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A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
A FEAEFUL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM D. HOWELLS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK," "THE UNDISCOVERED 
 
 COUNTRY," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 1881 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 BY W. D. HOWELLS. 
 
 Ah rights reserved. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 A FEARFUL EESPONSIBILITY . 1 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE 165 
 
 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE 209 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 I. 
 
 EVERY loyal American who went abroad during 
 the first years of our great war felt bound to make 
 himself some excuse for turning his back on his 
 country in the hour of her trouble. But when Owen 
 Elmore sailed, no one else seemed to think that he 
 needed excuse. All his friends said it was the best 
 thing for him to do ; that he could have leisure and 
 quiet over there, and would be able to go on with 
 his work. 
 
 At the risk of giving a farcical effect to my narra- 
 tive, I am obliged to confess that the work of which 
 Elmore's friends spoke was a projected history of 
 Venice. So many literary Americans have projected 
 such a work that it may now fairly be regarded as a 
 national enterprise. Elmore was too obscure to have 
 been announced in the usual way by the newspapers 
 as having this design ; but it was well known in his 
 
4 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 town that he was collecting materials when his pro- 
 fessorship in the small inland college with which he 
 was connected lapsed through the enlistment of nearly 
 all the students. The president became colonel of the 
 college regiment ; and in parting with Elmore, while 
 their boys waited on the campus without, he had 
 said, " Now, Elmore, you must go on with your his- 
 tory of Venice. Go to Venice and collect your mate- 
 rials on the spot. We're coming through this all 
 right. Mr. Seward puts it at sixty days, but 1 11 give 
 them six months to lay down their arms, and we shall 
 want you back at the end of the year. Don't you 
 have any compunctions about going. I know how 
 you feel ; but it is perfectly right for you to keep out 
 of it. Good-by." They wrung each other's hands for 
 the last time, the president fell at Fort Donelson ; 
 but now Elmore followed him to the door, and when 
 he appeared there one of the boyish captains shouted, 
 " Three cheers for Professor Elmore ! " and the presi- 
 dent called for the tiger, and led it, whirling his cap 
 round his head. 
 
 Elmore went back to his study, sick at heart. It 
 grieved and vexed him that even these had not 
 thought that he should go to the war, and that his 
 inward struggle on that point had been idle so far as 
 others were concerned. He had been quite earnest 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 5 
 
 in the matter; he had once almost volunteered as 
 a private soldier: he had consulted his doctor, who 
 sternly discouraged him. He would have been truly 
 glad of any accident that forced him into the ranks ; 
 but, as he used afterward to say, it was not his idea 
 of soldiership to enlist for the hospital. At the dis- 
 tance of five hundred miles from the scene of hostili- 
 ties, it was absurd to enter the Home Guard ; and, 
 after all, there were, even at first, some selfish people 
 who went into the army, and some unselfish people 
 who kept out of it. Elmore's bronchitis was a dis- 
 order which active service would undoubtedly have 
 aggravated; as it was, he made a last effort to be 
 of use to our Government as a bearer of dispatches. 
 Failing such an appointment, he submitted to expa- 
 triation as he best could ; and in Italy he fought for 
 our cause against the English, whom he found every- 
 where all but in arms against us. 
 
 He sailed, in fine, with a very fair conscience. " I 
 should be perfectly at ease/' he said to his wife, as 
 the steamer dropped smoothly down to Sandy Hook, 
 "if I were sure that I was not glad to be getting 
 away." 
 
 " You are not glad," she answered. 
 
 " I don 't know, I don 't know," he said, with the 
 weak persistence of a man willing that his wife should 
 
6 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 persuade him against his convictions ; " I wish that I 
 felt certain of it." 
 
 " You are too sick to go to the war ; nobody ex- 
 pected you to go." 
 
 " I know that, and I can 't say that I like it. As 
 for being too sick, perhaps it's the part of a man 
 to go if he dies on the way to the field. It would 
 encourage the others," he added, smiling faintly. 
 
 She ignored the tint from Voltaire in replying : 
 " Nonsense ! It would do no good at all. At any 
 rate, it 's too late now." 
 
 " Yes, it 's too late now." 
 
 The sea-sickness which shortly followed formed a 
 diversion from his accusing thoughts. Each day of the 
 voyage removed them further, and with the preoccu- 
 pations of his first days in Europe, his travel to Italy, 
 and his preparations for a long sojourn in Venice, 
 they had softened to a pensive sense of self-sacrifice, 
 which took a warmer or a cooler tinge according as 
 the news from home was good or bad. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 II. 
 
 HE lost no time in going to work in the Marcian 
 Library, and he early applied to the Austrian authori- 
 ties for leave to have transcripts made in the archives. 
 The permission was negotiated by the American con- 
 sul (then a young painter of the name of Ferris), who 
 reported a mechanical facility on the part of the au- 
 thorities, as if, he said, they were used to obliging 
 American historians of Venice. The foreign tyranny 
 which cast a pathetic glamour over the romantic city 
 had certainly not appeared to grudge such publicity 
 as Elmore wished to give her heroic memories, though 
 it was then at its most repressive period, and formed 
 a check upon the whole life of the place. The tears 
 were hardly yet dry in the despairing eyes that had 
 seen the French fleet sail away from the Lido, after 
 Solferino, without firing a shot in behalf of Venice ; 
 but Lombardy, the Duchies, the Sicilies, had all 
 passed to Sardinia, and the Pope alone represented 
 
8 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 the old order of native despotism in Italy. At Venice 
 the Germans seemed tranquilly awaiting the change 
 which should destroy their system with the rest ; and 
 in the meantime there had occurred one of those 
 impressive pauses, as notable in the lives of nations 
 as of men, when, after the occurrence of great events, 
 the forces of action and endurance seem to be gather- 
 ing themselves against the stress of the future. The 
 quiet was almost consciously a truce and not a peace ; 
 and this local calm had drawn into it certain elements 
 that picturesquely and sentimentally heightened the 
 charm of the place. It was a refuge for many exiled 
 potentates and pretenders ; the gondolier pointed out 
 on the Grand Canal the palaces of the Count of Cham- 
 bord, the Duchess of Parma, and the Infante of Spain ; 
 and one met these fallen princes in the squares and 
 streets, bowing with distinct courtesy to any that 
 chose to salute them. Every evening the Piazza San 
 Marco was filled with the white coats of the Austrian 
 officers, promenading to the exquisite military music 
 which has ceased there forever; the patrol clanked 
 through the footways at all hours of the night, and 
 the lagoon heard the cry of the sentinel from fort to 
 fort, and from gunboat to gunboat. Through all this 
 the demonstration of the patriots went on, silent, 
 ceaseless, implacable, annulling every alien effort at 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.', 9 
 
 gayety, depopulating the theatres, and desolating the 
 ancient holidays. 
 
 There was something very fine in this, as a spectacle, 
 Elmore said to his young wife, and he had to admire 
 the austere self-denial of a people who would not suffer 
 their tyrants to see them happy; but they secretly 
 owned to each other that it was fatiguing. Soon 
 after coming to Venice they had made some acquain- 
 tance among the Italians through Mr. Ferris, and had 
 early learned that the condition of knowing Vene- 
 tians was not to know Austrians. It was easy and 
 natural for them to submit, theoretically. As Ameri- 
 cans, they must respond to any impulse for freedom, 
 and certainly they could have no sympathy with such 
 a system as that of Austria. By whatever was sacred 
 in our own war upon slavery, they were bound to ab- 
 hor oppression in every form. But it was hard 
 to make the application of their hatred to the 
 amiable-looking people whom they saw everywhere 
 around them in the quality of tyrants, especially 
 when their Venetian friends confessed that per- 
 sonally they liked the Austrians. Besides, if the 
 whole truth must be told, they found that their 
 friendship with the Italians was not always of the 
 most penetrating sort, though it had a superficial 
 intensity that for a while gave the effect of lasting 
 
10 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 cordiality. The Elmores were not quite able to 
 decide whether the pause of feeling at which they 
 arrived was through their own defect or not. Much 
 was to be laid to the difference of race, religion, 
 and education; but something, they feared, to the 
 personal vapidity of acquaintances whose meridi- 
 onal liveliness made them yawn, and in whose so- 
 ciety they did not always find compensation for the 
 sacrifices they made for it. 
 
 "But it is right," said Elmore. "It would be a 
 sort of treason to associate with the Austrians. We 
 owe it to the Venetians to let them see that our feel- 
 ings are with them." 
 
 " Yes," said his wife pensively. 
 
 "And it is better for us, as Americans abroad, 
 during this war, to be retired." 
 
 " Well, we are retired," said Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " Yes, there is no doubt of that," he returned. 
 
 They laughed, and made what they could of chance 
 American acquaintances at the caffes. Elmore had 
 his history to occupy him, and doubtless he could 
 not understand how heavy the time hung upon his 
 wife's hands. They went often to the theatre, and 
 every evening they went to the Piazza, and ate an 
 ice at Florian's. This was certainly amusement; 
 and routine was so pleasant to his scholarly tempera- 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 11 
 
 ment that he enjoyed merely that. He made a point 
 of admitting his wife as much as possible into his 
 intellectual life; he read her his notes as fast as 
 he made them, and he consulted her upon the 
 management of his theme, which, as his research 
 extended, he found so vast that he was forced to 
 decide upon a much lighter treatment than he had 
 at first intended. He had resolved upon a history 
 which should be presented in a series of biograph- 
 ical studies, and he was so much interested in this 
 conclusion, and so charmed with the advantages of 
 the form as they developed themselves, that he be- 
 gan to lose the sense of social dulness, and ceased 
 to imagine it in his wife. 
 
 A sort of indolence of the sensibilities, in fact, 
 enabled him to endure ennui that made her frantic, 
 and he was often deeply bored without knowing it 
 at the time, or without a reasoned suffering. He 
 suffered as a child suffers, simply, almost ignorant- 
 ly: it was upon reflection that his nerves began 
 to quiver with retroactive anguish. He was also able 
 to idealize the situation when his wife no longer even 
 wished to do so. His fancy cast a poetry about these 
 Venetian friends, whose conversation displayed the 
 occasional sparkle of Ollendorff-English on a dark 
 ground of lagoon-Italian, and whose vivid smiling 
 
12 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 and gesticulation she wearied herself in hospitable 
 efforts to outdo. To his eyes their historic past 
 clothed them with its interest, and the long patience 
 of their hope and hatred under foreign rule enno- 
 bled them, while to hers they were too often only 
 tiresome visitors, whose powers of silence and of 
 eloquence were alike to be dreaded. It did not con- 
 sole her as it did her husband to reflect that they 
 probably bored the Italians as much in their turn. 
 AVhen a young man, very sympathetic for literature 
 and the Americans, spent an evening, as it seemed to 
 her, in crying nothing but " Per Bacco ! " she owned 
 that she liked better his oppressor,, who once came by 
 chance, in the figure of a young lieutenant, and who 
 unbuckled his wife, as he called his sword, and, put- 
 ting her in a corner, sat up on a chair in the middle 
 of the room and sang like a bird, and then told 
 ghost-stories. The songs were out of Heine, and 
 they reminded her of her girlish enthusiasm for 
 German. Elrnore was troubled at the lieutenant's 
 visit, and feared it would cost them all their Ital- 
 ian friends; but she said boldly that she did not 
 care; and she never even tried to believe that the 
 life they saw in Venice was comparable to that of 
 their little college town at home, with its teas and 
 picnics, and simple, easy social gayeties. There she 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 13 
 
 had been a power in her way ; she had entertained, 
 and had helped to make some matches : but the Ve- 
 netians ate nothing, and as for young people, they 
 never saw each other but by stealth, and their 
 matches were made by their parents on a money- 
 basis. She could not adapt herself to this foreign 
 life; it puzzled her, and her husband's conformity 
 seemed to estrange them, as far as it went. It took 
 away her spirit, and she grew listless and dull. Even 
 the history began to lose its interest in her eyes ; she 
 doubted if the annals of such a people as she saw 
 about her could ever be popular. 
 
 There were other things to make them melancholy 
 in their exile. The war at home was going badly, 
 where it was going at all. The letters now never spoke 
 of any term to it ; they expressed rather the dogged 
 patience of the time when it seemed as if there could 
 be no end, and indicated that the country had settled 
 into shape about it, and was pushing forward its other 
 affairs as if the war did not exist. Mrs. Elmore felt 
 that the America which she had left had ceased to 
 be. The letters were almost less a pleasure than a 
 pain, but she always tore them open, and read them 
 with eager unhappiness. There were miserable in- 
 tervals of days and even weeks when no letters came, 
 and when the Eeuter telegrams in the Gazette of 
 
14 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Venice dribbled their vitriolic news of Northern dis- 
 aster through a few words or lines, and Galignani's 
 long columns were filled with the hostile exultation 
 and prophecy of the London press. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 15 
 
 III. 
 
 THEY had passed eighteen months of this sort of 
 life in Venice when one day a letter dropped into it 
 which sent a thousand ripples over its stagnant sur- 
 face. Mrs. Elmore read it first to herself, with gasps 
 and cries of pleasure and astonishment, which did 
 not divert her husband from the perusal of some 
 notes he had made the day before, and had brought to 
 the breakfast-table with the intention of amusing her. 
 When she flattened it out over his notes, and exacted 
 his attention, he turned an unwilling and lack-lustre 
 eye upon it ; then he looked up at her. 
 
 " Did you expect she would come ? " he asked, in 
 ill-masked dismay. 
 
 " I don't suppose they had any idea of it at first. 
 When Sue wrote me that Lily had been studying too 
 hard, and had to be taken out of school, I said that I 
 wished she could come over and pay us a visit. But 
 I don't believe they dreamed of letting her Sue 
 says so till the Mortons' coming seemed too good a 
 
16 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. - 
 
 chance to be lost. I am so glad of it, Owen ! You 
 know how much they have always done for me ; and 
 here is a chance now to pay a little of it back." 
 
 " What in the world shall we do with her ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Do ? Everything ! Why, Owen," she urged, with 
 pathetic recognition of his coldness, "she is Susy 
 Stevens's own sister ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes yes," he admitted. 
 
 " And it was Susy who brought us together ! " 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 " And ought n't you to be glad of the oppor- 
 tunity ? " 
 
 " I am glad very glad." 
 
 " It will be a relief to you instead of a care. She 's 
 such a bright, intelligent girl that we can both sym- 
 pathize with your work, and you won't have to go 
 round with me all the time, and I can matronize her 
 myself." 
 
 " I see, I see," Elmore replied, with scarcely abated 
 seriousness. " Perhaps, if she is coming here for her 
 health, she won't need much matrouizing." 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! She '11 be well enough for that ! 
 She 's overdone a little at school. I shall take good 
 care of her, I can tell you ; and I shall make her 
 have a real good time. It 's quite flattering of Susy 
 
A FEARFUL EESPONSIBILITY. 17 
 
 to trust her to us, so far away, and I shall write and 
 tell her we both think so." 
 
 " Yes," said Elmore, " it 's a fearful responsibility." 
 
 There are instances of the persistence of husbands 
 in certain moods or points of view on which even 
 wheedling has no effect. The wise woman perceives 
 that in these cases she must trust entirely to the 
 softening influences of time, and as much as possible 
 she changes the subject; or if this is impossible she 
 may hope something from presenting a still, worse 
 aspect of the affair. Mrs. Elmore said, in lifting the 
 letter from the table : " If she sailed the 3d in the 
 City of Timbuctoo, she will be at Queenstown on 
 the 12th or 13th, and we shall have a letter from 
 her by Wednesday saying when she will be at 
 Genoa. That 's as far as the Mortons can bring her, 
 and there 's where we must meet her." 
 
 " Meet her in Genoa ! How ? " 
 
 " By going there for her," replied Mrs. Elmore, as if 
 this were the simplest thing in the world. " 1 have 
 never seen Genoa." 
 
 Elmore now tacitly abandoned himself to his fate. 
 His wife continued : " I need n't take anything. 
 Merely run on, and right back." 
 
 " When must we go ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't know yet ; but we shall have a letter to- 
 
18 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 morrow: Don't worry on my account, Owen. Her 
 coming won't be a bit of care to me. It will give me 
 something to do and to think about, and it will be a 
 pleasure all the time to know that it 's for Susy 
 Stevens. And I shall like the companionship." 
 
 Elmore looked at his wife in surprise, for it had 
 not occurred to him before that with his company she 
 could desire any other companionship. He desired 
 none but hers, and when he was about his work he 
 often thought of her. He supposed that at these 
 moments she thought of him, and found society, as 
 he did, in such thoughts. But he was not a jealous 
 or exacting man, and he said nothing. His treatment 
 of the approaching visit from Susy Stevens's sister 
 had not been enthusiastic, but a spark had kindled 
 his imagination, and it burned warmer and brighter as 
 the days went by. He found a charm in the thought 
 of having this fresh young life here in his charge, and 
 of teaching the girl to live into the great and beauti- 
 ful history of the city : there was still much of the 
 school-master in him, and he intended to make her 
 sojourn an education to her ; and as a literary man he 
 hoped for novel effects from her mind upon material 
 which he was above all trying to set in a new light 
 before himself. 
 
 When the time had arrived for them to go and 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 19 
 
 meet Miss Mayhew at Genoa, he was more than re- 
 conciled to the necessity. But at the last moment, 
 Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What 
 these attacks were I find myself unable to specify, 
 but as every lady has an old attack of some kind, 
 I may safely leave their precise nature to conjec- 
 ture. It is enough that they were of a nervous 
 character, that they were accompanied with headache, 
 and that they prostrated her for several days. During 
 their continuance she required the active sympathy 
 and constant presence of her husband, whose devo- 
 tion was then exemplary, and brought up long arrears 
 of indebtedness in that way. 
 
 " Well, what shall we do ? " he asked, as he sank 
 into a chair beside the lounge on which Mrs. Elmore 
 lay, her eyes closed, and a slice of lemon placed 
 on each of her throbbing temples with the effect of a 
 new sort of blinders. " Shall I go alone for her ? " 
 
 She gave his hand the kind of convulsive clutch 
 that signified, " Impossible for you to leave me." 
 
 He reflected. " The Mortons will be pushing on 
 to Leghorn, and somebody must meet her. How 
 would it do for Mr. Hoskins to go ? " 
 
 Mrs. Elmore responded with a clutch tantamount 
 to "Horrors! How could you think .of such a 
 thing ? " 
 
20 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 " Well, then," he said, " the only thing we can do 
 is to send a valet de place for her. We can send old 
 Cazzi. He's the incarnation of respectability; five 
 francs a day and his expenses will buy all the virtues 
 of him. She '11 come as safely with him as with me." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore had applied a vividly thoughtful 
 pressure to her husband's hand ; she now released it 
 in token of assent, and he rose. 
 
 " But don't be gone long," she whispered. 
 
 On his way to the caffe which Cazzi frequented, 
 Elmore fell in with the consul. 
 
 By this time a change had taken place in the 
 consular office. Mr. Ferris, some months before, had 
 suddenly thrown up his charge and gone home ; and 
 after the customary interval of ship-chandler, the 
 California sculptor, Hoskins, had arrived out, with 
 his commission in his pocket, and had set up his 
 allegorical figure of The Pacific Slope in the room 
 where Ferris had painted his too metaphysical con- 
 ception of A Venetian Priest. Mrs. Elmore had never 
 liked Ferris; she thought him cynical and opinion- 
 ated, and she believed that he had not behaved quite 
 well towards a young American lady, a Miss Ver- 
 vain, who had stayed awhile in Venice with her mother. 
 She was glad to have him go ; but she could not ad- 
 mire Mr. Hoskins, who, however good-hearted, was 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 21 
 
 too hopelessly Western. He had had part of one 
 foot shot away in the nine months' service, and 
 walked with a limp that did him honor ; and he knew 
 as much of a consul's business as any of the authors 
 or artists with whom it is the tradition to fill that 
 office at Venice. Besides he was at least a fellow- 
 American, and Elmore could not forbear telling him 
 the trouble he was in : a young girl coming from their 
 town in America as far as Genoa with friends, and 
 expecting to be met there by the Elmores, with 
 whom she was to pass some months ; Mrs. Elrnore 
 utterly prostrated by one of her old attacks, and he 
 unable to leave her, or to take her with him to Genoa ; 
 the friends with whom Miss Mayhew travelled unable 
 to bring her to Venice ; she, of course, unable to come 
 alone. The case deepened and darkened in Elmore's 
 view as he unfolded it. 
 
