nevertheless. They did mob me 
 on one occasion, and made most unkind remarks about my 
 nether garments, when I was obliged to walk through the 
 town in my riding habit ; but, as a rule, the mill-girls 
 merely observe ' That's a lady,' and let me go by unmolested 
 unless I happen to be carrying flowers. They do so love 
 flowers, poor things ! and I cannot resist their pathetic en- 
 treaties when they beg for ' One, missus, on'y on<i !' Some 
 of my lady friends are not let off so easily as I am. The 
 girls chaff them unmercifully about their dress and per- 
 sonal peculiarities, and if they show signs of annoyance 
 they call them names that are not to be repeated. The 
 mil! girls wear bright-colored gowns, white aprons, and 
 nothing on their heads. If a policeman catches them at any 
 mischief, they either clatter off in their clogs with shrieks 
 of laughter, or knock him down and kick him most unmer- 
 cifully. They are as strong as men and as beautiful, some 
 of th'-'rri, as saints ; but they are very unsaint likecreaturee, 
 really irresponsible, and with little orno idtaof right and 
 wrong. On scarcely believes that they have souls and I 
 am always surprised to find that anything not cruel and
 
 IDEALA. 77 
 
 coarse can survive in the hearts of people, begrimed, body 
 and mind, like these, by their hard surroundings ; but it is 
 there, nevertheless the human nature, and the poetry, and 
 the something ready to thrill to better things. A gentleman 
 has a lovely place not far from us, where the trees have 
 been spared by a miracle. Nightingales seldom wander 10 
 far north, but a few years ago a stray one was heard there, 
 and the wonder and the beauty of its voice brought hun- 
 dreds from the mills and crowded streets to hear it sing. 
 Special trains were run from the neighboring city to ac- 
 commodate the crowds that came nightly to wait in the 
 moonlight and listen ; and an enterprising trader set up a 
 stall, and sold ginger beer. The story ends there, but I like 
 it, don't you? especially the ginger beer part of it. It was 
 told me by one who remembers the circumstance. 
 
 " My greatest pleasure in life is in my flowers ; they are 
 dearer to me than any I ever had before, because they are 
 all so delicate, and require such infinite care and tender- 
 ness to keep them alive in this uncongenial climate. I have 
 my thrushes also two, which I stole from a nest in a wood 
 one moonlight night, and brought up by hand oa bread and 
 milk and scraped beef. I had to get up at daylight, and feed 
 them every hour until dark ; but the clergy will not allow 
 that this obligation was a proper excuse for staying away 
 from church, and just now I am unhappy in the feeling 
 that their religion must be inhuman. But my thrushes have 
 well repaid the trouble. They call me when I go into the 
 room, and come to me when I open the door of their cage, 
 and perch on my shoulder. One of them, Israfil, sings di- 
 vinely. People who come to hear him see only a little 
 brown bird with speckled breast, and call him a thrush ; 
 but / know he is Israfil, ' the angel of song, and most me- 
 lodious of God's creatures' ; and he thinks that I have wings. 
 He told me so. 
 
 "I wish you would send me a basket of snails packed up 
 in lettuce leaves. I don't know why, but I can find none 
 here, and I cannot hear of one ever having been seen in tho
 
 78 IDEALA. 
 
 country. But please do not send them unless you are quite 
 sure you can spare them." 
 
 " Ideala is trying to hide herself behind these pretty 
 trivialties," Claudia said. " I always suspect that there is 
 something more wrong than usual when she adopts this 
 playful tone and child-like simplicity of taste." 
 
 "It must be trying to have a friend who believes so little 
 in one as you do in Ideala," I answered. 
 
 " Oh, how exasperating you are ! " Claudia exclaimed. 
 " You know what I mean quite well enough." 
 
 Later, Ideala wrote : 
 
 "You are anxious about my health. The fact is, I have 
 developed a most extraordinary talent for taking cold. I 
 went by tram to see the museum in the city the other day. 
 I took off my cloak while I was there, and stayed an hour, 
 and when I came away, the antiquary, who knew I was a 
 precious specimen, wrapped me up carefully himself. 
 Nevertheless, I caught cold. Then I went to stay with some 
 people near here who clamored much for the pleasure 
 of my company. They live in a palace and are entertain- 
 ing. The lady's papa took me in to dinner the first even- 
 ing. He asked me about Major Gorst, and wanted to know, 
 in an impressive tone of voice, if I had heard that he was 
 the next heir but one to the Hearldom of Cathcourt. 
 
 " The next day my hostess said to her husband: ' Dearest, 
 do let me ride Oscar,' and he replied: ' No, my darling, I 
 can't till I know he's safe. I must get some one to try him 
 first 'and he looked at me . " Perhaps you wouldn'tmind ?' 
 
 " They had never seen me on horseback, and I was long- 
 ing to distinguish myself. I did distinguish myself. Oscar 
 was a merry horse, but one never knew how he would take 
 things. The first bridge we came to I was ' sitting easy 
 to a canter,' with my foot out of the stirrup and my leg 
 over the third crutch a bad habit I learned from a foreign 
 friendand an express train rushed by. Oscar went on 
 abruptly, but I remained. The next difficulty was at a 
 brook. We ought to have crossed it together ; but Oscai
 
 IDEALA. 79 
 
 changed his mind at the last moment, so he remained and 
 I went on. And after that; w? came to cross-roads, and had 
 a difference of opinion about which was the right one. 
 That ended in our coming over together, which made me 
 feel solemn disheartened, in fact and then I thought we 
 should never understand each other and be friends, so I 
 gave him up. I did not talk much about riding to those 
 people after that. 
 
 " But I wore my summer habit that day, and of course 
 3 caught cold. And when that was nearly well, I went 
 down-stairs to be civil to some people who had driven a 
 long way to see me. The drawing-room was damp from 
 disuse, and the firs had only just been lighted and, of 
 course, I caught cold. When that was better, I went for a 
 drive. The wind was east, and the carriage was open 
 and, of course, I caught cold. I don't know how it may 
 strike you, but argument seems to me useless when a person 
 has such a constitution." 
 
 " Can you read between the lines of that letter ? " Claudia 
 asked me. 
 
 ' She seems to be dreadfully don't care," I said. 
 
 "Exactly. She is more reckless, and therefore more 
 miserable, than she used to be. I wouldn't live with him." 
 
 " Ideala won't shirk her duty because it is hard and un- 
 palatable," I answered. 
 
 " I believe she likes it ! " Claudia exclaimed ; and then, 
 smiling at her own inconsistency, she explained, " I mean, 
 if she really is miserable, she ought to speak and let us do 
 something." 
 
 "It is contrary to her principles. She would think it 
 wrong to disturb your mind for a moment because her own 
 life is a burden to her. That is why she always tries to 
 seem happy, and is cheerful on the surface. If she made 
 lament, we should suffer in sympathy, and all the more be- 
 cause there is so very little we could do to help her. Silence 
 is best. If she ever gives w^y, she will not be able to bear 
 it again."
 
 80 IDEALA. 
 
 "But why should she bear it?" Claudia demanded. 
 
 " It is her duty." 
 
 ' I know she thinks so, and is sacrificing her life to that 
 principle. But will you kindly tell me where a woman's 
 duty to her husband ends and her duty to herself begins ?y 
 I suppose you will allow that she has a duty to herself?/ 
 And the line should be drawn somewhere." 
 
 Claudia's mind was a sort of boomerang just then, 
 turning inevitably to this point of departure ; but I could 
 make no suggestion that satisfied her. And I was uaeasj 1 
 myself. Ideala refused to come to us, and had made som^ 
 excuse to prevent it when Claudia offered to go to her. 
 This puzzled me ; but we induced her at last to promise to 
 meet us in London in May. It was A pril then, and wt> 
 thought if she could be persuaded to stay two months of 
 the season in town with us, and go with us afterward to a 
 place of mine in the north which she loved, she would 
 probably recover her health and spirits. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IN the mean time, however, something decisive happened, 
 as we afterward learned . 
 
 It seems that after they left our neighborhood Ideala 
 had, by accident, made a number of small discoveries 
 about her husband, which had the effect of destroying any 
 remnant of respect she may still have felt fov him. She 
 found that he was in the habit of examining her private 
 papers in her absence, and that he had opened her letters 
 and resealed them. His manner to her was unctuous, as 
 a rule ; but she knew he lied to her without hesitation, if 
 it suited his purpose and that alone would have been 
 enough to destroy her liking for him, for it is not in the 
 nature of such a woman to love a man who has looked her 
 in the face and lied to her. 
 
 These things, and the loneliness he brought upon her by 
 driving from her the few people with whom she had any
 
 IDEALA. 81 
 
 intellectual .fel'owship, she would have borne in the old 
 uncomplaining way, but he did not stop there. 
 
 One day she drove into town with a friend who got out 
 to do some shopping. Ideala waited in the carriage, which 
 had stopped opposite a public-house, and from where she 
 sat she could see the little sitting-room behind the bar, and 
 its occupants. They were her husband and the bar-maid, 
 who was sitting on his knee. 
 
 Ideala arranged her parasol so that they might not see 
 her, if they chanced to look that way, and calmly resumed 
 the conversation when her friend returned. 
 
 She dined alone with her husband that evening, and 
 talked as usual, telling him all she had done and what news 
 there was in the paper, as she always did, to save him the 
 trouble of reading it. In return, he told her he had been 
 at the iron- works all day, only leaving them in time to 
 dress for dinner, a piece of news she received with a still 
 countenance, and her soft eyes fixed on the fire. 
 
 She was standing on the hearth at the time, and as he 
 spoke he laid his hand upon her shoulder caressingly, but 
 eh 3 could not bear it. Her powers of endurance were at an 
 end, and for the first time she shrunk from him openly. 
 
 " How you do loathe me, Ideala ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes, I loathe you I" she answered. 
 
 And then, in a sudden burst of rage, he raised his hand 
 and struck her. 
 
 Ideala's determination to be faithful to what she con- 
 ceived -to be her duty had kept her quiet hitherto, but now 
 a sense of personal degradation made her desperate, and 
 she forgot all that. Her first impulse was to consult some- 
 body, to speak and find means to put an end to her misery ; 
 but I was not there, and to whom should she go for advice ? 
 Her impatience brooked no delay. She must see some one 
 instantly. She thought of the rector of the parish, but felt 
 he would not do. He was a fine-looking, well-mannered 
 old gentleman, much engaged in scientific pursuits, who 
 always spoke of the Deity as if he were on intimate terms
 
 82 IDEALA. 
 
 with Him, and had probably never been asked to adminis- 
 ter any but the most formal kind of spiritual consolation 
 in his life. 
 
 The training and experience of a Roman Catholic priest, 
 accustoming them as it does to deal with every phase of 
 human suffering and passion, would have been more use- 
 ful to her in such an emergency, but she knew none of the 
 priests in that district, and did not think of going to them. 
 But while she was considering the matter, as if by inspira- 
 tion, she remembered something an acquaintance had 
 lately written to her. This lady was a person for whom, 
 she felt much respect, and that doubtless influenced her 
 decision considerably. The lady wrote : 
 
 " It must be convenient to be only twenty minutes by 
 train from such a big place. I suppose you go over for 
 shopping, etc. ? When you are there again, I wish you 
 would go and see my cousin Lorrimer. He is adviser in 
 general at the Great Hospital a responsible position ; and 
 I am sure, if you go, he will be glad to do the honors of 
 the place, which is most interesting." 
 
 Ideala had felt from the first that she would rather con- 
 sult a stranger who would be disinterested and unpreju- 
 diced. This gentleman's name promised well for him, 
 for he belonged to people whose integrity was well known ; 
 and his position vouched for his ability and also for his 
 age to Ideala, whose imagination had pictured a learned 
 old gentleman, bald, spectacled, benevolent, full of knowl- 
 edge of the world, " wise saws and modern instances." 
 No one, she thought, could be better suited for her purpose ; 
 and accordingly, next day, after attending to her house- 
 hold duties, she went by an early train t consult him.
 
 IDEALA. 83 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE Great Hospital had been founded by an eccentric 
 old gentleman of enormous wealth, for an entirely original 
 purpose. He observed that great buildings were erected 
 everywhere to receive patients suffering from all imagina- 
 ble bodily ills, chronic mania, of course, when the brain 
 was diseased, being one of them ; but no one had thought 
 of making provision for such troubles, mental, moral, and 
 religious, as affect the mind ; and he held that such suffer- 
 ing was as real, and, without proper treatment, as incur- 
 able and disastrous as any form of physical ailment. He, 
 therefore, determined to found a hospital for these un- 
 happy ones, which should contain every requisite that 
 Divine revelation had suggested, or human ingenuity could 
 devise, for the promotion of peace of mind. The idea had 
 grown out of some great mental trouble with which he 
 himself had been afflicted in early life, and for which the 
 world, as it was, could offer him no relief. 
 
 The first thing he did toward the carrying out of his plan 
 was to buy a site for his hospital near a growing town, on 
 the banks of a big river. The building was to be surrounded 
 by green fields, for the color is refreshing ; and within 
 eight of a great volume of calmly flowing water, the silent 
 power of which is solemn and tranquilizing to the spirit ; 
 and human society was to be within easy reach, for many 
 people find it beneficial. As soon as he had found the site, 
 which was entirely satisfactory, he set about maturing his 
 plan for the building. Such a scheme could not be carried 
 out in a moment, and he spent thirty years in traveling to 
 study human nature, and architecture, and all else that 
 should help to bring his work to perfection. At the end of 
 thirty years he had finished a plan for the building to his 
 own entire satisfaction ; but Mr. Ruskin had been growing 
 up in the mean time, and had begun to write, and the 
 founder, happening to come across his works by accident 
 one day, discovered his own ideas to be wrong from be-
 
 84 ILbALA. 
 
 ginning to end. However, as it was the truth he was aim- 
 ing at, and not a justification of himself, he calmly burned 
 his plans, put his fingers in his ears, figuratively speaking, 
 that he might not hear the rest of the world bray, and for 
 ten years more devoted himself to the study of Mr. Ruskin. 
 At the end of that time he knew something about pro por- 
 tion, about masses and intervals of light and shade; about 
 the grandeur and sublimity of size, and the grace and 
 beauty of ornament; about depth and harmony of color, 
 and all the other wonders that make one sick with longing 
 to behold them; and when he had mastered all this, he de- 
 termined to begin at the very beginning, that is to say, with 
 the walls that were to inclose his vast experiment. Every- 
 thing was to be real, everything was to be solid, everything 
 had to be endowed with a power of expression that could 
 not fail of its effect. And as soon as he felt he might safely 
 begin, he hastened away to inspect the long-neglected site 
 for his wonderful building. But here an unexpected check 
 awaited him. While he himself had been so hard at work, 
 his future neighbors had not been idle. The town had 
 grown to a city; the river's banks were crowded with 
 wharves and human habitations; the river itself cradled a 
 fleet on its bosom; its waters, once so sublimely clear and 
 still, were turbid and yellow, befouled by the city sewers, 
 and useful only, and all that remained to remind him of 
 what had once been were a fe%v acres of weeds inclosed by 
 an iron railing an eye-sore to the inhabitants of that re- 
 gion, as the corporation told him, with a polite hope that he 
 would either build on it soon or leave it alone, which was 
 their diplomatic way of requesting him to hand the lot 
 over to themselves. And this he might have done had they 
 said, ' ' Please " ; but when he found the young city so ig- 
 norant, he thought it his duty to teach it manners, so he 
 took a year or two more to consider the matter. Then he 
 perceived that if he built hid house on the site as it was 
 now, he should do even more good than he had intended, 
 for the constant contemplation of such a stately pile would
 
 IDEALA. 85 
 
 help to elevate the citizens outside the building, while those 
 within might find comfort in seeing themselves surrounded 
 by even greater misery than their own. 
 
 And so the building rose and grew to perfection, and 
 they found, after all, that no better site could have been 
 chosen for it; for from every side, as you approached it, it 
 was seen to advantage, and the majesty and power of it 
 were made manifest. Outside, the design was so evident 
 in its grandeur that the mind was not wearied and per- 
 plexed by an effort to understand; it was simply elevated 
 to a state of enjoyment bordering on exaltation - exaltation 
 without excitement, and near akin to peace. And the in- 
 terior of the building, as you entered it, maintained this 
 first impression. Such ornament as there was touched you, 
 as the clouds do, with a sense of suitability that left nothing 
 to be desired. Art was so perfectly hidden that there 
 seemed to have been no striving for effect in decoration or 
 construction; it looked like a work of Nature, accomplished 
 without effort, and beautiful without design ; and the mind 
 brought under its influence, and left free of conjecture, was 
 gently compelled to revel in the peace which harmonious 
 surr landings insensibly produce. Disturbing thoughts van- 
 ished as being too common and mean, too human, for such 
 a place, and the spirit was soothed with a sense of repose 
 of sensuous restf ulness really, for the pleasure, as intended, 
 affected the senses more than the intellect, which could 
 here make holiday. Work-wearied brains were thus eased 
 from pressure, and minds a prey to doubts and other dis- 
 turbing thoughts which impaired their strength, if they did 
 not render them useless, were at once relieved. And this 
 was the beginning of the treatment which was afterward 
 continued in other parts of the building, and by other 
 means, until the cure was complete arrangements being 
 made for the removal of cases that proved to be hopeless 
 to those older establishments which have long existed at 
 the expense of the country or as the outcomes of private 
 enterprise.
 
 86 IDEALA. 
 
 Of course, the staff of such a place had to be formed of 
 xneto of a high order. Some of these had been patients 
 themselves, and had been chosen on that account, it being 
 thought that those who had suffered from certain ills would 
 be apt to detect the symptoms in others, and able to devise 
 remedies for them, which proved to be the case. The es- 
 tablishment was munificently endowed and liberally sup- 
 ported, and the master, as he was reverently called, lived 
 just long enough to see that it was a success. 
 
 He had not thought of extending the charity to women, 
 being under the impression that no such provision was ne- 
 cessary for them. He acknowledged that they had a large 
 ehare of physical suffering to endure, but asserted that 
 Nature, to preserve her balance, must have arranged their 
 minds so as to render them incapable of suffering in any 
 other way. Sentimentality, hysteria and silliness, he said, 
 were at the bottom of all their mental troubles, which did 
 not, therefore, merit serious attention. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BUT of all this Ideala knew little or nothing when she 
 went there, except that the Great Hospital existed for some 
 learned purpose. She felt the power of the place, how- 
 ever, preoccupied as she was, and stopped involuntarily 
 when she saw the building, ceasing for a moment to be 
 conscious of anything but the awe and admiration it in- 
 spired. Then she passed up the broad steps, beneath the 
 massive pillars of the portico, and entered the hall. A 
 man-servant took her card to Mr. Lorrimer, and, returning 
 presently, requested her to follow him. They left the great 
 hall by a flight of low steps at the end of it, and, turning 
 to the right, passed through glass doors into quite another 
 part of the building. A long, dimly lighted gallery led 
 away into the distance. A few doors opened on to it, and 
 at one of these the servant stopped and knocked. A tall 
 gentleman opened the door himself, and, begging Ideala to
 
 IDEALA. dT 
 
 enter, bid her to be seated at a writing-table wmcn stood 
 in the middle of the room, and himself took the chair in 
 front of it, and looked at Ideala's card which lay before 
 him. Another gentleman, whom Lorriinet introduced as 
 " My brother Julian," lounged on a high-backed chair at 
 the other side of the table. The room was a good size, but 
 so crowded with things that there was scarcely space to 
 turn round. The light fell full upon Lorrimer as he sat 
 facing the window, and Ideala saw a fair man of about 
 thirty, not at all the sort of man she had imagined, and 
 quite impossible for her purpose. 
 
 An awkward pause followed her entrance. She was un- 
 abie to tell him the real reason of her visit, and at a loss to 
 invent a fictitious one. 
 
 " I don't suppose you know in the 'least who I am," she 
 said, seeing that he glanced at her card again, and then she 
 explained, telling him what his cousin had written to her. 
 
 " And would you like to see the hospital ?" he asked. 
 
 " Please." 
 
 Ho rose, took down a bunch of keys, and requested her 
 to follow him. She felt no interest in the place, and knew 
 it was a bore to him to show it to her ; but the thing had 
 to be dona. He led her through halls and lecture-rooms, 
 places of recreation and places for work ; he showed her 
 picture-galleries, statuary, the library and a museum, and 
 told her the plan of it all clearly, like one reciting a lesson, 
 and indifferently, like one performing a task that must be 
 got through somehow, but making ii all most interesting, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 Ideala began to be taken out of herself. 
 
 " What a delightful place I" she said when they came to 
 the library. "And there is a whole row of books I want 
 to consult. How I should like to come and read them." 
 
 " Oh, pray do," he answered, " whenever you like. 
 Ladies frequently do so. You have only to write and tell 
 me \vhen you wish to come, and I will see that you ara 
 prcper'y attended to."
 
 88 IDEALA. 
 
 "Thank you," Ideala rejoined. " It is just the very 
 thing for me, for I am writing a little book, and cannot get 
 on till I have consulted some authorities on the subject." 
 
 In the museum they stopped to look at a mummy. 
 
 " Oh, happy mummy !" burst from Ideala, involuntarily. 
 
 " Why?" asked Lorrimer, aroused from his apathy. 
 
 41 It has done with it all, you know," she answered. 
 
 Then he turned and looked at her, and she saw that he 
 was something more than cold, pale-faced, and indifferent, 
 which had been her first idea of him. His eyes were large, 
 dark gray, and penetrating. She would have called his 
 face fine, rather than handsome ; but the upper part was 
 certainly beautiful, in spite of some hard lines on it. There 
 was something in the expression, more than in the forma- 
 tion, of the mouth and chin, however, that did not satisfy. 
 His head and throat were splendid ; the former narrowed 
 a little at the back, but the forehead made up for the defect 
 which was not striking. He made Ideala think of Tito 
 Melema and of Bayard. 
 
 That remark of hers having broken the ice, they began 
 to talk like human beings with something in common. 
 But Ideala's mood was not calculated to produce a good 
 impression. The failure of her enterprise brought on a fit 
 of recklessness such as we understood, and she said some 
 things which must have made a stranger think her peculiar. 
 Lorrimer had begun to be amused before they returned to the 
 great entrance-hall. Once or twice he looked at her curiously. 
 
 "What sort of a person are you, I wonder?" he was 
 thinking. 
 
 " I was dying of dullness," she said, telling him about the 
 place she came from, ' and so I came to see you." 
 
 He left her for a moment, but presently returned with 
 his brother. 
 
 " You had better come and have some luncheon before 
 you go back," he said. 
 
 And she went. 
 
 As they left the building, Lorrimer asked her :
 
 IDEALA. 99 
 
 w Where on earth did my cousin meet you ?" with the 
 slightest possible emphasis. 
 
 Ideala understood him, and laughed. 
 
 " Upon my word, I don't know who introduced her," 
 she answered, standing on her dignity, nevertheless. " I 
 can't remember." 
 
 They went to the refreshment-room at the station. It 
 was crowded, but they managed to get a table to them- 
 selves. There was a vacant seat at it, and an old gentleman 
 begged to be allowed to occupy it, as there was no other in 
 the room. The three chatted while they waited, each 
 hiding him or her self beneath the light froth of easy con- 
 versation ; and people, not accustomed to look on the sur- 
 face for signs of what is working beneath, would have 
 thought them merry enough. As she began to know her 
 companions better, Ideala was more and more drawn to 
 Lorrimer. His brother, who was a dark man, and very 
 different in character, did not attract her. 
 
 The old gentleman, meanwhile, was absorbed in his 
 newspaper, and he marked his enjoyment of it by inhaling 
 his breath and exhaling it again in that particular way 
 which is called " blowing like a porpoise." 
 
 Lorrimer, by an intelligent glance, expressed what he 
 thought of the peculiarity to Ideala, who remarked : 
 
 " It is the next gale developing dangerous energy on its 
 way to the North British and Norwegian coasts." 
 
 The Jaugh that followed caused the old gentleman to 
 fold up his paper and look benignly at the young people 
 over his pince-nez. 
 
 It was early in the season, and pease were a rare and 
 forced vegetable. A small dish of them was brought, and 
 handed to the dangerous gale, who absently took them all. 
 
 " You have taken all the pease, bir : allow me to give 
 you all the pepper," said Lorrimer, dexterously suiting the 
 action to the word. 
 
 The dangerous gale, though disconcerted at first, was 
 finally moved to mirth.
 
 90 IDEALA. 
 
 "Ah, young people., young people!'' ho said, and sighed 
 and being a rnerry and wise old gentleman, he found 
 pleasure in their pleasure, and entered into their mood, 
 little suspecting that Black Care was one of the party, or 
 that a black bruise which would have aroused all the pity 
 and indignation of his honest old heart, had he seen it. was 
 almost under his eyes. 
 
 And they all loved him. 
 
 Presently he rose to go ; but before he departed, he ob- 
 served, looking kindly at Ideala and Lorrimer : 
 
 " You're a handsome pair, my dears. Let me congratu- 
 late you ; and may your children have the mother's sweet- 
 ness and the father's strength, and may the love you hr.vo 
 for each other last forever there's nothing like it. Thank 
 God for it, and remember Him always and keep your- 
 selves unspotted from the v/orld." 
 
 And so saying, he went his way in peace. 
 
 " Dear, embarrassing old man!" said Lorrimer, regret- 
 fully. '< I wish I hadn't spilled the pepper on his plate." 
 
 " Is there a chance for Lorrimer?" his brother asked. 
 
 But Ideala only stared at him. There was something in 
 his tone that made her feel ill at ease, and brought back the 
 recollection of her misery in a moment. Then all at once 
 she became depressed, and both the young men noticed it. 
 
 " I'm afraid you're rather down about something," Julian 
 said. " You'd better tell us what it is. Perhaps we could 
 cheer you up. And I'm a lawyer, you know. I might be 
 able to help you." 
 
 Lorrimer was looking at her, and seemed to wait for her 
 to speak; but she only showed by a change of expression 
 that the fact of his brother being a lawyer possessed a 
 special interest for her. 
 
 "If you will trust us," he said at last, " perhaps we can 
 help you." 
 
 " I wish I could," she answered wistfully; "I came to 
 tell you." 
 
 "This sounds serious," Ju',iun said lightly. "You will
 
 IDEALA. 91 
 
 have to begin at the beginning, you know. Come, Lorrl- 
 mer, we'll go down the river. And," to Ideala, "you 
 might tell us all about it on the way, you know." 
 
 "Yes, come," said Lorrimer. 
 
 Ideala rose to accompany them without a thought. It 
 all came about so easily that no question of propriety sug- 
 gested itself and if any had occurred to her, she would 
 probably have considered it an insult to these gentlemen 
 to suppose they would allo\v her to put herself in a ques- 
 tionable position ; and when Julian lighted a cigarette 
 without asking her permission, she was surprised. 
 
 On the way to the river, Ideala's spirits rose again, and 
 they all talked lightly, making a jest of everything ; but 
 while they were waiting for a boat, Julian took up a bunch 
 of charms that were attached to Ideala's watch-chain, and 
 began to examine them coolly, and the unwonted famil- 
 iarity startled her. With a sudden revulsion of fading she 
 turned to Lorrimer. She was annoyed by the slight in- 
 dignity, and also a little frightened. Whatever Lorrimer 
 may have thought of her before, he understood her look 
 now, an 1 his whole manner changed. 
 
 Julian left them for a moment. 
 
 "lam so ashamed of myself," Ideala said. "I have 
 made some dreadful mistake. I have done something 
 wrong." 
 
 " I am very sorry for you," he answered gravely and 
 then, to his brother, who had returned " You can go on, 
 if youlike. I am going back." 
 
 " Oh, we can't go on without you," Ideala interposed; 
 " and I would rather go back too." 
 
 They began to retrace their steps, and Lorrimer, as they 
 walked, managed, with a few adroit questions, to learn 
 from Ideala that the trouble had something to do with her 
 husband. 
 
 " Regy Beaumont is coming to me this afternoon," he 
 said to his brother. ' Would you mind being there to re- 
 ceive him?"
 
 92 IDEALA. 
 
 They exchanged glancfs, and Julian took his leave. 
 
 " Now tell me," Lorrimer said to Ideala. 
 
 But an unconquerable fit of shyness came over her the 
 moment they were left alone together. 
 
 ' I can not tell you," she answered. " It is too dreadful 
 to speak of." 
 
 " Your husband has done you some great wrong?" he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes. 
 
 " Something for which you can get legal redress?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And that made you desperate ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And what did you do ? " 
 
 He put the question abruptly, startling Ideala, as he had 
 intended. 
 
 "I? Oh, I did nothing," she stammered. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " My ideal of marriage is a high one," he said at last, 
 " and I should be very hard on any shortcomings of that 
 Mud." 
 
 Ideala longed to confide in him, but her shyness con- 
 tinued, and she walked by -his side like one in a dream. 
 
 He took her to the station, and when they parted, he 
 said : 
 
 " You will write and tell me ? " 
 
 Ideala looked up. There were no hard lines hi his face 
 now ; he was slightly flushed. 
 
 " Yes, I will write," she answered almost in a whisper. 
 
 And then the train, "with rush andring," bore her away 
 through the spring country; but she neither saw the young 
 green of the hedge-rows, nor "the young lambs bleating 
 in the meadows," nor the broad river as she passed it, nor 
 the fleecy clouds that flecked the blue. She was not really 
 conscious of anything for the moment, but that sudden 
 great unspeakable uplLting of the spirit, which is joy.
 
 IDEALA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE following week Ideala came to London, but not to 
 us she had promised to stay with some other people first. 
 She wrote three times to Lorrimer while she was with them 
 first to thank him for his kindness, to which he replied 
 briefly, begging her to confide in him, and let him help her. 
 
 In her second letter Ideala told him what had occurred. 
 His reply was business-like. He urged her to let him con- 
 sult his legal friends about her case ; pointed out that she 
 could not be expected to remain with her husband now ; 
 and showed her that s.he would not have to suffer much 
 from all the publicity which was necessary to free her from 
 him. She replied that her first impulse had been to obtain 
 legal redress, but that now she could not make up her miud 
 to face the publicity. She would see him, however, when 
 she returned, and consult him about it ; and she would also 
 like to consult those books in the library. Her buoyant 
 spirit was already recovering under the influence of a new 
 interest in life. 
 
 Lorrimer's answer was formal, as his other notes had 
 been. He begged her to make any use of the library she 
 pleased, only to let him know when to expect her, that she 
 Might have no trouble with the officials ; and offered her 
 any other help in his power. 
 
 In the mean time, my sifter Claudia had seen Ideala, and 
 had been pleased to find her, not looking well, certainly, 
 but jusvas cheerful as usual. 
 
 "It is evident the place does not agree with her," 
 Claudia said ; " but a few weeks with us will set her all 
 right again." 
 
 They drove in the park together one afternoon, and 
 talked, as usual, of many things, the state of society being 
 one of them. This was a subject upon which my sister 
 descanted frequently, aud it was from her that Ideala 
 learned all she knew of it. 
 
 " Can you wonder," Claudia said on this occasion, " that
 
 94 IDEALA. 
 
 men a** Jtomoral when ladies in society rather pride them- 
 selves than otherwise on imitating the demi-monde ? " 
 
 " Have you ever noticed," Ideala answered indirectly, 
 " how frequently a word or phrase which you know quite 
 well by sight, but have never thought of and do not under- 
 stand, is suddenly brought home to you, as it were ? You 
 come across it everywhere, and at last take the trouble to 
 find out what it means, in self-defense. That expression 
 demi-mo : de has begun to haunt me since I came to town, 
 and I ffcel I shall be obliged to look it up at once to stop the 
 nuisance. We went to a theater the other night, and when 
 we were settled there, I saw my husband in the stalls with 
 a lady in flame-colored robes. I didn't know he was in 
 town. The rest of our party saw him, too, and the gentle- 
 men had a mysterious little consultation at the back of the 
 box. Then one of them left us, but returned almost im- 
 mediately, and told us the carriage had not gone, and hadn't 
 we better try some other theatre the piece at that one was 
 not so good as they had supposed. But I knew they had 
 taken a lot of trouble, entirely on my account, to get a box 
 there, as I had expressed a wish to see that particular piece, 
 and I said I had come to enjoy it, and meant to. I did en- 
 joy it, too. It was so absorbing that I forgot all about my 
 husband, and don't know when he left the theater. I only 
 know that he dissappeared without coming near us. When 
 we got back, Lilian came to my room and told me they 
 were all saying,*clown-sta5r3, that I had behaved splendidly, 
 and I said I was delighted to hear it, particularly as I did 
 not know how, or when, or where I had come to deserve 
 such praise. And then she asked me if I knew who ifc was 
 my husband was with. I said no ; some alderman's wife, 
 I supposed. ' Nothing half so good,' she answered. Thai 
 woman is notorious; she is one of the demi-monde!' 
 'Well,' I said, 'I don't suppose she is in society.' And 
 then Lilian said, ' Good gracious, Ideala I how can you be 
 EO tranquil ? You must care. I think you are the most ex- 
 traordinary person I ever met.' And I told her that the
 
 IDEALA. 95 
 
 only extraordinary thing about me just then was a great 
 ''exposition of sleep 'that had ccme upon me. And then 
 she left me ; but she told me afterward that she thought I 
 was acting, and came back later to see if I really could 
 sleep." 
 
 " And you did sleep, Ideala? " 
 
 " Like a top why not ? But now you*are following suit 
 with your ill-conducted people, and your demi-monde, I 
 want to know what you-mean by that phrase?" 
 
 Then Claudia explained it to her. 
 
 " But I thought all that had ended with the Roman Em- 
 pire," Ideala protested. 
 
 Claudia laughed, and then went on, without pity, de- 
 scribing the class as they sink lower 3,nd lower, and cruelly 
 omitting no detail that might complete the picture. 
 
 " But the men are bad," said Ideala. 
 
 " Oh, as bad, yes ! " was the answer. 
 
 Ideala was pale with disgust. 
 
 "And we have to touch them !" she said. 
 
 Her ignorance of this phase of life had been so com- 
 plete, and her faith in those about her so perfect, that the 
 shock of this dreadful revelation was almost too much for 
 her. At first, as the carriage drove on through the crowd- 
 ed streets, she saw in every woman's face a hopeless degra- 
 dation, and in every man's eyes a loathsome sin ; and she 
 exclaimed, as another woman had exclaimed on a similar 
 occasion : 
 
 " O Claudia ! why did you tell me ? It is too dreadful- 
 I can ndl bear to know it." 
 
 " How a woman can be at once so clever and such a fool 
 as you are, Ideala, puzzles me," Claudia remonstrated, not 
 unkindly. 
 
 She had warmed as she went on, and forgot in her in- 
 dignation to take advantage of this long- looked -for oppor- 
 tunity to speak to Ideala about her own troubles ; and 
 afterward, when she showed an inclination to open the 
 subject, Ideala put her oil with a jest.
 
 IDEALA. 
 
 |" Le marriage est beau pour les amants et utile pour les 
 saints,' " she quoted lightly. " Class me with the saints, 
 and talk of something interesting." 
 
 A few days later Claudia came to me in dismay. 
 
 " What do you think ? " she said. " Ideala is not coming 
 to us at all 1 She says she must go back at once." 
 
 " Go back ! " I Exclaimed, " and why ? " 
 
 " She is going to write something, for which she requires 
 to read a great deal, and she says she must go back to 
 work." 
 
 " But that is nonsense," I protested. " She can work 
 as much as shs likes here I can even help her." 
 
 "I know that," Claudia answered ; " but she spoke so 
 positively, I could not insist I suppose the truth is her 
 husband has ordered her back, and she is going to be a 
 good, obedient child, as usual." 
 
 " Does she seem at all unhappy ? " 
 
 ' No ; and that is the strange part of it. She has coolly 
 broken I don't know how many other engagements to re- 
 turn at once, and instead of seeming disappointed, she 
 simply 'glows and is glad.' She says nothing, but I can 
 see it. I don't know what on earth she is up to now." 
 
 And Claudia left the room, frowning and perplexed. 
 
 When I heard she was not unhappy, this sudden whim 
 of Ideala's did not disturb me much ; indeed, I was rather 
 glad to think she had found something to be enthusiastic 
 about. Her fits of enthusiasm were rarer now, and I 
 thought this symptom of one a good sign. It was odd. 
 though, that I had not seen her while she was in town. I 
 was half inclined to believe she had avoided me. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 To GIVE the story continuity, it will be necessary to piece 
 the events together as they followed. Many of them only 
 came to my knowledge some time after they occurred, and 
 even then I was left to surmise a good deal ; but I am able
 
 IDEALA. 97 
 
 now, with the help of papers that have lately cone into 
 my possession, to verify most of my conjectures and ar- 
 range the details. 
 
 The summer weather had begun now. Laburnums and 
 lilacs were in full flower, the air was sweet with scent and 
 song, and to one who had borne the heavy winter with a 
 heavy heart, but was able at last to lay down a load of 
 care, the transition must have been like a sudden change 
 from painful sickness to perfect health. Ideala went to the 
 Great Hospital at once. She had written to fix a day 
 and Lorrimer was waiting for her. She was not taken to 
 his room, however, as on the previous occasion, but to 
 another part of the building, a long gallery hung with 
 pictures, where she found him superintending the arrange- 
 ment of some precious things in cabinets. Ideala looked 
 better and younger that day in her summer dress than she 
 had done in her heavy winter wraps on the occasion of 
 their first meeting ; but when she found herself face to face 
 with Lorrimer she began to tremble, and was overcome 
 with nervousness in a way that was new to her. He saw 
 the change in her appearance and manner at a glance, and, 
 smiling slightly, begged her to follow him, and led the way 
 through long passages and many doors, passing numbers 
 of people, to his own room. He spoke to her once or twice 
 on the way, but she was only able to answer confusedly, in. 
 a voice that was rendered strident by the great effort she 
 had to make to control it. He busied himself with some 
 papers for" a few minutes when they reached his room, to 
 give her time to recover herself, and then he said, standing 
 with his back to the fireplace, looking down at her, and, 
 speaking in a tone that was even more musical and caress- 
 ing than she remembered it : 
 
 " Well, and how are you? And how has it been with 
 you since your return ;" 
 
 " I am utterly shaken and unnerved, as you see," she- 
 answered ; then added, passionately, " I cannot bear my 
 iife ; it is too hateful."
 
 98 TDEALA. 
 
 " There is no need to bear it," he said. " Nothing is 
 easier than to get a separation after what has occurred. 
 Was there any witness ?" 
 
 " No ; and I don't think any one in the house suspects 
 that there is anything wrong. And none of my friends 
 know ; I have never told them. I wonder why I told you ?" 
 
 " You wanted me to help you," he suggested. 
 
 " I don't think I did," she said. " How could I want 
 you to help me, when I don't mean to do anything ? I fancy 
 I told you because I was afraid you would think me a little 
 mad that day, and I would rather you knew the truth than 
 think me mad. I don't mean to try for a separation. I 
 can't leave him entirely to his own devices. If I did, he 
 would certainly grow from bad to worse. 
 
 " And if you don't, what will become of you? I think 
 much more of such a life would make you reckless." 
 
 She was silent for a little, then she exclaimed : 
 
 " Help me not to grow reckless ; I am so alone !" 
 
 He took her hands and looked down into her eyes. A 
 sudden, deep flush spread over his face, smoothing out all 
 the lines, as she had seen it do once before, and transform- 
 ing him. 
 
 " It is like walking on the edge of a precipice in the dark," 
 he said in a low voice, and his grasp tightened as he spoke. 
 
 There was something mesmeric in his touch that over- 
 powered Ideala. She felt a change in herself at the mo- 
 ment, and she was never the same woman again. 
 
 " I will help you if lean," he said after another pause, 
 and then he let her go. 
 
 After that they talked for some time. He tried to persuade 
 her to reconsider her decision and leave her husband. He 
 honestly believed it was ihe best thing she could do, and 
 told her why he thought so. She acknowledged the wisdom 
 of his advice, but declined to follow it, and he was son^ 
 what puzzled, for the reasons she gave were hardly enough 
 to account for .her determination. They wandered away 
 from that subject at. lust, However, uucL talked of many
 
 IDE ALA. 99 
 
 other things. He told Ideala of his first coming to the 
 Great Hospital as a patient, and gave her some of the de- 
 tails of his own case, and told her enough of his private 
 history to arouse her sympathy and interest ; but of the 
 nature of these confidences I know nothing. Ideala felt 
 in honor bound not to repeat them, as they were made to 
 her in the course of a private conversation, and she was 
 always scrupulously faithful to all such trusts. I know, 
 however, that he was a man who had suffered acutely, both 
 from unhappy circumstances and from those troubles of 
 the mind which beset clever men at the outset of their 
 career, and sometimes never leave them entirely at peace. 
 But this man was something more than a clever man ; he 
 was a man in a thousand. He had in a strong degree all 
 that is worst and best in a man. The highest and most 
 spiritual aspirations warred in him with the most carnal 
 impulses, and he spent his days in fighting to attain to the 
 one and subdue the other. 
 
 Ideala had never known a man like this man. His talents, 
 his rapid changes of mood, as sense or conscience got the 
 upper hand, and his versatility charmed her imagination 
 and excited her interest ; and he had, besides, that magnetic 
 power over her by which it is given to some men to compel 
 people of certain temperaments to their will. While she 
 was with him he could have made her believe that black 
 was white, and not only believe it, but be glad to think 
 that it was so ; and he always compelled her to say ex- 
 actly what she had ia her mind at the moment, even wbfen 
 H was something that she would very much rather not 
 have said. 
 
 " But I am forgetting my other object in coming,'* 
 Ideala broke off at last. " May I look at the books ?'' 
 
 Lorrimer took out his watch. 
 
 " You ought to have some lunch first," he said. " If you 
 will come now and have some, we can return and look at 
 the books afterward." 
 
 Ideala acquiesced, fearing it was his own lunch time, and
 
 100 IDE ALA. 
 
 knowing it would detain him if she did not accompany 
 him. 
 
 Ladies not being allowed to lunch at the Great Hospital, 
 they went, as before, to the station close by, and sat down 
 side by side, perfectly happy together, chatting, laughing, 
 talking about their childhood, and making those trifling 
 confidences which go so far to promote intimacy, and are 
 often the first evidence of affection. Now and then they 
 touched on graver matters. He upheld all that was old, 
 and believed we can have no better institutions in the fu- 
 ture than those which have already existed in the past. 
 Ideala had begun to think differently. 
 
 " I am sure it is a mistake to be forever looking back to 
 the past for precedents," she said. " The past has its charm, 
 of course, but it is the charm of the charnel-house it is 
 the dead past, and what was good for one age is bad for 
 another." 
 
 "As one man's meat is another man's poison ?" he said. 
 
 " Proverbs prove nothing," she answered lightly. ' ' Have 
 you noticed that they go in pairs ? There is always one for 
 each side of an argument. ' One man's meat is another 
 man's poison ' is met by 'What is sauce for the goose is sauce 
 for the gander ' and so on. But don't you think it absurd 
 to cling to old customs that are dying a natural death? 
 Learn of the past, if you like, but live in the present, and 
 make your laws to meet its needs. It is this eternal wait- 
 ing on the past to copy it rather than to be warned by its 
 failures, to do as it did, under the impression, apparently, 
 that we must succeed better than it did, following in its 
 footsteps though we know they led to ruin once, and, be- 
 cause the way was pleasant, being surprised to find that it 
 must end again in disaster it is this abandonment of all 
 hope of finding new and efficacious remedies for the old 
 diseases of society that has checked our progress for hun- 
 dreds of years, and will keep the world in some respects 
 just as it was at the time of the Crucifixion. For my own 
 part, I cannot see that history does repeat itself, except in
 
 IDE ALA. 101 
 
 trifling details, and in the lives of unimportant individuals." 
 
 " I think," he rejoined, " if you have studied the decline 
 of the Roman Empire, you must have seen a striking anal- 
 ogy betwen that and our own history at the present time. 
 "With the exception of changes of manners, which only i 
 affect the surface of society, we are in much the same state 
 now as the Romans were then." 
 
 "I know many people say so, and believe it," Ideala an- 
 swered; " and there is evidence enough to prove it to peo- 
 ple who are trying to arrive at a foregone conclusion ; but 
 it is not the resemblances we should look to, but the differ- 
 ences. It is in them that our hope lies, and they seem to me 
 to be essential. Take the one grand difference that has been 
 made by the teaching for hundreds of years of the perfect 
 morality of the Christian religion I Do you think it possible 
 for men, while they cling to it, to ' reel back into the beast 
 and be no more ' ? " 
 
 " Bat are men clinging to it?" 
 
 "Yes, in a way; for it has insensibly become a part of 
 all of us, and has made it possible for us to show whole 
 communities of moral philosophers now in a generation ; 
 the ancients had only an occasional one in a century." 
 
 " But such a one 1'' 
 
 " The old moral philosophers were grand, certainly, but 
 not grander than our own men are, of whom we only hear 
 less because there are so many more of them." 
 
 " But do you mean to say society is less sinful than it 
 was?" - 
 
 " There is one section of society at the present day, they 
 tell me, which is most desperately wicked. It is worse than 
 any class was when the world was young, because it knows 
 so much better. But I believe the bulk of the people like 
 right so well that they only want a strong impulse to make 
 them follow it. I feel sure sometimes that we are all living 
 on the brink of a great change for the better, and that there 
 is only one thing wanting now a great calamity, or a 
 .great teachor to startle us out of our apathy and set us
 
 103 ^DEALA. 
 
 to work. We are not bold enough. "We should try more 
 experiments ; they can but fail, and if they do, we should 
 still have learned something from them. But I do not think 
 we shall fail forever. What we want is somewhere, and 
 must be found eventually." 
 
 " They tried some experiments -with the marriage laws in 
 France once," Lorrimer observed tentatively. 
 
 " Yes, and failed contemptibly because their motive was 
 contemptible. They did not want to improve society, but 
 to make self-indulgence possible without shame. I think our 
 wn marriage laws might be improved." 
 
 " People are trying to improve them," he said, with a 
 slight laugh. "A friend of mine has just married a girl who 
 objected to take the oath of obedience. How absurd it is 
 for a girl of nineteen to imagine she knows better than all 
 the ages." 
 
 "I think," saidldeala, "that it is more absurd for 'all the 
 ages' to subscribe to an oath which something stronger than 
 themselves makes it impossible for half of them to keep. 
 Strength of character must decide the question of place in 
 a household, as it does elsewhere ; and it is surely folly to 
 require, and useless to insist on, the submission of the strong 
 to the weak. The marriage oath is farcical. A woman is 
 made to swear to love a man who will probably prove un- 
 lovable, to honor a man who is as likely as not to be unde- 
 serving of honor, and to obey a man who may be incapable 
 of judging what is best either for himself or- her. I have no 
 respect for the ages that uphold such nonsense. There was 
 never any need to bind us with an oath. If men were all 
 they ought to be, wouldn't we obey them gladly? To be able 
 to do so is all we ask." 
 
 "Well, it is a difficult question," he answered, "and 
 I don't think we need trouble ourselves about it, any way. 
 Do you like flowers ? " 
 
 "Yes," she burst out, in another tone; "and easy- 
 chairs, and pictures, and china, and everything that is 
 beautiful, and all sensual pleasures."
 
 IDEALA. 103 
 
 She said it, but she knew in a moment that she had used 
 the wrong word, and was covered with confusion. 
 
 Lorrimer looked at her and laughed. 
 
 " And so do I," he said. 
 
 " Oh I if only I could unsay that ! " thought Ideala ; but 
 the word had gone forth, and was already garnered against 
 her. 
 
 Then came an awful moment for her the moment of 
 going and paying. It was hateful to let him pay for her 
 lunch, but she could not help it. She was seized with one 
 of those fits of shyness which made it just a degree less 
 painful to allow it than to make the effort to prevent it. 
 
 They returned to Lorrimer's room and pored together 
 over a catalogue, looking up the books she wanted. When 
 they had found then- names and numbers, Lorrimer sent 
 for them from the library, but it was too late to do any- 
 thing that day, and so she rose to go. 
 
 Lorrimer walked with her to the station, and saw her 
 into the train. On they way they talked of little children. 
 He loved them as she did. 
 
 " A friend of mine," he said, " has the most beautiful 
 child I ever saw. Just to look at it makes me feel a better 
 
 CHAPTER XVHI. 
 
 IN the days that followed, a singular change came over 
 Ideala. No external circumstance affected her. She 
 moved like one in a dream ; thought had ceased for her ; 
 all life was one delicious sensation, and at times she could 
 not bear the delight of it in silence. She would tell it in 
 low songs in the twilight ; she would make her piano speak 
 it in a hundred chords ; and it would burst from her in 
 some sudden glow of enthusiasm that made people wonder 
 the apparent cause being too slight to account for it. 
 "While this lasted, nothing hurt her. She saw the suffer- 
 ings of others, unmoved. She met her husband's brutali- 
 ties with a smiling countenance, and bore the physical
 
 104 ALA. 
 
 discomfort of a bad sprain without much consciousness of 
 pain. And she knew nothing of time, and never asked 
 herself to what she owed this joy. 
 
 The utter forgetfulness of everything that came upon 
 her when she was alone was almost incredible. One even- 
 ing she spent two hours in walking a distance she might 
 easily have done in forty minutes. She had been to ee a 
 eick person, and when she found herself in the fresh air, 
 after having spent .some time in a small, close room, the 
 dreamlike feeling came over her, and her spirit was up- 
 lifted with inexpressible gladness. The summer air was 
 sweet and warm, a light rain was falling, and she took off 
 her hat and wandered on, looking up, but noting nothing, 
 and singing Schubert's "Hark! hark! the lark,'' to her- 
 Belf , softly, as she came. A man standing at a cottage- 
 door begged her to go in and shelter. She looked at him, 
 and her face was radiant the rain-drops sparkled on her 
 hair. He was only a working-man, " clay and common 
 clay," but the light in her eyes passed through him, and 
 the memory of her stayed with him, a thing apart from 
 bis daily life, held sacred, and not to be described. A man 
 might live a hundred years and never see a woman look 
 like that. 
 
 " I did not know it was raining," she said. "It is only- 
 light rain, and the air is so sweet, and the glow down there 
 in the west is like heaven. How beautiful life is ! " 
 
 " Ay, lady 1 " he answered, and stood there spellbound, 
 watching her as .she passed on slowly, and listening to her 
 singing as she went. 
 
 A few days later she saw Lorrirner again. She found 
 him in his room this time. He knew she was coming, and 
 flushed with pleasure when he met her at the door. Ideala 
 was not nervous ; it all seemed a matter of course to her 
 now. The books he had got for her from the library were 
 where she had left them. He placed a chair for her beside 
 his writing- table, and tHen went on with his own work. 
 She had understood that she was to read in the library, but
 
 IDEALA. 103 
 
 -she did not think of that now ; she simply acquiesced in 
 this arrangement as she would have done in any other he 
 might have made for her. A secretary was busy in an- 
 other part of the room when she entered, but after awhile 
 he left them. Then Lorrimer looked up aud smiled. 
 
 " You are looking better to-day," he said. " Tell me what 
 you have been doing since I saw you." 
 
 " Lotus-eating," she answered. "How lovely the sum- 
 mer 13 1 Suiv.e I saw you I have wanted to do nothing but 
 'rest and dream." 
 
 " You have been happy, then?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Is he kind to you ?" 
 
 " Oh he ! He is just the same. There is no change in 
 my life. The change is in me." 
 
 " Then you mean to be happy in spite of him? I call 
 that the beginning of wisdom. I know two other ladies 
 who hate their husbands, and they manage to enjoy life 
 pretty well. And I don't see why you should be miserable 
 always because you happen to have married the wrong 
 man. How was it you married him? Were you very 
 much in love with him ?" 
 
 " No, not in the least." 
 
 " Spooney, then?" 
 
 *' Not even * spooney,' as you call it. I was very young 
 at the time. Very young girls know nothing of love and 
 mari-iage." 
 
 "Very young," he repeated, thoughtfully. He was 
 drawing figures with his pen on the blotting-paper before 
 him. " But why did you marry him, then ?" 
 
 " I can give you no reason except that I was not happy 
 at home." 
 
 " You all say that," slipped from him, with a gesture o 
 impatience. 
 
 " I wish I had been more original," said Ideala. 
 
 She took up her book again, and he resumed his writing, 
 and for some time there was silence. But Ideala's atten-
 
 106 IDEALA. 
 
 tion wandered. She began to examine the room, whicb 
 was, as usual, in a state of disorder. One side of it was 
 lined with cabinets of various sizes and periods. Labels 
 indicated the contents of some of them. Only one picture 
 hung on that side of the room it was the portrait of a 
 gentleman but several others stood on the ground against 
 the cabinets. The walls were painted some dark color. A 
 Japanese screen was drawn across the door, and beside it 
 was a hard, narrow settee covered with dark-green velvet. 
 Books were piled upon it, and heavily embroidered foreign 
 stuffs, and near it a number of Japanese drawings stood on 
 a stand. The mantelpiece was crowded with an odd mix- 
 ture of china and other curios, all looking as if they had 
 just been unpacked. Above it another picture was hung, 
 a steel engraving. The writing-table by which they sat 
 was nearly in the middle of the room. In the window was 
 another table, covered also with a miscellaneous collection 
 of curios ; and on every other available article of furniture 
 books were piled. The high backs of the chairs were 'elab- 
 orately carved, the seats being of the same green velvet as 
 the settee. A high wire-guard surrounded the fireplace, 
 and this unusual precaution made one think that the con- 
 tents of the room must be precious. The occupant of this 
 apartment might have been an artist, a man of letters, or 
 a virtuoso -probably the latter; but whatever he was, it 
 was evident that his study was a work-shop, and not a 
 showroom. 
 
 From the room Ideala looked to her companion . He was 
 writing rapidly and seemed absorbed in his subject. He 
 was frowning slightly, his face was pale and set, and he 
 looked older by ten years than when he had spoken last, 
 and seemed cold and unimpassioned as a judge ; but Ideala 
 thought again that the face was a fine one. 
 
 Presently he became conscious of her earnest gaze. He 
 did not look up, but every feature softened, and a warm glow 
 spread from forehead to chin ; it was as if a deep shadow^ 
 had been lifted, and a younger, but less noble raan revealed.
 
 IDEALA. 107 
 
 " How you change t" Ideala exclaimed - " not from day 
 to day, but from moment to moment. You are like two 
 men. I wish I could get behind that horrid veil of flesh 
 that hides you from me. I want to see your soul." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " You are getting tired," he said. " Do let me persuade 
 you to come and have some lunch. When you begin to 
 speculate I know you have done enough." 
 
 But Ideala could not go through the ordeal of who should 
 pay for lunch again. She preferred to starve. The cam- 
 maraderie between them was mental enough to be manlike 
 already,' but only as long as there was no question of ma- 
 terial outlay. 
 
 " Mayn't I stay here and read?" she said. " I can have 
 something by and by, when I want it. Do go and leave me." 
 
 And he was obliged to go at last, wondering somewhat 
 at her want of appetite. 
 
 When he returned she was still working diligently, and 
 they spent the rest of the afternoon together, reading, writ- 
 ing and chatting, until it was time for Ideala to go. Lor- 
 rimer saw her into her train, and fixed another day for her 
 to return and go on with her work. 
 