 " Why," cried the consul sympathetically, " if I 
 could leave my post I 'd go ! " 
 
 "Oh, thank you!" cried Elmore eagerly, remember- 
 ing his wife. " I could n't think of letting you." 
 
 " Look here ! " said the consul, taking an official 
 letter, with the seal broken, from his pocket. " This 
 is the first time I could n't have left my post with- 
 out distinct advantage to the public interests, since 
 I've been here. But with this letter from Turin, 
 
22 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 telling me to be on the lookout for the Alabama, I 
 could n't go to Genoa even to meet a young lady. 
 The Austrians have never recognized the rebels as 
 belligerents : if she enters the port of Venice, all I 've 
 got to do is to require the deposit of her papers with 
 me, and then I should like to see her get out again. 
 I should like to capture her. Of course, I don't mean 
 Miss Mayhew," said the consul, recognizing the 
 double sense in which his language could be taken. 
 
 " It would be a great thing for you," said Elmore, 
 "a great thing." 
 
 " Yes, it would set me up in my own eyes, and 
 stop that infernal clatter inside about going over and 
 taking a hand again." 
 
 "Yes," Elmore assented, with a twinge of the 
 old shame. " I did n't know you had it too." 
 
 "If I could capture the Alabama, I could afford 
 to let the other fellows fight it out." 
 
 " I congratulate you, with all my heart," said El- 
 more sadly, and he walked in silence beside the 
 consul. 
 
 "Well," said the latter, with a laugh at Elmore's 
 pensive rapture, " I 'm as much obliged to you as if 
 I had captured her. 1 11 go up to the Piazza with 
 you, and see Cazzi.'' 
 
 The affair was easily arranged ; Cazzi was made 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 23 
 
 to feel by the consul's intervention that the shield of 
 American sovereignty had been extended over the 
 young girl whom he was to escort from Genoa, and 
 two days later he arrived with her. Mrs. Elmore's 
 attack now was passing off, and she was well enough 
 to receive Miss Mayhew half-recumbent on the sofa 
 where she had been prone till her arrival. It was 
 pretty to see her fond greeting of the girl, and her 
 joy in her presence as they sat down for the first long 
 talk ; and Elmore realized, even in his dreamy with- 
 drawal, how much the bright, active spirit of his wife 
 had suffered merely in the restriction of her English. 
 Now it was not only English they spoke, but that 
 American variety of the language of which I hope 
 we shall grow less and less ashamed ; and not only 
 this, but their parlance was characterized by local 
 turns and accents, which all came welcomely back 
 to Mrs. Elmore, together with those still more inti- 
 mate inflections which belonged to her own parti- 
 cular circle of friends in the little town of Patmos, 
 K Y. Lily Mayhew was of course not of her own set, 
 being five or six years younger; but women, more 
 easily than men, ignore the disparities of age between 
 themselves and their juniors ; and in Susy Stevens's 
 absence it seemed a sort of tribute to her to establish 
 her sister in the affection which Mrs. Elmore had so 
 
24 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 long cherished. Their friendship had been of such 
 a thoroughly trusted sort on both sides that Mrs. 
 Stevens (the memorably 'brilliant Sue May hew in her 
 girlish days) had felt perfectly free to act upon Mrs. 
 Elmore's invitation to let Lily come out to her ; and 
 here the child was, as much at home as if she had 
 just walked into Mrs. Elmore's parlor out of her 
 sister's house in Patmos. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 25 
 
 IV. 
 
 THEY briefly dispatched the facts relating to Miss 
 Mayhew's voyage, and her journey to Genoa, and 
 came as quickly as they could to all those things 
 which Mrs. Elmore was thirsting to learn about the 
 town and its people. " Is it much changed ? I sup- 
 pose it is," she sighed. "The war changes every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Oh, you don't notice the war much," said Miss 
 Mayhew. " But Patmos is gay, perfectly delightful. 
 "We 've got one of the camps there now ; and such 
 times as the girls have with the officers ! We have 
 lots of fun getting up things for the Sanitary. Hops 
 on the parade-ground at the camp, and going out to 
 see the prisoners, you never saw such a place." 
 
 " The prisoners ? " murmured Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " Why, yes ! " cried Lily, with a gay laugh. " Did n't 
 you know that we had a prison-camp too ? Some of 
 the Southerners look real nice. I pitied them," she 
 added, with unabated gayety. 
 
26 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Your sister wrote to me," said Mrs. Elmore ; " but 
 I could n't realize it, I suppose, and so I forgot it." 
 
 "Yes/' pursued Lily, "and Frank Halsey 's in 
 command. You would never know by the way he 
 walks that he had a cork leg. Of course he can't 
 dance, though, poor fellow. He 's pale, and he 's 
 perfectly fascinating. So's Dick Burton, with his 
 empty sleeve ; he 's one of the recruiting officers, and 
 there 's nobody so popular with the girls. You can't 
 think how funny it is, Professor Elmore, to see the 
 old college buildings used for barracks. Dick says 
 it 's much livelier than it was when he was a student 
 there." 
 
 " I suppose it must be," dreamily assented the pro- 
 fessor. " Does he find plenty of volunteers ? " 
 
 " Well, you know/' the young girl explained, " that 
 the old style of volunteering is all over." 
 
 " No, I did n't know it." 
 
 " Yes. It's the bounties now that they rely upon, 
 and they do say that it will come to the draft very 
 soon, now. Some of the young men have gone to 
 Canada. But everybody despises them. Oh, Mrs. 
 Elmore, I should think you'd be so glad to have the 
 professor off here, and honorably out of the way ! " 
 
 " I 'm dishonorably out of the way ; I can never 
 forgive myself for not going to the war," said Elmore. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 27 
 
 "Why, how ridiculous!" cried Lily. "Nobody 
 feels that way about it now ! As Dick Burton says, 
 we 've come down to business. I tell you, when you 
 see arms and legs off in every direction, and women 
 going about in black, you don't feel that it 's such a 
 romantic thing any more. There are mighty few en- 
 gagements now, Mrs. Elmore, when a regiment sets 
 off ; no presentation of revolvers in the town hall ; and 
 some of the widows have got married again ; and that 
 I don't think is right. But what can they do, poor 
 things ? You remember Tom Friar's widow, Mrs. 
 Elmore ? " 
 
 " Tom Friar's widow ! Is Tom Friar dead ? " 
 
 " Why, of course ! One of the first. I think it was 
 Ball's Bluff. Well, she 's married. But she mar- 
 ried his cousin, and as Dick Burton says, that is n 't 
 so bad. Is n't it awful, Mrs. Clapp's losing all her 
 boys, all five of them ? It does seem to bear too 
 hard on some families. And then, when you see 
 every one of those six Armstrongs going through 
 without a scratch!" 
 
 "I suppose," said Elmore, "that business is at 
 a standstill. The streets must look rather dreary." 
 
 " Business at a standstill ! " exclaimed Lily. " What 
 has Sue been writing you all this time ? Why, there 
 never was such prosperity in Patmos before ! Every- 
 
28 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 body is making money, and people that you would n't 
 hardly speak to a year ago are giving parties and in- 
 viting the old college families. You ought to see the 
 residences and business blocks going up all over the 
 place. I don't suppose you would know Patmos now. 
 You remember George Fenton, Mrs. Elmore ? " 
 
 " Mr. Haskell's clerk ? " 
 
 "Yes. Well, he 's made a fortune out of an 
 army contract; and he 's going to marry the 
 engagement came out just before I left Bella 
 Stearns." 
 
 At these words Mrs. Elmore sat upright, the 
 only posture in which the fact could be imagined. 
 "Lily!" 
 
 " Oh, I can tell you these are gay times in Amer- 
 ica," triumphed the young girl. She now put her 
 hand to her mouth and hid a yawn. 
 
 "You're sleepy," said Mrs. Elmore. "Well, you* 
 know the way to your room. You '11 find everything 
 ready there, and I shall let you go alone. You shall 
 commence being at home at once." 
 
 " Yes, I am sleepy," assented Lily ; and she promptly 
 said her good-nights and vanished ; though a keener 
 eye than Elmore's might have seen that her prompt- 
 ness had a color or say light of hesitation in it. 
 
 But he only walked up and down the room, after 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 29 
 
 she was gone, in unlieedful distress. " Gay times in 
 America ! Good heavens ! Is the child utterly heart- 
 less, Celia, or is she merely obtuse ? " 
 
 " She certainly is n't at all like Sue," sighed Mrs. 
 Elmore, who had not had time to formulate Lily's de- 
 fence. " But she 's excited now, and a little off her 
 balance. She '11 be different to-morrow. Besides, 
 all America seems changed, and the people with it. 
 We should n't have noticed it if we had stayed there, 
 but we feel it after this absence." 
 
 " I never realized it before, as I did from her babble ! 
 The letters have told us the same thing, but they 
 were like the histories of other times. Camps, pris- 
 oners, barracks, mutilation, widowhood, death, sudden 
 gains, social upheavals, it is the old, hideous 
 story of war come true of our day and country. It 's 
 terrible ! " 
 
 " She will miss the excitement," said Mrs. Elmore. 
 " I don't know exactly what we shall do with her. 
 Of course, she can't expect the attentions she 's been 
 used to in Patmos, with those young men." 
 
 Elmore stopped, and stared at his wife. " What 
 do you mean, Celia ? " 
 
 " We don't go into society at all, and she does n't 
 speak Italian. How shall we amuse her ? " 
 
 " Well, upon my word, I don't know that we 're 
 
30 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 x 
 
 obliged to provide her amusement ! Let her amuse 
 herself. Let her take up some branch of study, or 
 of of research, and get something besides 'fun' 
 into her head, if possible." He spoke boldly, but his 
 wife's question had unnerved him, for he had a soft 
 heart, and liked people about him to be happy. " We 
 can show her the objects of interest. And there are 
 the theatres," he added. 
 
 " Yes, that is true," said Mrs. Elmore. " We can 
 both go about with her. I will just peep in at her 
 now, and see if she has everything she wants." She 
 rose from her sofa and went to Lily's room, whence 
 she did not return for nearly three quarters of an 
 hour. By this time Elmore had got out his notes, 
 and, in their transcription and classification, had 
 fallen into forgetfulness of his troubles. His wife 
 closed the door behind her, and said in a low voice, 
 little above a whisper, as she sank very quietly into 
 a chair, " Well, it has all come out, Owen." 
 
 " What has all come out ? " he asked, looking up 
 stupidly. 
 
 "I knew that she had something on her mind, by 
 the way she acted. And you saw her give me that 
 look as she went out ? " 
 
 "No no, I didn't. What look was it? She 
 looked sleepy." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 31 
 
 "She looked terribly, terribly excited, and as if 
 she would like to say something to me. That was 
 the reason I said I would let her go to her room 
 alone." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " Of course she would have felt awfully if I had 
 gone straight off with her. So I waited. It may 
 never come to anything in the world, and I don't 
 suppose it will ; but it 's quite enough to account for 
 everything you saw in her." 
 
 "I didn't see anything in her, that was the 
 difficulty. But what is it what is it, Celia ? You 
 know how I hate these delays." 
 
 "Why, I 'm not sure that I need tell you, Owen; 
 and yet I suppose I had better. It will be safer," 
 said Mrs. Elmore, nursing her mystery to the last, 
 enjoying it for its own sake, and dreading it for its 
 effect upon her husband. " I suppose you will think 
 your troubles are beginning pretty early," she sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " Is it a trouble ? " 
 
 "Well, I don't know that it is. If it comes to 
 the very worst, I dare say that every one would n't 
 call it a trouble." 
 
 Elmore threw himself back in his chair in an atti- 
 tude of endurance. " What would the worst be ? " 
 
32 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Why, it 's no use even to discuss that, for it 's 
 perfectly absurd to suppose that it could ever come 
 to that. But the case," added Mrs. Elmore, perceiv- 
 ing that further delay was only further suffering for 
 her husband, and that any fact would now prob- 
 ably fall far short of his apprehensions, " is simply 
 this, and I don't know that it amounts to anything ; 
 but at Peschiera, just before the train started, she 
 looked out of the window, and saw a splendid officer 
 walking up and down and smoking ; and before she 
 could draw back he must have seen her, for he 
 threw away his cigar instantly, and got into the same 
 compartment. He talked awhile in German with an 
 old gentleman who was there, and then he spoke in 
 Italian with Cazzi ; and afterwards, when he heard 
 her speaking English with Cazzi, he joined in. I 
 don't know how he came to join in at first, and she 
 does n't, either ; but it seems that he knew some 
 English, and he began speaking. He was very tall 
 and handsome and distinguished-looking, and a perfect 
 gentleman in his manners ; and she says that she 
 saw Cazzi looking rather queer, but he didn't say 
 anything, and so she kept on talking. She told him 
 at once that she was an American, and that she was 
 coming here to stay with friends ; and, as he was 
 very curious about America, she told him all she 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 33 
 
 could think of. It did her good to talk about home, 
 for she had been feeling a little blue at being so far 
 away from everybody. Now, / don't see any harm 
 in it ; do you, Owen ? " 
 
 "It isn't according to the custom here; but we 
 need n't care for that. Of course it was imprudent." 
 
 " Of course," Mrs. Elmore admitted. " The officer 
 was very polite; and when he found that she was 
 from America, it turned out that he was a great 
 sympathizer with the North, and that he had a 
 brother in our army. Don't you think that was 
 nice ? " 
 
 "Probably some mere soldier of fortune, with no 
 heart in the cause," said Elmore. 
 
 " And very likely he has no brother there, as I told 
 Lily. He told her he was coming to Padua ; but 
 when they reached Padua, he came right on to Venice. 
 That shows you could n't place any dependence upon 
 what he said. He said he expected to be put under 
 arrest for it ; but he did n't care, he was coming. 
 Do you believe they 11 put him under arrest ? " 
 
 " I don 't know I don 't know," said Elmore, in a 
 voice of grief and apprehension, which might well 
 have seemed anxiety for the officer's liberty. 
 
 " I told her it was one of his jokes. He was very 
 funny, and kept her laughing the whole way, with 
 
34 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 his broken English and his witty little remarks. 
 She says he 's just dying to go to America. Who do 
 you suppose it can be, Owen ? " 
 
 " How should I know ? We Ve no acquaintance 
 among the Austrians," groaned Elrnore. 
 
 " That 's what I told Lily. She 's no idea of the 
 state of things here, and she was quite horrified. 
 But she says he was a perfect gentleman in every- 
 thing. He belongs to the engineer corps, that's 
 one of the highest branches of the service, he told 
 her, and he gave her his card." 
 
 " Gave her his card ! " 
 
 Mrs. Elmore had it in the hand which she had 
 been keeping in her pocket, and she now suddenly 
 produced it ; and Elmore read the name and address 
 of Ernst von Ehrhardt, Captain of the Eoyal-Imperial 
 Engineers, Peschiera. " She says she knows he wanted 
 hers, but she did n't offer to give it to him ; and he 
 didn't ask her where she was going, or anything." 
 
 " He knew that he could get her address from Cazzi 
 for ten soldi as soon as her back was turned," said 
 Elmore cynically. " What then ? " 
 
 " Why, he said and this is the only really bold 
 thing he did do that he must see her again, and 
 that he should stay over a day in Venice in hopes of 
 meeting her at the theatre or somewhere." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 35 
 
 "It's a piece of high-handed impudence!" cried 
 Elmore. "Now, Celia, you see what these people 
 are ! Do you wonder that the Italians hate them ? " 
 
 " You 've often said they only hate their system." 
 
 "The Austrians are part of their system. He 
 thinks he can take any liberty with us because he is 
 an Austrian officer ! Lily must not stir out of the 
 house to-morrow." 
 
 " She will be too tired to do so," said Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " And if he molests us further, I will appeal to the 
 consul." Elmore began to walk up and down the 
 room again. 
 
 "Well, I don't know whether you could call it 
 molesting, exactly," suggested Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " What do you mean, Celia ? Do you suppose that 
 she she encouraged this officer ? " 
 
 " Owen ! It was all in the simplicity and in- 
 nocence of her heart!" 
 
 " Well, then, that she wishes to see him again ? " 
 
 "Certainly not! But that's no reason why we 
 should be rude about it." 
 
 " Eude about it ? How ? Is simply avoiding him 
 rudeness ? Is proposing to protect ourselves from 
 his impertinence rudeness ? " 
 
 " No. And if you can 't see the matter for yourself, 
 Owen, I don 't know how any one is to make you." 
 
36 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 " Why, Celia, one would think that you approved 
 of this man's behavior, that you wished her to 
 meet him again ! You understand what the conse- 
 quences would be if we received this officer. You 
 know how all the Venetians would drop us, and we 
 should have no acquaintances here outside of the 
 army." 
 
 " Who has asked you to receive him, Owen ? And 
 as for the Italians dropping us, that does n 't frighten 
 me. But what could he do if he did meet her again ? 
 She need n 't look at him. She says he is very intel- 
 ligent, and that he has read a great many English 
 books, though he does n 't speak it very well, and that 
 he knows more about the war than she does. But of 
 course she won't go out to-morrow. All that I hate 
 is that we should seem to be frightened into staying 
 at home." 
 
 " She need 11 't stay in on his account. You said 
 she would be too tired to go out." 
 
 "I see by the scattering way you talk, Owen, that 
 your mind is n't on the subject, and that you're 
 anxious to get back to your work. I won't keep 
 you." 
 
 " Celia, Celia ! Be fair, now ! " cried Elmore. " You 
 know very well that I 'm only too deeply interested 
 in this matter, and that I 'm not likely to get back to 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 37 
 
 my work to-night, at least. What is it you wish me 
 to do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Ehnore considered a while. " I don 't wish 
 you to do anything," she returned placably. " Of 
 course, you 're perfectly right in not choosing to let 
 an acquaintance begun in that way go any further. 
 We should n 't at home, and we sha 'n 't here. But I 
 don't wish you to think that Lily has been impru- 
 dent, under the circumstances. She does ir't know 
 that it was anything out of the way, but she happened 
 to do the best that any one could. Of course, it 
 / was very exciting and very romantic ; girls like such 
 things, and there 's no reason they should n 't. We 
 must manage," added Mrs. Ehnore, " so that she shall 
 see that we appreciate her conduct, and trust in her 
 entirely. I would n't do anything to wound her 
 pride or self-confidence. I would rather send her 
 out alone to-morrow." 
 
 " Of course," said Elmore. 
 
 " And if I were with her when she met him, I 
 believe I should leave it entirely to her how to 
 behave." 
 
 " Well," said Ehnore, " you 're not likely to be put 
 to the test. He'll hardly force his way into the 
 house, and she is n't going out." 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Elmore. She added, after a silence, 
 
38 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " I 'm trying to think whether I 've ever seen him in 
 Venice ; he 's here often. But there are so many tall 
 officers with fair complexions and English beards. I 
 should like to know how he looks ! She said he was 
 very aristocratic-looking." 
 
 " Yes, it 's a fine type," said Elmore. " They 're 
 all nobles, I believe." 
 