 And'so the thing became a settled arrangement When- 
 ever she could spare the time she went and worked beside 
 him, and he was always the same, kindly, considerate, 
 helping her now and then, but not, as a rule, interfering 
 with her. She just came and went as she pleased, and as 
 she would have done had he been her brother. Sometimes 
 they were alone together for hours, sometimes his secretary 
 worked in the room with them, and always there were 
 people coming and going. There was nothing to suggest a 
 thought of impropriety, and they were soon on quarreling 
 terms, falling out about a great many things which is 
 always the sign of a good understanding; but after the first 
 they touched on no dangerous subject for a long time. At 
 last, however, there came a change. Ideala noticed one 
 day that Lorriiner was restless and irritable.
 
 108 IDEALA. 
 
 11 Am I interfering with your work to-day?*' she said 
 " Do tell me. Any other day will suit me just as well." 
 
 ''Oh, no,'' he answered. " I am lazy, that is all. How 
 are you getting on? Let me see." 
 
 And he took the paper she was engaged upon, and looked 
 at it. 
 
 She watched him, and saw that he was not reading, al- 
 though he held it before his eyes for some time. He was 
 paler than usual and there was a look of indecision in his 
 face, very unlike its habitual expression, which was serene 
 and self-contained. 
 
 Looking up all at once, he met her eyes fixed on him 
 frankly and affectionately, but he did not respond to her 
 smile. 
 
 " How do you suppose all this is going to end?" he said 
 abruptly, 
 
 " Won't it do ?" she answered, thinking of her paper, 
 " Had I better give it up, or rewrite it ?" 
 
 He threw the paper down with a gesture of impatience, 
 and got up; and then, as if ashamed of his irritability, he 
 took it again, and gave it back to her. In doing so his 
 hand accidentally touched hers. 
 
 "How cold you are!" he said. "Let me warm your 
 hands for you." 
 
 "They are benumbed," she answered, letting him take 
 them and rub them. 
 
 After a moment he said, without looking at her : 
 
 " Do you know it is very good of you to come here like 
 this?" 
 
 "Why? "she asked. "It suits my own convenience." 
 
 " I know. But it is refreshing to find some one who will 
 suit their own convenience so." 
 
 "That sounds as if it were not the right thing to do I" 
 Bhe exclaimed. 
 
 "Nonsense!" he answered. "You misunderstand 
 me." 
 
 Ideala withdrew her hands hastily, and half rose.
 
 IDE ALA. 10S 
 
 " What is the matter ? " he said. " Come, don't be idle t 
 You should have mastered that book by this time." 
 
 But Ideala was disturbed. 
 
 "I can't read," she said. "Tell me what you thought 
 of me when I came to you that first day ? I fancied you 
 were old. And -I have been afraid since, in spite of your 
 cousin's suggestion, that you may have considered it odd 
 of me to introduce myself like that." 
 
 " Oh, it is quite customary here," he answered. " But 
 even if it had not been, we can't all be bound by the same 
 common laws. The ordinary stars and planets have an 
 ordinary course mapped out for them, and they daren't 
 diverge an inch. But every now and then a comet comes 
 and goes its own eccentric way, and all the lesser lights 
 wonder and admire and let it go." 
 
 " That would be very fine for us if only we were comets 
 among the stars," she said, 
 
 "Oh, you might condescend to claim a kindred with 
 them," he answered lightly. 
 
 "The only heavenly body I ever feel akin to is one of 
 those meteors that flash and fall," she said. " They go 
 their own way, too, do they not? and are lost." 
 
 "There is no question of being lost here," he interposed. 
 " The most scrupulous have made an exception in favor of 
 one person, and the world has not blamed them. After 
 having enduned so much you are entitled to some relaxa- 
 tion. I should do as I liked now, if I were you." 
 
 She looked at him inquiringly. It seemed as if he were 
 not expressing himself, but trying the effect of what he 
 said upon her. 
 
 He was sitting in his usual place now, drawing figures 
 on the blotting pad. 
 
 "You have read, I suppose? "he added, after a pause, 
 and without looking up. 
 
 "I wish I had never read anything," she exclaimed 
 passionately. " I wish I could neither read, write, nor 
 think."
 
 110 IDEALA. 
 
 But the trouble now was, if only she could have recog- 
 nized it, that she did not think ; she only felt. 
 
 She got up and went to the mantel-piece ; he remained 
 where he was, sitting with his back to her. Presently she 
 began to look at the china, absently at first, but afterward 
 with interest. There were some new specimens, just un- 
 packed, and all crowded together. 
 
 " What a lovely lotus-leaf," she said at last. "Satsuma, 
 I suppose no, Kioto ; but what a good specimen. And it 
 is broken, too. What a pity ! I should so like to mend it." 
 
 "Would you? "he said, rousing himself. "Then you 
 shall." 
 
 He went to one of the cabinets and got out the mate- 
 rials, and in a few minutes they were bending busily over 
 the broken plaque, as interested and eager about it as if no 
 subject of more vital importance had ever distracted them. 
 They were like two children together, often as quarrel- 
 some, always as inconsequent ; happy hard at work, and 
 equally happy idling ; apt to torment each other at times 
 about trifles, but .always ready to forget and forgive, and 
 with that habit in common of forgetting everything utterly 
 but the occupation of the moment. 
 
 They talked on now for a little longer, but not brilliantly. 
 They were both considered brilliant in conversation, but 
 somehow on these occasions neither of them shone. I sup- 
 pose when two such bright and shining lights come together 
 they put each other out. 
 
 Then it was time for Idealatogo. A bitter wind met 
 them in the face on their way to the station, and before they 
 had gone far Ideala noticed that Lorrimer's mood had 
 changed again. His face grew pale, his steps less elastic, 
 his manner cold and formal. All the brightness, all the 
 sympathy, which made their intimacy seem the most nat- 
 ural, because it was the pleasantest, thing in the world to 
 Ideala, had gone ; he was like a man seized with a sudden 
 fit of remorse, disgusted with himself, and moved to repent. 
 
 " I should bear with your husband, if I were you," he said
 
 IDEALA. Ill 
 
 at last, breaking the silence. ' ' He behaves like a brute, but 
 I dare say he can't help it. A man can't help his tempera- 
 ment, and probably you provoke him more than you think." 
 
 Ideala was surprised, it was so long since they had men- 
 tioned her husband. 
 
 " I fear I am provoking," she answered humbly. " But 
 how am I to help it? I have tried so hard, and for so long, 
 to be patient. And I oaly want to do right." 
 
 They were parting then, and he looked down at her in. 
 silence for some seconds, and when Ideala saw the expres- 
 sion of his face her heart sunk. In that one moment she 
 realized all that his friendship had been to her, and foresaw 
 the terrible blank there would be for her if it should ever 
 end. That there was any danger, that there could be any- 
 thing but friendship between men and women who must 
 not marry, had not even yet occurred to her. Her intimacy 
 with myself had prepared the way for Lorrimer, and mads 
 this new intimacy seem also perfectly right. 
 
 " What is the matter with you to-day?" she said. " What 
 spirit of dissatisfaction has got hold of you"? 
 
 " I am dissatisfied," he said, raising his hat, and brush- 
 ing his hand back over his hair. Then he looked at her. 
 " Why don't you help me ? " he asked. 
 
 " How can I help you?" she answered. " I don't under- 
 stand you." 
 
 " You ought to. I wish to goodness you did" and then 
 his face cleared. " But you will come again," he added, in 
 the old -way. " I shall expect you soon ." 
 
 And so he let her go ; and Ideala was glad, because an 
 unpleasant jar was over. She did not trouble herself about 
 his private worries ; if he wished her to know he would 
 tell her. Lorrimer had a temper but then she had known 
 that all along ; and Lorrimer was Lorrimer that was all 
 about it.
 
 112 IDEALA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HE let her go, somewhat bewildered, and not understand- 
 ing herself or him, nor caring to understand, only happy, 
 dangerously happy. The train bore her through a-i on- 
 chanted region of brightness and summer, and, although 
 the power of thought was for the moment suspended, she 
 was conscious of this, and her own delight was like the un- 
 reasoning pleasure of earth when the sun 13 upon t. 
 
 There was no carriage to meet her at the station, and she 
 set off to walk home. It was the first time she had been 
 alone on foot in the squalid, disorderly streets of that dingy 
 place, and her way, which she was not quite sure of, took 
 her through some of the worst of them. They were filled 
 with loud-laughing, uncleanly women, and skulking, hang- 
 dog-looking men, and the grime clogged atmosphere was 
 heavy with foul odors; bat she noticed nothing of this. The 
 golden glow the sun made in his efforts to shine through 
 the clouds of smoke might have been a visible expression of 
 her own ecstatic feeling, and she would have thought so at 
 any other time, but now she never saw it. 
 
 In a somewhat open and more lonely part of the road 
 ehe met a tramp, a great, rude, hulking, common fellow, 
 with fine blue eyes. Hs stopped in the middle of the road 
 and stared at Ideala as she came up to him, walking, as 
 usual, with a slight undulating movement that made you 
 think of a yacht in a breeze, her face upraised and her lips 
 parted. He took 'off his cap as she approached. The gesture 
 attracted her attention.and, thinking he wanted to beg or ask 
 some question, she stopped and looked at him inquiringly. 
 
 " Well, you are a nice lady!" he exclaimed. 
 
 He hadu't the gli t of language, but she saw the soul of a 
 man in his eyes, and she understood him. 
 
 " Thank you," she answered, and passed on, unsurprised. 
 
 In the next street a breathless creature came running af- 
 ter her, a tawdry, painted, disheveled girl. She stopped 
 Ideala and stood panting, with hot, dry lips, and eyes full of
 
 IDE ALA. 113 
 
 animal suffering. Her clothes exhaled the smell of some vile 
 scent that was overpowering. Involuntarily Ideala shrunk 
 from her, and all the joy left her face. 
 
 "I've run" the girl gasped" such a way they said 
 you'd gone this road. I've waited about all day to catch you. 
 Come, for God's sake !" 
 
 "But where?" 
 
 " There's a girl dying " and she clutched Ideala's arm, 
 trying to drag her along with her" or she would die and 
 have done with it, but she can't till she's seen you. She' ve 
 something on her miad something to tell you. Come, my 
 lady, come, for the love of the Lord and the Blessed Virgin. 
 No haroi'll happen to you." 
 
 Ideala made a gesture. 
 
 "Show me the way ," she said. " But you don't seem able 
 to walk. There's an empty cab coming. Get in and tell the 
 man where to drive to." 
 
 They stopped at a row of many-storied houses in a low by 
 street. A stout, elderly woman with an evil countenance 
 met them at the door. She began some speech in a cringing 
 tone to Ideala, but the tawdry girl pushed her aside rudely. 
 
 " Hold your jaw, and get out of the way," she said. "I'll 
 show the lady up." 
 
 The woman muttered something which Ideala foitunately 
 did not hear, and let them pass. They went upstairs to the 
 very top of the house, and entered a low room, furnished 
 with a broken chair and a small bed only. On the bed lay a 
 girl, who, in spite of disease and approaching death, looked 
 not more than twenty, and was probably two years younger. 
 She turned her haggard face to the door as it opened, and a 
 gleam of satisfaction caused her eyes to dilate when she saw 
 Ideala. They were large, dark eyes, but her face was so dis- 
 torted with suffering and discolored by disease, it was im- 
 possible to imagine what it once had been. 
 
 " Here she is, Polly, "said the tawdry one, triumphantly. 
 " I said I'd bring her, now, didn't I ?" 
 
 Ideala knelt down by the bed.
 
 114 IDE ALA. 
 
 " My ! Jbut yon're a game 'un !" said the tawdry one, ad- 
 miringly. You ain't afraid of catching nothing ! Now, I'd 
 have asked what was up before I'd have done that; and I 
 woudn't touch her with the tongs, nor stay in the room \rith 
 her, was it ever so. You just holler when you want me, 
 and I'll come back " And so saying, she left them. 
 
 " You are not afraid to touch me you don't mind ?' said 
 the dying girl, when Ideala had taken off her gloves, and 
 knelt, holding her hands. 
 
 " Afraid? Mind?" Ideala whispered, her eyes full of pity. 
 " I only wish you would let me do something for you." 
 
 At that moment they were startled by an uproar down- 
 stairs. A man and woman were quarreling at the top of 
 their voices. At first only their tones were ' audible, but 
 these grew more distinct, and in a few seconds Ideala could 
 hear what was said, and it was evident that the combatants 
 were approaching. 
 
 " I tell you the lady's all right," the woman Ideala had 
 seen down-stairs was heard to shriek, with sundry vile 
 epithets. "Polly's dying, and she've come to visit her." 
 
 " Seein's believin'," the man rejoined doggedly. "Just 
 show me the lady and shut up, you foul-mouthed devil, youl" 
 
 The door was flung open, and there stood the fat-harri- 
 dan, and towering over her was a great red-haired police- 
 man, who seemed both relieved and abashed when he saw 
 Ideala. 
 
 ""What is the meaning of this?" she said, rising, and 
 drawing herself up indignantly. "Don't you see how ill 
 this girl is ? Such an uproar at such a time is indecent." 
 
 The woman shrank from her gaze and slunk away. The 
 policeman wiped his hot face with a red handkerchief. 
 
 " I saw the girl fetch you here, ma'am," he said apolo- 
 getically, " and I thought it was a trap. It ain't safe for 
 a woman, let alone a lady, to come to no such a place. I'll 
 just wait and see you safe out of it." 
 
 He shut the door, and Ideala heard him walking up and 
 down on the landing outside.
 
 IDEALA. 115 
 
 The dying girl seemed scarcely conscious of what was 
 passing. Ideala looked round for something to revive her. 
 There was not even a cup of water in the room. She knelt 
 once more beside the bed, and raised her in her arms, and 
 let her head rest on her shoulder. All the mother in her 
 was throbbing with tenderness for this poor outcast. The 
 girl drew a long, deep sigh. 
 
 " Could you take anything? " Ideala asked. 
 
 " No, lady, not now. The thirst was awful awhile ago, 
 and I cried and cried, although I knew no one would listen 
 to me, or come if they heard. They'd rather we'd die 
 when we get ill. It's a bad thing for the house." 
 
 She could only speak in gasps. 
 
 " And what have you had ? " Ideala asked. 
 
 " The scarlet fever, ma'am. There's an awful bad kind 
 about, and I caught it They all die that gets it." 
 
 Ideala drew her closer, and laid her own cool cheek on 
 her damp forehead. 
 
 " Tell me why you wished to see me," she said. 
 
 " You are so good," the girl answered" I thought 
 you'd better know and get away from that low brute." 
 
 Ideala understood, and would fain have stopped the 
 story, but it seemed a relief to the girl to speak, and so she 
 listened. It was the old story, the old story aggravated by 
 every incident that could make it more repulsive and her 
 husband was the hero of it. 
 
 " Shall I go to hell?" the girl asked, shrinking closer. 
 
 " For these Christ died," Ideala murmured. 
 
 The words flashed through her mind, and the meaning 
 of them was new to her. Her heart was wrung for the 
 desolate girl, dying alone in sin and sorrow without a 
 creature to care for her dying alone in the arms of a 
 strange woman, with a policeman outside guarding her. 
 Ideala cried in her heart with an exceeding bitter cry : 
 
 " God do so to him, and more also 1" 
 
 " Pray for me, lady." 
 
 But Ideala could not pray with a cuwe on her lips and,
 
 US IDEALA. 
 
 besides, the power to pray had been taken from her for 
 many a weary day before that. She thought of the police- 
 man and called him in. 
 
 " See, she is dying " she said, looking up at him help- 
 lessly , " and she has asked me to pray and I can't. Will 
 you?" 
 
 And, quite simply and reverently, as if it had been part 
 of his ordinary duty, he took off his helmet and knelt down, 
 a great, rough-looking mau in a hideous dress, and prayed : 
 
 " Dear Lord, forgive her I" 
 
 They were the last words she heard. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE people seemed to have deserted the house. Even 
 the tawdry one had disappeared, and Ideala was obliged to 
 lay out the poor dead girl herself, and make her ready for 
 decent burial. As soon as she could Idfcve the place che 
 went, escorted by the policeman, to the fever hospital to 
 have her things fumigated. The risk of infection had not 
 troubled her till she remembered the likelihood of taking it to 
 others, but as soon as she thought of that she took the neces- 
 sary precautions to prevent it. She sent a message from the 
 hospital to her maid, telling her to pack up some things and 
 meet her at the station^in time for the mail at eleven o'clock 
 that night. She had thought of some friends who lived a 
 nine-hours' journey f rum her home, and had determined to 
 go to them for a time. 
 
 She wrote to husband also from the hospital. 
 
 " The girl, Mary Morris, died of scarlet fever this after- 
 noon in the house to which you sent her when you were 
 tired of her," she said. " I was with her when she died. I 
 am going to the Trelawneys to-night ; but at present I have 
 formed no plans for the future." 
 
 During the first few days of her stay with the Trelaw- 
 neys, she just lived from hour to hour, not thinking of 
 anything, past, present, or to come ; but out of this apathj
 
 IDE ALA. 11T 
 
 a desire grew by degrees. She wanted to see Lorriiner. 
 She could speak to him, and she was sure he would help and 
 advise her. She wrote to him, telling him she particularly 
 wished to see him on a certain day, and asking him to meet 
 her at the station, adding, by way of postscript : 
 
 " I do not think I quite know what you meant when you 
 advised me to go my own way ; but if any wrongdoing 
 were part of the programme, I should not be able to carry 
 it out. However, I feel sure that you would be the last 
 person in the world to let me do wrong, even if I were in- 
 clined to." 
 
 She knew that her husband was away from hqme, and 
 her intention had been to sleep there that night, and go 
 on to Lorrimer the next morning ; but she had been misin- 
 formed about the trains, and after many changes and tedi- 
 ous waits, she found herself alone in the middle of the night 
 at a little railway junction, with no chance of a train to 
 take her on for several hours ; and what was worse, with- 
 out money enough in her purse to pay her bill if she went 
 to a hotel. The waiting-rooms were all closed for the night, 
 and there seemed nothing for it but to wander about the 
 station till the train came and released her. She told her 
 dilemma to an old Scotch inspector who was waiting to see 
 what she meant to do. He gave the matter his best con- 
 sideration , but it evidently perplexed him. 
 
 " If you was a box," he said, rubbing his chin thought- 
 fully, " we could put you in the left-luggage office." 
 
 " But I am not a box," Ideala answered, as if only the 
 most positive denial would prevent mistake on the subject. 
 
 It was raining hard, and bitterly cold. Only part of the 
 platform was roofed in, and every now and then a gust of 
 wind splashed the raindrops into their faces as they stood 
 beside Ideala's luggage in a circle of yellow light cast up- 
 ward by a lantern which the inspector had put on the 
 ground at their feet. 
 
 ' ' There's me and Tom the porter," he said at last ; 
 " we've got to wait for the two-o'clock down and the four-
 
 118 IDEALA. 
 
 o'clock up. Tom, he'll come 'ome and sit over tne kitchen 
 fire with me. I suppose, now, you wouldn't like to do 
 that?" 
 
 "Indeed I should be very glad to," Ideala answered; 
 " that is," she added quickly, " if it would not inconven. 
 ience you." 
 
 He made an inexplicable gesture, and seemed to consider 
 the matter settled. 
 
 " Til just put this here luggage in the office," he said, 
 shouldering a box and taking up a portmanteau ; but he 
 muttered, as he went : " It's a pity, now, you wasn't lug- 
 gage." 
 
 Ideala followed him meekly from the luggage-office out 
 into the lane, and down a country path to a little cottage. 
 The door opened into the kitchen, and a young man in a 
 porter's uniform was sitting over a cheery fire reading a 
 newspaper by the light of a tallow candle. The kitchen was 
 large for the size of the house. Besides the door they had 
 entered by, there were two others, both closed. The walls 
 were paneled from floor to ceiling with wood darkened by 
 age. Several of the panels were .doors of cupboards that 
 projected slightly from the wall, and shelves had been 
 sunk in flush with it, and placed angle- wise in the corners. 
 The shelves were covered with old china. There was a 
 row of brass candlesticks of good design on the high mantle- 
 piece, more china stood behind them. On a panel above the 
 mantelpiece a curious design of dogs and horses in a wood 
 had been carved with much patience and some skill. The 
 furniture of the place was an old oak table standing in the 
 window the window itself had a deep sill, on which \va* 
 arranged a row of flowerpots, from which a faint perfume 
 came at intervals a long narrow oak chest, carved and 
 polished, with the date 1700 on the side of it, a settle, and 
 a dresser covered with the ordinary crockery used by poor 
 people. The brick floor was rudded and sanded, the hearth- 
 stone was yellow, and the part under the grate was white. 
 Sne high-backed, old-fashioned chair stood on either aid*
 
 IDEALA. 119 
 
 &f the hearth. Tom, the porter, was sitting in one of them, 
 and at his elbow way a small round table with a pipe, to- 
 bacco jar, and two or three books upon it. A square table 
 in the middle of the room was laid out for supper, with a 
 dish, two plates, a beer mug, and a half a loaf of bread. 
 Some potatoes were roasting on the hob. 
 
 ' The old woman's asleep, I expects. You'll mind and 
 not make a noise," the inspector said to Ideala, as if he 
 were warning a child to be good. 
 
 Tom, the porter, rose, and gazed at the lady with his 
 mouth open in a state of astonishment that was justified 
 by the time and place of her advent ; but he offered her his 
 chair with the courtesy of a gentleman, and the old inspec- 
 tor bid her make herself at home, which she did by remov- 
 ing her hat and wraps and taking off her gloves. In a 
 higher sphere of life these two men would have stared her 
 out of countenance ; but Tom, the porter, and the old in- 
 spector, not from want of appreciation, but from the 
 refinement that seems natural to people who come of an old 
 stock, whatever their station, and have had china and 
 carved oak in their possession from one generation to an- 
 other forebore even to look at her lest she should be em- 
 barrassed by their curiosity. They did the honors of the 
 house with dignity, and without vulgar apology fora gtate 
 of things that was natural to them, and Ideala at once 
 adapted herself to the circumstances, and burned her 
 fingers while attending to the baked potatoes, which Tom 
 had'somewhat neglected. 
 
 She always declared afterward that there was nothing so 
 good in the world as baked potatoes and salt, provided the 
 company was agreeable ; and now and then she would 
 thrill us with reminiscences of that evening's entertain- 
 ment with wonderful accounts of railway accidents and 
 of one in particular that happened on a pitch dark night 
 when fires had to be made to light the workers as they 
 toiled fearfully among the wreck of the trains, searching 
 for the mangled and mutilated, the dying and the
 
 130 IDE ALA. 
 
 de-ad, while the air was filled with horrid shrieks and 
 groans. 
 
 For it seems these three, when they had finished the 
 baked potatoes, drew their chairs to the fire and talked. 
 And one can well imagine what Ideala's stories were her 
 tales of the Japanese with whom she had lived ; of Chinese 
 prisons into which she had peeped ; of earthquakes, tor- 
 nadoes and shipwrecks, and other perils by land and sea, 
 all told in a voice that thrilled you, whatever it said. Tom, 
 the porter, and the old Scotch inspector were in luck that 
 night, and they knew it. When at last it was time for 
 Ideala to go, and in return for her thanks for his kind 
 hospitality, and the contents of her purse, which had rather 
 more in it than she had fancied, the inspector expressed 
 his appreciation with an earnest smack : 
 
 " Well," he said, "you're rare good company. I shan't 
 mind when you come along this way again." 
 
 The train was late in arriving, and she had only time to 
 rush up to the house, change her dress, and return to the 
 station to catch the one by which she had asked Lorrimer 
 to meet her. Perhaps it was the thought of what she had 
 come to tell him that made her heart beat nervously as the 
 train drew up at her destination, and she leaned forward 
 to look for him among the people on the platform. She 
 looked in vain he was not there. Something, of course, 
 had happened to detain him ; doubtless he had sent a mes- 
 sage to explain. She waited a little, but nobody appeared 
 to be looking for her. Then she left the station and walked 
 in the direction of the hospital, thinking he had missed the 
 train, and she should probably meet him on the way. Her 
 nervousness increased as she went. She was not used to 
 be alone in crowded streets, and she began to feel faint and 
 bewildered. Her heart seemed to stop whenever she saw a 
 fair- headed man, but she reached the hospital at last, and 
 no Lorrimer met her. Then a new fear disturbed her. 
 Perhaps he was ill. She went up to the door, and there, 
 just coming oat, Lorrimer's secretary met her.
 
 IDEALA. 121 
 
 " I was just coming to meet you, madame," he said ; " I 
 am sorry I am too late. Mr. Lorrimer has been detained 
 by visitors, and sent me to apologize for his absence. If 
 you will be so good as to come to the library, he will join 
 you there as soon as he is disengaged." 
 
 When she was settled in the library, a servant brought 
 her books to her. She had not come to read, but work 
 was the daily habit of her life, and she went on now, me- 
 chanically, but carefully as usual, though with a curious 
 sinking of the heart, and benumbing sense of loss and pain. 
 As she came along in the train she had been thinking how 
 ic would amuse Lorrimer to hear of her night's adventure, 
 and of the relief it would be to tell him of all the other 
 things she had come to tell ; but now she felt like one bid- 
 den to a bridal, and brought to a burial. People were 
 going and coming continually in the library. A gentleman 
 sat at a table near her, busily writing. Servants went 
 backward and forward with books. Another gentleman, 
 came in and looked at her curiously, and then went away. 
 She began to feel uncomfortable and wondered what was 
 keeping Lorrimer so long. She thought, too, of leaving 
 the place at once, and going back by an earlier train than 
 she had intended, but it would hardly have been polite. A 
 servant came and told her the library was closed to visitor* 
 at two. 
 
 " I am waiting for Mr. Lorrimer," she said. 
 
 "Oh, in that case " and the man withdrew. 
 
 The name was an open sesame to all j>art3 of the build- 
 ing. 
 
 At last he came. She rose with a great sense of relief. 
 
 " Let me take your books," he said. 
 
 " I have done with them,'' she answered. 
 
 And without another word he led the way to his own 
 room. 
 
 They took their accustom', d seats. 
 
 "lam sorry I coul.i riot meet you." he said. ''I hope 
 you do not think me rude. Some wretched people turned
 
 122 IDEALA. 
 
 tip at the last moment, and wanted to see everything. Just 
 look a* the room ! " 
 
 Every cabinet seemed to have been ransacked, and treas- 
 ures of all kinds were lying about in most admired dis- 
 order. Lorrimer looked round him desperately, and pushed 
 his hat back from his forehead. Ideala smiled. It was so 
 like him to forget he had it on. 
 
 Outside a heavy thunder-cloud gathered and darkened 
 the room. Presently big drops of rain splashed against the 
 window, and it began to lighten. Long claps of thunder 
 rolled and muttered incessantly away in the distance, and 
 every now and then one would burst directly above them, 
 as it seemed, with splendid effect. 
 
 Lorrimer looked up at the window straight before him, 
 and played with a pen ; aud Ideala, half-turning her back 
 to him, sat silent also, watching the storm. 
 
 There were some high houses opposite, of which only the 
 upper stories were visible. Two children were playing in 
 a dangerous position at an open window in one of them. 
 Above the houses a strip of sky, heavy, and dark, and 
 changeful, was all that showed. 
 
 Ideala felt cold and faint. The long fast and fatigue 
 were -beginning to tell upon her. She was nervous, too ; 
 the silence was oppressive, but she could not break it. She 
 felt some inexplicable change in her relations with Lorri- 
 mer which made it impossible to speak. Furtively she 
 watched him, trying to discover if he felt it too. The 
 look of age was on his face, and it was clouded with dis- 
 content. Anxiously she sought some sign of sickness to 
 account for it. But. no. There was no trace of physical 
 suffering ; the trouble was mental. 
 
 " You are not looking well," Lorrimer said at last. " I 
 suppose you have been starving yourself since I saw you. 
 You have had no lunch to-day again. You will kill your- 
 self if you go on like that; I was speaking about you to a 
 doctor the other day. He said you could not fast as you 
 do without taking something stimulants or sedatives."
 
 IDEALA. 123 
 
 Ideala winced. 
 
 " What an insulting thing to say ! " she exclaimed in- 
 dignantly. " I will not allow you to adopt that tone with 
 me. You have no right to scold me." 
 
 " I have, and shall," he retorted. " I suppose you want 
 to kill yourself. Perhaps it is the best thing people can do 
 who hate their lives." 
 
 " I don't hate my life ; I don't want to die," she rejoined. 
 
 " The other day you said you loathed your life." 
 
 "You are accusing me of inconsistency," she said. 
 " You ! who are in two states of mind every time I see 
 you!" She got up. "And I do mean what I say," she 
 resumed. " I loathed the old life, but that is done with. I 
 am living a new life now " 
 
 He turned to look at her, red chasing white from his face 
 at every breath ; then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, 
 he went to her, grasped her folded hands in both of his, 
 and looked into her eyes for one burning moment. The 
 hot blood flamed to her face. She was startled. 
 
 " Don't let us quarrel," he said hoarsely. 
 
 " Why do you try to ? " she retorted. " It is always you 
 who begin." 
 
 " I think you want pluck," he said. 
 
 " Oh, no ; not that," she answered. 
 
 "Just now you do." 
 
 " Then I think you want discernment," she retorted, 
 with spirit. 
 
 And so they went on, as if neither of them had ever 
 heard of such a thing as conventional propriety. 
 
 Lorrimer did not answer that last remark. He was stand- 
 ing at a little distance from her, watching her. Ideala was 
 looking grave. 
 
 " What is your conscience troubling you about now?" he 
 asked. " I never listen to my conscience " 
 
 " I don't believe you," she answered promptly. 
 
 " That is polite," he observed. 
 
 Then there was another pause.
 
 134 IDEALA, 
 
 " It must be time for me to go," she said at last. 
 
 The rain was still falling in torrents. 
 
 " Oh, no I" he exclaimed ; " you mustn't go yet. Your 
 train does not leave for another hour. Why do you want 
 to go?" 
 
 She was struggling ~vith the button of a glove and he 
 went to help her, but she repulsed him, half unconsciously, 
 as she would have brushed off a troublesome fly. , 
 
 The gesture irritated him. 
 
 " I cannot believe you are not conscientious," she said, 
 with a frown of intentness. " When a man of talent ceases 
 to be true, he loses half his power." , 
 
 He turned from h :r coldly, sat down at the writing-table 
 and began to write. 
 
 Ideala was still putting on her gloves. 
 
 Outside, the rain fell lightly now, and the clouds were 
 clearing. The children were still playing at the open win- 
 dow of the house opposite. Lorrimer had often been obliged 
 to answer notes when she was there ; she thought nothing 
 of that, but he was a long time, and at last she interrupted 
 kim. 
 
 "Forgive me if I disturb you,*' she, said ; " but I am 
 afraid I shall miss my train." 
 
 " Oh, pardon me," he answered, jumping up and looking 
 at his watch. " But it is not nearly time yet. I cannot 
 understand why you are in such a hurry to-day ." 
 
 " You know that I always go when I have done my 
 work," she said. 
 
 " You have done unusually early, then." he replied, "and 
 I wish to goodness I had." H^ooked round the room pet- 
 tishly, like a schoolboy out of temper. " I shall have to 
 put all these things away when you are gone ; a task I hate, 
 but nobody can do it but myself." 
 
 " Why wait till I've gone? Let me help you," said Ideala. 
 
 His countenance cleared, and they set to work merrily, 
 he explaining the curious histores of coins and cameos, of 
 ancient gems, ornaments of gold and silver, and valuable
 
 IDEALA. 135 
 
 intaglios, as they returned them to their places. Both for- 
 got everything in the interest of the collection, so that, 
 when the last tray was completed, they were surprised to 
 find that two trains had gone while they were busy and 
 another had become due, and there was only time to jump 
 into a hansom to catch it. 
 
 Lorrimer was still irritable. 
 
 " Why on earth does a lady always carry her purse in her 
 hand ?" he said as they drove along. 
 
 Ideala laughed, and put hers in her pocket. 
 
 " When are you coming to go on with your work ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I will write and fix a day," she said. 
 
 " I shall be away a good deaj. for the next three weeks," 
 he continued. " The twenty-third or twenty-sixth would 
 be the most convenient days for me, if they would suit you." 
 
 " Thank you," she answered, and hurried down the plat- 
 form, without having said a word or given a thought to 
 what she had come to say. 
 
 And then at last the twenty-four hours' fasting, fatigue 
 and mental suffering overcame her. A little later she was 
 lying insensible oa the floor of her room, and she was alone. 
 The servants had not seen her enter, and there was not a 
 creature near her to help her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 IDEALA was unable to exert herself for many days after 
 this. At last, however, she began to think of work again, 
 and of Lorrimer. She was uneasy about him. He had 
 not been himself on that last occasion. Something was 
 wrong, she could not think what, but she felt anxious ; and 
 out of her anxiety rose an intense longing to see him again. 
 So she wrote, first of all fixing the twenty-third for her 
 visit ; but when the day came she found herself unequal to 
 the exertion, and wrote again, begging him to expect her 
 on the twenty-sixth instead.
 
 126 IDEALA. 
 
 He did not reply. He was generally overwhelmed with 
 correspondence, and she had, therefore, begged him not to 
 do so if the days she named suited him. 
 
 Up to this time she had never heard Lorrimer mentioned 
 by any one ; but now, suddenly, his name seemed to be in 
 everybody's mouth. She thought of him incessantly her- 
 self, and it was as if the strength of her own mind com- 
 pelled all other minds to think of him while she was pres- 
 ent, and to yield to her will and tell her all they knew. 
 For, curiously enough, she had begun to want to know 
 about him. I call it curious, because she was so confiding, 
 so unsuspicious, and also so penetrating, she never seemed 
 to care to know more of people than she learned from in- 
 tercourse with them. But with regard to Lorrimer, she 
 had evidently begun to distrust her own judgment, which 
 is significant. 
 
 One night, at a dinner-party, she was thinking of a gra- 
 tuitous piece of information an old woman, who brought 
 her some milk on one occasion at the Great Hospital, bad 
 given her. Ideala had noticed that the old woman had a 
 bad cough, and had asked her, in her usual kindly way, if 
 she were subject to it, and what she did for it, remarking 
 that the north-country air was trying to people with deli- 
 cate chests, and -warmer clothing and greater care were 
 more necessary there than in the south ; and thereupon 
 the old woman had launched forth, as such people will 
 upon the slightest provocation, with minute details of her 
 own sufferings, and the sufferings of all the people she 
 ever knew, from " the bronchitis," during the winter and 
 spring, Mr. Lorrimer being included among the number. 
 
 "Does Mr. Lorrimer suffer in that way?" Ideala had 
 asked, with interest. 
 
 "Indeed, yes," was the answer, given with many shak- 
 ings of the head and that air of importance and pleasure 
 which vulgar bearers of bad news assume. " He was very 
 bad in the spring. He coughed so as never was, and had 
 to give in at last and keep his room, which he should have
 
 IDE A LA. 127 
 
 done at first ; but it takes a deal to make him give in , for 
 he takes no care of hisself, though not strong, and we were 
 in a way 1 Eh ! but it would be a bad thing for this place 
 if anything happened to Mr. Lorrimer 1" ,, 
 
 Ideala gave the woman half a crown. 
 
 " People may have bronchitis without being delicate," 
 she asserted. " Mr. Lorrimer is very kind to all of you, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 "If I was to tell you all his good deeds, ma'am," the 
 woman said impressively, "I'd not have done before to- 
 morrow morning. But as to his not being delicate," she 
 continued in the hope, perhaps, of scoring another on that 
 point " why, it just depends on what you call delicate." 
 
 Ideala absently gave her another half crown, and an- 
 other after that, but she could not get her to say that Mr. 
 Lorrimer's chest was strong. Later, when Lorrimer re- 
 turned, and they were both at work, he was interrupted in 
 the middle of some cynical remarks on over-population, 
 and the good it would do to check it by allowing the spread 
 of epidemics and encouraging men to kill one another, by 
 the arrival of another old woman in great distress. 
 
 His manner changed in a moment. 
 
 " I am afraid he is worse," he said to her, most kindly. 
 
 She could only shake her head. 
 
 " There is the order," he went on, giving her a paper 
 " get him these things at once, and tell him I will come as 
 soon as I am disengaged " 
 
 When they were alone again, Ideala looked at Lorrimer 
 and laughed. 
 
 " Another instance, I shrewdly suspect, of the difference 
 between theory and practice," she observed. 
 
 He brushed his hand back over his forehead and hair, a 
 trifle disconcerted. 
 
 " He was the only son of his mother, and she was a 
 widow," he said. 
 
 " And one can approve of capital punishment without 
 having the nerve to see it inflicted, I suppose," Ideala com-
 
 123 IDEALA. 
 
 mented, ' ' and be convinced that it would be good for the 
 human race to have a certain number of their children 
 drowned, like kittens, every year, and yet not be able to 
 see a single one disposed of in that way without risking 
 one's own life to save it. Verily, I have heard this often, 
 and yet I think I am more surprised to find it true tAan. if 
 I had never been warned I But that is always the v r ay. 
 Things surprise us just as much as we expect them to. 
 When we went up the river to Canton and saw the Pagoda, 
 we all exclaimed, ' Why, it is just like the pictures river, 
 and junks, and all ! ' If we had not seen the pictures, I be- 
 lieve we should scarcely have noticed \, and certainly we 
 should not have been surprised at all." 
 
 ' ' Haven't you done being surprised yet ? " Lorrimer asked. 
 
 "No. Have you?" 
 
 "Quite. Nothing ever surprises me." 
 
 " I have read somewhere," she said, trying h?.rd to recall 
 the passage, " that fast men, stupid men (I think), and 
 rascals profess to feel no surprise at anything." 
 
 The color flew over his face ; he seemed about to speak, 
 but took up his pen again as if the thing were not worth 
 the trouble of a word, and went on with his work. The 
 habit of treating men as ideas is not to be got rid of in a 
 moment, and it was only when she thought it over a fc dinner 
 this eveaing that she saw anything to hurt him in what 
 she had said. Now that she did think of it, however, it 
 certainly seemed natural that he should object to being 
 classed in any category which included fast men, stupid 
 men, or rascals ; but even while she blamed herself, and 
 credited him with much forbearance in that he had allowed 
 her rudeness to pass unpunished, she was conscious of the 
 existence, in that substratum of thought which goes on 
 continually, irrespective of our will, of a doubt as to 
 whether he might not, after all, be one of these say, a 
 fast man. For what did she know about him ? Nothing,, 
 except that his manners were agreeable. True, Bhe had 
 heard of his good deeds, and there 13 never smuke without
 
 IDEAL.A. 1,'? 
 
 fire ; but a man may balance his accounts, and many met 
 do, in that way, topping up the scale of good deeds pre:ty 
 high when the bad ones on the other side threaten to 
 it ; and, seeing that shs knew nothing definitely about his 
 private character, suppose she had been deceived in hi:. t . 
 But, no! The thing was impossible. And just as c : 
 thought it, a gentleman, sitting opposite, one whom sV 
 had not met before> looked across the table and asked her 
 if she knew Mr. Lorrimer. / 
 
 " I have seen him," she answered, with a burning bin. ," \ t 
 being taken unawares. 
 
 " He's a charming fellow don't you think so?" 
 
 " Yes, I thinn so," she agreed, with an indescribable 
 sense of relief. 
 
 And the next day a young clergyman whom she stopped 
 to speak to in the street began at once about Lorrimer. 
 
 " I met him at dinner the other night," he said. " I 
 pose you know him ? There is much truth in ' birds of ? 
 feather.' He fascinated us all with his talk of art and liter;;-- 
 tore. He gave us such new ideas described such varied 
 experiences, and all with such grace and power." 
 
 " Yes," she answered thoughtfully. ' ' I believe he is bril- 
 liant." 
 
 " Many people are that," was the reply, given with hearty 
 enthusiasm; " but Lorrimer is something more. He is good.- 
 He makes you feel it, and know it, and believe in him, with- 
 out ever saying a word about himself." 
 
 "Ah!" she sighed, " there is power in that. What lovely 
 summer weather ! It makes me dream. Don't you love the 
 time of nasturtiums? Their pungent scent, and their colors? 
 They seem to penetrate and glow through everything, and 
 make the time their own." 
 
 And so she left him. 
 
 But that same day, an old gentleman, who came from 
 another county, and looked as if he h:id come from anoth i 
 century an old gentleman with curious wavy hair, parted 
 in tbe middle, who worshiped the Idol of Days the past
 
 180 IDEALA. 
 
 and all that belonged to it and, for evening dress, wore 
 knee-breeches, frilled shirt, black silk stockings, and dia- 
 mond buckles in his shoes ; and had a bijou house, filled 
 with a thousand relics of his Idol of Days, where noble ladies 
 were wont to loll aud listen to him, and drink tea out of his 
 wonderful cups, and love him so it was said this gentle- 
 man called on Ideala. He came to charm and to be charmed ; 
 and he, of all people in the world, the one from whom she 
 would least have expected it, although she knew they had 
 met, began to sing Lorrimer's praises. 
 
 " He raises the tone of everything he is engaged upon," 
 this gentleman said. " He has not quite kept faith with me 
 about a matter he promised to look into for me a year ago, 
 but doubtless he is busy. I suppose you know him?'' 
 
 " Yes, I know him. He seems to be very much above the 
 average. 
 
 "Oh, very much above the average," was the warm re- 
 sponse. " He's a charming fellow, and a thoroughly good 
 fellow, too." 
 
 This was the chorus to everything, and there was only one 
 dissentient voice that of a man who admired Ideala, and 
 was a good soul himself, having gone out of his way to pay 
 her trifling attentions, and even found occasion to do her 
 some small acts of kindness . He began with the rest to praise 
 Lorrimer, but when he saw he was doing so at his own ex- 
 pense, by diverting her attention from himself to his subject, 
 hesomewhat lowered his tone. 
 
 " Every one seems to like Mr. Lorrimer," Ideala said. 
 
 " Oh, yes, he's certainly a nice fellow; but he puts; a lot 
 of side on." 
 
 "And well he may, being so very good and well-beloved," 
 Bhe answered, smiling 
 
 "So spoiled aud conceited, you might say," was the re- 
 joinder; butsha felt that there was jealousy in his tone, and 
 only laughed. 
 
 "What an interesting face he has," a lady remarked, 
 who was having tea with Ideala, tetc-d-tetc, one afternoon,
 
 IDEALA, 181 
 
 and had brught the conversation round to Lorrimer, as 
 seemed inevitable in those days. " He must make a charm- 
 ing portrait." 
 
 " Yes, it is a fine face," Ideala answered dreamily "a 
 face for a bust in white marble; a face from out of the long 
 ago not Greek, but Eoman of the time when men were 
 passing from a strong, simple, manly, into a luxuriously 
 effeminate, self-indulgent stage ; the face of a man who is 
 midway between the two extremes, and a prey to the desire? 
 of both. I wish I had been his mother." 
 
 " His mother was a noble woman." 
 
 " I know; but she was not omniscient, and she never 
 could have understood the boy. I dare say he was not 
 enough of an ugly duckling to attract special attention, 
 and with many other chicks in the brood he could not have 
 more than the rest, and yet he required it. He ought to 
 have been an only child. If he had been mine, I should 
 have known what his dreaminess meant, why he loved to 
 wander away and be alone, what was the conflict that be- 
 gan in his cradle or earlier. Surely a mother must re- 
 member what there was in her mind to influence her child; 
 she must have the key to all that is wrong in him ; she 
 must know ,if his soul is likely to be at war with his 
 senses." And then Ideala forgot her listener, and burst 
 out with one of those curious flashes of insight, irrespective 
 of all knowledge, to which she was subject : ' ' If I were 
 only a soul to be saved, he would save me ; but I am also 
 a body to be loved, and whether he loves me or not, he 
 suffers. It is the eternal conflict of mind and matter, spirit 
 and flesh, two prisoners chained together the one despis- 
 ing the other, yet ruled by him, and subservient to the 
 needs of his lower nature." 
 
 The lady stared at her. 
 
 "You know Mr. Lorrimer very well, then, I suppose?' 
 she remarked. 
 
 " Let me see," said Ideala, awaking from her trance, 
 " that is a question I often ask myself. And sometimes I
 
 132 IDEALA. 
 
 say I do know him very well, and sometimes I say I don't. 
 I go to the Great Hospital frequently to read and to look 
 up information, and he helps me. He is a man who makes 
 an instant impression, but he is many-sided, and, now you 
 ask me, I think, on the whole, that I do not known him 
 well. I should not be surprised to hear any number of the 
 most contradictory things about him." 
 " It is not a nice character to have," the lady said. 
 " No," Ideala answered, "not at all nice, but very inter- 
 esting." 
 
 When at last the day arrived she felt an unusual im- 
 patience to see him. And she was in a strange flutter of 
 nervous excitement. Should she tell him of those tilings 
 which she had not been able to confide to him on the last 
 occasion of their meeting? Could she? No; impossible 1 
 but she must see him, nevertheless. The desire was im- 
 perative. 
 
 The servant she had been accustomed to see met her at 
 the door of the Great Hospital. She fancied he looked at 
 her peculiarly. He said he had heard something about Mr. 
 Lorrimer being absent that day, but he would inquire. 
 
 He left her, and, returning in a few minutes, told her 
 Mr. Lorrimer was not there. 
 
 "Did he leave no note, no message, for me?" Ideala 
 asked faintly. 
 "No, madame, nothing," was the reply. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FOR quite three months we heard nothing of Ideala, but 
 we were not alarmed, as she often neglected us in this way 
 when she was busy. At last', however, Claudia received a 
 note from her, written in pencil, and in her usual style. 
 
 " It has been dull down here to a degree," she said. " I 
 am beginning to think we are all too respectable. Are re- 
 spectability and imbecility nearly allied, I wonder? But 
 don't tell me; I don't want to know. All the trouble in
 
 IDEALA. 133 
 
 the world comes from knowing too much. And then, I'm 
 so dreadfully clever ! If people take the trouble to explain 
 things to me, I am sure to acquire some of the information 
 they try to impart. I heard of the block system the other 
 day. It sounded mysterious. I like mystery, and I went 
 about in daily dread of having it all made plain to me by 
 some officious person. One day I was sitting on a rail above 
 the line, watching the trains. A workman came and sat 
 down near me. It is very hard to have a workman sit 
 down near you and not to talk to him, so we talked. And 
 before I knew what was coming, he had explained the 
 whole of that block system to me: Only fancy ! and I may 
 never forget it. It is quite disheartening. 
 
 " He said he was, a pointsman, and I asked him if he 
 would send a train down a wrong line for fifty pounds. 
 He said fifty pounds was a large sum, rnd he had a mother 
 depending on him. The people here are delicious. I think 
 I shall write a book about them some day. 
 
 " Have you felt the fascination of the trains ? My fa- 
 vorite seat here is a lovely sp it just above where they pass. 
 I can look down on them and into them. The line winds, 
 rather, through meadows and between banks, where wild- 
 flowers grow, and under an ivied bridge or two, and by 
 some woods. And the trains rush past some slow, some 
 fast ; and now and then comes one that is just a flash and 
 roar, and I cling to the railing for a moment till it passes, 
 and quiver with excitement, feeling a,s if I must be swept 
 away, I look at the carrage- windows, too, trying to catch 
 a glimpse of the people, and I always hope to see a face I 
 know. In that lies all thje charm. 
 
 "I seem to be expected in town, and some Scotch 
 friends have asked me to pay them a visit en route. I 
 should like to go that way above everything ; one would 
 see so much more of the country ! But I daren't go to 
 London while the bishop is there. He is making a dead 
 set at me again (confirmation this time), and I am afraid 
 if he heard of my arrival, he would do something rash
 
 134 IDEALA. 
 
 dance down the Row in his gaiters, perhaps which might 
 excite comment, even if people knew what he was after." 
 
 And then she went on to say she had been a little out of 
 sorts, and very lazy, and she thought the north-country 
 air would brace her nerves, and, if we would have her, she 
 would like to go to us at once. 
 
 She arrived late one afternoon, and I did not see her 
 until she came down to the drawing-room, dressed for 
 dinner. 
 
 I had not thought anything of her illness, she made so 
 light of it, and I was, therefore, startled beyond measure 
 when she appeared. 
 
 "Why, my dear!" I exclaimed involuntarily, "what 
 have they done to you ? You're a perfect wreck 1 " 
 
 " Well, so J thought," she answered ; " but I did not like 
 to tell you. I was afraid you might think I w^as trying to 
 make much of myself wrecks are so interesting." 
 
 There was a large party staying in the house, and I had 
 no opprtunity of speaking to her thab evening ; but the 
 next morning she came into my studio with a brave as- 
 sumption of her old manner. I can not tell how it was 
 that I knew in a moment she had broken down, but I did 
 know it, and I could only look at her. Perhaps something 
 in my look showed her she had betrayed herself, for all at 
 once her false composure forsook her, and sha stretched 
 out her hands to me with a piteous little gesture : 
 
 "What am I to do," she said. " Will it always be like 
 this?" 
 
 But I could not help her. I turned to the picture I was 
 working at, and went oa painting without a word. By 
 and by she recovered herself, and began to talk of other 
 things. 
 
 I blamed myself afterward. I ought to have let her tell 
 me then ; but I had no notion of the truth. I only thought 
 of her husband, and I selfishly shrunk from encouraging 
 her to speak. Complaint seemed to be beneath her. But 
 I know now that she never wanted to make any complaint
 
 IDEALA. 135 
 
 of him to me. It was of her new acquaintance that she 
 longed to tell me. She had settled the difficulty with her 
 husband without consulting any one. She had returned 
 to his house, and remained there as his wife, nominally, 
 and because he particularly wished that the world should 
 know nothing of the rupture. I believe that she had done 
 it sorely against the grain, and only because he represented 
 that by so doing she would save his reputation. But from 
 that time for%vard she would accept nothing from him but 
 house-room, for she held that [no high-minded woman 
 could take anything from a man to whom she was bound 
 by no tie more sacred than that of a mere legal contract. 
 
 She was very quiet when she first came to us, but beyond 
 that I noticed nothing unusual in her manner, and after the 
 first I was inclined to think that being out of health ac- 
 counted for everything. My sister Claudia, however, was 
 not so easily deceived. She declared that Ideala was suffer- 
 ing from some serious trouble, either mental or bodily ; and 
 as the days wore on, and there was no change for the bet- 
 ter in her, but rather the contrary, I began to share Clau- 
 dia's anxiety. 
 
 Ideala grew paler and thinner and more nervous. She 
 was oftenest depressed, but occasionally had unnatural 
 bursts of hilarity that would end suddenly in long fits of 
 brooding. 
 
 It seems she had at first believed that Lorrimer's absence 
 was an intentional slight, and the humiliation, coming as 
 it did upon the long train of troubles which had weakened 
 her already both in body and mind, nearly killed her. She 
 had been lying for weeks between life and death, and we 
 had known nothing of it. But as her strength returned she 
 began to think she had been unjust to Lorrimer. She could 
 account for his absence in many ways. He had been called 
 out suddenly, and had left no message because he expected 
 to be back before she arrived, but had been detained ; or 
 perhaps he had left a message with one of the servants 
 whom she had not seen there were so many about the
 
 136 IDEALA. 
 
 place ; or it was just possible that he had never received 
 her letter at all a certain number are lost in the post eveiy 
 day ; and altogether it was more difficult to think badly of 
 him than to believe that there had been some mistake. But 
 still there was a doubtin her mind, and she bore the torment 
 of it rather than ask for an explanation which might only 
 confirm her worst fears. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ABOUT a month after she came to ns, Ideala caught a 
 bad cold. The doctor said her chest was very delicate. 
 There was no disease, but she required great care, and must 
 not go out of doors. Soon afterward he ordered her to re- 
 main in two rooms, and my sister had a favorite sitting- 
 room turned into a bedroom for her. It opened into the 
 blue drawing-room, and we took to sitting there in the 
 evening, so that Ideala might join us without change of 
 temperature. Ideala had always been careless about her 
 health, and we expected some trouble with her now, but 
 she acquiesced in all our arrangements without a word. It 
 was easy to see, however, that her docility arose from in- 
 difference. The one idea possessed her, and she cared for 
 nothing else. Did he, or did he not, mean it? was the 
 question she asked herself, morning, noon and night, till 
 at last she could boar it no longer. Anything was better 
 than suspense. She must write to him; he must know the 
 truth one way or the other. 
 
 I had stayed up in the blue drawing-room to read one 
 night after the rest of the party had gone to their rooms 
 but my mind wandered from the book. Ideala had been 
 very still that evening, and I could not help thinking about 
 her. Once or twice I had caught her looking at me intently. 
 It seemed as if she had something to say, but when I went 
 to speak to her she answered quite at random. I was much 
 troubled about her, and something happened presently 
 whicli did not tend to set my mind at rest. The room was 
 large, and , the fire, though bright, and one shaded lamp
 
 IDE ALA. 137 
 
 standing on a low table, left the greater part of it in shadow. 
 When I gave up the attempt to read, I had gone to the far- 
 ther end of it to lie on a sofa which was quite in the shade. 
 About midnight the door into Ideala's room opened and she 
 stood on the threshold with a loose white wrapper round 
 her. She coull not see me, and I ought to have spoken and 
 let her know I was there, but I was startled at first by her 
 eudden appearance, and afterward I was afraid of startling 
 her. She was so nervous and fragile then that a very little 
 might have led to serious consequences. I did not like to 
 play the spy, but it was a choice of two evils, and I thought 
 she had come for a book or something, and would go di- 
 rectly, and if she did discover me she would suppose me to 
 be asleep. She walked about the room, however, for a little 
 in an objectless way ; then she sunk down on the floor with 
 a low moan beside a chair, and hid her face on her arm. 
 Presently she looked up, and I saw she held something ha 
 her hand. It was a gold crucifix, and she fixed her eyes on 
 it. The lamp-light fell on her face, and I could see that it 
 was drawn and haggard. Claudia had maintained latterly 
 that her illness arose more from mental than from physical 
 trouble. Did this explain it? And was it a religious diffi- 
 culty? 
 
 A weary while she remained in the same attitude, gazing 
 at the crucifix ; but evidently there was no pity for her 
 pain, and no relief. She neither prayed nor wept, and 
 scarcely moved ; and I dared not. At last, however, a 
 great drowsiness came over me ; and when I awoke I 
 almost thought I had dreamed it all, for the daylight was 
 streaming in, and I was alone. 
 
 Later in the day when I saw Ideala she had just finished 
 writing a letter. 
 
 "Shall I take it down for you?" Tasked. " The man 
 \vi'l come for the others presently." 
 
 She handed it to me without a word. On the way down- 
 stairs I saw that it was addressed to Lorrimer, of whom I 
 Iiad not then heard, but somehow I could not help think-
 
 138 IDEALA. 
 
 ing that this letter had something to do with what I had 
 seefl the night before. 
 
 For a day or two after that Ideala seemed better. Then, 
 she grew restless, which was a new phase of her malady, 
 she had been so still before ; and soon it was evident that 
 she was devoured by anxiety which she could not conceal. 
 I felt sure she was expecting some one, or something, that 
 never came. For days she wandered up and down, up and 
 down, and she neither eat nor slept. 
 