 "But after all, they're no better looking than 
 our boys, who come up out of nothing." 
 
 " Ours are Americans," said Elmore. 
 
 " And they are the best husbands, as I told Lily." 
 
 Elmore looked at his wife, as she turned dreamily 
 to leave the room; but since the conversation had 
 taken this impersonal turn he would not say any- 
 thing to change its complexion. A conjecture vague- 
 ly taking shape in his mind resolved itself to nothing 
 again, and left him with only the ache of something 
 unascertained. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 39 
 
 V. 
 
 IN the morning Lily came to breakfast as bloom- 
 ing as a rose. The sense of her simple, fresh, whole- 
 some loveliness might have pierced even the indiffer- 
 ence of a man to whom there was but one pretty 
 woman in the world, and who had lived since their 
 marriage as if his wife had absorbed her whole sex 
 into herself : this deep, unconscious constancy was a 
 noble trait in him, but it is not so rare in men as 
 women would have us believe. For Elmore, Miss 
 Mayhew merely pervaded the place in her finer 
 way, as the flowers on the table did, as the sweet 
 butter, the new eggs, and the morning's French 
 bread did ; he looked at her with a perfectly serene 
 ignorance of her piquant face, her beautiful eyes 
 and abundant hair, and her trim, straight figure. 
 But his wife exulted in every particular of her 
 charm, and was as generously glad of it as if it were 
 her own ; as women are when they are sure that the 
 charm of others has no designs. The ladies twit- 
 
40 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 tered and laughed together, and as he was a man 
 without small talk, he soon dropped out of the con- 
 versation into a reverie, from which he found himself 
 presently extracted by a question from his wife. 
 
 " We had better go in a gondola, had n't we, 
 Owen?" She seemed to be, as she put this, trying 
 to look something into him. He, on his part, tried 
 his best to make out her meaning, but failed. 
 
 He simply asked, " Where ? Are you going out ? " 
 
 "Yes. Lily has some shopping she must do. I 
 think we can get it at Pazienti's in San Polo." 
 
 Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. 
 It seemed to him a sudden advance from the position 
 she had taken the night before in regard to Miss 
 Mayhew's not going out ; but he could not understand 
 his wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he 
 opposed her going. He decided that she wished him 
 for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he said, 
 " I think you 'd better walk, if Lily is n't too tired." 
 
 " Oh, /' m not tired at all ! " she cried. 
 
 " I can go with you, in that direction, on my way 
 to the library," he added. 
 
 " Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, 
 discontinuing her look, and leaving her husband 
 with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed respon- 
 sibility. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 41 
 
 "She, can step into the Frari a moment, and see 
 those tombs," he said. " I think it will amuse her." 
 
 Lily broke into a laugh. " Is that the way you 
 amuse yourselves in Venice ? " she asked ; and Mrs. 
 Elniore hastened to reassure her. 
 
 "That's the way Mr. Elrnore amuses himself. You 
 know his history makes every bit of the past fascin- 
 ating to him." 
 
 " Oh, yes, that history ! Everybody is looking out 
 for that," said Lily. 
 
 " Is it possible," said Elmore, with a pensive sar- 
 casm in which an agreeable sense of flattery lurked, 
 " that people still remember me and my history ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " cried Miss Mayhew. " Frank Halsey 
 was talking about it the night before I left. He couldn't 
 seem to understand why I should be coming to you at 
 Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence 
 you were writing. It is n't, is it ? You must be get- 
 ting pretty near the end of it, Professor Elmore.' ' 
 
 " I 'm getting pretty near the beginning," said 
 Elmore sadly. 
 
 " It must be hard writing histories ; they 're so aw- 
 fully hard to read," said Lily innocently. " Does it in- 
 terest you ? " she asked, with unaffected compassion. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " far more than it will ever interest 
 anybody else." 
 
42 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 " Oh, I don't believe that ! " she cried sweetly, 
 seizing the occasion to get in a little compliment. 
 
 Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus 
 going against Miss Mayhew, and perhaps she was 
 then meditating the stroke by which she restored the 
 balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her hus- 
 band alone after breakfast. " Well, Owen," she said, 
 " you Ve done it now." 
 
 " Done what ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, perhaps ! " she answered, while she 
 got on her things for the walk with unusual gayety j 
 and, with the consciousness of unknown guilt de- 
 pressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, 
 subdued, distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, 
 as he forgot everything but his history. His wife 
 hated to see him so miserable, and whispered at the 
 shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, 
 Owen ! I did n't mean anything." 
 
 " By what ? " 
 
 " Oh, if you Ve forgotten, never mind ! " she cried ; 
 and she and Miss Mayhew disappeared within. 
 
 It was two hours later when he next saw them, 
 after he had turned over the book he wished to see, 
 and had found the passage which would enable him 
 to go on with his work for the rest of the day at 
 home. He was fitting his key into the house-door 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 43 
 
 when he happened to look up the little street toward 
 the bridge that led into it, and there, defined against 
 the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. 
 Elmore and Miss Mayhew receiving the adieux of a 
 distinguished-looking man in the Austrian uniform. 
 The officer had brought his heels together in the con- 
 ventional manner, and with his cap in his right 
 hand, while his left rested on the hilt of his sword, 
 and pressed it down, he was bowing from the hips. 
 Once, twice, and he was gone. 
 
 The ladies came down the calle with rapid steps 
 and flushed faces, and Elmore let them in. His 
 wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, " I want 
 to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now ! " she 
 added, when they were alone in their own room and 
 she had shut the door, " what do you say now ? " 
 
 " What do / say now, Celia ? " retorted Elmore, 
 with just indignation. " It seems to me that it is for 
 you to say something or nothing." 
 
 " Wliy, you brought it on us." 
 
 Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not 
 speak, for this passed all force of language. 
 
 " Did n't you see me looking at you when I spoke 
 of going out in a gondola, at breakfast ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What did you suppose I meant ? " 
 
44 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 " I did n't know." 
 
 " When I was trying to make you understand that 
 if we took a gondola we could go and come without 
 being seen ! Lily had to do her shopping. But if 
 you chose to run off on some interpretation of your 
 own, was / to blame, I should like to know ? No, 
 indeed ! You won't get me to admit it, Owen." 
 
 Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, 
 miserable sibillation between his set teeth. 
 
 " Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never 
 saw in my life ! " cried Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing 
 the subject in her own mind, and leaving her husband 
 to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her 
 words were strong, but she did not really look af- 
 fronted ; and it is hard to tell what sort of liberty it 
 is that affronts a woman. It seems to depend a great 
 deal upon the person who takes the liberty. 
 
 " That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore 
 quietly. 
 
 " Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful 
 candor, " it was." Seeing that he remained unaffected 
 by her display of this virtue, she added, " Don't you 
 think he was very handsome ? " 
 
 " I could n't judge, at such a distance." 
 
 " Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want 
 you to think he was disrespectful at all. He was n't. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 45 
 
 He was everything that was delicate and deferen- 
 tial." 
 
 " Did you ask him to walk home with you ? " 
 Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. 
 Then she drew a long breath, and said firmly : " If you 
 won't interrupt me with gratuitous insults, Owen, I 
 will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will 
 be ready to do me justice. I ask nothing more." She 
 waited for his contrition, but proceeded without it, in 
 a somewhat meeker strain : " Lily could n't get her 
 things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria 
 for them. Then of course the nearest way home was 
 through St. Mark's Square. I made Lily go on the 
 Florian side, so as to avoid the officers who were sit- 
 ting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square 
 and past San Moise, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had 
 never thought of how the officers frequented the 
 Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most magnificent 
 creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid 
 officer ! ' when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a 
 sort of stop, and bowed very low, and she whispered, 
 ' It 's my officer.' I did n't dream of his joining us, 
 and I don't think he did, at first ; but after he took a 
 second look at Lily, it really seemed as if he could n't 
 help it. He asked if he might join us, and I did n't 
 say anything." 
 
46 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Did n't say anything ! " 
 
 " No ! How could I refuse, in so many words ? 
 And I was frightened and confused, any way. He 
 asked if we were going to the music in the Giardini 
 Pubblici ; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not 
 going into society in Venice, but was merely here for 
 her health. That 's all there is of it. Now do you 
 blame me, Owen ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 i 
 
 " Do you blame her ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Well, I don't see how he was to blame." 
 
 " The transaction was a little irregular, but it was 
 highly creditable to all parties concerned." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. 
 Indignation and censure she would have known how 
 to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did not 
 know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely 
 spoke to him," she pursued, " and I was very cold. I 
 spoke to him in German." 
 
 " Is German a particularly repellent tongue ? " 
 
 " No. But I was determined he should get no hold 
 upon us. He was very polite and very respectful, as 
 I said, but I did n't give him an atom of encourage- 
 ment ; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, 
 but I parted from him very stiffly." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 47 
 
 " Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Owen, what is there so wrong about it all ? He 's 
 clearly fascinated with her ; and as the matter stood, 
 he had no hope of seeing her or speaking with her 
 except on the street. Perhaps he did n't know it was 
 wrong, or did n't realize it." 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 " What else could the poor fellow have done ? 
 There he was ! He had stayed over a day, and laid 
 himself open to arrest, on the bare chance one in a 
 hundred of seeing Lily ; and when he did see her, 
 what was he to do ? " 
 
 " Obviously, to join her and walk home with her." 
 
 " You are too bad, Owen ! Suppose it had been one 
 of our own poor boys ? He looked like an American." 
 
 " He did n't behave like one. One of ' our own 
 poor boys,' as you call them, would have been as far 
 as possible from thrusting himself upon you. He 
 would have had too much reverence for you, too much 
 self-respect, too much pride." 
 
 " What has pride to do with such things, my dear ? 
 I think he acted very naturally. He acted upon im- 
 pulse. I 'm sure you 're always crying out against 
 the restraints and conventionalities between young 
 people, over here ; and now, when a European does do 
 a simple, unaffected thing " 
 
48 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Elmore made a gesture of impatience. " This fellow 
 has presumed upon your being Americans on your 
 ignorance of the customs here to take a liberty 
 that he would not have dreamed of taking with Ital- 
 ian or German ladies. He has shown himself no 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. 
 That 's what I thought when Lily first told me about 
 his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very much 
 prejudiced against him ; but when I saw him to-day, 
 I must say that I felt that I had been wrong. He is 
 a gentleman ; but he is desperate." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under 
 her husband's sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she 
 pleaded, " can't you see anything romantic in it ? " 
 
 " I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I 
 see it from his standpoint as an adventure, to be 
 bragged of and laughed over at the mess-table and 
 the caffe. I 'm going to put a stop to it." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewil- 
 dered. "Well, Owen," she said, "I put the affair 
 entirely in your hands." 
 
 Elmore never could decide upon just what theory 
 his wife had acted; h3 had to rest upon the fact, 
 already known to him, of her perfect truth and con- 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 49 
 
 scientiousness, and his perception that even in a good 
 woman the passion for manoeuvring and intrigue may 
 approach the point at which men commit forgery. He 
 now sa x w her quelled and submissive ; but he was by 
 no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, 
 or that she voluntarily acquiesced. 
 
 " All that I ask is that you won't do anything that 
 you '11 regret afterward. And as for putting a stop 
 to it, I fancy it 's put a stop to already. He 's going 
 back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that '11 probably 
 be the last of him." 
 
 " Very well," said Elmore, " if that is the last of 
 him, I ask nothing better. I certainly have no wish 
 to take any steps in the matter." 
 
 But he went out of the house very unhappy and 
 greatly perplexed. He thought at first of going to 
 the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was prob- 
 ably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar 
 to that hostelry, and of inquiring him out, and re- 
 questing him to discontinue his attentions ; but this 
 course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than 
 comported with his present mood, and he turned 
 aside to seek advice of his consul. He found Mr. 
 Hoskins in the best humor for backing his quarrel 
 He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, 
 stating that the rumor of the approaching visit of 
 
50 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 the Alabama was unfounded ; and he was thus left 
 with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands 
 which he was glad to contribute to the defence of 
 Mr. Elmore's family from the pursuit of this Aus- 
 trian officer. 
 
 " This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore," lie usu- 
 ally said " Elmore," but in his haughty frame of mind, 
 he naturally threw something more of state into their 
 intercourse, "a very simple affair, fortunately. All 
 that I have to do is to call on the military governor, 
 and state the facts of the case, and this fellow will 
 get his orders quietly and definitively. This war has 
 sapped our influence in Europe, there 's no doubt of 
 it; but I think it's a -pity if an American family liv- 
 ing in this city can't be safe from molestation ; and 
 if it can't, I want to know the reason why." 
 
 This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and 
 he thanked the consul. At the same time he felt his 
 own resentment moderated, and he said, " I 'm willing 
 to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon." 
 
 "Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears 
 out, that's the end of it. I'll look in to-morrow, 
 and see how you 're getting along." 
 
 " Don't don't give them the impression that 
 I've profited by your kindness," suggested Elmore 
 at parting. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 51 
 
 "You haven't yet. I only hope you may have 
 the chance." 
 
 " Thank you ; I don't think / do." 
 
 Elmore took a long walk, and returned home tran- 
 quillized and clarified as to the situation. Since it 
 could be terminated without difficulty and without 
 scandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was 
 not unwilling to see a certain poetry in it. He could 
 not repress a degree of sympathy with the bold young 
 fellow who had overstepped the conventional pro- 
 prieties in the ardor of a romantic impulse, and 
 he could see how this very boldness, while it had a 
 terror, would have a charm for a young girl. There 
 was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding 
 Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. 
 Perhaps the officer had inferred from Lily's innocent 
 frankness of manner that this sort of approach was 
 permissible with Americans, and was not amusing 
 himself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. 
 Elmore could allow himself this view of a case which 
 he had so completely in his own hands ; and he was 
 sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel respon- 
 sibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were 
 called upon to stand in the place of a parent to a 
 young girl, to intervene in her affairs, and to decide 
 who was and who was not a proper person to pretend 
 to her acquaintance. 
 
52 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against 
 the restraint he had proposed to himself, and at dinner 
 he invited the ladies to go to the opera with him. 
 He chose to show himself in public with them, and 
 to check any impression that they were without due 
 protection. As usual, the pit was full of officers, 
 and between the acts they all rose, as usual, and faced 
 the boxes, which they perused through their lorgnettes 
 tilL the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. 
 Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his no- 
 tice, instructed him, by a slow turning of her head, 
 that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After that he 
 undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation 
 from his sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts 
 of the opera more than the first. Miss May hew 
 showed no disappointment ; and she bore herself 
 with so much grace and dignity, and yet so evidently 
 impressed every one with her beauty, that he was 
 proud of having her in charge. He began himself 
 to see that she was pretty. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 53 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE next day was Sunday, and in going to church 
 they missed a call from Hoskins, whom Elmore felt 
 bound to visit the following morning on his way to 
 the library, and inform of his belief that the enemy 
 had quitted Venice, and that the whole affair was 
 probably at an end. He was strengthened in this 
 opinion by Mrs. Elmore's fear that she might have 
 been colder than she supposed; she hoped that she 
 had not hurt the poor young fellow's feelings ; and 
 now that he was gone, and safely out of the way, 
 Elmore hoped so too. 
 
 On his return from the library, his wife met him 
 with an air of mystery before which his heart sank. 
 " Owen," she said, " Lily has a letter." 
 
 " Not bad news from home, Celia ! " 
 
 " No ; a letter which she wishes to show you. It 
 has just come. As I don't wish to influence you, I 
 would rather not be present." Mrs. Elmore slipped 
 out of the room, and Miss Mayhew glided gravely in, 
 
54 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 holding an open note in her hand, and looking into 
 Elmore's eyes with a certain unfathomable candor, of 
 which she had the secret. 
 
 " Here," she said, " is a letter which I think you 
 ought to see at once, Professor Elmore " ; and she gave 
 him the note with an air of unconcern, which he 
 afterward recalled without being able to determine 
 whether it was real indifference or only the calm re- 
 sulting from the transfer of the whole responsibility 
 to him. She stood looking at him while he read : 
 Miss, 
 
 In this evening I am just arrived from Venise, 4 hours 
 afterwards I have had the fortune to see you and to speake 
 with you and to favorite me of your gentil acquaintance- 
 ship at rail-away. I never forgeet the moments I have seen 
 you. Your pretty and nice figure had attached my heard 
 so much, that I deserted in the hopiness to see you at Venise. 
 And I was so lukely to speak with you cut too short, and in 
 the possibility to understand all. I wished to go also in this 
 Sonday to Venise, but I am sory that I cannot, beaucause I 
 must feeled now the consequences of the desertation. Pray 
 Miss to agree the assurance of my lov, and perhaps I will be 
 so lukely to receive a notice from you Miss if I can hop a 
 little (hapiness) sympathie. Tres humble 
 
 E. vox EHRHARDT. 
 
 Elmore was not destitute of the national sense 
 of humor ; but he read this letter not only without 
 amusement in its English, but with intense bitter- 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 55 
 
 ness and renewed alarm. It appeared to him that 
 the willingness of the ladies to put the affair in his 
 hands had not strongly manifested itself till it had 
 quite passed their own control, and had become a 
 most embarrassing difficulty, when, in fact, it was 
 no longer a merit in them to confide it to him. In 
 the resentment of that moment, his suspicions even 
 accused his wife of desiring, from idle curiosity and 
 sentiment, the accidental meeting which had resulted 
 in this fresh aggression. 
 
 " Why did you show me this letter ? " he asked 
 harshly. 
 
 " Mrs. Elmore told me to do so," Lily answered. 
 
 "Did you wish me to see it ?" 
 
 "I don't suppose I wished you to see it: I 
 thought you ought to see it." 
 
 Elmore felt himself relenting a little. " What do 
 you want done about it ? " he asked more gently. 
 
 "That is what I wished you to tell me/' replied 
 the girl. 
 
 " I can 't tell you what you wish me to do, but I 
 can tell you this, Miss Mayhew : this man's behavior 
 is totally irregular. He would not think of writing 
 to an Italian or German girl in this way. If he 
 desired to to pay attention to her, he would 
 write to her father." 
 
56 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 " Yes, that 's what Mrs. Elmore said. She said she 
 supposed he must think it was the American way." 
 
 " Mrs. Elmore," began her husband ; but he arrested 
 himself there, and said, " Very well. I want to know 
 what I am to do. I waot your full and explicit au- 
 thority before I act. We will dismiss the fact of 
 irregularity. We will suppose that it is fit and be- 
 coming for a gentleman who has twice met a young 
 lady by accident or once by accident, and once by 
 his own insistence to write to her. Do you wish 
 to continue the correspondence ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Elmore looked into the eyes which dwelt full upon 
 him, and, though they were clear as the windows of 
 heaven, he hesitated. " I must do what you say, no 
 matter what you mean, you know ? " 
 
 " I mean what I say." 
 
 " Perhaps," he suggested, " you would prefer to re- 
 turn him this letter with a few lines on your card." 
 
 " No. I should like him to know that I have shown 
 it to you. I should think it a liberty for an American 
 to write to me in that way after such a short ac- 
 quaintance, and I don't see why I should tolerate it 
 from a foreigner, though I suppose their customs 
 are different." 
 
 " Then you wish me to write to him ? " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 57 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And make an end of the matter, once for all ? " 
 " Yes ." 
 
 " Very well, then." Elmore sat down at once, and 
 wrote : 
 
 SIR, Miss Mayhew has handed me your note of yester- 
 day, and begs me to express her very great surprise that you 
 should have ventured to address her. She desires me also 
 to add that you will consider at an end whatever acquain- 
 tance you suppose yourself to have formed with her. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 OWEN ELMORE. 
 
 He handed the note to Lily. " Yes, that will do," 
 she said, in a low, steady voice. She drew a deep 
 breath, and, laying the letter softly down, went out of 
 the room into Mrs. Elmore's. 
 