 One afternoon I went to ask if she had any letters for the 
 post. At first she said she had not, then she wanted to 
 know how soon the post was going. In a few minutes, I 
 told her. She sat down on the impulse of the moment, and 
 hurriedly wrote a note, which she handed to me. It was 
 addressed to Lorrimer ; but I asked no questions. 
 
 Two days afterward a single letter came by the post for 
 Ideala. I took it to her myself, and saw in a moment that 
 it was what she had waited for so anxiously ; the cruel 
 suspense was over at last. 
 
 That evening she was radiant; but she told us she must 
 go home next day, and we were thunderstruck. It was the 
 depth c.f winter ; the weather was bitterly cold, and she 
 had not been out of the house for months, and under the 
 circumstances to take such a journey was utter madness. 
 But we remonstrated in vain. She was determined to go, 
 and she went. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IN a few days she returned to us, and we were amazed at 
 the change in her. Her voice was clear again, her step 
 elastic, her complexion had recovered some of its brilliancy; 
 there was a light in her eyes that I had never seen there 
 before, and about her lips a perpetual smile hovered. She 
 was tranquil again, and self-possessed ; but she was more 
 than that she was happy. One could see it in the very 
 poise of her figure when she crossed the room.
 
 IDEALA. 139 
 
 " This is delightful, is it not ? " Claudia whispered to me 
 in the drawing-room on the evening of her return. 
 
 " Delightful," I answered ; but I was puzzled. Ideala's 
 variableness was all on the surface, and I felt sure that this 
 sudden change, which looked like ease after agony, meant 
 something serious. 
 
 She did not keep me long in suspense. The next morn- 
 ing she came to my studio door and looked in shyly. 
 
 " Come in," I said. " I have been expecting you," and 
 then I went on with my painting. I saw she had some- 
 thing to tell me, and thought, as she was evidently embar- 
 rassed, it would be easier for her to speak if I did not look 
 at her. " I hope you are going to stay with us some time 
 now, Ideala," I added, glancing up at her as she came and 
 looked over my shoulder at the picture. 
 
 Her face clouded. 
 
 " I I am afraid not," she answered, hesitating, and ner- 
 vously fidgeting with some paint brushes that lay on a 
 table beside her. " I am afraid you will not want me when 
 you know what I am going to do. I only came back to tell 
 you." 
 
 My heart stood still. 
 
 " To tell me. Why, what are going to do ? " 
 
 "It is very hard to tell you," she faltered. " You and 
 Claudia are my dearest friends, and I can not bear to give 
 you pain. But I must tell you at once. It is only right 
 that you should know especially as you will disapprove." 
 
 I turned to look at her, but she could not meet my eyes. 
 
 ""Give us pain ! Disapprove ! " I exclaimed. " What on 
 earth do you mean, Ideala ? What are you going to do ? " 
 
 "An immoral thing," she answered. 
 
 "Good heavens!" I exclaimed, throwing down my 
 palette, and rising to confront her. " I don't believe it." 
 
 " I mean," she stammered the blood rushing into her 
 face and then leaving her white as she spoke" something 
 which you will consider so." 
 
 " I can not believe it," I reiterated.
 
 140 IDEALA. 
 
 " But it is true. He says so." 
 
 " He who, in God's name?" 
 
 " Lorrimer." 
 
 "And who on earth is Lorrimer?" 
 
 " That is what I came to tell you," she answered faintly. 
 
 I gathered up my palette and brushes, and sat down to 
 my easel again. 
 
 " Tell me, then," I said as calmly as I could. 
 
 I pretended to paint, and after a little while, still stand- 
 ing behind me so that I could not see her face, she began in 
 a low voice, and told me, with her habitual accuracy, all 
 that had passed between them. 
 
 "And what did you think when you found he was not 
 tnere ?" I asked, for at that point she had stopped. 
 
 "At first I thought he did not want to see me, and had 
 gone away on purpose," she answered; "then I was ill; 
 but after that, when I began to get better, I was afraid I 
 had been unjust to him. There might have been some mis- 
 take, and I was half inclined to go and see, but I was 
 frightened. And every day the longing grew, and I used 
 to sit and look at my watch, and think : ' I could be there 
 in an hour'; or, 'I might be with him in forty minutes.' 
 But I never went. And after awhile I could not bear it 
 any longer, and so I came to you. But the thought of him 
 came with me, and the desire to know the truth grew and 
 grew, until at last I could bear that no longer either, and 
 then I wrote ; and day after day I waited, and no answer 
 camo ; ai 1 then I wag sure he had done it on purpose, but 
 yet I could not bear to think it of him. And I be^an not 
 to know what people said when they spoke to me, and I 
 think I should have killed myself; but I come of an old 
 race, you know, and none of us ever did a, cowardly thing, 
 and I would rather suffer forever than be the first noblesse 
 oblige. I don't deserve much credit for that, though, for I 
 knew I should die if ^ did not see him again die of grief, 
 and shanie.and humiliation because of what I had written, 
 for as the days passed, and uo answer came, I was afraid I
 
 IDEALA. 141 
 
 had said too much, and he had misunderstood me, and 
 would despise me. If I had only been sure that he did not 
 want to see me again, of course I should never have writ- 
 ten ; but so many people have lost their only chance of hap 
 piness because they had not the courage to find out the trutb 
 iu some such doubtful matter ; and I did believe in him so 
 I could not think he would do a low thing. I was 
 hi a difficult position, and I did what I thought was right; 
 but when no answer came to my letter I began to doubt, 
 and then, in a moment of rage, feeling myself insulted, 1 
 wrote again. Yet I don't know what made me write. It was 
 an impulse the sort of thing that makes one scream when 
 one is hurt. It does no good, but the cry is out before you 
 can think of that. All I said was : * I understand your 
 silence. You are cruel and unjust. But I can keep my 
 word, and if I live for nothing else, I promise that I will 
 make you respect me yet.' I never expected him to answer 
 that second note, but he did, at once. And he offered to 
 come here and explain he was dreadfully distressed. But 
 I preferred to go to him." 
 
 ' ' A nd you went ? " 
 
 " Yes. And I was frightened, and he was very 
 kind." 
 
 By degrees she told me much of what had passed at that 
 interview. She seemed to have had no thought of any- 
 thing but her desire to see him, and have hev mind set at 
 rest, until she found herself face to face with him, and 
 then she was assailed by all kinds of doubts and fears ; but 
 he had put her at her ease in five minutes and in five 
 minutes more she had forgotten everything in the rapid 
 change of ideas, the delightful intellectual contest and com- 
 munion, which had made his companionship everything to 
 her. She did just remember to ask him why he had not 
 answered her first letter. 
 
 He searched about among a pile of newly -arrived docu- 
 ments on his writing-table. 
 
 "There it is," he said, showing her the letter covere I
 
 143 IDEALA. 
 
 seith stamps and postmarks. " It only arrived this morn- 
 ing just in Jime, though, to speak for itself. I was 
 abroad when you wrote, and it was sent after me, and has 
 followed me from place to place, as you see, so that I go- 
 your second letter first. You might have known there was 
 some mistake." 
 
 "Pardon me," Ideala answered. "I ought to have 
 known." 
 
 And then she had looked up at him and smiled, and never 
 another doubt had occurred to her. 
 
 "But, Ideala," I said to her, "you used the word ' im- 
 moral ' just now. You were talking at random, surely ? 
 You are nervous. For Heaven's sake, collect yourself, and 
 tell me what all this means." 
 
 " No, I am not nervous," she answered. " See I my 
 hand is quite steady. It is you who are trembling. I am 
 calm now, and relieved, because I have told you. But, 
 oh ! I am so sorry to give you pain." 
 
 " I do not yet understand," I answered hoarsely. 
 
 " He wants me to give up everything, and go to him," 
 she said ; " but he would not accept my consent until he 
 had explained, and made me understand exactly what I 
 was doing. ' The world will consider it an immoral thing,' 
 lie said, ' and so it would be if the arrangement were not 
 to be permanent. But any contract which men and 
 v.-omen hold to be binding on themselves should be suffi- 
 cient now, and will be sufficient again, as it used to be in 
 the old days, provided we can show good cause why any 
 previous contract should be broken. You must belief 
 that you must be thoroughly satisfied now. For if youi 
 conscience were to trouble you afterward your trouble- 
 some conscience, which keeps you busy regretting nearly 
 everything you do, but. never warns you in time to stop 
 you if you were to have any scruples, then there would be 
 no peace for either of us, and you had better give me up at 
 once." 
 
 " And what did you say, Ideala?"
 
 IDEALA. 143 
 
 ' I said, perhaps T had. I was beginning to be frightened 
 again." 
 
 " And how did it end ? " 
 
 " He made me go home and consider." 
 
 " Yes, and what then?" I demanded impatiently. 
 
 " And next day he came to me to know my decision 
 and-*-and I was satisfied. I can not live without 
 him." 
 
 I groaned aloud. What was I to say ? What could I 
 do? An arrangement of this sort is carefully concealed, as 
 a rule, by the people concerned, and denied if discovered; 
 but here were a lady and gentleman prepared, not only to 
 take the step, but to justify it under somewhat peculiar 
 circumstances, certainly and carefully making their 
 friends acquainted with their intention beforehand, as if 
 it were an ordinary engagement. I knew Ideala, and 
 could understand her being over-persuaded. Something of 
 the kind was what I had always feared for her. Bui 
 Lorrimer what sort of a man was he ? I own that I was 
 strongly prejudiced against him from the moment she pro- 
 nounced his name, and all she had told me of him subse- 
 quently only confirmed the prejudice. 
 
 "Why was he not there that day to receive you?" I 
 asked at last. 
 
 " I don't know," she said. " I quite forgot about that. 
 And I suppose he forgot, too," she added, " since he never 
 told me." 
 
 "Q Ideala!" I exclaimed, "how like you that is ! It 
 is most important that you should know whether he in- 
 tended to slight you on that occasion or not. It is the key 
 to his whole action in this matter." 
 
 " But supposing he did mean to be rude ? I should have 
 to forgive him, you know, because I have been rude to him 
 often. He does not approve of my conduct always, by 
 any means," she placidly assured me. 
 
 " And does he, of all people in the world, presume to sit 
 in judgment on you ? " I answered indignantly. ' ' I always
 
 14 IDEALA. 
 
 thought you the most extraordinary persan in the world, 
 Ideala, until I heard of this gentleman." 
 
 " Hush!" she protested, as if I had blasphemed. " You 
 must not speak of him like that. He is a gentleman as 
 true and loyal as you are yourself. And he is everything 
 to me." 
 
 But these assurances were only what I had expected 
 from Ideala, and in no way altered my opinion o Mr. 
 Lorrimer. I knew Ideala's peculiar conscience well . She 
 might do what all the world would consider wrong on oc- 
 casion; but she would never do so until she h-ul persuaded 
 horself that wrong was right for her, at all events. 
 
 " He may be everything to you, but he has lowered you, 
 lueala," I resumed, thinking it best not to spare her. 
 
 " I was degraded when I met him." 
 
 " Circumstaaces can not degrade us until they make us 
 act unworthily," I rejoined. 
 
 " Oh, no," he has not lowered me," she persisted; " quite 
 the contrary. I have only begun to know the difference 
 between right and wrong since I met him, and to under- 
 tand how absolutely necessary for our happiness is right- 
 doing, even in the veriest trifle. And there is one thing 
 that I must always be grateful to him for I can pray now. 
 But I belied myself to him, nevertheless. He asked me if 
 I ever prayed, and I was shy; I could not tell him, because 
 I only prayed for him. It was easier to say that sometimes 
 I revi'ed. Ah! why can we not be true to ourselves ?" 
 
 " But I can't always pray," she went on, sorrowfully; 
 
 "only sometimes ; generally when I am in church. The 
 
 thought of him comes over me then, and a great longing 
 
 ve Lim beside me, kneeling, with his heart made ten- 
 
 and his soul purified and uplifted to God as mine is, 
 
 possesses me a longing so great that it fills my whole 
 
 b<nng, and finds a voice : ' My God I my God 1 give him to 
 
 me ! ' " 
 
 " ' Angels of God in heaven I give him to me I give him 
 to me ! ' " I answered bitterly.
 
 IDEALA. 145 
 
 " Yes, I remember," she rejoined, " I said it in my arro- 
 gant ignorance. I did not understand, and this is different." 
 "It is always different in our own case," I answered. 
 ' Do you remember that passage Ralph Waldo Emerson 
 quotes from Lord Bacon ' Moral qualities rule the world, 
 but at short distances the senses are despotic ' ? It seems 
 to me that when you call upon God in that spirit you are 
 worshiping Him with your senses only." 
 
 "Then I believe it is possible to make the senses the 
 means of saving the soul at critical times," she answered ; 
 *' and at all events I know this : that I more earnestly de- 
 sire to be a good woman now than I ever did before." 
 " It would be a dangerous doctrine," I began. 
 "Only in cases where the previous moral development 
 had not been of a high order," she interrupted. 
 
 I felt it was useless to pursue that part of the subject, so 
 I waited a little, and then I said : 
 
 " Am I to understand, thon, that you are going to give 
 up your position in society, and all your friends, for the 
 sake of this one man, who probably does not care for you, 
 who certainly does not respect you, and of whom you know 
 nothing? Verily, he has gained an easy victory t But, of 
 course, you know not what his object has been from the 
 first." 
 
 " I know what you mean/' she answered indignantly ; 
 " but you are quite wrong ; he does care for me. And if 
 I give up my position in society for his sake, he is worth, 
 it, and I. am content. And it is my own doing, too. I 
 know that there can not be one law for me affd another 
 for all the other women in the world, and if I break 
 through a social convention I am prepared to adide by the 
 consequences. Do you want to make me believe that his 
 sympathy was pretended, that he deliberately planned 
 something I have no word to express and would have 
 carried out his plan absolutely in cold blood, without a 
 spark of affection for me ? It would be hard to believe it 
 of any man ; it is impossible to believe it of him. He
 
 IDEALA. 
 
 is a man of strong passions, if you will, but of noble 
 purpose ; and if I make a sacrifice for him, he will be 
 making one for me also. He may have been betrayed at 
 times by grief, or other mental pain, which weakened 
 his moral nature for the moment, and left him at the 
 mercy of bad impulses ; but I can believe such impulses 
 were isolated, and any action they led him into was bitterly 
 repented of ; and no one will ever make me alter my con- 
 viction that I wronged him when I doubted him, even for 
 a moment." 
 
 " That is all very well, Ideala," I said, trying not to 
 irritate her by direct opposition, " if you appeared to him 
 as you appear to me. Do you think you did ? Was there 
 anything in you conduct that might have given him a low 
 estimate of your character to begin with? Anything that 
 might have led him to doubt your honesty, and think, 
 when you made your confession, that you were trying to 
 get up a little play in which you intended him to take a 
 leading part ? That you merely wished to ease your mind 
 from some inevitable sense of shame in wrong-doing by 
 finding an excuse for yourself to' begin with an excuse by 
 which you would excite his interest and sympathy, and 
 save yourself from his contempt ? " 
 
 "Ohl" she exclaimed, "could he could any one- 
 think such a thing possible ?" 
 
 " Such things are being done every day, Ideala, and a 
 
 man of the world would naturally be on his guard against 
 
 deception. If he thought he was being deceived, do you 
 
 think it likely he would feel bound to be scrupulous?" 
 
 "But he did believe in me," she declared passionately. 
 
 " He pretended to ; it was part of the play. You see, 
 
 he only kept it up until he thoroughly understood you, 
 
 and then his real feelings appeared, and he was rude to 
 
 you. For I call his absence on that occasion distinctly 
 
 rude, and intentionally so too, since he sent no apology." 
 
 " He was only rude to me to save me from myself, then, 
 as Lancelot w as rude to Elaine," she answered.
 
 IDEALA. 147 
 
 " Or is it not just possible that he was disappointed when 
 he found you better than he had supposed ? that he felt he 
 had wasted his time for nothing, and was irritated " 
 
 She interrupted me. 
 
 " I forgive you," she said, " because you do not know 
 him. But I shall never convince you. You are preju- 
 diced. You do not think ill of me ; why do you think ill 
 of him ?" 
 
 I made no answer, and she was silent for a little. Then 
 she began again, recurring to the point at issue : 
 
 " If he did slight me on that occasion," she said " and 
 I maintain that he did not but if he did, it was acciden- 
 tally done." 
 
 " The evidence is against him," I answered dryly. 
 
 "Many innocent persons have suffered because it was," 
 she said, with confidence. 
 
 "You are infatuated," I answered roughly. And then 
 my heart sent up an exceeding great and bitter cry ; 
 "Ideala 1 Ideala ! how did it ever come to this?" 
 
 She was silent. But her eyes were bright once more, 
 her figure was erect, there was new life in her I could see 
 that and never a doubt. She was satisfied. She was happy. 
 
 " Must I give you up?" she said at last, tentatively. 
 
 " No, you must give him up," I answered. 
 
 " Ah, that is impossible 1" she cried. "We were made 
 for each other. We can not live apart." 
 
 " Ideala," I exclaimed, exasperated, " he never believed 
 in you^ He thought you were as so many women of our 
 set are, and he showed it, if only you could have under- 
 stood, when you saw him at the hospital on that last occa- 
 sion. You felt that there was some change, as you say 
 yourself, and that was it. You talked to him of truth, 
 then, and it irritated him as the devil quoting Scripture 
 might be supposed to irritate ; and when you went back 
 again he showed what he thought of you by his unex- 
 plained absence. He thought you were not worth con 
 sideration, and he gave you none."
 
 148 IDEALA. 
 
 " It would have been paying himself a very poor compli- 
 ment if he had thought that only a corrupt woman could 
 care for him," she answered confidently. "But, I tell 
 you, I am sure there is some satisfactory explanation of 
 that business. I only wish I had remembered to ask for it, 
 that I might satisfy you now. And, at any rate," she 
 added, " whatever he may have thought, he knows better 
 by this time." 
 
 I could say no more. Baffled and sick at heart, I left 
 her, wondering if some happy inspiration would come be- 
 fore it was too late, and help me to save her yet. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I WENT to consult my sister Claudia. The blow was a 
 heavy one for her aLo ; but I was surprised to find that 
 she did not share my contempt for the person whom I con- 
 sidered responsible for all this trouble. 
 
 " Ideala is no common character herself," Claudia 
 argued, "and it isn't likely that a common character 
 would fascinate her as this man has done." 
 
 " Will you speak to her, Claudia, and see what your in- 
 fluence will do ? " 
 
 "It is no use my speaking to her," she answered, dis- 
 consolately. "Ideala is a much cleverer woman than I 
 am. She would make me laugh at my own advice in five 
 minutes. And, besides, if she be infatuated, as you say 
 she is, she will be only too glad to be allowed to talk about 
 him and that will strengthen her feeling for him. No. 
 She has chosen you for her confidant, and you had better 
 talk to her yourself and may you succeed ! " she added, 
 laying her head on the table beside which she was sitting, 
 and giving way to a burst of grief. 
 
 I tried to comfort her, but I had little hope myself, and I 
 could not speak at all confidently. 
 
 " I believe," Claudia said, before we parted, " that there 
 id nothing for her now but a choice of two evils. If she
 
 IDEALA. 149 
 
 gives him up. she will never care for anything again, and 
 if she does not, she will have done an unjustifiable thing ; 
 and life after that for such a woman as Ideala would be 
 like one of those fairy gifts which were bestowed subject to 
 some burdensome condition that made the good of them, 
 null and void." 
 
 I did not meet Ideala again until the evening, and then I 
 was not sorry to see that her manner was less serene. It 
 was just possible that she had been thinking over what I 
 had said, and that some of the doubts I had suggested were 
 beginning to disturb her perfect security. 
 
 After dinner she brought the conversation round to those 
 social laws which govern our lives arbitrarily. I did not 
 see what she was driving at, neither did the good old 
 bishop, who was one of the party, nor a lawyer who was 
 also present. 
 
 " You want to know something," said the latter. "What 
 is it ? You must state your case clearly." 
 
 " I want to know if a thing can be legally right and 
 morally wrong," Ideala answered. 
 
 " Of course not," the bishop rashly asserted. 
 
 " That depends," the lawyer said cautiously. 
 
 'If I signed a contract," Ideala explained, " and found 
 out afterward that those who induced me to become a party 
 to it had kept me in ignorance of the most important clause 
 in it, so that I really did not know to what I was commit- 
 ting myself, would you call that a moral contract ! " 
 
 " I should say that people had not dealt uprightly with 
 you," the bishop answered ; ' ' but there might be nothing 
 in the clause to which you could object." 
 
 " But suppose there was something in the clause to which 
 I very strongly objected, something of which my conscience 
 disapproved, something that was repugnant to my whole 
 moral nature ; and suppose I was forced by the law to 
 fulfill it nevertheless, should you say that was a moral 
 contract ! Should you not say that in acting against my 
 conscience I acted immorally?"
 
 150 IDEALA. 
 
 "We all fell into the trap, and looked an encouraging assent. 
 
 " And, in that case," she continued, " I suppose my duty 
 would be to evade the law, and act on my conscience? " 
 
 The bishop looked puzzled. 
 
 " I should only be doing what the early martyrs had to 
 do," she added. 
 
 " That is true," he rejoined, with evident relief. 
 
 " But I don't see what particular contract you are think- 
 ing of," said the lawyer. 
 
 " The marriage contract," Ideala answered calmly. 
 
 This announcement created a sensation. 
 
 The lawyer laughed ; the bishop looked grave. 
 
 "Oh, but you can not describe marriage in that way," 
 he declared, with emphasis. 
 
 " Humph I" the lawyer observed meditatively. " I am 
 afraid I must beg to differ from your lordship. Many 
 women might describe their marriages in that way with 
 perfect accuracy." 
 
 " Marriages are made in heaven," the bishop ejaculated 
 feebly. 
 
 " Let us hope that some are, dear bishop !" Claudia 
 sweetly observed, and all the married people in the room 
 looked ' ' Amen" at her. 
 
 " I think an ideal of marriage should be fixed by law, and 
 lectures given in all the colleges to teach it," Ideala went 
 on, " and a standard of excellence ought to be set up for 
 people to attain to before they could be allowed to marry. 
 They should be obliged to pass examinations on the subject 
 and fit themselves for the perfect state by a perfect life. It 
 should be made a reward for merit and a goal toward which 
 goodness only could carry us. Then marriages might seem 
 to have been made in heaven, and the blessing of God would 
 sanctify a happy union, instead of being impiously pro- 
 nounced in order to ratify a business transaction, or sanc- 
 tion the indulgence of a passing fancy. But only the love 
 that lasts can sanctify marriage, and a marriage without 
 guch love is an immoral contract."
 
 IDEALA. 151 
 
 " Marriage an immoral contract 1" the bishop exclaimed. 
 " Oh, dear I oh, dear 1 This is not right, you know this 
 is not at all right. I must make a note of this, I really must. 
 You are in the habit of saying things of this sort, my dear. 
 I remember you said something like it once before ; and 
 really it is not a subject to Jake about. Such an idea is 
 quite pernicious ; it must not be allowed to spread, even as 
 a joke. I wish, my dear, you had not promulgated it, even 
 in that spirit. You have ah a knack of making things 
 seem plausible and of giving weight to opinions by the way 
 you express them, although the opinions themselves are 
 quite erroneous, as on the present occasion. Some of your 
 ideas ai-e so very mistaken, you know ; and you really 
 ought to leave these matters to those who understand them 
 <md can judge. It is very dangerous to discuss sach sub- 
 jects, especially ah when you know nothing about them 
 and ah cannot judge. I really must preach a sermon on 
 the subject. Let me see. Next Sunday ah yes ; next- 
 Sunday, if you will kindly come and hear me." 
 
 We all thanked him as enthusiastically as we could. 
 
 Later, I found Ideala alone in one of the conservatories. 
 She took my arm affectionately, and we walked up and 
 down for a time in silence. She was smiling and happy, 
 so happy, indeed, that I found it hard to say anything to 
 disturb h r. For a moment f felt almost as she did about 
 the step sli3 proposed to take. There had been little joy 
 in her life, and she had borne her cross long and bravely ; 
 what wonder that she should rebel at last and claim her 
 reward? 
 
 "Do you remember how you used to talk about the 
 women of the nineteenth century, Ideala," I said, at last, 
 "and describe the power for good which they never use, 
 and rail at them as artificial, milliner-made, man-hunting, 
 self-indulgent animals?" 1 
 
 " I know," she answered ; "^and now you would say I 
 am worse Than any of them? I used to have big ideas 
 about woman and her mission, but I always looked at the
 
 15.3 IDEALA. 
 
 question broadly, as it affects the whole world ; now ray 
 vision is narrowed, and I see it only with regard to one in- 
 dividual But I am sure that is the right way to look at 
 it. I think every woman will have to answer for one 
 man's soul, and it seems to me that the nobbst thing a 
 woman can do is to devote her life to that soul first of all 
 to raise it if it be low, to help it to peace if peace be 
 lacking, and to gather all the sunshine there is in the 
 world for it ; and, after that, if her opportunities and 
 powers allow her to help others also, she should do what 
 she can for them. I do not know all th places which ib 
 is legitimate for women to fill in the world, but it seems 
 to me that they are many and various, and that the great 
 object in life for a woman is to help. To be a Pericles I 
 see that a man. must have an Aspasia. "Was Aspasia vile ? 
 some said so yet she did a nobler work, and was finer in 
 her fall, if she fell, than many good women in all the glory 
 of uprightness are. And was she impure V then it is strange 
 that her mind was not corrupting in its influence. And 
 was she low ? then whence came her power to raise others ? 
 It seems tome that it only rests with ourselves to make any 
 position in life, which circumstances render it expedient 
 for us to occupy, desirable." 
 
 " And you propose to be an Aspasia to this modern Peri- 
 cles ? " 
 
 " If you like to put it so. The cases are not dissimilar, 
 as there was an obstacle in the way of their marriage 
 also." 
 
 "The law was the obstacle." 
 
 "Yc's; another of those laws which are more honored 
 in the breach than in the observance. They might not 
 marry because she came from Miletus ! and Lorrimer may 
 not marry me because I came oat of the house of bondage. 
 Unwise laws make immoral nations." 
 
 " But you have gone about this business in such an ex- 
 traordinary way, Ideala," I said. " You seem to h:;ve tried 
 to make it appear as bad for yourself as you can. Why
 
 IDEALA. 153 
 
 did you not leave your husband when Lorrimer advised 
 you to?" 
 
 " If I had gone then, I should have been obliged to live 
 somewhere else a long way from Lorrimer ; and I might 
 nevei have seen him again." 
 
 " And do you mean to say you decided to endure a life 
 that had become hateful to you in every way, simply for 
 the sake of seeing this gentleman occasionally ? " 
 
 " Yes. Ah I you do not know how good he is, nor how 
 he raises me 1 I never knew the sort of creature 1 was un- 
 til he tcld me. He said once, when we quarreled, that I 
 was fanciful, sentimental, lackadaisical, hysterical, and in 
 
 an unhealthy state of mind, and yet " 
 
 I made a gesture of impatience, and she stopped. 
 " But, Ideala," I asked her, after a little pause, " have 
 you never felt that what you are doing is wrong ? " ^ 
 
 "I cannot say that exactly," she answered. "I knew 
 that certain social conventions forbid the thing at least, 
 I began to acknowledge this to myself after a time. At 
 first, you know, I thought of nothing. I was wholly ab- 
 sorbed in my desire to see him ; that excluded every other 
 consideration. Do you know what it is to be sure that a 
 thing is wrong, and yet not to be able to f oel it so to have 
 your reason acknowledge what your conscience does not 
 confirm?" 
 