 Elmore had not had time to kindle his sealing-wax 
 when his wife appeared swiftly upon the scene. 
 
 " I want to see what you have written, Owen," she 
 said. 
 
 " Don't talk to me, Celia," he replied, thrusting the 
 wax into the candle-light. "You have put this 
 affair entirely in my hands, and Lily approves of 
 what I have written. I am sick of the thing, and 
 I don't want any more talk about it." 
 
 " I must see it," said Mrs. Elmore, with finality, 
 and possessed herself of the note. She ran it through, 
 
58 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 and then flung it on the table and dropped into a chair, 
 while the tears started to her eyes. " What a cold, 
 cutting, merciless letter ! " she cried. 
 
 " I hope he will think so," said Elmore, gathering 
 it up from the table, and sealing it securely in its 
 envelope. 
 
 " You 're not going to send it ! " exclaimed his wife. 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 " I did n 't suppose you could be so heartless." 
 
 "Very well, then, I won't send it," said Elmore. 
 " I put the affair in your hands. What are you going 
 to do about it ? " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " On the contrary, I 'm perfectly serious. I don 't 
 see why you should n 't manage the business. The 
 gentleman is an acquaintance of yours. / don't know 
 him." Elmore rose and put his hands in his pockets. 
 " What do you intend to do ? Do you like this clan- 
 destine sort of thing to go on ? I dare say the fellow 
 only wishes to amuse himself by a flirtation with a 
 pretty American. But the question is whether you 
 wish him to do so. I'm willing to lay his conduct 
 to a misunderstanding of our customs, and to suppose 
 that he thinks this is the way Americans do. I take 
 the matter at its best : he speaks to Lily on the 
 train without an introduction ; he joins you in your 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 59 
 
 walk without invitation; he writes to her without 
 leave, and proposes to get up a correspondence. It 
 is all perfectly right and proper, and will appear so to 
 Lily's friends when they hear of it. But I 'm curious 
 to know how you 're going to manage the sequel. Do 
 you wish the affair to go on, and how long do you 
 wish it to go on ? " 
 
 "You know very well that I don't wish it to go 
 on." 
 
 "Then you wish it broken off?" 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " I think there is such a thing as acting kindly and 
 considerately. I don't see anything in Captain Ehr- 
 hardt's conduct that calls for savage treatment," said 
 Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " You would like to have him stopped, but stopped 
 gradually. Well, I don't wish to be savage, either, 
 and I will act upon any suggestion of yours. I want 
 Lily's people to feel that we managed not only wisely 
 but humanely in checking a man who was resolved 
 to force his acquaintance upon her." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore thought a long while. Then she said : 
 " Why, of course, Owen, you 're right about it. There 
 is no other way. There could n 't be any kindness in 
 checking him gradually. But I wish," she added sor- 
 
60 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 rowfully, " that he had not been such a complete goose ; 
 and then we could have done something with him." 
 
 " I am obliged to him for the perfection which 
 you regret, my dear. If he had been less complete, 
 he would have been much harder to manage." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Elmore, rising, " I shall always 
 say that he meant well. But send the letter." 
 
 Her husband did not wait for a second bidding. 
 He carried it himself to the general post-office that 
 there might be no mistake and no delay about it; 
 and a man who believed that he had a feeling and 
 tender heart experienced a barbarous joy in the inflic- 
 tion of this pitiless snub. I do not say that it would 
 not have been different if he had trusted at all in 
 the sincerity of Captain Ehrhardt's passion ; but he 
 was glad to discredit it. A misgiving to the other 
 effect would have complicated the matter. But now 
 he was perfectly free to disembarrass himself of a 
 trouble which had so seriously threatened his peace. 
 He was responsible to Miss Mayhew's family, and Mrs. 
 Elmore herself could not say, then or afterward, that 
 there was any other way open to him. I will not 
 contend that his motives were wholly unselfish. No 
 doubt a sense of personal annoyance, of offended de- 
 corum, of wounded respectability, qualified the zeal 
 for Miss Mayhew's good which prompted him. He 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 61 
 
 was still a young and inexperienced man, confronted 
 with a strange perplexity : he did the best he could, 
 and I suppose it was the best that could be done. 
 At any rate, he had no regrets, and he went cheerfully 
 about the work of interesting Miss Mayhew in the 
 monuments and memories of the city. 
 
 Since the decisive blow had been struck, the ladies 
 seemed to share his relief. The pursuit of Captain 
 Ehrhardt, while it flattered, might well have alarmed, 
 and the loss of a not unpleasant excitement was made 
 good by a sense of perfect security. Whatever repin- 
 ing Miss Mayhew indulged was secret, or confided 
 solely to Mrs. Elmore. To Elmore himself she ap- 
 peared in better spirits than at first, or at least in a 
 more equable frame of mind. To be sure, he did not 
 notice very particularly. He took her to the places 
 and told her the things that she ought to be interested 
 in, and he conceived a better opinion of her mind from 
 the quick intelligence with which she entered into 
 his own feelings in regard to them, though he never 
 could see any evidence of the over-study for which 
 she had been taken from school. He made her, like 
 Mrs. Elmore, the partner of his historical researches ; 
 he read his notes to both of them now ; and when his 
 wife was prevented from accompanying him, he went 
 with Lily alone to visit the scenes of such events as 
 
62 A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY.- 
 
 his researches concerned, and to fill his mind with 
 the local color which he believed would give life 
 and character to his studies of the past They also 
 went often to the theatre ; and, though Lily could not 
 understand the plays, she professed to be entertained, 
 and she had a grateful appreciation of all his efforts 
 in her behalf that amply repaid him. He grew fond 
 of her society; he took a childish pleasure in hav- 
 ing people in the streets turn and glance at the 
 handsome girl by his side, of whose beauty and styl- 
 ishness he became aware through the admiration 
 looked over the shoulders of the Austrians, and 
 openly spoken by the Italian populace. It did not 
 occur to him that she might not enjoy the growth 
 of their acquaintance in equal degree, that she 
 fatigued herself with the appreciation of the memo- 
 rable and the beautiful, and that she found these 
 long rambles rather dull. He was a man of little 
 conversation; and, unless Mrs. Elmore was of the 
 company, Miss Mayhew pursued his pleasures for 
 the most part in silence. One evening, at the end 
 of the week, his wife asked, "Why do you always 
 take Lily through the Piazza on the side farthest 
 from where the officers sit ? Are you afraid of her 
 meeting Captain Ehrhardt ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! I consider the Ehrhardt business settled. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 63 
 
 But you know the Italians never walk on the officers' 
 side." 
 
 "You are not an Italian. What do you gain 
 by flattering them up ? I should think you might 
 suppose a young girl had some curiosity." 
 
 "I do ; and I do everything I can to gratify her 
 curiosity. I went to San Pietro di Castello to-day, 
 to show her where the Brides of Venice were stolen." 
 
 " The oldest and dirtiest part of the city ! What 
 could the child care for the Brides of Venice ? Now 
 be reasonable, Owen ! " 
 
 " It 's a romantic story. I thought girls liked such 
 things, about getting married." 
 
 " And that 's the reason you took her yesterday to 
 show her the Bucentaur that the doges wedded the 
 Adriatic in ! Well, what was your idea in going 
 with her to the Cemetery of San Michele ? " 
 
 " I thought she would be interested. I had never 
 been there before myself, and I thought it would be 
 a good opportunity to verify a passage I was at work 
 on. We always show people the cemetery at home." 
 
 " That was considerate. And why did you go to 
 Canarregio on Wednesday ? " 
 
 " I wished her to see the statue of Sior Antonio 
 Rioba; you know it was the Venetian Pasquino in 
 the Revolution of '48 " 
 
64 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 "Charming!" 
 
 " And the Campo di Giustizia, where the executions 
 us 3(1 to take place." 
 
 "Delightful!" 
 
 "And and the house of Tintoretto," faltered 
 El more. 
 
 " Delicious ! She cares so much for Tintoretto ! 
 And you've been with her to the Jewish burying- 
 ground at the Lido, and the Spanish synagogue in the 
 Ghetto, and the fish-market at the Eialto, and you 've 
 shown her the house of Othello and the house of Des- 
 clemona, and the prisons in the ducal palace ; and 
 three nights you 've taken us to the Piazza as soon as 
 the Austrian band stopped playing, and all the inter- 
 esting promenading was over, and those stuffy old 
 Italians began to come to the cafTes. Well, I can 
 tell you that 's no way to amuse a young girl. We 
 must do something for her, or she will die. She has 
 come here from a country where girls have always 
 had the best time in the world, and where the times 
 are livelier now than they ever were, with all this 
 excitement of the war going on ; and here she is 
 dropped down in the midst of this absolute dead- 
 ness : no calls, no picnics, no parties, no dances 
 nothing! We must do something for her." 
 
 " Shall we give her a ball ? " asked Elmore, look- 
 ing round the pretty little apartment. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 65 
 
 "" There 's nothing going on among the Italians. 
 But you might get us invited to the German Casino." 
 
 " I dare say. But I will not do that." 
 
 "Then we could go to the Luogotenenza, to the 
 receptions. Mr. Hoskins could call with us, and 
 they would send us cards." 
 
 " That would make us simply odious to the Vene- 
 tians, and our house would be thronged with officers. 
 What I 've seen of them does n't make me particularly 
 anxious for the honor of their further acquaintance." 
 
 " Well, I don 't ask you to do any of these things," 
 said Mrs. Elmore, who had, in fact, mentioned them 
 with the intention of insisting upon an abated claim. 
 " But I think you might go and dine at one of tlie 
 hotels at the Danieli instead of that Italian res- 
 taurant; and then Lily could see somebody at the 
 table d'hote, and not simply perish of despair." 
 
 "I I did n't suppose it was so bad as that," said 
 Elmore. 
 
 "Why, of course, she hasn't said anything, she's 
 far too well-bred for that ; but I can tell from my 
 own feelings how she must suffer. I have you, 
 Owen," she said tenderly, " but Lily has nobody. 
 She has gone through this Ehrhardt business so well 
 that I think we ought to do all we can to divert her 
 mind." 
 
 5 
 
66 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 "Well, now, Celia, you see the difficulty of our 
 position, the nature of the responsibility we have 
 assumed. How are we possibly, here in Venice, to 
 divert the mind of a young lady fresh from the 
 parties and picnics of Patmos ? " 
 
 " We can go and dine at the Danieli," replied Mrs. 
 El more. 
 
 " Very well, let us go, then. But she will learn no 
 Italian there. She will hear nothing but English 
 from the travellers and bad French from the wait- 
 ers ; while at our restaurant 
 
 " Pshaw ! " cried Mrs. Elmore, " what does Lily care 
 for Italian ? I 'm sure / never want to hear another 
 word of it." 
 
 At this desperate admission, Elmore quite gave 
 way ; he went to the Danieli the next morning, and 
 arranged to begin dining there that day. There is no 
 denying that Miss Mayhew showed an enthusiasm in 
 prospect of the change that even the sight of the pil- 
 lar to which Foscarini was hanged head downwards 
 for treason to the Republic had not evoked. She 
 made herself look very pretty, and she was visibly 
 an impression at the table d' hote when she sat down 
 there. Elmore had found places opposite an elderly 
 lady and quite a young gentleman, of English speech, 
 but of not very English effect otherwise, who bowed 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 67 
 
 to Lily in acknowledgment of some former meeting. 
 The old lady said, " So you Ve reached Venice at last ? 
 I 'm very pleased, for your sake," as if at some point 
 of the progress thither she had been privy to anxie- 
 ties of Lily about arriving at her destination; and, 
 in fact, they had been in the same hotels at Marseilles 
 and Genoa. The young gentleman said nothing, but 
 lie looked at Lily throughout the dinner, and seemed 
 to take his eyes from her only when she glanced at 
 him ; then he dropped his gaze to his neglected plate 
 and blushed. When they left the table, he made 
 haste to join the Elmores in the reading-room, where 
 he contrived, with creditable skill, to get Lily apart 
 from them for the examination of an illustrated 
 newspaper, at which neither of them looked ; they 
 remained chatting and laughing over it in entire 
 irrelevancy till the elderly lady rose and said, " Her- 
 bert, Herbert ! I am ready to go now," upon which 
 he did not seem at all so, but went submissively. 
 
 " Who are those people, Lily ? " asked Mrs. Elmore, 
 as they walked towards Florian's for their after-din- 
 ner coffee. The Austrian band was playing in the 
 centre of the Piazza, and the tall, blond German 
 officers promenaded back and forth with dark Hun- 
 garian women, who looked each like a princess of 
 her race. The lights glittered upon them, and on 
 
68 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 the brilliant groups spread fan-wise out into the 
 Piazza before the caffes ; the scene seemed to shake 
 and waver in the splendor, like something painted. 
 
 " Oh, their name is Andersen, or something like 
 that; and they 're from Helgoland, or some such place. 
 I saw them first in Paris, but we didn't speak till we 
 got to Marseilles. That 's his aunt ; they 're English 
 subjects, someway ; and he 's got an appointment in 
 the civil service I think he called it in India, 
 and he does n't want to go ; and I told him he ought 
 to go to America. That's what I tell all these Eu- 
 ropeans." 
 
 " It 's the best advice for them," said Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " They don't seem in any great haste to act upon 
 it," laughed Miss Mayhew. " Who was the red- 
 faced young man that seemed to know you, and 
 stared so ? " 
 
 " That 's an English artist who is staying here. 
 He has a curious name, Eose-Black; and he is 
 the most impudent and pushing man in the world. 
 I would n't introduce him, because I saw he was just 
 dying for it." 
 
 Miss Mayhew laughed, as she laughed at every- 
 thing, not because she was amused, but because she 
 was happy ; this childlike gayety of heart was great 
 part of her charm. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 69 
 
 Elmore had quieted his scruples as a good Ve- 
 netian by coming inside of the caffe while the band 
 played, instead of sitting outside with the bad 
 patriots; but he put the ladies next the window, 
 and so they were not altogether sacrificed to his 
 sympathy with the dimostrazione. 
 
70 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE next morning Elmore was called from his 
 bed at no very early hour, it must be owned, but 
 at least before a nine o'clock breakfast to see a 
 gentleman who was waiting in the parlor. He dressed 
 hurriedly, with a thousand exciting speculations in 
 his rnind, and found Mr. Eose-Black looking from 
 the balcony window. " You have a pleasant position 
 here," he said easily, as he turned about to meet 
 Elmore's look of indignant demand. " I"'ve come 
 to ask all about our friends the Andersens." 
 
 " I don't know anything about them," answered 
 Elmore. "I never saw them before." 
 
 " Ab'h ! " said the painter. Elmore had not invited 
 him to sit down, but now he dropped into a chair, 
 with the air of asking Elmore to explain himself. 
 "The young lady of your party seemed to know 
 them. How uncommonly pretty all your American 
 young girls are ! But I 'in told they fade very soon. 
 I should like to make up a picnic party with you 
 all for the Lido." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 71 
 
 " Thank you," replied Elmore stiffly. " Miss May- 
 hew has seen the Lido." 
 
 " Aoh ! That 's her name. It 's a pretty name." 
 He looked through the open door into the dining- 
 room, where the table was set for breakfast, with the 
 usual water-goblet at each plate. " I see you have 
 beer for breakfast. There's nothing so nice, you 
 know. Would you would you mind giving me a 
 glahs ? " 
 
 Through an undefined sense of the duties of hos- 
 pitality, Elmore was surprised by this impudence into 
 sending out to the next caffe* for a pitcher of beer. 
 Rose-Black poured himself out one glass and another 
 till he had emptied the pitcher, conversing affably 
 meanwhile with his silent host. 
 
 " Why did n't you turn him out of doors ? " de- 
 manded Mrs. Elmore, as soon as the painter's depart- 
 ure allowed her to slip from the closed door behind 
 which she had been imprisoned in her room. 
 
 " I did everything but that," replied her husband, 
 whom this interview had saddened more than it had 
 angered. 
 
 " You sent out for beer for him ! " 
 
 "I didn't know but it might make him sick. 
 Eeally, the thing is incredible. I think the man is 
 cracked." 
 
72 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " He is an Englishman, and he thinks he can 
 take any kind of liberty with us because we are 
 Americans." 
 
 " That seems to be the prevalent impression among 
 all the European nationalities," said Elmore. " Let 's 
 drop him for the present, and try to be more brutal 
 in the future." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore, so far from dropping him, turned to 
 Lily, who entered at that moment, and recounted 
 the extraordinary adventure of the morning, which 
 scarcely needed the embellishment of her fancy ; it 
 was not really a gallon of beer, but a quart, that Mr. 
 Rose-Black had drunk. She enlarged upon previous 
 aggressions of .his, and said finally that they had to 
 thank Mr. Ferris for his acquaintance. 
 
 "Ferris couldn't help himself," said Elmore. "He 
 apologized to me afterward. The man got him into 
 a corner. But he warned us about him as soon he 
 could. And Rose-Black would have made our ac- 
 quaintance, any way. I believe he 's crazy." 
 
 " I don't see how that helps the matter." 
 
 " It helps to explain it," concluded Elmore, with 
 a sigh. "We can't refer everything to our being 
 American lambs, and his being a ravening European 
 wolf." 
 
 "Of course he came round to find out about Lily," 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 73 
 
 said Mrs. Elmore. " The Andersens were a mere 
 blind." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Elmore ! " cried Lily in deprecation. 
 
 The bell jangled. " That is the postman," said 
 Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 There was a home-letter for Lily, and one from 
 Lily's sister enclosed to Mrs. Elmore. The ladies 
 rent them open, and lost themselves in the cross- 
 written pages ; and neither of them saw the dismay 
 with which Elmore looked at the handwriting of the 
 envelope addressed to him. His wife vaguely knew 
 that he had a letter, and meant to ask him for it 
 as soon as she should have finished her own. When 
 she glanced at him again, he was staring at the smil- 
 ing face of Miss Mayhew, as she read her letter, with 
 the wild regard of one who sees another in mortal 
 peril, and can do nothing to avert the coming doom, 
 but must dumbly await the catastrophe. 
 
 "What is it, Owen?" asked his wife in a low 
 voice. 
 
 He started from his trance, and struggled to an- 
 swer quietly. " I Ve a letter here which I suppose 
 I 'd better show to you first." 
 
 They rose and went into the next room, Miss 
 Mayhew following them with a bright, absent look, 
 and then dropping her eyes again to her letter. 
 
74 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Elmore put the note he had received into his wife's 
 hands without a word. 
 
 SIR, My position permitted me to take a woman. I 
 am a soldier, but I am an engineer operateous, and I can 
 exercise wherever my profession in the civil life. I have 
 seen Miss Mayhew, and I have great sympathie for she. I 
 think I will be lukely with her, if Miss Mayhew would be of 
 the same intention of me. 
 
 If you believe, Sir, that my open and realy proposition 
 will not offendere Miss Mayhew, pray to handed to her this 
 note. Pray sir to excuse me the liberty to fatigue you, and 
 to go over with silence if you would be of another intention. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 E. VON EHRHARDT. 
 
 Mrs. Elmore folded the letter carefully up and re- 
 turned it to her husband. If he had perhaps dreaded 
 some triumphant outburst from her, he ought to have 
 been content with the thoroughly daunted look which 
 she lifted to his, and the silence in which she suffered 
 him to do justice to the writer. 
 
 "This is the letter of a gentleman, Celia," he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes," she responded faintly. 
 
 " It puts another complexion on the affair en- 
 tirely." 
 
 " Yes. Why did he wait a whole week ? " she 
 added. 
 
 " It is a serious matter with him. He had a right 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 75 
 
 to take time for thinking it over." Elmore looked at 
 the date of the Peschiera postmark, and then at that of 
 Venice on the back of the envelope. " No, he wrote 
 at once. This has been kept in the Venetian office, 
 and probably read there by the authorities." 
 
 His wife did not heed the conjecture. " He began 
 all wrong," she grieved. " Why could n't he have 
 behaved sensibly?" 
 
 " We must look at it from another point of view 
 now," replied Elmore. " He has repaired his error 
 by this letter." 
 
 " No, no ; he has n't." 
 
 " The question is now what to do about the changed 
 situation. This is an offer of marriage. It comes ill 
 the proper way. It 's a very sincere and manly letter. 
 The man has counted the whole cost : he 's ready to 
 leave the army and go to America, if she says so. 
 He 's in love. How can she refuse him ? " 
 
 " Perhaps she is n't in love with him," said Mrs. 
 Elmore. 
 
 "Oh! That's true. I hadn't thought of that. 
 Then it 's very simple." 
 
 " But I don't know that she is n't," murmured Mrs. 
 Elmore. 
 
 "Well, ask her." 
 
 " How could she tell ? " 
 
76 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " How could she tell ?" 
 
 " Yes. Do you suppose a child like that can know 
 her own mind in an instant ? " 
 
 " I should think she could." 
 
 " Well, she could n't. She liked the excitement, 
 the romanticality of it ; but she does n't know any 
 more than you or I whether she cares for him. I 
 don't suppose marriage with anybody has ever seri- 
 ously entered her head yet." 
 
 " It will have to do so now," said Elmore firmly. 
 " There 's no help for it." 
 
 " I think the American plan is much better," pouted 
 Mrs. Elmore. " It 's horrid to know that a man 's in 
 love with you, and wants to marry you, from the very 
 start. Of course it makes you hate him." 
 
 " I dare say the American plan is better in this as 
 in most other things. But we can't discuss abstrac- 
 tions, Celia. We must come down to business. What 
 are we to do ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " We must submit the question to her.'* 
 
 " To that innocent, unsuspecting little thing ? 
 Never ! " cried Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " Then we must decide it, as he seems to expect 
 we may, without reference to her," said her hus- 
 band. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 77 
 
 " No, that won't do. Let me think." Mrs. Elmore 
 thought to so little purpose that she left the word 
 to her husband again. 
 
 " You see we must lay the matter before her." 
 
 " Could n't could n't we let him come to see us 
 awhile ? Could n't we explain our ways to him, and 
 allow him to pay her attentions without letting her 
 know about this letter ? " 
 
 " I 'in afraid he would n't understand, that we 
 could n't make it clear to him," said Elmore. " If we 
 invited him to the house he would consider it as an 
 acceptance. He wants a categorical answer, and he 
 has a right to it. It would be no kindness to a mail 
 with his ideas to take him on probation. He has 
 behaved honorably, and we 're bound to consider him." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think he 's done anything so very 
 great," said Mrs. Elmore, with that disposition we all 
 have to disparage those who put us in difficulties. 
 
 " He 's done everything he could do," said Elmore. 
 " Shall I speak to Miss Mayhew ? " 
 
 " No, you had better let me," sighed his wife. " I 
 suppose we must. But I think it 's horrid ! Every- 
 thing could have gone on so nicely if he had n't 
 been so impatient from the beginning. Of course she 
 won't have him now. She will be scared, and that 
 will be the end of it." 
 
78 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.' 
 
 "I think you ought to be just to him, Celia. I 
 can 't help feeling for him. He has thrown himself 
 upon our mercy, and he has a claim to right and 
 thoughtful treatment." 
 
 " She won't have anything to do with him. You '11 
 see." 
 
 " I shall be very glad of that," Elmore began. 
 
 " Wliy should you be glad of it ? " demanded his 
 wife. 
 
 He laughed. " I think I can safely leave his case 
 in your hands. Don't go to the other extreme. If 
 she married a German, he would let her black his 
 boots, like that general in Munich." 
 
 " Who is talking of marriage ? " retorted Mrs. 
 Elmore. 
 
 " Captain Ehrhardt and I. That 's what it comes 
 to ; and it can't come to anything else. I like his 
 courage in writing English, and it's wonderful how 
 he hammers his meaning into it. ' Lukely ' is n't 
 bad, is it ? And ' my position permitted me to take 
 a woman ' I suppose he means that he has money 
 enough to marry on is delicious. Upon my word, 
 I have a good deal of sympathie for he ! " 
 
 " For shame, Owen ! It 's wicked to make fun of 
 his English." 
 
 kA My dear, I respect him for writing in English. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 79 
 
 The whole letter is touchingly brave and fine. Con- 
 found him ! I wish I had never heard of him. What 
 does he corne "bothering across my path for ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't feel that way about it, Owen ! " cried 
 his wife. " It 's cruel." 
 
 " I don't. I wish to treat him in the most generous 
 manner ; after all, it is n't his fault. But you must 
 allow, Celia, that it 's very annoying and extremely 
 perplexing. We can't make up Miss Mayhew's mind 
 for her. Even if we found out that she liked him, it 
 would be only the beginning of our troubles. We 've 
 no right to give her away in marriage, or let her in- 
 volve her affections here. But be judicious, Celia." 
 
 " It 's easy enough to say that ! " 
 
 "I'll be back in an hour," said Elmore. "I'm 
 going to the Square. We must n't lose time." 
 
 As he passed out through the breakfast-room, Lily 
 was sitting by the window with her letter in her lap, 
 and a happy smile on her lips. When he came back 
 she happened to be seated in the same place ; she 
 still had a letter in her lap, but she was smiling no 
 longer ; her face was turned from him as he entered, 
 and he imagined a wistful droop in that corner of 
 her mouth which showed on her profile. 
 
 But she rose very promptly, and with a heightened 
 color said, " I am sorry to trouble you to answer an- 
 
80 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 other letter for me, Professor Elmore. I manage my 
 correspondence at home myself, but here it seems to 
 be different." 
 
 " It need n't be different here, Lily," said Elmore 
 kindly. " You can answer all the letters you re- 
 ceive in just the way you like. We don't doubt 
 your discretion in the least. We will abide by 
 any decision of yours, on any point that concerns 
 yourself." 
 
 " Thank you," replied the girl ; " but in this case I 
 think you had better write." She kept slipping Ehr- 
 hardt's letter up and down between her thumb and 
 finger against the palm of her left hand, and delayed 
 giving it to him, as if she wished him to say some- 
 thing first. 
 
 " I suppose you and Celia have talked the matter 
 over ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And I hope you have determined upon the course 
 you are going to take, quite uninfluenced ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite so." 
 
 " I feel bound to tell you," said Elmore, " that this 
 gentleman has now done everything that we could 
 expect of him, and has fully atoned for any error he 
 committed in making your acquaintance." 
 
 "Yes, I understand that. Mrs. Elmore thought 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 81 
 
 he might have written because he saw he had gone 
 too far, and could n't think of any other way out 
 of it." 
 
 " That occurred to me, too, though I did n't mention 
 it. But we 're bound to take the letter on its face, 
 and that 's open and honorable. Have you made up 
 your mind ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do you wish for delay ? There is no reason for 
 haste." 
 
 " There 's no reason for delay, either," said the 
 girl. Yet she did not give up the letter, or show 
 any signs of intending to terminate the interview. " If 
 I had had more experience, I should know how to act 
 better; but I must do the best I can, without the 
 experience. I think that even in a case like this we 
 should try to do right, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, above all other cases," said Elmore, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 She flushed in recognition of her absurdity. "I 
 mean that we ought n't to let our feelings carry us 
 away. I saw so many girls carried away by their 
 feelings, when the first regiments went off, that I got 
 a horror of it. I think it's wicked: it deceives both ; 
 and then you don't know how to break the engage- 
 ment afterward." 
 
82 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 "You're quite right, Lily," said Elmore, with a 
 rising respect for the girl. 
 
 " Professor Elmore, can you believe that, with all 
 the attentions I 've had, I 've never seriously thought 
 of getting married as the end of it all ? " she asked, 
 looking him freely in the eyes. 
 
 " I can 't understand it, no man could, I sup- 
 pose, but I do believe it. Mrs. Elmore has often 
 told me the same thing." 
 
 " And this letter it means marriage." 
 " That and nothing else. The man who wrote it 
 would consider himself cruelly wronged if you ac- 
 cepted his attentions without the distinct purpose of 
 marrying him." 
 
 She drew a deep breath. " I shall have to ask you 
 to write a refusal for me." But still she did not give 
 him the letter. 
 
 " Have you made up your mind to that ? " 
 "I can't make up my mind to anything else." 
 Elmore walked unhappily back and forth across 
 the room. " I have seen something of international 
 marriages since I Ve been in Europe," he said. " Some- 
 times they succeed ; but generally they 're wretched 
 failures. The barriers of different race, language, edu- 
 cation, religion, they 're terrible barriers. It 's 
 very hard for a man and woman to understand each 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 83 
 
 other at the best ; with these differences added, it 's 
 almost a hopeless case." 
 
 " Yes ; that 's what Mrs. Elmore said." 
 
 " And suppose you were married to an Austrian 
 officer stationed in Italy. You would have no society 
 outside of the garrison. Every other human creature 
 that looked at you would hate you. And if you were 
 ordered to some of those half barbaric principalities, 
 Moldavia or Wallachia, or into Hungary or Bohe- 
 mia, everywhere your husband would be an instru- 
 ment for the suppression of an alien or disaffected 
 population. What a fate for an American girl ! " 
 
 " If he were good," said the girl, replying in the 
 abstract, " she need n't care." 
 
 " If he were good, you need n't care. No. And he 
 might leave the Austrian service, and go with you to 
 America, as he hints. What could he do there ? He 
 might get an appointment in our army, though that 's 
 not so easy now ; or he might go to Patmos, and live 
 upon your friends till he found something to do in 
 civil life." 
 
 Lily began a laugh. "Why, Professor Elmore, / 
 don't want to marry him ! What in the world are you 
 arguing with me for ? " 
 
 " Perhaps to convince myself. I feel that I ought n't 
 to let these considerations weigh as a feather in the 
 
84 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. , 
 
 balance if you are at all at all aliem ! excuse me ! 
 attached to him. That, of course, outweighs every- 
 thing else." 
 
 " But I 'm not ! " cried the girl. " How could I be ? 
 I 've only met him twice. It would be perfectly 
 ridiculous. I know I 'm not. I ought to know that 
 if I know anything." 
 
 Years afterward it occurred to Elmore, when he 
 awoke one night, and his mind without any reason 
 flew back to this period in Venice, that she might 
 have been referring the point to him for decision. 
 But now it only seemed to him that she was adding 
 force to her denial ; arid he observed nothing hyster- 
 ical in the little laugh she gave. 
 
 " Well, then, we can't have it over too soon. I '11 
 write now, if you will give me his letter." 
 
 She put it behind her. "Professor Elmore," she 
 said, "I am not going to have you think that he 
 ever behaved in the least presumingly. And what- 
 ever you think of me, I must tell you that I suppose 
 I talked very freely with him, just as freely, as I 
 should with an American. I did n't know any better. 
 He was very interesting, and I was homesick, and so 
 glad to see any one who could speak English. I 
 suppose I was a goose; but I felt very lar away 
 from all my friends, and I was grateful for his 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 85 
 
 kindness. Even if he had never written this last 
 letter, I should always have said that he was a true 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "That is all. I can't have him treated as if he 
 were an adventurer." 
 
 " You want him dismissed ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "A man can't distinguish as to the terms of a 
 dismissal. They 're always insolent, more insolent 
 than ever if you try to make them kindly. I should 
 merely make this as short and sharp as possible.'" 
 
 " Yes," she said breathlessly, as if the idea affected 
 her respiration. 
 
 " But I will show it to you, and I won't send it 
 without your approval." 
 
 " Thank you. But I shall not want to see it. I 'd 
 rather not." She was going out of the room. 
 
 " Will you leave me his letter ? You can have it 
 again." 
 
 She turned red in giving it him. " I forgot. Why, 
 it's written to you, anyway ! " she cried, with a laugh, 
 and put the letter on the table. 
 
 The two doors opened and closed : one excluded 
 Lily, and the other admitted Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " Owen, I approve, of all you said, except that 
 
86 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 about the form of the refusal. / will read what you 
 say. I intend that it shall be made kindly." 
 
 " Very well. I '11 copy a letter of yours, or write 
 from your dictation." 
 
 " No ; you write it, and I '11 criticise it." 
 
 " Oh, you talk as if I were eager to write the letter ! 
 Can't you imagine it 's being a very painful thing to 
 me ? " he demanded. 
 
 " It did n't seem to be so before." 
 
 "Why, the situation wasn't the same before he 
 wrote this letter!" 
 
 " I don't see how. He was as much in earnest 
 then as he is now, and you had no pity for him." 
 
 " Oh, my goodness ! " cried Elmore desperately. 
 "Don't you see the difference? He hadn't given 
 any proof before " 
 
 " Oh, proof, proof ! You men are always wanting 
 proof ! What better proof could he have given than 
 the way he followed her about ? Proof, indeed ! I 
 suppose you'd like to have Lily prove that she 
 does n't care for him ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Elmore sadly, " I should like very much 
 to have her prove it." 
 
 " Well, you won't get her to. What makes you 
 think she does ? " 
 
 " I don't. Do you ? " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 87 
 
 " N-o," answered Mrs. Elmore reluctantly. 
 
 "Celia, Celia, you will drive me mad if you go 
 on in this way ! The girl has told me, over and over, 
 that she wishes him dismissed. Why do you think 
 she does n't ? " 
 
 " I don't. Who hinted such a thing ? But I don't 
 want you to enjoy doing it." 
 
 " Enjoy it ? So you think I enjoy it ! What do 
 you suppose I'm made of? Perhaps you think I 
 enjoyed catechizing the child about her feelings 
 toward him ? Perhaps you think I enjoy the whole 
 confounded affair? Well, I give it up. I will let 
 it go. If I can't have your full and hearty support, 
 I '11 let it go. I '11 do nothing about it." 
 
 He threw Ehrhardt's letter on the table, and went 
 and sat down by the window. His wife took the 
 letter up and read it over. " Why, you see he asks 
 you to pass it over in silence if you don't consent." 
 
 " Does he ? " asked Elmore. " I had n't noticed that." 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd better read some of your letters, 
 Owen, before you answer them ! " 
 
 " Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the 
 letter was written to me at all. I thought it was to 
 Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. Well, then, 
 I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of 
 relief. 
 
88 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.' 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so 
 as to leave himself some hope if he should happen 
 to meet her again." 
 
 " And we don't wish him to have any hope." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore was silent. 
 
 " Celia," cried her husband indignantly, " I can't 
 have you playing fast and loose with me in this 
 matter ! " 
 
 " I suppose I may have time to think ? " she re- 
 torted. 
 
 " Yes, if you will tell me what you do think ; but 
 that I must know. It 's a thing too vital in its con- 
 sequences for me to act without your full concur- 
 rence. I won't take another step in it till I know 
 just how far you have gone with me. If I may judge 
 of what this man's influence upon Lily would be by 
 the fact that he has brought us to the verge of the 
 only real quarrel we 've ever had " 
 
 " Who 's quarrelling, Owen ? " asked Mrs. Elmore 
 meekly. " I 'm not." 
 
 " Well, well ! we won't dispute about that. I want 
 to know whether you thought with me that it was 
 improper for him to address her in the car ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And still more improper for him to join you in 
 the street ? " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 89 
 
 " Yes. But he was very gentlemanly." 
 
 "No matter about that. You were just as much 
 annoyed as I was by his letter to her ? " 
 
 " I don't know about annoyed. It scared me." 
 
 " Very well. And you approved of my answering 
 it as I did ? " 
 
 " I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were 
 acting conscientiously. I '11 say that much." 
 
 "You've got to say more. You have got to say 
 you approved of it ; for you know you did." 
 
 " Oh approved of it ? Yes ! " 
 
 " That 's all I want. Now I agree with you that 
 if we pass this letter in silence, it will leave him with 
 some hope. You agree with me that in a marriage 
 between an American girl and an Austrian officer 
 the chances would be ninety-nine to a hundred 
 against her happiness at the best." 
 
 "There are a great many unhappy marriages at 
 home," said Mrs. Elmore impartially. 
 
 '' That is n't the point, Celia, and you know it. 
 The point is whether you believe the chances are for 
 or against her in such a marriage. Do you ? " 
 
 "Do I what?" 
 
 " Agree with me ? " 
 
 "Yes; but I say they might be very happy. I 
 shall always say that." 
 
90 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, 
 then, say what shall be done now." 
 
 This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not 
 choose to say. She was silent a long time, so 
 long that Elmore said, " But there 's really no haste 
 about it," and took some notes of his history out of 
 a drawer, and began to look them over, with his back 
 turned to her. 
 
 " I never knew anything so heartless ! " she cried. 
 " Owen, this must be attended to at once ! I can't 
 have it hanging over me any longer. It will make 
 me sick." 
 
 He turned abruptly round, and, seating himself at 
 the table, wrote a note, which he pushed across to 
 her. It acknowledged the receipt of Captain von 
 Ehrhardt's letter, and expressed Miss Mayhew's feel- 
 ing that there was nothing in it to change her wish 
 that the acquaintance should cease. In after years, 
 the terms of this note did not always appear to El- 
 more wisely chosen or humanely considered ; but he 
 stood at bay, and he struck mercilessly. In spite of 
 the explicit concurrence of both Miss Mayhew and 
 his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly 
 upon him a responsibility whose fearfulness he did 
 not then realize. Even in his wife's " Send it ! " he 
 was aware of a subtile reservation on her part. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 91 
 
 VIII. 
 
 MRS. ELMORE and Lily again rose buoyantly from 
 the conclusive event, but he succumbed to it. For 
 the delicate and fastidious invalid, keeping his health 
 evenly from day to day upon the condition of a free and 
 peaceful mind, the strain had been too much. He 
 had a bad night, and the next day a gastric trouble 
 declared itself which kept him in bed half the week, 
 and left him very weak and tremulous. His friends 
 did not forget him during this time. Hoskins came 
 regularly to see him, and supplied his place at the 
 table d'h8te of the Danieli, going to and fro with the 
 ladies, and efficiently protecting them from the depre- 
 dations of the Austrian soldiery. From Mr. Eose- 
 Black he could not protect them ; and both the ladies 
 amused Elmore with a dramatization of how the Eng- 
 lishman had boldly outwitted them, and trampled all 
 their finessing under foot, by simply walking up to 
 them in the reading-room, and saying, " This is Miss 
 Mayhew, I suppose," and putting himself at once on 
 
92 A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 
 
 the footing of an old family friend. They read to 
 Elmore, and they put his papers in order, so that 
 he did not know where to find anything when he 
 got well; but they always came home from the 
 hotel with some lively gossip, and this he liked. 
 They professed to recognize an anxiety on the part of 
 Mr. Andersen's aunt that his mind should not be 
 diverted from the civil service in India by thoughts 
 of young American ladies ; but she sent some deli- 
 cacies to Elmore, and one day she even came to call 
 with her nephew, in extreme reluctance and anxiety 
 as they pretended to him. 
 