 I made no answer, and we were silent for a little ; then 
 she spoke again : 
 
 " One day when I was in Japan," she said, " I was living 
 up in the hills at Hakone, ajvillage on a lake three thou- 
 sand feet above the level of the sea. The mayor of the 
 village was entertaining me, and whenever I went out he 
 sent his son and several of his retainers as an escort that 
 I might not be subject to annoyance or insult from 
 strangers. One day I was crossing the hills by a mountain- 
 path there is between Hakone and Mianoshita, and after I 
 passed Ashynoyou, where the sulphur springs are, I found 
 myself in a dense fog. I could not see anything distinctly
 
 154 IDEALA. 
 
 three yards in front of me. Kashywaya and the other men 
 never walked with me ; they used to hover about me, leav- 
 ing me, to all intents and purposes, alone, if I preferred it. 
 The Japanese are very delicate in some things ; it was 
 weeks before I knew that I had a guard of honor at all. 
 On that particular day I lost sight of them altogether, but 
 I could hear them calling to one another through the fog ; 
 and I sat down, feeling very wretched and lonely. I 
 thought how all the beauty of life had been spoiled for me 5 
 how, past, present, and to come, it was all a blank ; and I 
 wished in my heart that I might die, and know no more. 
 And, do you know, just at that moment the fag beneath 
 me parted, and I saw the sea, sapphire blue and dotted 
 with boats, and the sand a streak of silver, and the green 
 earth, and a low horizon of shining clouds, and over all the 
 sun ! Dear Lord in heaven ! how glad a sight it was I " 
 She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. " And I was 
 wandering," she continued, " in some such mental mist, 
 lost and despairing, when Lorriiner came into my life, and 
 changed everything for me in a moment, like the sun. 
 Would you have me believe that he was sent to me then 
 only for an evil purpose? That the good God, in whom I 
 scarcely believed until in His mercy He allowed me to feel 
 love for one of His creatures, and to realize through it the 
 Divine love of which it is surely the foreshadowing would 
 you have me believe myself degraded by love so sent? 
 "Would you have me turn from it and call it sin, when I 
 feel that God Himself is the giver?" 
 
 I was silent, not knowing how to answer her. 
 
 Presently I asked : 
 
 " But why not kava a legal separation, a divorce, from 
 your husband now ? " 
 
 " I can not," she answered sadly. " At one time I had 
 written proof of his turpitude, but I could not make up my 
 mind to use it then, and I destroyed it eventually ; so that 
 now my word would be the only evidence against him, and 
 that would not do, I suppose, although you all know, better
 
 IDEALA. 155 
 
 than I do, I fancy, what his life has been." Other people 
 had by this time come into the conservatory, and we were, 
 therefore, obliged to change the subject. 
 
 In the days that followed every one seemed to become 
 conscious of some impending trouble. We were all de- 
 pressed, and one by one our party left us, until at last only 
 Ideala remained, for we had not the heart to ask other 
 guests, even if it had been expedient, and, under the cir- 
 cumstances, Claudia did not consider it so. 
 
 Ideala spent much of her time ia writing to Lorrimer. 
 Some of these letters were never sent. 1 fancy she wrote 
 exactly as she felt, and often feared when she had done so 
 that she had been too frank. How these two ever came to 
 such an understanding I am at. a loss to imagine, and I 
 have searched in vain for any clew to the mystery. Only 
 one thing is plain to me, that when at last Ideala under- 
 stood her feeling for Lorrimer, she cherished it. After she 
 found that her husband had broken every tie, disregarded 
 every obligation, legal and moral, that bound her to him, 
 she seems to have considered herself free. But I feel quite 
 sure she had not acknowledged this, even to herself, when, 
 she returned to Lorrimer, and that simply because she had 
 not contemplated the possibility of being asked to take any 
 decided step. When the time came, however, she appar- 
 ently never questioned her right to act on this fancied free- 
 dom. The circumstances under which they had met were 
 probably responsible for a great deal . The whole of their 
 acquaintance had had something unusual about it, which 
 would naturally; predispose their minds to further unac- 
 customed issues when any question of right or expediency 
 arose. The restrictions which men and women have seen 
 fit to place upon their intercourse with one another are the 
 outcome of ages of experience, and they who disregard 
 them bring upon themselves the troubles against which 
 those same restrictions, irksome at times as they must be, 
 are the only adequate defense. 
 
 One letter I have here shows something of the strength.
 
 156 IDEALA. 
 
 and tenderness of Ideala's devotion ; and I venture to think 
 that, even under the circumstances, it must be good for a 
 man to have been loved once in his life like that. The 
 letter begins abruptly : 
 
 " Oh, the delight of being able to write to you," she 
 says, " without fear and without constraint ! If it were 
 possible to step from the dreary oppression of the northern 
 midnight into the full blaze of the southern noon, the 
 transition would not be greater than is the sense of rest 
 and relief that has come to me after the weary days which 
 are over. Do you know, I never believed that any one 
 person could be so much to another as you are to me ; that 
 any one could be so happy as I am ! I thiak I am too 
 happy. But, dear, I want you. I want you always ; 
 but most of all, when anything good or beautiful moves me ; 
 I feel nearer to you then, and I know you would under- 
 stand. Every good thought, every worthy aspiration, 
 everything that is best in me, and every possibility of bet- 
 ter things, seem due to your influence, and make me 
 crave for your presence. You have been the one thing 
 wanting to me my whole life long. I believe that no soul 
 is perfect alone, and that each of us must have a partner- 
 soul somewhere, kept apart from us by false marriages, 
 perhaps, or distance, or death, but still to be ours, if not in 
 this state, then in some other, when both are perfect enough 
 to make the union possible. We are not all fit for that love 
 which is the beginning of heaven, and can have no end.* 
 
 *This passage might have been taken from Plato, verbatim, but 
 Ideala had not read Plaio at the tima it was written. The inborn 
 passionate longing of the human soul for perfect companionship 
 doubtless accounts for the coincidence, which also shows how deep- 
 rooted and widely spread the hope of eventually obtaining the de- 
 sired companionship is. Some will maintain that the desire for 
 such a possibility has created the belief in it, but others claim to 
 have met their partner-souls and to have become united by a bond 
 so perfect that even distance can not sever it, there being some in- 
 explicable means of communication between the two, which en- 
 ables >ach ro know what befalls the other wherever tbey may be. 
 The idea might probably b traced back to that account of Adam
 
 IDEALA. 157 
 
 Does this seem fanciful to you ? It would comfort me if we 
 were ever separated. If I can not tell you how it makes 
 my heart sink just to look at that word, although I know 
 it does not suggest anything that is possible in our case. 
 What power would take me from you now, when there is 
 no one else in the whole wide world for me but you ? and 
 always you ! and only you I You, with your ready sym- 
 pathy and perfect refinement ; your wit, your rapid 
 changes, your ideality, your kindness, your cruelty, and 
 the terrible discontent which makes you untrue to yourself. 
 You are my world. But unless I can be to you what you 
 are to me, you will always be one of the lonely ones, Tell 
 me, again, that my absence makes a blank in your life. 
 You did not write the word, you only left a space, and do 
 you know how I filled it at first ? ' It was such a relief 
 when you left off coming,' I read, and I raged at you. 
 
 ' I have heard it said lately that you are fickle, but these 
 people do not understand you. You are true to your ideal, 
 but the women you have hitherto known were only so 
 many imperfect realizations of it, and so you went from 
 one to the other, always searching, but never satisfied. 
 And you have it in you to be so much happier or so much 
 more miserable than other men I should have trembled 
 for you if your hopes had never been realized. 
 
 "But what would satisfy you? I of ten long to be that 
 mummy you have in the Great Hospital, the one with the 
 short nose and thick lips. When you looked at me, spirit 
 and flesh would grow one with delight, and I should come 
 to life, and grow round and soft, and warm again, and talk 
 to you of Thebes, and you would be enchanted with me 
 you could not help it then. I should be so old, so very old, 
 and genuine ! 
 
 which describes him as androgynous, or a higher union of man and 
 woman a union of all the attributes of either, which, to punish 
 Adam for a grievous fault, was subsequently sundered into the 
 contrast between man and woman, leaving each lonely, imperfect, 
 and vainly longing for the other.
 
 158 IDEALA. 
 
 " Dear, how I laugh at my fears now, or, rather, how I 
 bless them. If I had never known the horror of doubt how 
 could I have known what certainty is? And I did doubt 
 you ; I dare acknowledge it now. I wonder if you can 
 understand what the shame of that doubt was? When I 
 thought your absence and your silence were intentional 
 slights, I knew how they felt when ' they called on the 
 rocks to cover them,' and I wished oh, how I wished ! 
 that a thousand years had passed, and my spirit could be at 
 the place where we met, and see the pillars broken, and 
 the ivy climbing over the ruins, and the lizards at home 
 among them, and the shameless sunlight making bare the 
 spot where we stood. 
 
 " It was as if I had been punished for some awful un- 
 known sin, and when I seemed to be dying, and I dared 
 not write to you, and all hope of ever knowing the truth 
 had departed, I used to exclaim, in my misery: ' Verily, 
 Lord, if Thy servant sinned she hath suffered I for the 
 anguish of death has been doubled, and the punishment of 
 the lost has begun while yet the tortured mind can make 
 its lament and moan with the tortured body 1* 
 
 " But all that bitter past only enhances the present. 
 " I wonder where you will be to-day. I believe you are 
 always in that room of yours. You only leave it to walk 
 to the station with me, after which you go back to it, and 
 work there till it is dark; and then you rest, waiting for 
 the daylight, and when it comes you go to work again. I 
 can not fancy you anywhere else. I should not like to 
 realize that you have an existence of which I can know 
 nothing, a life through which I can not follow you, even 
 in imagination . 
 
 "But sometimes you come to me, and then how glad I 
 am 1 You come to me and kiss me, and it is night and I 
 am dreaming, and not ashamed. 
 
 "Yes, the days do drag on slowly, for after all I am 
 never quite happy, never at peace even, never for a mo- 
 ment, except when I am with you. I am sorry I feel so,
 
 IDEALA. 159 
 
 for it seems ungrateful in the face of all the kindness and 
 care that is being lavished on me by my friends. O-ie lady 
 here has seven children another instance of the unequal 
 distribution of the good things of this world. She has lent 
 me one of them to comfort me because I am jealous. He 
 sleeps in my room, and is a fair-haired boy, with eyes that 
 remind me of you. Will he also, when he grows up, have 
 '* the conscience of a saint among his warring senses ' ? I 
 hope not; I should think when sense and conscience are 
 equally delicate, and apt to thrill simultaneously, life must 
 be a burden. Would such a state of things account for 
 moods that vary perpetually, I wonder ? " 
 
 Here she breaks off, and I think these last reflections ac- 
 count for the fact that the letter was never sent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 IDEALA lingered unwillingly, but the reason of her re- 
 luctance to go was not far to seek. Now that Lorrimer 
 knew she loved him she was ashamed to go back. It would 
 have been bad enough had he been able to come to her ; 
 but going to him was like reversing the natural order of 
 things and unsexing herself. I suppose, however, that she 
 forgot her shyness in her desire to be with him as the time 
 went on, and the effort it cost her to conquer her fear and 
 go to him was not so dreadful as the blank she would have 
 been obliged to face had she stayed away. At all events, 
 she fixed a day at last, and one morning she announced to 
 us, sadly enough, that on the morrow she must say fare- 
 well. She made the announcement just after breakfast, 
 and Claudia rose and left the room without a word. My 
 sister had never been able to speak to Ideala on the sub- 
 ject, but she did not cease to urge me to expostulate, and 
 she had suggested many arguments which had affected 
 Ideala, and made her unhappy, but without altering her 
 determination. 
 
 I could not find a word to say to her that morning, and
 
 160 IDEALA. 
 
 during the slow hours of the long , day that dragged itself 
 on so wearily for all of us., nothing new occurred to me. 
 
 " It will be a relief when it is over," I said to my sister. 
 
 "Yes," she answered ; " it is worse than death." 
 
 In the evening she came to my study and said : 
 
 " Ideala is alone in the south drawing-room. I wish you 
 would go to her, and make a last effort to dissuade her." 
 
 I consented, hopelessly, and went. 
 
 Ideala was standing in a window, looking out listlessly. 
 She was very pale, and I could see that she had been weep- 
 ing. I sat down near the fire; and presently she came and 
 sat on the floor beside me, and laid her head against my 
 knee. In all the years of my love for her she had never 
 been so close to me before, and I was glad to let her rest a 
 long, long time like that. 
 
 "Were you happy while you were with Lorrimer, 
 Ideala?" I asked at last. 
 
 She did not answer at once, and when she did, it was 
 almost in a whisper. 
 
 " No, never quite happy till this last time," she said ; 
 "never entirely at ease, even. It was when I left him, when 
 I was alone and could think of him, that the joy came." 
 
 " There was nothing real in your pleasure, then," I went 
 on ; "it was purely imaginary due to your trick of ideal- 
 izing everything and everybody you care for?" 
 
 " I do not know," she said. 
 
 < * Do you think it was the same with him ? " I asked again 
 " I mean, all along. Did it always make him happy to 
 have you there ? " 
 
 " I can not tell," she said. " Yes, I think at times he was 
 glad. But a word would alter his mood, and then he would 
 grow sad and silent." 
 
 " Even on the last occasion? " 
 
 " No, not on the last occasion. He was happy then " 
 and she smiled at the recollection " ah, so happy I It was 
 like new life to him, he was so young, so fresh, so glad 
 like a boy."
 
 IDE ALA. 161 
 
 " But before, when his moods varied so often, did it ever 
 seem to you that he was troubled and dissatisfied with him- 
 self? that the intimacy had begun on his part under a mis- 
 apprehension, and that when he began to know you better, 
 he had tried to end it, and save you, by not seeing you on 
 that occasion?" 
 
 '" Ah, that occasion again I " she ejaculated. " I forgot to- 
 tell you, but I asked for an explanation just to satisfy you. 
 Here it is I " 
 
 And she took a note from her pocket-book and handed it 
 to me. It was one which she had written to him. 
 
 " I do not understand," I said. 
 
 "Read it," she answered, " and you will find I asked him 
 to expect me oa Monday, the 2Gth. It was a clerical error. 
 Tuesday was the 26th, and I went on Tuesday. He waited 
 for me the whole long Monday, and that night he had to 
 set off suddenly for the Continent on business connected 
 with the Great Hospital. He went, wondering what had 
 detained me, and expecting an explanation. When he re- 
 turned he inquired, but nobody could tell him whether I 
 had been or not. So he waited, and waited, as I did, ex- 
 pecting to hear, and as much perplexed and distressed as I 
 was, and as proud, for he never thought of writing to me 
 nor did he think of looking at my note again until T 
 wrote the other day and the he discovered the mistake. 
 Now, are you satisfied ? " 
 
 " About that yes," I answered reluctantly. 
 
 It was rio relief to find him blameless. 
 
 " But what did he mean when he talked of conscience 
 and scruples ? " 
 
 " He used to laugh at my ' troublesome conscience,' as he 
 called it," she answered evasively. 
 
 "Would he have known you had a conscience, do you 
 think, if he had had none himseu?" Tasked her. "Did 
 he ever say anything that showed he was yielding to a 
 strong inclination which he could not justify and would 
 not conquer?"
 
 162 IDEALA. 
 
 "Oh, no!" she said; then added undecidedly: "At 
 least he did say once, ' Of course, in the opinion of the 
 world, the thing cannot be justified'; but then he went on 
 as if it had slipped from him involuntarily, ' Bah ! I am 
 only doing as other men do.' " 
 
 " Which shows he was not exactly satisfied to be only as 
 other men are." 
 
 "That is what I have of ten told you," she said; "his 
 ideal of life, both for himself and others, is the highest 
 possibl^, and he suffers when he falls below it, or even be- 
 lies himself with a word," 
 
 " Passion never lasts, and love does not lead to evil, I 
 continued meditatively ; " if you love him, Ideala, how 
 will you bear to feel that he has degraded himself by de- 
 grading you ?" 
 
 " Oh ! do not speak like that 1" she exclaimed. ' 
 is no degradation in love. It is sin that degrades, and sin 
 is something that corrupts our minds, is it not? and makes 
 us unfit for any good work, and unwilling to undertake 
 any. This is very different." 
 
 " Ideala, do you remember telling me once that you ha 
 a strange feeling about yourself? that you thought you 
 would be made to go down into some great depth of sm and 
 Buffering, in order to learn what it is you have to teach?" 
 
 " Ah, yes I" she answered ; " but I have not gone down. 
 I must obey my own conscience, not yours ; and my con- 
 science tells me the thing is right which you hold to be 
 wrong. I am quite willing to believe it would be wrong 
 for you, but for me it is clearly right. You said the other 
 day he had lowered me. What a fiction that is 1 In what 
 have I changed for the worse? Do I fail in any duty of 
 life since I knew him in which I previously succeeded 
 Oh, no I he has not lowered me 1 Love like this rounds a 
 life and brings it to perfection ; it could not wreck it. 
 
 " But, Ideala, you are going to fail in a duty ; you are 
 going to fail in the most important duty of your lif 
 duty to society."
 
 IDEALA. 163 
 
 " I owe nothing to society," she answered obstinately. 
 
 " I have always admired you," I pursued, " for not let- 
 ting your own experience warp your judgment. Oh, what a 
 falling-off is here ! I have heard you wish to be something 
 *rnore than an independent unit of which no account need 
 be taken. How can we, any of us, say we owe nothing to 
 society, when we owe every pleasure in life to it ? Do we 
 owe nothing to those who have gone before, and whom we 
 have to thank for the music, the painting, the poetry, and 
 all the arts which would leave a big blank in your life, 
 Ideala, if they ceased to exist ? You would have been a mere 
 savage now, without refinement enough to appreciate that 
 rose at your waist-belt, but for the labor and self-denial 
 which the hundreds and thousands who lived, and loved, 
 and suffered in order to make you what yon are have be- 
 stowed on you, and on all of us. You would not say, if 
 you thought a moment, that society had done nothing for 
 you ; aud no one can honestly think that they owe ih noth- 
 ing in return. It seems to me that a rigid observance of 
 the laws which hold society together, and make life pos- 
 sible for all of us, and pleasant for some, is the least we 
 can do ; and do you know, Ideala, when a woman ever 
 thinks of doing what you propose to do, she has already 
 gone down to a low depth of ingratitude, if of nothing 
 else?" 
 
 " I do not propose to do anything that will injure any 
 one," she answered coldly. " I am ree, am I not ? to dis- 
 pose of myself as I like to give myself to whomsoever I 
 
 " We are none of us free in that sense of the word " I 
 replied. 
 
 "xVll are but parts of one stupendous whole 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. 
 
 \Tou are, as I know you have desired to be, part of a sys- 
 tem, and an important part. All the toil and trouble of 
 the world, and all the work which began with the life of 
 man, is directed toward one great end the doing away
 
 164 IDEALA. 
 
 with sin and suffering, and the establishment of purity and 
 peace. And this work seems almost hopeless, not because 
 the multitude do not approve of it, but because individuals 
 are cowardly, and will not do their share or' it. Every act 
 of yours has a meaning ; it cither helps or hinders, what is 
 being done to further this, the object of life. Lately, 
 Ideala, you have been talking wildly, without, for a mo- 
 ment, considering the harm you may be doing. You have 
 expressed opinions which are calculated to make people 
 discontented with things as they are. You rob them of 
 the content which has made them comfortable heretofore, 
 and yet you offer them nothing better in return for it. 
 You would have society turned topsy-turvy, a.,d all for 
 what? Why, simply to make a wrong thing right for 
 yourself I If your example were followed by all the un- 
 happy people in the world, how would it end, do you 
 think? There must be moral laws, and it is inevitable 
 that they should press hardly on individuals occasionally ; 
 but it is clearly the duty of individuals to sacrifice them- 
 selves for the good of the community at large." 
 
 "I do not understand your morality," she said. "Do 
 you think that, although I love another man, it would be 
 right for me to go back and live with my husband ?" 
 
 "Eight, but, under the circumstances, not advisable; 
 and, at any rate, nothing would make it moral for you to 
 go to that other man." 
 
 "Oh I du not fill my mind with doubt," she pleaded 
 piteously. '-I love him. Let me go." 
 
 I did not answer her, and after awhile she began again, 
 passionately : 
 
 ' We are free agents in these things. Individuals must 
 know what is best for themselves. If I devote my life to 
 him, as I propose, who would be hurt by it ? Should I be 
 less pure-minded, and would he be less upright in all his 
 dealings? When things can be legally right though mor- 
 ally wrong, can they not also be morally right though 
 legally wrong ? " 
 
 "I have already tried to show you, Ideala." I answered, 
 preparing to go over the old ground again patiently, " that 
 we none of us stand alone, that we are all part of this great 
 system, and that, in cases like yours, individuals must suf- 
 fer, must even be sacrificed, for the good of the rest. When 
 the sacrifice id voluntary, we call it noble." 
 
 " If I go to him, I shall have sacrificed a good deal." 
 
 "You will have sacrificed others, not yourself. He is 
 all the world to you, Ideala ; the loss would be nothing to 
 the gain " she Lid her face in her hands" and what is
 
 IDEALA. 165 
 
 required of you is self-sacrifice. And surely it would be 
 happier in the end for you to give him up now, than to 
 live to feel yourself a millstone round his neck." 
 
 ' I do not understand you," she said, looking up quickly. 
 
 " The world, you see, will know nothing of the fine 
 gentimen's which made you determine to take this step," I 
 said. "You will bespoken of contemptuously, and he 
 will be ' the fellow who is living with another man's wife, 
 don't you know,' and that will injure him in many ways." 
 
 *' Do y'.m think so? " she asked anxiously. 
 
 "I know it," I replied. "And look at it from that or 
 any other point of view you like, and you must see you are 
 making a mistake. A woman in your position sets an ex- 
 ample whether she will or not, and even if all your best 
 reasons for this step were made public, you would do harm 
 by it, for there are only too many people apt enough as it 
 is at find ing specious excuses for their own shortcomings, 
 \vho would be glad, if they dared, to do likewise. And 
 you would not gaia your object, after all. You would 
 neither be happy yourself, nor mike Lorrimer happy. 
 People like you are sensitive about their honor it is the 
 sign of their superiority ; and the indulgence of love, even 
 at the mome t, and under the most favorable circum- 
 stances of youth, beauty, and intellectual equality, does 
 not satisfy such natures, it' the indulgence be not regulated 
 and sanctified by all that men and women have devised to 
 make their relations moral." 
 
 This was my last argument, and when I had done she 
 sat then lor a longtime silent, resting her head against my 
 knee, and scarcely breathing. She was fighting ic out with 
 herself, aud I thought it best to leave her alone besides, I 
 had already sail all there was to say ; repetition would 
 \ only have irritated her, and there was nothing now for it 
 but to wait. 
 
 Outside I could hear the dreary drip of raindrops ; some- 
 where in the room a clock ticked obtrusively ; but it was 
 lonaj past midi.i^ht, and the house was still. I thought 
 that only t!ie night and silence watched with me, and 
 waited upon the suffering of this one poor soul. 
 
 At 1 i.,t she moved, uttering a low moan, like one in pain, 
 
 " I do see it," she said almost in a whisper ; " and I am 
 willing to give him up." 
 
 " God in His mercy help you !" I prayed. 
 
 " And forgive me," she answered humbly. 
 
 She was quite exhausted, and passively submitted when I 
 led her to her room. I closed the shutters to keep out the 
 cheerless dawn, aud made the fire burn up, and lighted the
 
 166 IDEALA. 
 
 lamps. She sat silently watching me, and did not seem to 
 think it odd that I should do this for her. She clung to me 
 then as a little child clings to its father, and, like a father, 
 I ministered to her, reverently, then left her, as I hoped, to 
 sleep. 
 
 My sister opened her door as I passed. She was dressed, 
 ftndhad been watching, too, the whole night long. 
 
 "Well?" she asked. 
 
 I kissed her. 
 
 " It is well." I answered; and she burst into tears. 
 
 " Can I go to her now ?" she said. 
 
 "Yes, go." 
 
 I went to Claudia's room, and waited. After a long time 
 she returned. 
 
 " She is quiet at last," she told me, sorrowfully. 
 
 And so the long night ended. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVH. 
 
 IDEALA. had returned to us quite under the impression 
 that if she took the btep she proposed we should think it 
 right to cast her off ; and that little tentative, " Must I 
 give you up?" was the only protest she had offered. But 
 such was not our intention. Far from it 1 We do not for- 
 sake our friends in their bodily ailments, and we are poor, 
 pitiful, egotistical creatures, indeed, when we desert them, 
 for their mental and moral maladies, leaving them to strug- 
 gle against them and fight them out or succumb to them 
 alone according to their strength and circumstances. The 
 world will forsake them fast enoughj and that is sufficient 
 punishment if they deserve punishment. Of course, 
 Ideala could never have come back to us as an honored 
 guest again, after taking such a step, but she would have 
 continued to fill the same piace in our affections, if not in 
 our esteem. 
 
 " And you will drive everybody else away, and keep the 
 house empty all the year round, in order to be able to re- 
 ceive her and Mr. Lorrimer whenever they choose to 
 visit us," Claudia had declared when we discussed the sub- 
 
 That was not quite what I intended ; but I had made 
 Ideala understand that nothing she could do would affect 
 her intercourse with us. I told her so at once, because I 
 would not have her alter her determination for any consid- 
 eration but the highest She might at the last have hesi- 
 tated to separate herself from us forever ; but I felt sure
 
 IDEALA. 167 
 
 if that were the case, and it was not a better motive en- 
 tirely which deterred her, she would not be satisfied even- 
 tually ; and I know now that I was right. 
 
 Ideala wrote to Lorrimer, and when she had finished 
 her letter I found that she intended to impose a terrible 
 task upon me. 
 
 " Until you know him yourself you will always misjudge 
 him," she said. " I want you to take him my letter, and 
 make his acquaintance." 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 ' It is the least you can do," she pleaded. " I shall be 
 easier in my mind if you will. It will be better for him to 
 see you, and hear all the things I can not tell him in my 
 letter ; and and if I must not see him myself, it will be 
 a comfort to see somebody who has. Do go. I shall be 
 pained if you refuse." 
 
 This decided me, and I went at once. 
 
 It was a long journey, the same that Ideala herself had 
 taken under such very different circumstanced so short a 
 time before. 1 thought of her going in doubt and uncer- 
 tainty, her own feelings coloring the aspect of all she saw 
 on tlie way ; and returning in the first warm glow of hei 
 great and unexpected joy her new-found happiness which 
 was destined, alas! to be so short-lived. Miserable fate 
 which robbed her of all that would have made her life 
 worth having a husband on whom she could rely ; her 
 child ; and now the man upon whom she had been pre- 
 pared to lavish the long pent-up passion, the concentrated 
 devotion of her great and noble nature 1 Poor starved 
 heart, crashed back upon itself, suffering silently, suffering 
 always, but never hardening on the contrary, growing 
 tenderer fr- others the more it had toendure itself ! Would 
 it always be so ? "Was there no peace on earth for Ideala ? 
 No one who could be all her own ? I felt responsible for 
 this last hard blow. Had I done well? The rush and 
 rattle" of the train shaped itself into a sort of sub-chorus to 
 my thoughts as we sped through the pleasant fields : Was 
 it right? Was it right? Was it right? And I saw Ideala, 
 with soft, sad eyes, pleading mutely pleading pleading 
 always for some pleasure in life, some natural, womanly 
 joy, while youth and the power to love lasted. By an effort 
 of will I banished the question. I told myself that my action 
 in the matter had been expedient from every point of view; 
 but presently 
 
 The rush of the grinding steel 1 
 The thundering crank, and the mighty wheel I
 
 169 IDEALS 
 
 took me to task again, and the chorus now became: Ex- 
 pediency right ! Expediency right ! Expediency right I 
 which, when I banished it, resolved itself into : Cold proud 
 Puritan ! Cold, proud Puritan ! for the rest of the way. 
 
 But the journey ended at last though that was little 
 relief with the task I had before me still unaccomplished. 
 
 A bulbous functionary took my card to Lorrimer when I 
 presented myself at the Great Hospital next day, and re- 
 turning presently informed me that Mr. Lorrimer was dis- 
 engaged and would see me at once, if I would be so good 
 as to come this way. How familiar the whole proceeding 
 seemed ! And how well I knew the place ! the soothing 
 silence, the massive grandeur, the long, dimly lighted 
 gallery to the right, the poor ax which the servant stopped 
 and knocked, the man who opened it, and met my eyes 
 fearlessly, bowing wita natural grace, and bidding me 
 enter a tall, fair man, self-contained and dignified ; cold 
 pale, and unimpassioned so I thought but my equal in 
 every way ; the man who was " all the world '' to Ideaia. 
 
 When I saw him I understood 
 
 * * # * * * ' * 
 
 Lorrimer. after dismissing his secretary, was first to speak. 
 
 "You come to me from Ideala?" he said. "Is there 
 anything wrong ? Is she ill ?" 
 
 And I fancied he turned a trifle paler as the fear flashed 
 through his mind. I reassured him. 
 
 " Physically she is better," I said. 
 
 "But mentally ?" he interposed. "You give her no peace.'* 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 " I know you are no friend of mine," he added. 
 
 " On the contrary," I answered ; "I hope I am the best 
 friend you have just now." 
 
 " I know what that means," he said. " You have tried 
 to dissuade Ideala, and having failed, you have come here 
 to use your influence with me." 
 
 " No," I answered. " I have not come to discues the sub- 
 ject. I have brought you a letter from Ide:ila at her special 
 request, and I am ready to take her any reply which you 
 may think fit to send." 
 
 I gave him the letter and rose to go, but he detained me. 
 
 " Stay till I have read it, if you can spare me the time." he 
 said ; " it is just possible that there is something in it which. 
 we cnight to discuss." 
 
 I turned to the mantelpiece and tried to interest myself 
 in the lovely things with which it was crowded, but never 
 in my life did my heart sink so for another, never have I 
 endured such moments of pained suspense.
 
 IDE ALA. 1G9 
 
 I heard him open the envelope, I heard the paper rustle 
 as he turned the page, and then there was silence 
 
 Full of the city's stilly sound 
 a moment only, but filled with 
 
 Something which possess'd 
 The darkness of the world, delight, 
 Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
 t'eadin.i? not^ mingled, unrepress'd, 
 Apart from space, withholding time 
 
 a moment's silence and then a he-ivy fall. Lorrimer had 
 fainted. 
 
 I stayed three days at the Great Hospital, three days of 
 the most delightful converse. At first Lorrimer had re- 
 belled, not realizing that Ideala's last decision was irrevo- 
 cable. 
 
 " You have over-persuaded her," he said. 
 
 " No," I answered ;" I have convinced her, and I shall 
 convince you too." 
 
 He pleaded fpr her pathetically, not for himself at all. "She 
 has had so little joy !" he said, using the very words that 
 had occurred to i^e. "And I wanted to silence her. I wanted 
 to save her from hor lute. For she is uue des cinq ou six 
 creatures huinaines qui naissent, dans tout un siecle, pour 
 aimer la verite, et pour niourir sans avoir pula faire aimer 
 des autres. She must suffer terribly if she goes on." 
 
 1 his was a point upon wnich we differed. He would have 
 given her the natural joys of a woman husband, home, 
 children, friends, and only such intellectual pursuits which 
 are pleasant, /had always Jioped to see her at work in a 
 wider field. But she was one of' those rare women who are 
 born "to fulfill both destinies at once, and worthily, if only 
 circumstances had made it possible for her to combine the 
 two. 
 
 Before I had been with him many hours I began to be 
 sensible of that difference of feeling on certain subjects 
 which would have made their union a veritable linking of 
 the- past to the future his belief that nothing can be better 
 than what has been, and that the old institutions revised 
 are all that the world wants, and her faith in future develop- 
 ments of all good ideas, and further discoveries never yet 
 imagined. For one thing, Lorrimer considered famine and 
 war inevitable scourges of the human race, necessary tor 
 the removal of the surplus population, and useless to con-
 
 170 IDEALA. 
 
 tend apjfiir.r'r. because destined to rocur, so long as there is 
 a human race ; but he would have limited intellectual pur- 
 suits for women, because culture is held to prevent the 
 trouble for which the elder expedients only provided a cure 
 a point upon which Ideala did not agree with him at all. 
 " Nothing is more disastrous to s cial prosperity," she 
 held, " or more likely to add to the criminal classes, than 
 families which are too large for their parents to bring up, 
 and educate comfortably, in their own station. If the 
 higher education of women is a natural check on over- 
 production of that kind, then encourage it thankfully as a 
 merciful dispensation of Providence for the prevention of 
 much misery. I can see no reason in nature or ethics for 
 a teeming population only brought into existence to be re- 
 moved by famine and war. Why this old green ball of an 
 earth would roll on just as merrily without any of us." 
 
 Lorrimer wrote to her at last. He had been obliged to 
 acquiesce ; and I took Ideala his letter ; but she, woman- 
 like, though nothing wou;cl have altered her decision, was 
 not at first satisfied with his compliance. It seemed to her 
 too ready, and that made her doubt if she might not have 
 been to blame after all. They wrote to each other once 
 again, and when she received his last letter, she spoke to 
 me about it. 
 
 " He must have seen it as you do from the first, for he 
 has said no wo r d to alter my determination- -rather the 
 contrary," she told me. " We are not to meet again, nor 
 to correspond; and doubtless it is a relief to him to have 
 the matter settled in this way; but one tiling puzzles me. 
 In my last letter I bid him good-by, adding, ' Since that 13 
 what you wish,' and he has replied, ' I never said I wished 
 it; will you remember that?' I do remember it, and it 
 comforts me; but why?" 
 
 I knew that Lorrimer had sjnd little in order to make 
 her sacrifice as easy for her as possible; and I was silent, 
 too, for the sam-3 reason. I thought if she felt herself to 
 blame, her pride would come to the rescue, and make her 
 loss appear rather inevitable than voluntary. For. say 
 what we will, we reconcile ourselves to the inevitable 
 sooner than to those sorrows which we might have saved 
 ourselves had we deemed it right. 
 
 "You insinuated once that it was all my fault, she 
 said. " Perhaps it was if fault there be. But if I tempted 
 him, it must have been generosity that made him yield to 
 the temptation. He pitied me, and was ready to mako me 
 happy by devoting himself to me, since that was what I
 
 IDEALA. 171 
 
 seemed to require. And I agree with you now. I don't 
 think we should, either of us, have found any real happi- 
 ness in that way. But, oh, how I long for him! for his 
 friendship! for his companionship! for his love. It is hard, 
 hard, hard, if he does not miss me as I do him." 
 
 Then I told her : 
 
 "But he does. And he did not yield to your decision 
 until I had convinced him that he could never make you 
 happy in such a position." 
 
 A great sigh of relief escaped her. And then I saw that 
 I ought to have been frank with her from the first. It 
 strengthened her to know that they still had something left 
 to them in common, though that something was only their 
 grief. 
 
 I tried to comfort her by speaking of the many ways m 
 which she might still find happiness. She listened patiently 
 until I was obliged to stop for want of words, then she said: 
 
 "This is all very well, but you know you are talking 
 nonsense. What is the use of offering people everything 
 but the one thing needful? What I say to myself is : 
 Well, I have had my turn, have been 
 
 Raised from the darkness of the clod. 
 And for a glorious moment seen 
 The brightness of the skirts of God. 
 
 And I try to tliink I have no right to complain, but still I 
 am not better satisfied than the child that has eaten its 
 cake and wants to have it too. And I suppose there are 
 many who would call me wretched, and say that my life, 
 with my sorrowful marriage, which was no marriage, but 
 a desecration of that holy state, and a sin and my hope- 
 less love, is a broken life. Certainly I feel it so. And yet 
 I don't know. With his nature it seems to me that some 
 wrong-doing was inevitable. Do you think my suffering 
 mighj be taken as expiation for his sins? Do you think 
 we are allowed the happiness of bearing each other's 
 burdens in that way if we will ? If I were sure of that, I 
 should not fancy, as I used to, that I had a work to do in 
 the world ; I should know that my work is done, and that 
 now I may rest. Ah, the blessing of rest !" 
 
 Not long after this a cruel rumor reached us, on good 
 authority, that Lorrimer was engaged to be married. I 
 confess that my feeling about it was one of unmitigated 
 contempt for the man, and I trembled for the effect of the 
 news upon Ideala. She made no sign, however, when first 
 she heard it. I was surprised, and fear I showed that I 
 was, in spite of myself, for she gpoke about it
 
 173 IDEALA. 
 
 " You do not understand," she said. " One event in hia 
 career is not of more consequence to me than another, be- 
 cause all are of the greatest consequence. But I have none 
 of the dog-in-the-manger spirit. I think there must be 
 something almost maternal in my feeling for him, which 
 is why it does not change. , Were I less constant, it would 
 prove that my affection is of a lower kind, less enduring 
 because less pure. I do not care to talk about him, but I 
 think of him always. I think of him as I saw him last 
 with the sun on him. Do you know his hair is like light 
 gold with the sun on it? Sometimes t! e memory of him 
 fades a little, and I can not recall his features, and then I 
 am tormented ; but, of course, he comes back to me so 
 vividly that I have started often when I looked up and 
 found myself alone. The desire to be with him never less- 
 ens ; it burns iu me always, and is both a pain and a pleas- 
 ure. But rny love is too great to be selfish. His wishes 
 for himself are niy wishes, and what is best for him is hap- 
 piest for me. Am I never jealous? Jealous! No! Do 
 you not know that he is mine, mine through every change? 
 Neither time nor distance separates us, really. No com- 
 mon tie can keep him from me. Let him be bound as and 
 to whomsoever he pleases, his soul is mine, and must re- 
 turn to me sooner or later. I like him to be happy in any 
 way that is right, for I know that what he gives to others 
 is not himself . 1 was not fit for the clear earthly love, 
 but perhaps, if I keep myself pure, body and soul, for him, 
 I shall be made worthy at last, and of something better. 
 And my love is so great it would draw him in spite of 
 himself, for he will find by and by that he can not live 
 with a smaller soul, and then he will come to me. Do you 
 not understand what I want? His soul purified, strength- 
 ened, ennobled nothing less will satisfy me; and his 
 mother might ask as much. If I might be made the 
 
 means of saring it " Then, after a little pause, she 
 
 added : " Ah, how beautiful death is ! He will be glad, as 
 I should be now, to meet it and yet more glad ! for then 
 the end will have come for him, but I should have S.U11 to 
 wait." 
 
 The rumor of Lorrimer's engagement, however, proved 
 to be false. It was another Lorrimer, a cousin of his. 
 
 4> Lorrimer is restored to your good graces now, I sup- 
 pose," Claudia said in her half -sarcastic way, when the 
 mistake was explained. I had not told her what was in 
 my mind? she had read my thoughts. " You think that a 
 man whom Irleala has loved should consider himself 
 sacred," bhe added.
 
 IDEALA. 173 
 
 I did not answer. But I hold that all men who have 
 felt or inspired great love will be sanctified by it if there 
 be any true nobility in their nature ; and I knew that one 
 man, whom Ideala did not love, had been so sanctified by 
 love for her, and held himself sacred always. 
 
 Cut it was a relief to my mind to know that Lorrimer 
 was not unworthy. He was a distinguished man then, and 
 I felt sure that he would become still more distinguished 
 eventually. He was not one of the many who come and 
 go. and are forgotten ; but one of those destined to live 
 forever 
 
 In minds made better by their presence. 
 The good in his nature was certainly as far above the 
 average as were his splendid abilities, and Ideala was right 
 when she declared that she could answer for his principles. 
 It is impulse that is beyond calculation, and for his own or 
 another's impulses no wise man will answer. 
 
 Ideala continued to droop. 
 
 " She will never get over it," I said to Claudia one day 
 when we were alone together. 
 
 " Indeed she will," Claudia answered confidently. " Out 
 of the depth of your profound ignorance of natural history- 
 do you speak, my brother. I dread the reaction though. 
 "When it comes she will be overwhelmed with shame ; but 
 it will come. Al 1 this is only a phase. She is in a state of 
 transition now. It is her pride that makes her nurse her 
 grief, and will not let her give him up. She cannot bear 
 to think that sho, of all women in the world, should have 
 been the victim of anything so trivial as a passing fancy. 
 Not that it would have been a passing fancy if they had 
 not been s^ parated ; but as it is why, no fire can burn 
 without fuel." 
 
 Claudia, had evidently changed her mind, and she might 
 be ri^h -, ; but my own fear was that her first impression 
 wou]d be justified, and that Ideala would never be able to 
 take~ a healthy interest in anything again. 
 
 " I cannot care," was her constant complaint. " Noth- 
 ing ever touches me either painfully or pleasurably. Noth- 
 ing will ever make me glad again." 
 
 She said this one evening when she was sitting alone 
 with Claudia and myself, and there was a long silence after 
 she had finished speaking, during which she sat in a de- 
 jected attitude, her face buried iu. her hands. 
 
 All at once she looked up. 
 
 "It is very strange," she said, "but half that feeling 
 seems to have gone with the expression of it." 
 
 " 1 think," Claudia decided, in her common-sense tone,
 
 174 IDEALA. 
 
 "that you are nursing this unholy passion, Ideali; You 
 are "./raid to give it up lest there should be nothing left to 
 you. Can you not free your mind from the trammels of 
 it, and grasp something higher, better, and nobler ? Can 
 you not become mistress of yourself again, and enter on a 
 larger life which shall be full of love not the narrow, self- 
 ish passion you are cherishing for one, but that pure and 
 holy love which only the btst and such women as you 
 may always be of the best can feel for all? If you could 
 but get the fumes of this evil feeling out of yourself, you 
 would see, as we see, what a common thing it is, and you 
 would recognize, as we recognize, that your very expres- 
 sion of it is just such as is given to it by every hysterical 
 man or woman that has ever experienced "it. It is a 
 physical condition caused by contact, and kept up by your 
 own perverse pleasure in it nothing more. Every one 
 grows out of it in time, and any one with proper self-con- 
 trol could conquer it. You are wavering yourself. You 
 see now that you have crystallized the feeling into words; 
 that it is a pitiful thing, after all; that the object is not 
 worth such an expenditure of strength certainly not 
 worth the sacrifice of your power to enjoy anything else. 
 Such devotion to the memory of a dead husband has been 
 thought grand by some, although, for my part, I can see 
 nothing grand in any form of self-indulgence, whether it 
 be the indulgence of sorrow or joy, which narrows our 
 sphere of usefulness, and causes us to neglect the claims of 
 those wi>o love us upon our affection, and the claims of 
 ur fellow creatures generally upon our consideration ; but 
 in your case it is simply " 
 
 Claudia paused for want of a word. 
 
 " You would say it is simply degrading," Ideala inter- 
 posed. " I do not feel it so. I glory in it." 
 
 " I know," said Claudia pitilessly. " You all do." And 
 then she got up and laid her hand on Ideala's shoulder. 
 *' It is time," she said earnestly, 
 
 " It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, 
 That old hysterical mock- disease should die." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I HOPED Claudia's plain speaking had made an impres- 
 sion, but for a long time after that it seemed as if Ideala's 
 interest in life had really ended, that her sphere of useful- 
 tress had contracted, and that she herself would become 
 like the rest a doer of unconnected trifles that have mean-
 
 IDEALA. 175 
 
 ing only as the straws have meaning which show which 
 way the current sets. One can not help thinking how many 
 of these significant straws must go down to the ocean and 
 be lost, their little use unrecognized, their little labor un - 
 availing ; because it does PO little good merely to know 
 which way the stream is setting, or what ocean will receive 
 it at last, if we have no power to profit by the knowledge. 
 At this time Ideala's own life was not unlike one of these 
 hajJi ss straws, and it seemed a wretched failure of its early 
 promise, t) at eroding as a straw on the common stream, 
 when so little might have made her influence in her owa 
 sphere like the river itself, strong ard beautiful. Those 
 who loved her watched her in her trouble with eager hope 
 that some good might yet come of it; but the hope dimin- 
 ished always as tho days wore on. At first her mind had 
 raged and stormed ; one could see it, though she said so. 
 litile. Her renunciation was perfect, but nevertheless she 
 could not re -oncile herself to it. She would not go back, 
 but ehe could not go en, and so she remained midway be- 
 tween the past, which was hateful to her, and the future, 
 which was a blank, raging at both. But gradually the 
 storm subsided ; and then came a period of calm, but 
 whether it was the calm of apathy or the calm of resigna- 
 tion, it was hard to say and meantime she lost her health 
 again, and became so fragile that my sister only expressed 
 what I felt when she was speaking of her one day, and said, 
 sadly : 
 
 " Her cheek is so waxenly thin 
 As if d?athward 'twere wnitening in, 
 And the cloud of her flesh, still more white, 
 Were clearing till soul is in sight. 
 
 Her large eyes too liquidly glister ! 
 ' Her mouth is too red. 
 
 Have they kissed her 
 The angels that bend down to pull 
 Our buds of the Beautiful, 
 And whispered their owa little Sister ?'' 
 
 We were anxious to take her abroad, but she would not 
 accompany us. She talked of going alone, but she did not 
 go, and after a time we gave up thinking about it. Then. 
 one day, quite suddenly, she said, ''It is time this old 
 hysterical mock-disease should die," and she told us that 
 she had at last decided to travt 1 somewhere ; nothing more 
 definite than that, for she said she had no fixed plans. V/e-
 
 176 IDEALA. 
 
 concluded, however, that she meant to be away sometime, 
 for she said something a bout perils of the deep, and the 
 uncertainty of life generally, and she confided her private 
 papers to my care, telling me t > look at them if they would 
 interest me, and make what use of them I pleased ; and that 
 was how those from which I have gathered much of her 
 story came into any possession. And then she left us, and 
 for a whole year we heard nothing of her not one word. 
 Claudia chafed a little, and complained, as women will 
 when things do not arrange themselves exactly fis they 
 would have ordered them ; but I was content to wait, aud, 
 because I expected nothing, the time did not seem so lung 
 as perhaps it might have done. We lived cur usual life- 
 part of tho year in one of the eastern counties, and part in 
 London, and then we came north again. It was winter 
 weather, frosty, and clear, and bright, and I waste; 
 <jut a great deal, taking longrides, begun before sunset and 
 ending by moonlight, and generally alone. Aud always 
 when the world seemed most beautiful I thought of Ideala, 
 and how she had loved its beauty mountain and plain, 
 flood and field, forest and flower, the snow and thesun^hine, 
 and all the alternations of light and shade ; the wonders of 
 form, and the depth and harmony of color ; the blue sky by 
 day, with its glories of sunrise and sunset ; the dark sky 
 by night, with its moonlight and starlight the sky always I 
 that cloud-land to which, when we are wearied by the in- TO 
 monotonous earth, we have only to lift our eyes au J there 
 the scene is changing forever the sky aud ihe sta : 
 
 In all its vague immensity 1 
 
 "Would she ever see it again in the old way ? When she left 
 us one might have said of her mental state : 
 
 O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon 
 Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
 Without all hope of day I 
 
 And where was she now? and was she learning to se 
 again? I own I sometimes had the presumption to think 
 that if she had stayed with us I might have helped her. 
 Allied hardly credible that she should be able to stand 
 alone at such a time, not to speak of the strength required 
 to take her out of herself. Aud was not the lonelin< 
 self an added misery ? She never could bear to be alone, 
 and I always thought the worst trial of her married life 
 1 no mental solitude to which it had reduced her by 
 making her feel the necessity f<.r reserve, even with her 
 best friends. Of course she had chosen to go alone ; ic was
 
 IDHALA. 177 
 
 quite her own doing ; but I could not help thinking, un- 
 easily at times, that she would not have gone at all if she 
 had not noticed how anxious we were about her, and 
 fancied she could relieve us of our trouble by relieving us 
 of her presence. That would have been so like Ideala. 
 Acd then my thoughts would wander off, recalling her 
 numberless lictle deeds of love, her perfect selflessness, and 
 ull the depth and beauty of her great and tender nature, as 
 we do recall such things of one who has gone and will 
 never more return, as in the old days, to make us glad. 
 There was the day I had seen her from the club window 
 stoop to pick up a little ragged, barefooted child that was 
 crying in the street, and wrap her furs about it and carry 
 it off, smiling and happy, in her arms, with no more 
 thought of the attention such an action would attract than 
 if she had been alone with her waif in the desert. But 
 many and many a time, and in many a way, she had made 
 glad hearts by "deeds like that; and now where was she? 
 And was there never a one in the whole wide world to help 
 her to bear her own sorrow and ease herpain ? 
 
 One evening in particular I had been more than usually 
 tormented by such thoughts. I had been blaming myself 
 bitterly for having allowed her to go away alone, and when 
 I rode up to my own door I wa.s conscious of a half-formed 
 resolution to lollow her wuhout delay and bring her back. 
 
 Claudia was standing on the steps in the crisp, fresh 
 evening air, apparently watching for me. She put her 
 arms round my neck when I alighted, and kissed me. 
 
 "Has she written?" I exclaimed, for Claudia was not 
 demonstrative, and this meant something. 
 
 " She is here," was the answer. 
 
 My heart gave a great leap, but I could not ask if it were 
 well with her. I could only look at Claudia, and wonder 
 if it were the moonlight that made the expression of her 
 face so singularly content and sweet. 
 
 1 went into the lighted house, and being somewhat dazed 
 and altogether too eager to see her at once, I dressed for 
 the evening, leisurely, and then I went to find her. There 
 was a change in the house already. It was lighted from 
 top to bottom as befits a time of rejoicing, and our other 
 guests, whom I passed in my search, seemed gayer or I 
 fancied so. She was not among them, but I took the 
 liberty of going to her rooms and knocked at the sitting- 
 room door, and entered. She rose to receive me, stretch- 
 ing out her hands, and my first impression was that she 
 had grown ; afterward I understood that it was a change 
 in the fashion of her dress that made it appear so. Sue
 
 178 IDE ALA. 
 
 wore a long robe, exquisitely draped, which was loose, but 
 yet clung to her, and fell in rich folds about her with a 
 grace that satisfied. I can not describe the fashion or this 
 robe, or the form, but I have seen one like it somewhere 
 it must have been in a picture, or on a statue of a grand 
 heroic woman or a saint; and it suggested something 
 womanly and strong, but not to be defined. 
 
 It was Ideala herself not as she had been, but as I 
 always hoped she would be, and felt she might. She 
 showed the change in every gesture, but moat of all in her 
 clear and steady eyes, which made you feel she had a pur- 
 pose now, and a future yet before her. She looked as 
 women look when they know themselves intrusted with a 
 work, and have the courage and resolution to be true and 
 worthy of their trust. She was very granious, but some- 
 how, in tha first moment of our meeting, I felt abashed- 
 abashed before t his woman who had gone down to the 
 verge of dishonor, but whose goodness, with the vitality of 
 all goodness, had raised her again above the best; whose 
 trouble had been to her, because of this goodness, as is a 
 painful operation which must be gone through if the 
 patient would ever be strong. 
 
 I fancy she thought me cold because my great respect 
 made me shy, and I hesitated to show her all the joy I felt. 
 
 " Won't you kiss me once after my long, long voy- 
 age?" she said, holding up her face like a child to be kissed. 
 And it made me inexpressibly glad to perceive that, while 
 gaining in dignity and purpose, her character had lost none 
 of the child-like faith and affection which had been one of 
 the greatest charms of the old Idealn. I could not help ex- 
 amining her curiously, looking for traces of a conliicc, fof 
 those lines of sull'eriug which are generally left by fierce 
 mental troubles, like scars after a battle, showing that the 
 fight has been no chMd's play, but a struggle for life or 
 death. Such a conflict there must have been, but all trace 
 of it was swept away by the wonderful peace that had suc- 
 ceeded it. Ideala looked younger, certainly, but, the change 
 showed itself most in her perfect serenity, ami in the stead- 
 fast eanjCotuL\-o of her wonderful eyes. 
 
 But I had no time to talk to her, for Claudia, in dia- 
 monds, and velvet, and lace her donning or which 13 her 
 one way of expressing a satisfaction too deep for words- 
 blazed in upon us. If it had occurred to her, she would 
 certainly have had the bells of the parish rung provided 
 my authority as lay rector could have accomplished such 
 an extravagance. She took us away with her now to join 
 our other guests, and when dinner was announced I oGered
 
 IDEALA. 179 
 
 Ideala my arm. She was silent as we went, but looked 
 about her with a grave little smile on her lips, renewing 
 her acquaintance with familiar objects, and noting every 
 change. And so busy was she with her own reflections, so 
 thoroughly absorbed, that, when we were seated at table, 
 she put her serviette beside her plate and her bread on her 
 lap mechanically, and took up her knife and fork to eat 
 her soup. She seemed puzzled for a moment when she 
 found that the implements did not answer, and then she 
 laughed. Such a fresh, girlish laugh ! It did one's heart 
 good to hear her. Yes, verily, Ideala was herself again, 
 absent-mindedness and all. 
 
 And before dinner was over a wonderful thing had hap- 
 pened. For whereas we had hitherto been the most com- 
 monplace and prosaic party imaginable, getting along 
 smoothly, taking no particular interest in each other, or in 
 anything else, and only remarkable for a degree of dullness 
 which would have astonished us by its bulk could it have 
 been weighed and measured to-night, for no apparent 
 reason, we suddenly woke iip and astounded ourselves by 
 more originality than we had been accustomed to believe 
 was left in the world altogether while something put into 
 our conversation just the right amount of polite friction to 
 act as a counter-irritant, so that, when we left the table, 
 each felt that he had been at his best had been brilliant, 
 in fact, and shone with luster enough to make any man 
 
 Once in a London theatre I saw an actress walk across 
 the stage. She did not utter a word, she never looked at 
 the audience, she was apparently unconscious of every- 
 thing but what she had in her own mind ; yet before she 
 was half across the stage the people rose to their feet with 
 a roar. Ideala's coming among us had produced some 
 such startling effect; but her power was altogether occult. 
 The audience knew what the actress meant, but we did not 
 understand Ideala, and yet we applauded by laying our best 
 before her, and acknowledged the charm of her presence 
 in every word. [She spoke very little, however. Indeed, I 
 remember nothing she said until we went to the drawing- 
 room. On the way thither Claudia had picked up a crumpled 
 paper, and, glancing at it, had exclaimed : 
 
 "Why, Ideala, here are some of your verses! Do you still 
 write verses ?" 
 
 It was curious that we all spoke as if she had been away 
 for years. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, tranquilly; and Claudia coolly pro- 
 ceded to read the verses aloud, a difficult task, as they were
 
 ISO IDEALA. 
 
 scribbled in pencil on half a sheet of note paper, and were 
 scarcely decipherable. Ideala, meanwhile, listened, with 
 calm eyes fixed on vacancy, like one trying to be polite, 
 but finding it hard for lack of interest. 
 
 " By Arno, when the tale was o'er 
 At sunset, as in days of yore, 
 
 I wandered forth and dreamed. 
 The sky above, the town below, 
 The solemn river's silent flow, 
 The ancient story-haunts I know,. 
 
 In varied colors gleamed. 
 
 " By Arno calm my steps I stayed, 
 Just where the river's bank displayed 
 
 A tangled growth of weeds; 
 Tall houses near, and on the right 
 An arched bridge upreared its height 
 And boats drew near, and passed from sight 
 I heard the tramp of steeds. 
 