 The next afternoon the young man called alone, 
 and Elmore, who Was now on foot, received him in the 
 parlor, before the ladies came in. Mr. Andersen had 
 a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a small wooden 
 box containing a little turtle on a salad-leaf in the 
 other; the poor animals are sold in the Piazza at 
 Venice for souvenirs of the city, and people often 
 carry them away. Elmore took the offerings simply, 
 as he took everything in life, and interpreted them as 
 an expression, however odd, of Mr. Andersen's sym- 
 pathy with his recent sufferings, of which he gave 
 him some account; but he practised a decent self- 
 denial, here, and they were already talking of the 
 weather when the ladies appeared. He hastened to 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 93 
 
 exhibit the tokens of Mr. Andersen's kind remem- 
 brance, and was mystified by the young man's con- 
 fusion, and the impatient, almost contemptuous, 
 air with which his wife listened to him. Hoskins 
 came in at that moment to ask about Elmore's 
 health, and showed the hostile civility to Andersen 
 which young men use toward each other in the 
 presence of ladies; and then, seeing that the latter 
 had secured the place at Miss Mayhew's side on the 
 sofa, he limped to the easy chair near Mrs. Elmore, 
 and fell into talk with her about Rose-Black's 
 pictures, which he had just seen. They were based 
 upon an endeavor to trace the moral principles be- 
 lieved by Mr. Ruskin to underlie Venetian art, and 
 they were very queer, so Hoskins said ; he roughly 
 sketched an idea of some of them on a block he took 
 from his pocket. 
 
 Mr. Andersen and Lily went out upon one of 
 the high-railed balconies that overhung the canal, 
 and stood there, with their backs to the others. She 
 seemed to be listening, with averted face, while he, 
 with his cheek leaning upon one hand and his 
 elbow resting on the balcony rail, kept a pensive 
 attitude after they had apparently ceased to speak. 
 Something in their pose struck the sculptor's fancy, 
 and he made a hasty sketch of them, and was showing 
 
94 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.' 
 
 it to the Elmores when Lily suddenly descended into 
 the room again, and, saying something about its being 
 quite dark, went out, and left Mr. Andersen to make 
 his adieux to the others. He startled them by say- 
 ing that he was to set off for India in the morning, 
 and he went away very melancholy. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Hoskins, thoughtfully 
 retouching his sketch, " that I should feel very lively 
 about going out to India myself." 
 
 " He seems to be a very affectionate young fellow," 
 observed Elmore, " and I 've no doubt he will feel the 
 separation from his friends. But I really don't know 
 why he should have brought me a bouquet, and a 
 .small turtle in a box, on the eve of his departure." 
 
 " What ? " cried Hoskins, with a rude guffaw ; and 
 when Elmore had showed his gifts, Hoskins threw 
 back his head and laughed indecently. His behavior 
 nettled El more, and it sent Mrs. Elmore prematurely 
 out of the room; for, not content with his ex- 
 plosions of laughter, he continued for some time to 
 amuse himself by touching up with the point of his 
 pencil the tail of the turtle which he had turned out 
 of its box upon the table. At Mrs. Elmore's with- 
 drawal he stopped, and presently said good-night 
 rather soberly. 
 
 Then she returned. " Owen," she asked sadly, 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 95 
 
 "did you really think these flowers and that turtle 
 were for you ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," he answered. 
 
 " Well, I don't know whether I would n't almost 
 rather it had been a joke. I believe that I would 
 rather despise your heart than your head. Why 
 should Mr. Andersen bring you flowers and a turtle ? " 
 " Upon my word, I don't know." 
 " They were for Lily ! And your mistake has 
 added another pang to the poor young fellow's suf- 
 fering. She has just refused him," she said ; and as 
 Elmore continued to glare blankly at her, she added : 
 " She was refusing him there on the balcony while 
 that disgusting Mr. Hoskins was sketching them ; 
 and he had his hand up, that way, because he was 
 crying." 
 
 " This is horrible, Celia !" cried Elmore. The scent 
 of the flowers lying on the table seemed to choke 
 him ; the turtle clawing about on the smooth surface 
 
 looked demoniacal. " Why " 
 
 " Now, don't ask me why she refused him, Owen. 
 Of course she could n't care for a boy like that. But 
 he can't realize it, and it 's just as miserable for him 
 as if he were a thousand years old." 
 
 Elmore hung his head. " It was all a mistake. But 
 how should I know any better? I am a straight- 
 
96 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 forward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care 
 that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I 
 can bear. No, I 'm not fit for it ! " he cried at last ; 
 and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now said some- 
 thing to console him. 
 
 "I know you're not. I see it more and more. 
 But I know that you will do the best you can, and 
 that you will always act from a good motive. Only 
 do try to be more on your guard." 
 
 " I will I will," he answered humbly. 
 
 He had a temptation, the next time he visited 
 Hoskins, to tell him the awful secret, and to see how 
 the situation of that night, with this lurid light upon 
 it, affected him : it could do poor Andersen, now on 
 his way to India, no harm. He yielded to his tempta- 
 tion, at the same time that he confessed his own 
 blunder about the flowers. 
 
 Hoskins whistled. " I tell you what," he said, after 
 a long pause, " there are some things in history that 
 I never could realize, like Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 for instance, putting on her best things, and stepping 
 down into the front parlor of that castle to have her 
 head off. But a thing like this, happening on your 
 own balcony, helps you to realize it." 
 
 " It helps you to realize it," assented Elmore, deeply 
 oppressed by the tragic parallel. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 97 
 
 "He's just beginning to feel it about now," said 
 Hoskins, with strange sang froid. " I reckon it 's a 
 good deal like being shot. I did n't fully appreciate 
 my little hit under a couple of days. Then I began 
 to find out that something had happened. Look 
 here," he added, " I want to show you something ; " 
 and he pulled the wet cloth off a breadth of clay 
 which he had set up on a board stayed against the 
 wall. It was a bas-relief representing a female fig- 
 ure advancing from the left corner over a stretch of 
 prairie towards a bulk of forest on the right ; bison, 
 bear, and antelope fled before her; a lifted hand 
 shielded her eyes ; a star lit the fillet that bound her 
 hair. 
 
 " That 's the best thing you 've done, Hoskins," said 
 Elinore. " What do you call it ? " 
 
 " Well, I have n't settled yet. I have thought of 
 'Westward the Star of Empire,' but that's rather 
 long; and I've thought of 'American Enterprise.' I 
 ain't in any hurry to name it. You like it, do you ? " 
 
 " I like it immensely ! " cried Elmore. " You must 
 let me bring the ladies to see it." 
 
 "Well, not just yet," said the sculptor, in some 
 confusion. "I want to get it a little further along 
 first." 
 
 They stood looking together at the figure; and 
 7 
 
98 A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 when Elmore went away he puzzled himself about 
 something in it, he could not tell exactly what. 
 He thought he had seen that face and figure before, 
 but this is what often occurs to the connoisseur of 
 modern sculpture. His mind heavily reverted to 
 Lily and her suitors. Take her in one way, especially 
 in her subordination to himself, the girl was as simply 
 a child as any in the world, good-hearted, tender, 
 and sweet, and, as he could see, without tendency to 
 flirtation. Take her in another way, confront her with 
 a young and marriageable man, and Elmore greatly 
 feared that she unconsciously set all her beauty and 
 grace at work to charm him ; another life seemed to 
 inform her, and irradiate from her, apart from which 
 she existed simple and childlike still. In the secu- 
 rity of his own deposited affections, it appeared to 
 him cruelly absurd that a passion which any other 
 pretty girl might, and some other pretty girl in time 
 must, have kindled, should cling, when once awakened, 
 so inalienably to the pretty girl who had, in a million 
 chances, chanced to awaken it. He wondered how 
 much of this constancy was natural, and how much 
 merely attributive and traditional, and whether hu- 
 man happiness or misery were increased by it on 
 the whole. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 99 
 
 IX. 
 
 IN the respite which followed the dismissal of 
 Andersen, the English painter, Eose-Black, visited 
 the El mores as often as the servant, who had orders 
 in his case to say that they were impediti, failed of 
 her duty. They could not always escape him at the 
 caffe, and they would have left off dining at the hotel 
 but for the shame of feeling that he had driven them 
 away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their 
 advances, instead of an Englishman pursuing them, 
 he could not have been more offensive. He affronted 
 their national as well as personal self-esteem ; he early 
 declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons 
 (as the London press then called them), and he ex- 
 pressed the current belief of his compatriots, that we 
 were going to the dogs. 
 
 " What do you really make of him, Owen ? " asked 
 Mrs. Elrnore, after an evening that, in its improbable 
 discomfort, had passed quite like a nightmare. 
 
 " Well, I Ve been thinking a good deal about him. 
 
100 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 I have been wondering if, in his phenomenal way, 
 he is not a final expression of the national genius, 
 the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the 
 tacit denial of the rights of any people who are at 
 English mercy ; the assumption .that the courtesies 
 and decencies of life are for use exclusively towards 
 Englishmen." 
 
 This was in that embittered^ old war-time : we have 
 since learned how forbearing and generous and ami- 
 able Englishmen are ; how they never take advantage 
 of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or 
 fail in consideration for those they imagine their 
 superiors ; how you have but to show yourself suc- 
 cessful in order to win their respect, and even 
 affection. 
 
 But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her 
 husband's perverted ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and 
 she supported him in the ineffectual experiment of 
 deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad hu- 
 manity, and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It 
 was all one to Rose-Black. 
 
 He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. 
 Elmore, and often gave her advice, while he practised 
 an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored Elmore al- 
 together. His intimacy was superior to the accidents 
 of their moods, and their slights and snubs were 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 101 
 
 accepted apparently as interesting expressions of a 
 civilization about which he was insatiably curious, 
 especially as regarded the relations of young people. 
 There was no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in 
 his way had fallen under the spell which Elmore had 
 learned to dread ; but there was nothing to be done, 
 and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come ; 
 and one evening it came, when Rose-Black, in more 
 than usually offensive patronage, lolled back upon 
 the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, " About flir- 
 tations, now, in America, tell me something about 
 flirtations. We Ve heard so much about your Ameri- 
 can flirtations. We only have them with married 
 ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. El- 
 more would think of one." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said Lily. " I don't 
 know anything about flirtations." 
 
 This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncom- 
 monly fine piece of American humor, which was then 
 just beginning to make its way with the English. 
 " Oh, but come, nowj you don't expect me to believe 
 that, you know. If you won't tell me, suppose 
 you show me what an American flirtation is like. 
 Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you 
 begin ? " 
 
 The girl rose with a more imposing air than 
 
102 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Elmore could have imagined of her stature ; but al- 
 most any woman can be awful in emergencies. " I 
 should begin by bidding you good-evening," she an- 
 swered, and swept out of the room. 
 
 Elrnore felt as if he had been left alone with a man 
 mortally hurt in combat, and were likely to be ar- 
 rested for the deed. He gazed with fascination upon 
 Kose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at 
 last rise, and with some incoherent words to them, 
 get himself away. He dared not lift his gaze to the 
 man's eyes, lest he should see there some reflection 
 of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone 
 after him, and tried to say something in condolence, 
 but he was quite helpless to move; and as he sat 
 still, gazing at the door through which Rose-Black 
 disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly : 
 
 " Well, really, I think that ought .to be the last of 
 him. You see, she 's quite able to take care of herself 
 when she knows her ground. You can't say that she 
 has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. " I 
 think I suffer less when I do it than when I see it. 
 It's horrible." 
 
 " He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife. 
 
 "Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. " But the sight 
 even of justice is n't pleasant, I find." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 103 
 
 " I don't understand you, Owen. How can you 
 care so much for this impudent wretch's little snub, 
 and yet be so indifferent about refusing Captain 
 Ehrhardt ? " 
 
 " I 'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know 
 that I did right, but I don't know that I could do 
 right under the same circumstances again." 
 
 In fact there were times when Elmore found al- 
 most insupportable the absolute conclusion to which 
 that business had come. It is hard to believe that 
 anything has come to an end in this world. For a 
 time, death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied ex- 
 pectation, as if somehow the interrupted life must go 
 on, and there is no change we make or suffer which 
 is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If 
 Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo 
 to which he had been so inexorably relegated, he might 
 only have restored the original situation in all its dis- 
 comfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he 
 did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a 
 hold upon Elmore's imagination which deepened be- 
 cause he could not discuss the matter frankly with 
 his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what 
 was passing in his thoughts, lest some misconcep- 
 tion of hers should turn them into self-accusal or 
 urge him to some attempt at the reparation towards 
 
104 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 which he wavered. He really could have done no- 
 thing that would not have made the matter worse, 
 and he confined himself to speculating upon the 
 character and history of the man whom lie knew only 
 by the incoherent hearsay of two excited women, 
 and by the brief record of hope and passion left in 
 the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among 
 the archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a 
 morbid curiosity to see these letters again, but he 
 dared not ask for them ; and indeed it would have 
 been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them 
 perfectly well. Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was 
 characteristic of him, in that safety from conse- 
 quences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly 
 constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her 
 rejected suitor, whose pain he luxuriously fancied in 
 all its different stages and degrees. His indolent pity 
 even developed into a sort of self-righteous abhorrence 
 of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within 
 himself, and could work no sort of harm. If he 
 never ventured to hint these feelings to his wife, he 
 was still further from confessing them to Lily ; but once 
 he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well- 
 guarded generality relating to the different kinds of 
 sensibility developed by the European and American 
 civilization. A recent suicide for love which excited 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 105 
 
 all Venice at that time an Austrian officer hope- 
 lessly attached to an Italian girl had shot himself 
 had suggested their talk, and given fresh poignancy to 
 the misgivings in Elmore's mind. 
 
 O O 
 
 " Well," said Hoskiris, " those Dutch are queer. 
 They don't look at women as respectfully as we do, 
 and they mix up so much cabbage with their romance 
 that you don't know exactly how to take them ; and 
 yet here you find this fellow suffering just as much as 
 a white man because the girl's folks won't let her have 
 him. In fact, I don't know but he suffered more than 
 the average American citizen. I think we have a great 
 deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We re- 
 spect women more than any other people, and I think 
 we show them more true politeness ; we let 'em have 
 their way more, and get their finger into the pie right 
 along, and it 's right we should : but we don't make 
 fools of ourselves about them, as a general rule. We 
 know they 're awfully nice, and they know we know 
 it ; and it 's a perfectly understood thing all round. 
 We've been used to each other all our lives, and 
 they 're just as sensible as we are. They like a fellow, 
 when they do like him, about as well as any of 'em ; 
 but they know he 's a man and a brother after all, and 
 he 's got ever so much human nature in him. Well, 
 now, I reckon one of these Dutch chaps, the first time 
 
106 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl, thinks 
 he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl 
 feels just so about him. Why, it 's natural they should, 
 they've never had any chance to know any better, 
 and your feelings are apt to get the upper hand of 
 you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One 
 of 'em goes off and shoots himself, and the other one 
 feels as if she was never going to get over it. Well, 
 now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little 
 business of hers : one of these girls over here would 
 have had her head completely turned by that adven- 
 ture ; but when she could n't see her way exactly 
 clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands 
 by what you do, as calm as a clock." 
 
 " It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I 
 knew," said Elmore. 
 
 " Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, " and she 
 sees that as well as you or I do, and she stands by 
 you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's got a cool 
 head." 
 
 In his" soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsist- 
 ently wished that her heart were not equally cool ; 
 but he only said, " Yes, she is a good and sensible 
 girl. I hope the the other one is equally re- 
 signed." 
 
 " Oh, lie '11 get along," answered Hoskins, with the 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 107 
 
 indifference of one man for the sufferings of another 
 in such matters. We are able to offer a brother very 
 little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those 
 unhappy affairs of the heart which move women to a 
 pretty compassion for a disappointed sister. A man 
 in love is in no wise interesting to us for that reason ; 
 and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that 
 he will have better luck next time. It is only here 
 and there that a sentimentalist like Elmore stops to 
 pity him ; and it is not certain that even he would 
 have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not 
 been the means of his disappointment. As it was, 
 he came away, feeling that doubtless Ehrhardt had 
 " got along," and resolved at least to spend no more 
 unavailing regrets upon him. 
 
 The time passed very quietly now, and if it had 
 not been for Hoskins, the ladies must have found it 
 dull. He had nothing to do, except as he made him- 
 self occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed 
 on them the leisure which Elmore could not find. They 
 went everywhere with him, and saw the city to ad- 
 vantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to ordinary 
 curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he 
 showed a pleasure in using such little privileges as 
 his position gave him for their amusement. He went 
 upon errands for them ; he was like a brother, with 
 
108 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 something more than a brother's pliability ; he came 
 half the time to breakfast with them, and was always 
 welcome to all. He had the gift of extracting com- 
 fort from the darkest news about the war ; he was a 
 prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in 
 many hours of despondency they willingly submitted 
 to the authority of his greater experience, and took 
 heart again. 
 
 " I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," 
 said Elmore, on one of those occasions when the con- 
 sul was turning defeat into victory. " There 's a 
 streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in 
 your taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, 
 so far as the judgment of the world goes, our fortunes 
 are at the lowest ebb just now " 
 
 " Oh, the world is wrong ! " interrupted the con- 
 sul. "Those London papers are all in the pay of 
 the rebels." 
 
 "I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in 
 Europe ; and yet here you are, embodying in your con- 
 ception of ' Westward ' the arrogant faith of the days 
 when our destiny seemed universal union and univer- 
 sal dominion. There is something sublime to me in 
 your treatment of such a work at such a time. I 
 think an Italian, for instance, if his country were in- 
 volved in a life and death struggle like this of ours, 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 109 
 
 would have expressed something of the anxiety and 
 apprehension of the time in it ; but this conception 
 of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of the 
 war as if secession had taken place in another planet. 
 There is something Greek in that repose of feeling, 
 triumphant over circumstance. It is like the calm 
 beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the 
 Laocoon." 
 
 "Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing 
 modestly, as an artist often must in these days of cre- 
 ative criticism. He seemed to reflect awhile before 
 he added, " Well, I reckon you 're partly right. If we 
 ever did go to smash, it would take us a whole gener- 
 ation to find it out. We have all been raised to put 
 so much dependence on Uncle Sain, that if the old 
 gentleman really did pass in his checks we should 
 only think he was lying low for a new deal. I never 
 happened to think it out before, but I 'm pretty sure 
 it's so." 
 
 " Your work would n't be worth half so much to 
 me if you had ' thought it out,' " said Elmore. " It 's 
 the unconsciousness of the faith that makes its chief 
 value, as I said before; and there is another thing 
 about it that interests and pleases me still more." 
 
 " What 's that ? " asked the sculptor. 
 
 " The instinctive way in which you have given the 
 
110 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 figure an entirely American quality. There was 
 something very familiar to me in it, the first time 
 you showed it, but I 've only just been able to formu- 
 late my impression : I see now that while the spirit 
 of your conception is Greek, you have given it, as you 
 ought, the purest American expression. Your ' West- 
 ward ' is no Hellenic goddess : she is a vivid and self- 
 reliant American girl." 
 
 At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and 
 seemed not to know where to look. Mrs. Elmore had 
 the effect of escaping through the door into her own 
 room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. 
 Hoskins followed each in turn with a queer glance, 
 and sat a moment in silence. Then he said, " Well, I 
 reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly, 
 without offering to take leave of the ladies. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the bal- 
 cony, and whipped into Mrs. Elmore's room, from 
 which she flashed again in swift retreat to her own, 
 and was seen no more ; and then Mrs. Elmore carne 
 back, with a flushed face, to where her husband sat 
 mystified. 
 
 " My dear," he said gravely, " I 'm afraid you 've 
 hurt Mr. Hoskins's feelings." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " she asked ; and then she 
 burst into a wild cry of laughter. " 0, Owen, Owen! 
 you will kill me yet ! " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. Ill 
 
 "Beally," he replied with dignity, "I don't see 
 any occasion in what I said for this extraordinary 
 behavior." 
 
 " Of course you don't, and that 's just what makes 
 the fun of it. So you found something familiar in 
 Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did you ? " she 
 asked. " And you did n't notice anything particular 
 in it ? " 
 
 " Particular, particular ? " he demanded, beginning 
 to lose his patience at this. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed, " could n't you see that it was 
 Lily, all over again ? " 
 
 Elmore laughed in turn. " Why, so it is ; so it is ! 
 That accounts for everything that puzzled me. I 
 don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It was 
 ridiculous, to be sure ! When in the world did she 
 give him the sittings, and how did you manage to 
 keep it from me so well ? " 
 
 " Owen ! " cried his wife, with terrible severity. 
 " You don't think that Lily would let him put her 
 into it ? " 
 
 "Why, I supposed I did n't know I don't see 
 how he could have done it unless " 
 
 "He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. 
 Elmore. " We saw it all along, but he never ' let 
 on/ as he would say, about it, and we never meant to 
 say anything, of course." 
 
112 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 "Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, 
 "it has been a purely unconscious piece of cere- 
 bration." 
 
 " Cerebration ! " exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more 
 scorn than she knew how to express. " I should 
 think as much ! " 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique 
 of a man who does not care to be quite trampled 
 under foot. " I don't see that the theory is so very 
 unphilosophical." 
 
 " Oh, not at all ! " mocked his wife. " It 's philosoph- 
 ical to the last degree. Be as philosophical as you 
 please, Owen ; I shall love you still the same." She 
 came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm 
 round his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the 
 head. Then she released him, and left him with an- 
 other burst of derision. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 113 
 
 X. 
 
 AFTER this Elmore had such an uncomfortable feel- 
 ing that he hated to see Hoskins again, and lie was 
 relieved when the sculptor failed to make his usual 
 call, the next evening. He had not been at dinner 
 either, and he did not reappear for several days. 
 Then he merely said that he had been spending the 
 time at Chioggia, with a French painter who was 
 making some studies down there, and they all took 
 up the old routine of their friendly life without em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 At first it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy 
 of Hoskins, and he thought that she resented his using 
 her charm in his art ; but before the evening wore 
 away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long 
 talk about home, and she took her place at the piano 
 and played some of the war-songs that had begun to 
 supersede the old negro melodies. Then she wan- 
 dered back to them, with fingers that idly drifted 
 over the keys, and ended with " Stop dat knoekin'," 
 
 8 
 
114 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 in which Hoskins joined with his powerful bass in 
 the recitative " Let me in," and Elmore himself had 
 half a mind to attempt a part. The sculptor rose as 
 she struck the keys with a final crash, but lingered, 
 as his fashion was when he had something to pro- 
 pose : if he felt pretty sure that the thing would be 
 liked, he brought it in as if he had only happened to 
 remember it. He now drew out a large, square, ceremo- 
 nious-looking envelope, at which he glanced as if, after 
 all, he was rather surprised to see it, and said, " Oh, 
 by the by, Mrs. Elmore, I wish you 'd tell me what to 
 do about this thing. Here 's something that 's come 
 to me in my official capacity, but it is n't exactly con- 
 sular business, if it was I don't believe I should 
 ask any lady for instructions, and I don't know ex- 
 actly what to do. It 's so long since I corresponded 
 with a princess that I don't even know how to an- 
 swer her letter." 
 
 The ladies perhaps feared a hoax of some sort, and 
 would not ask to see the letter; and then Hoskins 
 recognized his failure to play upon their curiosity 
 with a laugh, and gave the letter to Mrs. Elmore. 
 It was an invitation to a mask ball, of which all 
 Venice had begun to speak. A great Eussian lady, 
 who had come to spend the winter in the Lagoons, 
 and had taken a whole floor at one of the hotels, had 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 115 
 
 sent out her cards, apparently to all the available 
 people in the city, for the event which was to take 
 place a fortnight later. In the mean time, a thrill of 
 preparation was felt in various quarters, and the ordi- 
 nary course of life was interrupted in a way that gave 
 some idea of the old times, when Venice was the 
 capital of pleasure, and everything yielded there to 
 the great business of amusement. Mrs. Elmore had 
 found it impossible to get a pair of fine shoes finished 
 until after the ball ; a dress which Lily had ordered 
 could not be made ; their laundress had given notice 
 that for the present all fluting and quilling was out 
 of the question; one already heard that the chief 
 Venetian perruquier and his assistants were engaged 
 for every moment of the forty-eight hours before the 
 ball, and that whoever had him now must sit up with 
 her hair dressed for two nights at least. Mrs. Elmore 
 had a fanatical faith in these stories ; and while 
 agreeing with her husband, as a matter of principle, 
 that mask balls were wrong, and that it was in bad 
 taste for a foreigner to insult the sorrow of Venice by 
 a festivity of the sort at such a time, she had secretly 
 indulged longings which the sight of Hoskins's invi- 
 tation rendered almost insupportable. Her longings 
 were not for herself, but for Lily : if she could pro- 
 vide Lily with the experience of a masquerade in 
 
116 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Venice, she could overpay all the kindnesses that the 
 Mayhews had ever done her. It was an ambition 
 neither ignoble nor ungenerous, and it was with a 
 really heroic effort that she silenced it in passing the 
 invitation to her husband, and simply saying to 
 Hoskins, "Of course you will go." 
 
 " I don't know about that," he answered. " That 's 
 the point I want some advice on. You see this docu- 
 ment calls for a lady to fill out the bill." 
 
 " Oh," returned Mrs. Elmore, " you will find some 
 Americans at the hotels. You can take them." 
 
 " Well, now, I was thinking, Mrs. Elmore, that I 
 should like to take you." 
 
 " Take me ! " she echoed tremulously. " What an 
 idea ! I 'm too old to go to mask balls." 
 
 " You don't look it," suggested Hoskins. 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't go," she sighed. "But it's very, 
 very kind." 
 
 Hoskins dropped his head, and gave the low chuckle 
 with which he confessed any little bit of humbug. 
 " Well, you or Miss Lily." 
 
 Lily had retired to the other side of the room as 
 soon as the parley about the invitation began. With- 
 out asking or seeing, she knew what was in the note, 
 and now she felt it right to make a feint of not know- 
 ing what Mrs. Elmore meant when she asked, " What 
 do you say, Lily ? " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 117 
 
 When the question was duly explained to her, she 
 answered languidly, "I don't know. Do you think 
 I'd better?" 
 
 " I might as well make a clean breast of it, first as 
 last," said Hoskins. " I thought perhaps Mrs. Elmore 
 might refuse, she 's so stiff about some things," here 
 he gave that chuckle of his, "and so I came pre- 
 pared for contingencies. It occurred to me that it 
 might n't be quite the thing, and so I went round to 
 the Spanish consul and asked him how he thought 
 it would do for me to matronize a young lady if I 
 could get one, and he said he did n't think it would 
 do at all." Hoskins let this adverse decision sink 
 into the breasts of his listeners before he added : " But 
 he said that he was going with his wife, and that if 
 we would come along she could matronize us both. 
 I don't know how it would work," he concluded im- 
 partially. 
 
 They all looked at Elmore, who stood holding the 
 princess's missive in his hand, and darkly forecasting 
 the chances of consent and denial. At the first sug- 
 gestion of the matter, a reckless hope that this ball 
 might bring Ehrhardt above their horizon again 
 sprang up in his heart, and became a desperate fear 
 when the whole responsibility of action was, as usual, 
 left with him. He stood, feeling that Hoskins had 
 used him very ill. 
 
118 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " I suppose," began Mrs. Elmore very thoughtfully, 
 " that this will be something quite in the style of the 
 old masquerades under the Republic." 
 
 "Regular Ridotto business, the Spanish consul 
 says," answered Hoskins. 
 
 " It might be very useful to you, Owen," she re- 
 sumed, " in an historical way, if Lily were to go and 
 take notes of everything ; so that when you came to 
 that period you could describe its corruptions intelli- 
 gently." 
 
 Elmore laughed. " I never thought of that, my 
 dear," he said, returning the invitation to Hoskins. 
 " Your historical sense has been awakened late, but it 
 promises to be very active. Lily had better go, by 
 all means, and I shall depend upon her coming home 
 with very full notes upon her dance-list." 
 
 They laughed at the professor's sarcasm, and Hos- 
 kins, having undertaken to see that the last claims of 
 etiquette were satisfied by getting an invitation sent 
 to Miss Mayhew through the Spanish consul, went 
 off, and left the ladies to the discussion of ways and 
 means. Mrs. Elmore said that of course it was now 
 too late to hope to get anything done, and then set 
 herself to devise the character that Lily would have 
 appeared in if there had been time to get her ready, 
 or if all the work-people had not been so busy that it 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 119 
 
 was merely frantic to think of anything. She first 
 patriotically considered her as Columbia, with the 
 customary drapery of stars and stripes and the cap of 
 liberty. But while holding that she would have 
 looked very pretty in the dress, Mrs. Elmore decided 
 that it would have been too hackneyed ; and besides, 
 everybody would have known instantly who it was. 
 
 "Why not have had her go in the character of 
 Mr. Hoskins's ' Westward ' ? " suggested Elmore, with 
 lazy irony. 
 
 "The very thing!" cried his wife. "Owen, you 
 deserve great credit for thinking of that ; no one else 
 would have done it ! No one will dream what it 
 means, and it will be great fun, letting them make 
 it out. We must keep it a dead secret from Mr. 
 Hoskins, and let her surprise him with it when he 
 comes for her that evening. It will be a very pretty 
 way of returning his compliment, and it will be a 
 sort of delicate acknowledgement of his kindness in 
 asking her, and in so many other ways. Yes, you 've 
 hit it exactly, Owen; she shall go as 'Westward.'" 
 
 "Go?" echoed Elmore, who had with difficulty 
 realized the rapid change of tense. " I thought you 
 said you could n't get her ready." 
 
 " We must manage somehow," replied Mrs. Elmore. 
 And somehow a shoemaker for the sandals, a seam- 
 
120 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 stress for the delicate flowing draperies, a hair-dresser 
 for the adjustment of the young girl's rebellious abun- 
 dance of hair beneath the star-lit fillet, were actually 
 found, with the help of Hoskins, as usual, though 
 he was not suffered to know anything of the character 
 to whose make-up he contributed. The perruquier, a 
 personage of lordly address naturally, and of a dignity 
 heightened by the demand in which he found him- 
 self came early in the morning, and was received 
 by Elmore with a self-possession that ill-comported 
 with the solemnity of the occasion. " Sit down," said 
 Elmore easily, pushing him a chair. " The ladies will 
 be here presently." 
 
 " But I have no time to sit down, signore ! " replied 
 the artist, with an imperious bow, "and the ladies 
 must be here instantly." 
 
 Mrs. Elmore always said that if she had not heard 
 this conversation, and hurried in at once, the perruquier 
 would have left them at that point. But she con- 
 trived to appease him by the manifestation of an in- 
 telligent sympathy ; she made Lily leave her breakfast 
 untasted, and submit her beautiful head to the touch 
 of this man, with whom it was but a head of hair and 
 nothing more ; and in an hour the work was done. 
 The artist whisked away the cloth which covered her 
 shoulders, and crying, " Behold ! " bowed splendidly 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 121 
 
 to the spectators, and without waiting for criticism or 
 suggestion, took his napoleon and went his way. All 
 that day the work of his skill was sacredly guarded, 
 and the custodian of the treasure went about with her 
 head on her shoulders, as if it had been temporarily 
 placed in her keeping, and were something she was 
 not at all used to taking care of. More than once 
 Mrs. Elmore had to warn her against sinister accidents. 
 " Eemember, Lily," she said, " that if anything did 
 happen, NOTHING could be done to save you ! " In spite 
 of himself Elmore shared these anxieties, and in the 
 depths of his wonted studies he found himself pur- 
 sued and harassed by vague apprehensions, which 
 upon analysis proved to be fears for Miss Lily's 
 hair. It was a great moment when the robe came 
 home rather late from the dressmaker's, and was 
 put on over Lily's head ; but from this thrilling rite 
 Elmore was of course excluded, and only knew of it 
 afterwards by hearsay. He did not see her till she 
 came out just before Hoskins arrived to fetch her 
 away, when she appeared radiantly perfect in her 
 dress, and in the air with which she meant to carry 
 it off. At Mrs. Elmore's direction she paraded daz- 
 zlingly up and down the room a number of times, 
 bending over to see how her dress hung, as she 
 walked. Mrs. Elmore, with her head on one side, scru- 
 
122 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 tinized her in every detail, and Elrnore regarded her 
 young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as 
 her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, 
 which made the others laugh, recalled him to himself, 
 as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. He was re- 
 ceived in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from 
 one to the other with his queer, knowing smile, and 
 took in the whole affair without a word. 
 
 " Is n't it a pretty idea ? " said Mrs. Elmore. 
 " Studied from an antique bas-relief, or just the same 
 as an antique, full of the anguish and the repose 
 of the Laocoon." 
 
 " Mrs. Elmore," said the sculptor, " you 're too many 
 for me. I reckon the procession had better start be- 
 fore I make a fool of myself. Well ! " This was all 
 Hoskins could say ; but it sufficed. The ladies de- 
 clared afterwards that if he had added a word more, 
 it would have spoiled it. They had expected him to 
 go to the ball in the character of a miner perhaps, or 
 in that of a trapper of the great plains ; but he had 
 chosen to appear more naturally as a courtier of the 
 time of Louis XIV. " When you go in for a dis- 
 guise," he explained, " you can't make it too complete ; 
 and I consider that this limp of mine adds the last 
 touch." 
 
 "It's no use to sit up for them," Mrs. Elmore 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 123 
 
 said, when she and her husband had come in from 
 calling good wishes and last instructions after them 
 from the balcony, as their gondola pushed away. 
 " We sha'n't see anything more of them till morn- 
 ing. Now this," she added, " is something like the 
 gayety that people at home are always fancying in 
 Europe. Why, I can remember when I used to im- 
 agine that American tourists figured brilliantly in 
 salons and conversazioni, and spent their time in mask- 
 ing and throwing confetti in carnival, and going to 
 balls and opera. I did n't know what American tour- 
 ists were, then, and how dismally they moped about 
 in hotels and galleries and churches. Arid I did n't 
 know how stupid Europe was socially, how per- 
 fectly dead and buried it was, especially for young 
 people. It would be fun if things happened so that 
 Lily never found it out ! I don't think two offers 
 already, or three, if you count Eose-Black, are 
 very bad for any girl ; and now this ball, coming right 
 on top of it, where she will see hundreds of hand- 
 some officers ! Well, she 11 never miss Patmos, at 
 this rate, will she ? " 
 
 " Perhaps she had better never have left Patmos," 
 suggested Elmore gravely. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean, Owen," said his 
 wife, as if hurt. 
 
124 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " I mean tliat it 's a great pity she should give her- 
 self up to the same frivolous amusements here that 
 she had there. The only good that Europe can do 
 American girls who travel here is to keep them in 
 total exile from what they call a good time, from 
 parties and attentions and flirtations; to force them, 
 through the hard discipline of social deprivation, to 
 take some interest in the things that make for civil- 
 ization, in history, in art, in humanity." 
 
 "Now, there I differ with you, Owen. I think 
 American girls are the nicest girls in the world, just 
 as they are. And I don't see any harm in the things 
 you think are so awful. You Ve lived so long here 
 among your manuscripts that you Ve forgotten there 
 is any such time as the present. If you are getting 
 so Europeanized, I think the sooner we go home the 
 better." 
 
 " / getting Europeanized ! " began Elmore indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "Yes, Europeanized ! And I don't want you to be 
 so severe with Lily, Owen. The child stands in terror 
 of you now ; and if you keep on in this way, she can't 
 draw a natural breath in the house." 
 
 There is always something flattering, at first, to a 
 gentle and peaceable man in the notion of being 
 terrible to any one ; Elmore melted at these words, 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 125 
 
 and at the fear that he might have been, in some 
 way that he could not think of, really harsh. 
 
 " I should be very sorry to distress her," he began. 
 
 "Well, you haven't distressed her yet," his wife 
 relented. " Only you must be careful not to. She 
 was going to be very circumspect, Owen, on your 
 account, for she really appreciates the interest you 
 take in her, and I think she sees that it won't do to 
 be at all free with strangers over here. This ball will 
 be a great education for Lily, a great education. I 'm 
 going to commence a letter to Sue about her costume, 
 and all that, and leave it open to finish up when 
 Lily gets home." 
 
 When she went to bed, she did not sleep till after 
 the time when the girl ought to have come ; and when 
 she awoke to a late breakfast, Lily had still not re- 
 turned. By eleven o'clock she and Elmore had passed 
 the stage of accusing themselves, and then of accusing 
 each other, for allowing Lily to go in the way they 
 had ; and had come to the question of what they had 
 better do, and whether it was practicable to send to 
 the Spanish consulate and ask what had become of 
 her. They had resigned themselves to waiting for 
 one half-hour longer, when they heard her voice at 
 the water-gate, gayly forbidding Hoskius to come up ; 
 and running out upon the balcony, Mrs. Elmore had 
 
126 A FEAEFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 a glimpse of the courtier, very tawdry by daylight, 
 re-entering his gondola, and had only time to turn 
 about when Lily burst laughing into the room. 
 
 " Oh, don't look at me, Professor Elmore ! " she 
 cried. " I 'm literally danced to rags ! " 
 
 Her dress and hair were splashed with drippings 
 from the wax candles ; she was wildly decorated with 
 favors from the German, and one of these had been 
 used to pin up a rent which the spur of a hussar had 
 made in her robe; her hair had escaped from its 
 fastenings during the night, and in putting it back 
 she had broken the star in her fillet ; it was now kept 
 in place by a bit of black-and-yellow cord which an 
 officer had lent her. " He said he should claim it of 
 me the first time we met," she exclaimed excitedly. 
 " Why, Professor Elmore," she implored with a laugh, 
 " don't look at me so ! " 
 
 Grief and indignation were in his heart. "You 
 look like the spectre of last night," he said with 
 dreamy severity, and as if he saw her merely as a 
 vision. 
 
 " Why, that 's the way I feel ! " she answered ; and 
 with a reproachful " Owen ! " his wife followed her 
 flight to her room. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 127 
 
 XL 
 
 ELMORE went out for a long walk, from which he 
 returned disconsolate at dinner. He was one of 
 those people, common enough in our Puritan civiliza- 
 tion, who would rather forego any pleasure than incur 
 the reaction which must follow with all the keenness 
 of remorse; and he always mechanically pitied (for 
 the operation was not a rational one) such unhappy 
 persons as he saw enjoying themselves. But he had 
 not meant to add bitterness to the anguish which Lily 
 would necessarily feel in retrospect of the night's 
 gayety ; he had not known that he was recognizing, by 
 those unsparing words of his, the nervous misgivings 
 in the girl's heart. He scarcely dared ask, as he sat 
 down at table with Mrs. Elmore alone, whether Lily 
 were asleep. 
 
 <c Asleep?" she echoed, in a low tone of mystery. 
 "I hope so." 
 
 " Celia, Celia ! " he cried in despair. " What shall 
 I do ? I feel terribly at what I said to her." 
 
128 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Sh ! At what you said to her ? Oh yes ! Yes, 
 that was cruel. But there is so much else, poor 
 child, that I had forgotten that." 
 
 He let his plate of soup stand untasted. "Why 
 why," he faltered, " did n't she enjoy herself ? " And 
 a historian of Venice, whose mind should have been 
 wholly engaged in philosophizing the republic's diffi- 
 cult past, hung abjectly upon the question whether a 
 young girl had or had not had a good time at a ball. 
 
 "Yes. Oh, yes! She enjoyed herself if that's 
 all you require," replied his wife. " Of course she 
 wouldn't have stayed so late if she hadn't enjoyed 
 herself." 
 
 " No" he said in a tone which he tried to make 
 leading; but his wife refused to be led by indirect 
 methods. She ate her soup, but in a mariner to carry 
 increasing bitterness to Elmore with every spoonful." 
 