 " I heard, and saw, but heeded not; 
 My feet were rooted to the spot, 
 
 A fancy checked my breath. 
 'Twas here that Tito lay, I knew, 
 His fair faoe upward to the blue, 
 His velvet tunic soaking through, 
 
 Most beautiful in death. 
 
 " But Baldnssarre was not there ; 
 'Twas I that stooped to kiss the hair, 
 
 Besprent with ooze and dew, 
 Ah, God! light gold the locks caressed 
 I saw no Greek in velvet dressed 
 But wildly to my bosom pressed 
 Not Tito, love, but you! 
 
 ' The massive, godlike head and throat 
 Belonged not to those days remote, 
 
 The fine gray eye th limb; 
 It was tl'ie soul I know so wi II, 
 So full of earth, and heaven, and hell, 
 That came from out that time to dwell 
 
 In you and m;;ke you him. 
 
 *' And I. the victim of your smiles, 
 Anil 1, t e victim of your wiles, 
 
 My vengeance shail prevail. 
 The river Time shall float you nigh,
 
 IDEALA. 181 
 
 And earth and hell your soul shall fly, 
 And only heavi n remain when I 
 The deed triumphant hu.il I" 
 
 It surprised me to find that Claudia could read those 
 verses to the end, their import to me, at least was so 
 obvious. But Ideala continued unmoved ; and when the 
 little buzz of friendly criticism had subsided, she remarked 
 with unimpassioned directness : 
 
 " I am quite sure that all my verses are rubbish ; but 
 nevertheless they delight me. I should feel dumb without 
 the power to make verses ; it is a means of expression that 
 satisfies when nothing else will. I always carry my last 
 about in my pocket. I know them by heart, of course, but 
 still it is a pleasure to read them ; and so it continues until 
 I write some more ; and then I immediately perceive that 
 the old ones are bad, and I destroy them when I remem- 
 ber. Those were condemned ages ago, so please oblige 
 me, Claudia, by putting them into the fire." 
 
 Claudia was about to obey, but I interposed. I had a 
 fancy for keeping those verses. They are rubbishy, if you 
 will ; but the sentiment which struggles to find expression 
 in them is far from despicable. 
 
 No one smoked that evening ; no one played billiards ; 
 no one cared for music ; we just sat round the fire in a 
 circle and talked. 
 
 " And where have you come from, Ideala ?" was the first 
 question. 
 
 " From China," she answered. 
 
 There was a general exclamation. 
 
 "I have been with the missionaries in China," she added. 
 
 " Oh, isn't it very strange, the. life in China?" some one 
 asked. 
 
 " It looks different," she said. " but it feels like our own. 
 To begin with, one is struck by the strange appearance of 
 the people, and the quaint humor of their art ; but when 
 the first effect wears off, and you learn to know them, you 
 find, after all, that theirs is the same human nature, only 
 in another garb ; the familiar old tune, as it were, with a 
 new set of variations. The like in unlikeness is common 
 enough, but still the finding of a remarkable similarity in 
 things apparently unlike continues to surprise us." 
 
 " But, Idoala, you cannot compare the Chinese to our- 
 selves. Think of the state of degradation the people are 
 in ! Every crime is rife among them infanticide is quite 
 common." 
 
 " Yes," said Ideala, as if it were the most natural thing 
 in the world. " Yes, doubtless, the lower classes in China
 
 182 IDEALA. 
 
 kill their children ; here, in certain districts, they insure 
 them," Ideala concluded gravely. 
 
 "But then," said Claudia " Oh ! Ideala, I don't think 
 you can establish a parallel. We all know the sort of a life 
 a Chinese lady leads." 
 
 " When a liidv is not at the head of her house it io cer- 
 tainly vacuous," Ideala agreed, "like the lives of our own 
 ladies, when they are not forced to do anything. Why, at 
 Scarborough this year they had to take to changing their 
 dresses four times a day ; so you can imagine how they 
 languish for want of occupation." 
 
 " Well, at all events, English girls are not sold into ft 
 hateful form of slavery," some one observed contentedly. 
 
 " Are they not?" Ideala rejoined, with a flash. ' I can 
 assure you that both women and men, fathers, husbands 
 and brothers, of the same class in England, do sell their 
 young girls and I can prove it." 
 
 " We have the pull over them in the matter of marriage, 
 then. We don't give our daughters away against their 
 will, as they do." 
 
 " That is not a fair way of putting it A Chinese girl 
 expects to be so disposed of, and accepts the a rangement 
 as a matter of course. And the system has its adva- ta- 
 ges. The girl lias no illusions to be shattered, she expects 
 no new happiness in her married life; so that any that 
 comes to her is clear gain. As to our daughters' inclina- 
 tions not being forced, I suppose they are not exactly. 1 <ut 
 have you never been conscious of the tender pressure that 
 is brought to bear when a desirable suitor offers ? Havte 
 you never seen a girl that won't marry when she i ? wanted 
 to, wincing from covert stabs, mourning over cold looks, 
 and made to feel outside everything suffering a small 
 martyrdom under the general dis leasure of all for whom 
 che cares, her wo; Id, without whose love life is a burden to 
 her ; whom she believes to know best about everything ? 
 As Mrs. Bread said about Madame do Cintre : 'She is a 
 delicate creature, and they make her feel wicked' and 
 she ends by thinking any sacrifice light at the moment, if 
 only it wins her back the affection, and esteem of her 
 friends." 
 
 Ideala had been carried away by hor earnestness, and 
 now she stopped abruptly, somewhat disconcerted to find 
 eveiy one listening to her. The ladies sat with their eyes 
 on the floor, the gentlemen exchanged glances, but no o:ie 
 spoke for some time. 
 
 At last my sister made a move, and the spell was broken. 
 We separated for the night, and many were the lady-like
 
 IDEALA, 183 
 
 whispers that reached my ears, all ending in "So like 
 Ideala ! " 
 
 But, as Ideala herself remarked on another occasion: 
 * You can't sweep a room that requires it without raising 
 a dust ; the thing is to let the dust settle again, and then, 
 remove it." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 CLAUDIA did not see the change in Ideala all at once. 
 She said : 
 
 " She is looking her best, and is our own Ideala again 
 faults and all ! How she talked last night ! " 
 
 "Just in the old way," I agreed, " but with a difference; 
 for in the old days she talked at random, but now I feel 
 sure that she has a plan and a purpose, and all that she 
 says is part of it." 
 
 This suggested new possibilities to Claudia, and when 
 Ideala joined us presently, she asked abruptly : 
 
 "Are you going back to China?" 
 
 Ideala answered deliberately : 
 
 " I did lliink of becoming a missionary that was why I 
 went out there. But I know all radical reforms take time, 
 and when I ?aw what the Chinese women were doing for 
 themselves, and compared their state with our owr, it 
 seemed to me that there was work in plenty to be done at 
 home, and so I returned. Certainly the Cmnese women ( >f 
 the day bind their feet. When a girl is seven or eight years 
 old, her mother binds them for her, and everybody Ap- 
 proves. If the mother did otherwise, the girl herself v, 
 be the first to reproach her whesn she grew up. It is 
 derful how they endure the torture; but public opinion 
 has sanctioned the custom for centuries, and made it as 
 much a duty for a Chinese woman to have small feet ac it 
 is f or us to wear clothes ! And yet they do a wonderful 
 thing. When they ar<> taught how wrong the practice is, 
 how it cripples them, and weakens them, and renders th. m 
 unfit for their work in the world, they take off then? band- 
 ages. Think of that 1 and remember that they are 
 and sensitive in a womanly way to a degree that is painful. 
 When I learned that, and when I remembered that rny 
 country-women bind every organ in their bodies, though 
 they know the harm of it. and public opinion is against it, 
 I did not feel that T had time tostay and teach the hen hen. 
 It seemed to me that there was work enough 2eft ye I to do 
 at home."
 
 184 IDEALA. 
 
 "But, Ideala," Clauda protested, "what is the use of 
 drawing degrading comparisons between ourselves and 
 other nations ? You gave great offense last night." 
 
 "I said more than I intended," she answered; "I 
 always do. It was Tourgenieff, was it not? wh . said that 
 the age of talkers must precede the age of practical re- 
 formers. I seem to have been born in the age of talkers. 
 But I shall not say much more. Last night I did not 
 really intend to say anything. You led me on. But I do 
 want to make their hearts burn within them, and if I suc- 
 ceed, then I shall not care about the offense. An English 
 woman is nothing if she is not patriotic. She will not bear 
 the humiliation, if she is made to see that she is really no 
 better, with all her opportunities, than a much-despised 
 Chinese. She would not like the contempt the women of 
 that nation feel for her if shs were made to acknowledge 
 the truth that she deserved u. And so much depends on 
 our women now. There are plenty of people, you know, 
 who believe that no nation can get beyond a certain point 
 of prosperity, and that when it reaches that point it can 
 not stay there, but must begin to go down again ; and they 
 say that the English nation has now reached its extreme 
 point. They compare it with Home in the days which im- 
 mediately preceded her decline aud fall when men ceased 
 to b > brave and self-denying, and became idle, luxurious, 
 and effeminate, and women traded on their weakness, and 
 made light of their evil deeds. It is a question of the sanc- 
 tity of marriage now, as it was in the days of the decline 
 of Rome. De Quincey traces her fall to the loosening of 
 the marriage tie. He says that few, indeed, if any, were 
 the obligations in a proper sense moral which pressed upon 
 the Roman. The main fountains of moral obligation had 
 in Rome, by law or custom, been thoroughly poisoned. 
 Marriage had corrupted itself through the facility of 
 divorce, and through the consequences of that facility 
 (viz., levity in choosing, and fickleness in adhering to the 
 choice), into so exquisite a traffic of selfishness that it 
 could not yield so much as a phantom model of sanctity. 
 The relation of husband and wife had, for all moral im- 
 pressions, perished among the Romans. And, although it 
 is not quite so bad with ourselves at present, that is what it 
 is coming to. 
 
 " But there are two sides to every question, and the one 
 which we must by no means lose sight of just now is not 
 that which shows the respects in which we resemble the 
 Romans, so much as the one which shows the respects in 
 which we differ from them. It is therein that our hope
 
 IDEALA. 185 
 
 lies. And we differ from them in two important respects 
 We differ from them in the matter of experience, and in 
 the use we are disposed to make of our experiences. We 
 are beginning to know the rocks upon which they split, 
 and we shall soon be making use of our knowl?dge to steer 
 clear of them. But there is another respect in which we 
 differ from all the older nations, not even excepting the 
 Jewish. I mean morality.' We have the tbe grandest and 
 purest ideal of morality that was ever preached upon earth, 
 and, if we do but practice it, there is no doubt that the 
 promise will be fulfilled, and our days as a nation will be 
 prolonged with rejoicing. 
 
 "The future of the race has come to be a question of 
 morality and a question of health. Perhaps I should re- 
 verse it, aud say a question of health and morality, since 
 the latter is so dependent on the former. We want grander 
 minds, and we must have grander bodies to contain them. 
 And it all rests with us women. To us is confided the care 
 of the little ones of the young bodies and the young 
 minds yet unformed. Ours will be the joy of succf ss or 
 the shame of failure, and we should fit ourselves for the 
 task both morally and physically by the practice of every 
 virtue, and by every art known to the science ami skill of 
 
 man. 
 
 ' Englishwomen could not sit still and know that their 
 lovely homes will be wrecked eventually, and left desolate: 
 that this country of theirs will become a wilderness of ruin, 
 such as Egypt is, but rank and overgrown, its beauty of 
 sweet grass and stately trees, and all its rich luxuriance of 
 flowers, and fruits, und foliage plants, only accentuating 
 the ruin bearing witness to the neglect. No ; our great- 
 ness shall not depart. The decay may have begun, but it 
 shall be arrested. I am not afraid." 
 
 " But if it is the fate of nations, Ideala " 
 
 "Ipjopose to conquer fate," said Ideala. "Fate itself 
 is no match for one woman with a will, let alone for thou- 
 sands. When horrid war is threatened, men flock to fight 
 for their country ; and they volunteer for every other ardu- 
 ous duty to be done. Do you think women are less brave? 
 No. When they realize the truth, they will fight for it. 
 They will fly to arms. They will use the weapons with 
 whicn Nature has provided them ; love, constancy, seif- 
 Bacntice, their intellectual strength and will. And so they 
 will save the nation." 
 
 Claudia, the unimaginative, sat silent and perplexed. 
 
 "I would join," she said at last, "if I were quite sure 
 O Ideala I it is not a sort of Woman's "Rights busi-
 
 188 IDEALA. 
 
 ness, and all that, you are going in for, is it ? A woman 
 can do good in her own sphere only." 
 
 Ideala laughed. 
 
 " But ' her own sphere' is such a very indefinite phrase," 
 she observed. " It is nonsense, really. A woman may do 
 anything which she can do in a womanly way. They say that 
 our brains are lighter, and that therefore we must not be 
 taught too much. But why not educate us to the limit of 
 our capacity, and leave it there ? Why, if we are inferior, 
 should there be any fear of making us superior ? We must 
 stop when we cannot go any further, and all this old-woman- 
 ish cackle on the subject, the everlasting trying to prove 
 what is already said to be proved the looking for the 
 square in space after laying it down as a law that only the 
 circle exists is a curious way of showing us how to control 
 the ' exuberance of our own verbosity.' They say we shall 
 not be content when we get what we want ; and there they 
 are right, for as soon as our own ' higher education ' 
 is secure, we shall begin to clamor for the higher edu- 
 cation ofmen. For the prayer of every woman worth the 
 name is nbt, ' Make me superior to my husband,' but ' Lord, 
 make my husband superior to me ! ' Is there any more 
 pitiful position in the world than that of a right minded 
 woman who is her husband's superior, and knows it? 
 There is in every educated aud refined woman an inborn 
 desire to submit, and the must do violence to what is best 
 in herself when she can noU You know what the history 
 of euch marriages is. The girl has been taught to expect 
 to find a guide, philosopher, and friend in her hus- 
 band. He is lo be head of the house and lord of her life 
 and liberty, sole arbiter on all occasions. It is right and 
 convenient to have him so ; the world requires him to (ill 
 that position, and the wife prefers that he should. But 
 the probabilities are about equal that he, being morally her 
 inferior, will not be fit for it, and that therefore she will 
 find herself in a false position. There will then be an inter- 
 val of intense misery for the wife. Her education and 
 prejudices will make her try to submit at first to what her 
 sense knows to be impossible ; but eventually she is forced 
 out of her unnatural position by circumstances. To save 
 her house and family she must rebel, take the reins of gov- 
 ernment into her own hands, and face life, a disappointed 
 and lonely woman." 
 
 "Heaven help her I" said Claudia. "One knows that 
 the futu.e of a woman in that state of mind is only a ques- 
 tion of circumstance and temperament ; she may rise, 
 but "
 
 IDEALA. 187 
 
 Ideala looked up quickly. 
 
 " But she may fall, you were going to say yes. But yon 
 know if she does it is her owu fault. She must know better.'* 
 
 " She may not be quite mistress of herself at the time- 
 she may be fascinated ; she may be led on I " I interposed 
 quickly. Claudia seemed to have forgotten. "But ore 
 tiring is certain, if she has any real good in her, she will 
 always stop before it is too late." 
 
 " 1 think," said Claudia, " it would be better, after all, if 
 women were taught to expect to find themselves their hus- 
 band's equals the disappointment would not be BO great if 
 the husband proved interior ; but when a woman has been 
 led to look for so much, her imagination is full of dreams 
 in which he figures as an infallible being ; she expects him 
 to be her refuge, support and comfort at all times ; and when 
 a man has such a height to fall from in any one's estima- 
 tion, there can be but little of him left if he does tall." 
 
 Ideala sighed, and after a short pause she said : 
 
 " I have been wondering what makes it poss.ble for a 
 woman to love a man. Not the flesh that she sees and can 
 touch, though that may attract her as the color ot the flower 
 attracts. It must be the mind that is in him the scent of 
 the flower, as it were. If she finds eventually that his mind 
 is corrupt, she must shrink from it as from any other form 
 of corruption, and finally abandon him on account of it, as 
 she would abandon the flower if she found its odor fetid 
 indeed, she has already abandoned her husband wheu she 
 acknowledges that he is not what she thought him/' She 
 paused a moment, and then went on passionately : " I caa 
 not tell you what it was the battling day by day With a 
 power that was irresistible because it had to put forth no 
 strength to accomplish its work; it simply was itself, and 
 by being itself it lowered me. I can not tell you what it 
 was to leel myself going down, and not to be able to help it, 
 try as I would ; to feel the gradual change in my mind as 
 it grew to harbor thoughts which were reflections of his 
 thoughts, low thoughts; and to be fill d with ideas, recol- 
 lections of his conversations, which had caused me intiuite 
 disgust at the time, but remained with me like the taste of 
 a nauseous drug, until I almost acquired a morbid liking 
 for them. Oh, if I could save other women from that I" 
 
 Claudia hastily interposed to divert her. 
 " That is a good idea, the higher education of men, she 
 said. " I don't know whether they have abandoned hope : 
 or whether they think themselves already perfect, certain 
 it is, the idea of improving themselves does not seem to oc- 
 cur to them often. And we vvaiic good men in society. If
 
 188 IDEALA. 
 
 the clergy and priests are good, it is only what is required 
 of them, what everybody expects, and, therefore, their 
 goodness is accepted as a matter of course, and is viewed as 
 indifferently as other matters of course. One good man in 
 society has more effect as an example than ten priests." 
 
 " But you have not told us what you propose to do, 
 Ideala-," I said. 
 
 " I hope it is nothing unwomanly," Claudia interposed 
 anxiously. 
 
 Ideala looked at her and laughed, and Claudia laughed, 
 too, the moment after she had spoken. The fear of Ideala 
 doing anything unwomanly was absurd, even to herself. 
 
 "An unwomanly woman is such a dreadful creature," 
 Claudia added apologetically. 
 
 "Yes," said Ideala, "but you should pity her. In nine 
 cases out of ten there is a great wrong or a great grief at 
 the bottom of all her un womanliness perhaps both; and 
 if she shrieks, you may be sure that she is suffering; 
 ease her pain, and she will be quiet enough. The average 
 woman who is happy in her marriage does not care to know- 
 more of the world than she can learn in her own nursery, 
 nor to see more of it. as a rule, than she can see from her 
 own garden gate. She is a great power ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, there is so very little of her 1 
 
 "What I want to do is to make women discontented 
 you have heard of a noble spirit of discontent? I thought 
 for a long time that everything had been done that could 
 be done to make the world better; but now I see that there 
 is still one thing more to be tried. Women have nev>r yet 
 united to use their influence eteadily and all together 
 against that of which thi-y disapprove. They work too 
 much for themselves, each trying to make their own life 
 happier. They have yet to learn to take a wider view of 
 things, and to be shown that the only way to gain their 
 end is by working for everybody else, with intent to make 
 the whole world better, which means happier. And in 
 order to accomplish this they must be taught that they 
 have only to will it each in her own family and among 
 her own friends ; that after having agreed with the rest 
 about what they mean to put down, they have only to go 
 home and use their influence to that end, quietly, consist- 
 ently, and without wavering, and the thing will be done. 
 Our influence is like those strong currents which run be- 
 neath the surface of the ocean without disturbing it, and 
 yet with irresistible force, and at a rate that may be calcu- 
 lated. It is to help iu the direction of that force that I am 
 Ijoiug to devote my life. Do not imagine," she went on
 
 IDEALA. 189 
 
 hurriedly, "that I think myself fit for such a work. I 
 have had conscientious scruples been sorely troubled about 
 my own unworthiness, which seemed to unfit me for any 
 good work. But now I see things differently. One may- 
 be made an instrument for good without merit of one f e 
 own. So long as we do not deceive ourselves by thinking 
 we are worthy, ?nd so long as we are trying our best to 
 become so, I think we may hope; I think we may even 
 
 know that we shall eventually " 
 
 She stopped, and looked at me. 
 
 " Be made worthy," said Claudia, kissing her ; "and if 
 it were not so, Ideala, if everybody had to begin by being 
 as good themselves as they want others to be, there would 
 be no good workers left in the world at all." 
 
 At this moment a noisy party burst in upon our grave 
 debate and carried Ideala off for a ride. We saw them 
 leave the house, and watched them ride away until the last 
 glimpse of them was veiled by the misty brightness of the 
 frosty air and the morning sunshine. 
 
 " How well she looks I " Claudia exclaimed; " better than 
 
 any of them. She has quite recovered, and none the worse." 
 
 "I do not know about recovery," I answered dubiously. 
 
 " She will never " 
 
 But Claudia interrupted hotly : 
 
 " I know what you are going to say, and I do wish you 
 v. r ould leave off speaking of Ideala in that way. Any one, 
 to hear you, would suppose she had committed a sin, and 
 you know quite well that that was not the case. If she 
 acitd without common prudence and I will not deny that 
 she did it was entirely your own fault. She has never been 
 intimate with any man but yourself, and you have made 
 her believe that all men are like you. How could she 
 harbor suspicion when she did not know what to suspect? Of 
 course, she saw everything wrongly and awry. The old life 
 had become impossible to her, and she nearly made a mis- 
 take a"s to what the new one should be, that was all. I 
 know she wavered for a moment, but the weakness was 
 more physical than moral, I think. Her vision was 
 clourled at the time, but as soon . as she was restored to 
 health she saw things clearly enough. She is a great and 
 good woman, pure-hearted and full of charity. God bless 
 her for all her tenderness, and for her wonderiul power to 
 love. He alone can count the number who have reason to 
 wish her well." 
 
 "That is true," I answered. " And I was merely going 
 to remark, when you interrupted me, that she will never 
 tloiiik herself ' none the worse ' "
 
 190 1DEALA. 
 
 "I don't see what difference that makes, 1 ' Claudia again 
 interposed. " She always did think herself least of the 
 least when she thought of herself at all, and that was not 
 often. You are dwelling too long on the past, really, and 
 making too much of it. Men, when they are saints, are 
 twice as bad as women." 
 
 I pointed out to my sister something confusing in her 
 way of expressing the fact, but my kindness seemed to ex- 
 asperate her. 
 
 " You know what I mean quite well," she said tartly. 
 
 "Yes, Jknow," I rejoined ; "but I wanted to help you 
 to make yourself intelligible to other people." 
 
 Claudia made a gesture of impatience, but laughed, and 
 left me ; and I remained for a long time thinking over all 
 that Ideala had said, and also thinking of her as she looked 
 at the time ; and the subject was so inspiring that, although 
 my strong point is landscape, in an ambitious mood I be- 
 gan to paint an allegorical picture of her as a mother nurs- 
 ing the Infant Goodness of the race. She saw it when it 
 was nearly finished, but did not recognize herself, and ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " What a gaunt creature ! and that baby weighs at least 
 twelve stone I" 
 
 The picture was never finished. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 WE soon found that Ideala, having at last put her hand 
 to the plow, worked with a will, and although she was true 
 to ber principle that a woman's best work is done beneath 
 the surface, 1 think her own labors will eventually make 
 themselves felt nith'a good result in the world. But the 
 life she has chosen for herself is martyrdom, and her 
 womanly shrinking from the suffering she would alleviate 
 is never lessened by use. Yet she does not waver. Other 
 women admire her devotion, and follow in her footsteps ; 
 they do not doubt but that she has chosen the better fart ; 
 but I fancy that most men who have seen her dra%v the 
 little children about her and forget everything for a mo- 
 ment but her delight in them, have felt that there must 
 be something wrong in the world when such a woman 
 misses her vocation, and has to scatter her love to the four 
 winds of heaven, for want of an object upon which to con- 
 centrate it in all is strength. 
 
 I dp not know if her feeling for Lorrimer has changed. 
 My sister declares, in her positive way, that of course it
 
 IDEALA. 191 
 
 has, completely ; but my sister is not always right. Idea'la 
 has never mentioned his name since she returned to us 
 nor given us any other clew by which we could judge. 
 Only on one occasion, when some allusion wad made to 
 the course she had intended to pursue in the past, she ex- 
 claimed, "Oh, how could 1 1" and covered her face with 
 her hands. 
 
 From where I sit just now I can see her walking up the 
 avenue. She is as straight as an arrow, young-looking, and 
 fresh. Her step is firm acd light and elastic, and she moves 
 with an easy grace only possible when every muscle is un- 
 constrained. Her dress is a work of art, light in weight, 
 but rich in color and texture. 
 
 " What a beautiful woman !" I think involuntarily. 
 
 I see her daily, and pay her that tribute every time we 
 meet, for 
 
 Age can not wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite variety. 
 
 Her intellect and selflessness preserve her youth. She 
 is changed, certainly. She has arisen, and can return no 
 more to the lower walks, to the old, purposeless life and 
 desultory ways ; but yet she is the same Ideala, and holds 
 you always expectant you, who s^e beneath the surface. 
 The world will call her cold and self contained till the end, 
 and so she is and will be a snow-crowned volcano, with 
 wonderful force of fire working wiihiu. And she will not 
 stop where she is ; there is something yet to come some 
 f uriher development something more - something beyond! 
 and she makes you feel that there is. What she says of 
 other women is true of herself. 
 
 " Do not stand in their way," she begs ; " do not hinder 
 them above all, do not stop them. They are running 
 water ; if you cheek them they stagnate, and you must 
 suffer yourself from their noisome exhalations. For the 
 moral nature is like water ; it must have movement, and 
 air, and sunshine to stay corruption and keep it sweet and 
 wholesome ; and its movement is good works ; its air faith 
 in their efficiency ; its sunshine the evidence of this and 
 Lope." 
 
 Comparative anatomists have proved that the human 
 brain, irom its first appearance as a semi-fluid and shape- 
 less mass, passes in succession through the several struc- 
 tures that constitute the permanent and perfect brains of . 
 fishes, reptiias, birds and mammalia ; but ultimately it 
 passes beyond them all. uud acquires a marvelous develop- 
 ment of its own. And BO it is with tho human soul. It
 
 192 IDEALA. 
 
 must rise through analogous stages, and add to its ow 
 strength and beauty by daily bread of love and thought, 
 growing to greatness by help of these aliments only, and 
 reaching ultimately to such perfection as we cannot divine, 
 for the end is not here. But we might reach it sooner 
 than we do were it not for our own impatience. Growth 
 is so exquisitely minute, it bursts upon us an accomplished 
 fact. We know this, and yet we would see the process ; 
 and not seeing it, we lose faith, waver, hesitate, stop, and 
 recoil a going back pour mieux sauter it is with the 
 choicer spirii ; but we are all deficient in hope, all hav our 
 retrograde moments of duspair. We do not look abouo us 
 enough to see what is being done for others, how they are 
 progressing, by what strange paths they are led. We keep 
 our eyes on our own ground too much, and, because we 
 will not compare cheerfully, we think our own way the 
 roughest, our own journey the longest if there be any end 
 to it at all 1 Yet all the time we might see the end if oniy^ 
 we would look up. And we need never despair and lae 
 need never be cold and comfortless, if we would but lov 
 and remember. 
 
 For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 
 
 Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
 Far out, through creeks and iniets making, 
 
 Comes silent, flooding in, the main I 
 
 Ideala raises her eyes to mine now, and smiles as she 
 passes beneath my window. 
 
 Another woman a woman whom Claudia had long re- 
 fused to know is leaning on her arm, talking to her 
 earnestly. And that is Ideala's attitude always. She 
 gathers the useless units of society about her. and makes 
 them worthy women. There is no kind of sorrow for 
 which she has not found comfort, no folly she has not been 
 successful in checking, no vice she has not managed to 
 cure, and no form of despair which she has not relieved 
 with hope. Her own experiences have taught her to sym- 
 pathize with every phase of teeling, and be lenient to every 
 ^bortcoming and excess. Wherever she is you may he 
 sure that another woman is there also some one with a 
 sorrowful history, probably ; and you may be equally sure 
 that she is leaning on Ideala. God bless her J 
 
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