 " Come, Celia ! " he cried at last, " tell me what has 
 happened. You know how wretched this makes me. 
 Tell me it, whatever it is. Of course, I must know 
 it in the end. Are there any new complications ? " 
 
 " No new complications," said his wife, as if resent- 
 ing the word. " But you make such a bugbear of the 
 least little matter that there 's no encouragement to 
 tell you anything." 
 
 " Excuse me," he retorted, " I have n't made a bug- 
 bear of this." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 129 
 
 "You haven't had the opportunity." This was 
 so grossly unjust that Elmore merely shrugged his 
 shoulders and remained silent. When it finally ap- 
 peared that he was not going to ask anything more, 
 his wife added : " If you could listen, like any one 
 else, and not interrupt with remarks that distort all 
 one's ideas " Then, as he persisted in his silence, 
 she relented still further. " Why, of course, as you 
 say, you will have to know it in the end. But I can 
 tell you, to begin with, Owen, that it 's nothing you 
 can do anything about, or take hold of in any way. 
 Whatever it is, it's done and over; so it needn't 
 distress you at all." 
 
 " Ah, I 've known some things done and over that 
 distressed me a great deal," he suggested. 
 
 "The princess wasn't so very young, after all," 
 said Mrs. Elmore, as if this had been the point in 
 dispute, " but very fat and jolly, and very kind. She 
 was n't in costume ; but there was a young countess 
 with her, helping receive, who appeared as Night, 
 black tulle, you know, with silver stars. The prin- 
 cess seemed to take a great fancy to Lily, the Eus- 
 sians always have sympathized with us in the war, 
 and all the time she was n't dancing, the princess kept 
 her by her, holding her hand and patting it. The 
 officers hundreds of them, in their white uniforms 
 
130 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 and those magnificent hussar dresses were very 
 obsequious to the princess, and Lily had only too 
 many partners. She says you can't imagine how 
 splendid the scene was, with all those different cos- 
 tumes, and the rooms a perfect blaze of waxlights ; 
 the windows were battened, so that you could n't tell 
 when it carne daylight, and she hadn't any idea 
 how the time was passing. They were not all in 
 masks ; and there did n't seem to be any regular hour 
 for unmasking. She can't tell just when the supper 
 was, but she thinks it must have been towards morn- 
 ing. She says Mr. Hoskins got on capitally, and 
 everybody seemed to like him, he was so jolly and 
 good-natured ; and when they found out that he had 
 been wounded in the war, they made quite a belle of 
 him, as he called it. The princess made a point of 
 introducing all the officers to Lily that came up after 
 they unmasked. They paid her the greatest atten- 
 tion, and you can easily see that she was the pret- 
 tiest girl there." 
 
 " I can believe that without seeing," said Elmore, 
 with magnanimous pride in the loveliness that had 
 made him so much trouble. " Well ? " 
 
 " Well, they could n't any of them get the hang, as 
 Mr. Hoskins said, of the character she came in, for a 
 good while ; but when they did, they thought it was 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 131 
 
 the best idea there : and it was all your idea, Owen," 
 said Mrs. Elmore, in accents of such tender pride 
 that he knew she must now be approaching the diffi- 
 cult passage of her narration. " It was so perfectly 
 new and unconventional. She got on very well 
 speaking Italian with the officers, for she knew as 
 much of it as they did." 
 
 Here Mrs. Elmore paused, and glanced hesitatingly 
 at her husband. "They only made one little mis- 
 take ; but that was at the beginning, and they soon 
 got over it." Elmore suffered, but he did not ask 
 what it was, and his wife went on with smooth cau- 
 tion. " Lily thought it was just as it is at home, and 
 she must n't dance with any one unless they had 
 been introduced. So after the first dance with the 
 Spanish consul, as her escort, a young officer .came 
 up and asked her ; and she refused, for she thought it 
 was a great piece of presumption. Afterwards the 
 princess told her she could dance with any one, intro- 
 duced or not, and so she did ; and pretty soon she saw 
 this first officer looking at her very angrily, and going 
 about speaking to others and glancing toward her. 
 She felt badly about it, when she saw how it was ; 
 and she got Mr. Hoskins to go and speak to him. 
 Mr. Hoskins asked him if he spoke English, and the 
 officer said No ; and it seems that he did n't know 
 
132 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Italian either, and Mr. Hoskins tried him in Spanish, 
 he picked up a little in New Mexico, but the 
 officer did n't understand it ; and all at once it oc- 
 curred to Mr. Hoskins to say, ' Parlez-vous Francois ? ' 
 and says the officer instantly, ' Oui, monsieur.' " 
 
 " Of course the man knew French. He ought to 
 have tried him with that in the beginning. What 
 did Hoskins say then ? " asked Elinore impatiently. 
 
 " He did n't say anything : that was all the French 
 he knew." 
 
 Elm ore broke into a cry of laughter, and laughed 
 on and on with the wild excess of a sad man when 
 once he unpacks his heart in that way. His wife did 
 not, perhaps, feel the absurdity as keenly as he, but 
 she gladly laughed with him, for it smoothed her way 
 to have him in this humor. " Mr. Hoskins just took 
 him by the arm, and said, * Here ! you come along 
 with me,' and led him up to the princess, where Lily 
 was sitting ; and when the princess had explained to 
 him, Lily rose, and mustered up enough French to 
 say, ' Je vous prie, monsieur, de danser avec moi,' and 
 after that they were the greatest friends." 
 
 " That was very pretty in her ; it was sovereignly 
 gracious," said Elmore. 
 
 " Oh, if an American girl is left to manage for her- 
 self she can always manage ! " cried Mrs. Elmore. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 133 
 
 " Well, and what else ? " asked her husband. 
 
 " Oli, / don't know that it amounts to anything," 
 said Mrs. Elmore ; but she did not delay further. 
 
 It appeared from what she went on to say that 
 in the German, which began not long after mid- 
 night, there was a figure fancifully called the sym- 
 phony, in which musical toys were distributed among 
 the dancers in pairs ; the possessor of a small pandean 
 pipe, or tin horn, went about sounding it, till he found 
 some lady similarly equipped, when he demanded her 
 in the dance. In this way a tall mask, to whom a 
 penny trumpet had fallen, was stalking to and fro 
 among the waltzers, blowing the silly plaything with 
 a disgusted air, when Lily, all unconscious of him, 
 where she sat with her hand in that of her faithful 
 princess, breathed a responsive note. The mask was 
 instantly at her side, and she was whirling away in 
 the waltz. She tried to make him out, but she had 
 already danced with so many people that she was 
 unable to decide whether she had seen this mask be- 
 fore. He was not disguised except by the little visor 
 of black silk, coming down to the point of his nose ; 
 his blond whiskers escaped at either side, and his 
 blond moustache swept beneath, like the whiskers 
 and moustaches of fifty other officers present, and he 
 did not speak. This was a permissible caprice of his, 
 
134 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 but if she were resolved to make him speak, this also 
 was a permissible caprice. She made a whole turn 
 of the room in studying up the Italian sentence with 
 which she assailed him : " Perdoni, Maschera ; ma 
 cosa ha detto ? Non ho ben inteso." 
 
 " Speak English, Mask," came the reply. " I did 
 not say anything." It came certainly with a German 
 accent, and with a foreigner's deliberation; but it 
 came at once, and clearly. 
 
 The English astonished her, and somehow it daunt- 
 ed her, for the mask spoke very gravely ; but she 
 would not let him imagine that he had put her down, 
 and she rejoined laughingly, " Oh, I knew that you 
 had n't spoken, but I thought I would make you." 
 
 " You think you can make one do what you will ? " 
 asked the mask. 
 
 " Oh, no. I don't think I could make you tell me 
 who you are, though I should like to make you." 
 
 " And why should you wish to know me ? If you 
 met me in Piazza, you would not recognize my 
 salutation." 
 
 " How do you know that ? " demanded Lily. " I 
 don't know what you mean." 
 
 " Oh, it is understood yet already," answered the 
 mask, " Your compatriot, with whom you live, 
 wishes to be well seen by the Italians, and he would 
 not let you bow to an Austrian." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 135 
 
 " That is not so," exclaimed Lily indignantly. 
 " Professor Elmore would n 't be so mean ; and if he 
 would, / should n't." She was frightened, but she 
 felt her spirit rising, too. "You seem to know so 
 well who I am : do you think it is fair for you to 
 keep me in ignorance ? " 
 
 "I cannot remain masked without your leave. 
 Shall I unmask ? Do you insist ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," she replied. " You will have to unmask 
 at supper, and then I shall see you. I 'm not im- 
 patient. I prefer to keep you for a mystery." 
 
 " You will be a mystery to me even when you un- 
 mask," replied the mask gravely. 
 
 Lily was ill at ease, and she gave a little, unsuc- 
 cessful laugh. " You seem to take the mystery very 
 coolly," she said in default of anything else. 
 
 " I have studied the American manner," replied the 
 mask. "In America they take everything coolly: 
 life and death, love and hate all things." 
 
 " How do you know that ? You have never been 
 in America." 
 
 "That is not necessary, if the Americans come 
 here to show us." 
 
 " They are not true Americans, if they show you 
 that," cried the girl. 
 
 " No ? " 
 
136 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " But I see that you are only amusing yourself." 
 
 " And have you never amused yourself with me ? * 
 
 " How could I," she demanded, " if I never saw 
 you before ? " 
 
 " But are you sure of that ? " She did not answer, 
 for in this masquerade banter she had somehow been 
 growing unhappy. " Shall I prove to you that you 
 have seen me before ? You dare not let me unmask." 
 
 " Oh, I can wait till supper. I shall know then 
 that I have never seen you before. I forbid you to 
 unmask till supper ! Will you obey ? " she cried 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I have obeyed in harder things," replied the 
 mask. 
 
 She refused to recognize anything but meaningless 
 badinage in his words. " Oh, as a soldier, yes ! 
 you must be used to obeying orders." He did not 
 reply, and she added, releasing her hand and slipping 
 it into his arm, " I am tired now ; will you take me 
 back to the princess ? " 
 
 He led her silently to her place, and left her with 
 a profound bow. 
 
 " Now," said the princess, " they shall give you a 
 little time to breathe. I will not let them make you 
 dance. every minute. They are indiscreet. You shall 
 not take any of their musical instruments, and so 
 you can fairly escape till supper." 
 
A FEAEFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 137 
 
 " Thank you," said Lily absently, " that will be 
 the best way " ; and she sat languidly watching the 
 dancers. A young naval officer who spoke English 
 ran across the floor to her. 
 
 " Come," he cried, " I shall have twenty duels on 
 my hands if I let you rest here, when there are so 
 many who wish to dance with you." He threw a 
 pipe into her lap, and at the same moment a pipe 
 sounded from the other side of the room. 
 
 " This is a conspiracy ! " exclaimed the girl. " I 
 will not have it ! I am not going to dance any more." 
 She put the pipe back into his hands ; he placed it 
 to his lips, and sounded it several times, and then 
 dropped it into her lap again with a laugh, and van- 
 ished in the crowd. 
 
 "That little fellow is a rogue," said the princess. 
 " But he is not so bad as some of them. Monsieur," 
 she cried in French to the fair-whiskered, tall mask 
 who had already presented himself before Lily, " I 
 will not permit it, if it is for a trick. You must un- 
 mask. I will dispense mademoiselle from dancing 
 with you." 
 
 The mask did not reply, but turned his eyes upon 
 Lily with an appeal which the holes of the visor 
 seemed to intensify. " It is a promise," she said to 
 the princess, rising in a sort of fascination. " I have 
 forbidden him to unmask before supper." 
 
138 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Oh, very Well," answered the princess, " if that is 
 the case. But make him bring you back soon: it 
 is almost time." 
 
 "Did you hear, Mask?" asked the girl, as they 
 waltzed away. " I will only make two turns of the 
 room with you." 
 
 " Perdoni ? " 
 
 " This is too bad ! " she exclaimed. " I will not be 
 trifled with in this way. Either speak English, or 
 unmask at once." 
 
 The mask again answered in Italian, with a re- 
 peated apology for not understanding. " You under- 
 stand very well," retorted Lily, now really indignant, 
 " and you know that this passes a jest." 
 
 " Can you speak German ? " asked the mask in that 
 tongue. 
 
 " Yes, a little, but I do not choose to speak it. If 
 you have anything to say to me you can say it in 
 English." 
 
 " I cannot understand English," replied the mask, 
 still in German, and now Lily thought the voice 
 seemed changed ; but she clung to her belief that it 
 was some hoax played at her expense, and she con- 
 tinued her efforts to make him answer her in English. 
 The two turns round the room had stretched to half 
 a dozen in this futile task, but she felt herself power- 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 139 
 
 less to leave the mask, who for his part betrayed 
 signs of embarrassment, as if he had undertaken a ruse 
 of which he repented. A confused movement in the 
 crowd and a sudden cessation of the music recalled 
 her to herself, and she now took her partner's arm 
 and hurried with him toward the place where she had 
 left the princess. But the princess had already gone 
 into the supper-room, and she had no other recourse 
 than to follow with the stranger. 
 
 As they entered the supper-room she removed her 
 little visor, and she felt, rather than saw, the mask 
 put up his hand and lift away his own : he turned 
 his head, and looked down upon her with the face of 
 a man she had never seen before. 
 
 " Ah, you are there ! " she heard the princess's voice 
 calling to her from one of the tables. " How tired 
 you look ! Here here ! I will make you drink this 
 glass of wine." 
 
 The officer who brought her the wine gave her his 
 arm and led her to the princess, and the late mask 
 mixed with the two-score other tall blond officers. 
 
 The night which stretched so far into the day 
 ended at last, and she followed Hoskins down to their 
 gondola. He entered the boat first, to give her his hand 
 in stepping from the riva ; at the same moment she 
 involuntarily turned at the closing of the door behind 
 
140 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 her, and found at her side the tall blond mask, or one 
 of the masks, if there were two who had danced with 
 her. He caught her hand suddenly to his lips, and 
 kissed it. 
 
 " Adieu forgive ! " he murmured in English, and 
 then vanished indoors again. 
 
 " Owen," said Mrs. Elmore dramatically at the end of 
 her narration, " who do you think it could have been ? " 
 
 " I have no doubt as to who it was, Celia," replied 
 Elmore, with a heat evidently quite unexpected to his 
 wife, " and if Lily has not been seriously annoyed by 
 the matter, I am glad that it has happened. I have 
 had my regrets my doubts whether I did not 
 dismiss that man's pretensions too curtly, too un- 
 kindly. But I am convinced now that we did ex- 
 actly right, and that she was wise never to bestow 
 another thought upon him. A man capable of con- 
 triving a petty persecution of this sort of pursuing 
 a young girl who had rejected him in this shameless 
 fashion, is no gentleman." 
 
 " It was a persecution," said Mrs. Elmore, with a 
 dazed air, as if this view of the case had not oc- 
 curred to her. 
 
 " A miserable, unworthy persecution ! " repeated 
 her husband. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 141 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And we are well rid of him. He has relieved me 
 by this last performance, immensely ; and I trust that 
 if Lily had any secret lingering regrets, he has given 
 her a final lesson. Though I must say, in justice to 
 her, poor girl, she did n't seem to need it." 
 
 Mrs. Elrnore listened with a strange abeyance ; she 
 looked beaten and bewildered, while he vehemently 
 uttered these words. She could not meet his eyes, 
 with her consciousness of having her intended ro- 
 mance thrown back upon her hands ; and he seemed 
 in nowise eager to meet hers, for whatever conscious- 
 ness of his own. " Well, it is n't certain that he was 
 the one, after all," she said. 
 
142 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 XII. 
 
 LONG after the ball Lily seemed to Elm ore's eye 
 not to have recovered her former tone. He thought 
 she went about languidly, and that she was fitful 
 and dreamy, breaking from moods of unwonted ab- 
 straction in bursts of gayety as unnatural. She did 
 not talk much of the ball ; he could not be sure that 
 she ever recurred to it of her own motion. Hoskins 
 continued to come a great deal to the house, and she 
 often talked with him for a whole evening ; Elinore 
 fancied she was very serious in these talks. 
 
 He wondered if Lily avoided him, or whether this 
 was only an illusion of his ; but in any case, he was 
 glad that the girl seemed to find so much comfort in 
 Hoskins's company, and when it occurred to him he 
 always said something to encourage his visits. His 
 wife was singularly quiescent at this time, as if, having 
 accomplished all she wished in Lily's presence at the 
 princess's ball, she was willing to rest for a while from 
 further social endeavor. Life was falling into the dull 
 
A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 143 
 
 routine again, and after the past shocks his nerves 
 were gratefully clothing themselves in the old habits 
 of tranquillity once more, when one day a letter came 
 from the overseers of Patmos University, offering him 
 the presidency of that institution on condition of his 
 early return. The board had in view certain changes, 
 intended to bring the university abreast with the 
 times, which they hoped would meet his approval. 
 
 Among these was a modification of the name, 
 which was hereafter to be Patmos University and 
 Military Institute. The board not only believed that 
 popular feeling demanded the introduction of mili- 
 tary drill into the college, but they felt that a college 
 which had been closed at the beginning of the Ke- 
 bellion, through the dedication of its president and 
 nearly all its students to the war, could in no way so 
 gracefully recognize this proud fact of its history as 
 by hereafter making war one of the arts which it 
 taught. The board explained that of course Mr. El- 
 more would not be expected to take charge of this 
 branch of instruction at once. A competent military 
 assistant would be provided, and continued under 
 him as long as he should deem his services essential. 
 The letter closed with a cordial expression of the de- 
 sire of Elmore's old friends to have him once more 
 in their midst, at the close of labors which they were 
 
144 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 sure would do credit to the good old university and 
 to the whole city of Patmos. 
 
 Elmore read this letter at breakfast, and silently 
 handed it to his wife : they were alone, for Lily, as 
 now often happened, had not yet risen. " Well ? " he 
 said, when she had read it in her turn. She gave it 
 back to him with a look in her dimmed eyes which 
 he could not mistake. " I see there is no doubt of 
 your feeling, Celia," he added. 
 
 " I don't wish to urge you," she replied, " but yes, I 
 should like to go back. Yes, I am homesick. I have 
 been afraid of it before, but this chance of returning 
 makes it certain." 
 
 " And you see nothing ridiculous in my taking the 
 presidency of a military institute ? " 
 
 "They say expressly that they don't expect you 
 to give instruction in that branch." 
 
 " No, not immediately, it seems," he said, with his 
 pensive irony. " And the history ? " 
 
 " Have n't you almost got notes enough ? " 
 
 Elmore laughed sadly. " I have been here two 
 years. It would take me twenty years to write such 
 a history of Venice as I ought not to be ashamed to 
 write ; it would take me five years to scamp it as I 
 thought of doing. Oh, I dare say I had better go 
 back. I have neither the time nor the money to 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 145 
 
 give to a work I never was fit for, of whose mag- 
 nitude even I was unable to conceive." 
 
 " Don't say that ! " cried his wife, with the old 
 sympathy. " You will write it yet, I know you will. 
 I would rather spend all my days in this watery 
 mausoleum than have you talk so, Owen ! " 
 
 " Thank you, my dear ; but the work won't be lost 
 even if I give it up at this point. I can do some- 
 thing with my material, I suppose. And you know 
 that if I did n't wish to give up my project I could n't. 
 It 's a sign of my unfitness for it that I 'in able to 
 abandon it. The man who is born to write the his- 
 tory of Venice will have no volition in the matter : 
 he cannot leave it, and he will not die till he has fin- 
 ished it." He feebly crushed a bit of bread in his 
 fingers as he ended with this burst of feeling, and 
 he shook his head in sad negation to his wife's tender 
 protest, " Oh, you will come back some day to fin- 
 ish it!" 
 
 "No one ever comes back to finish a history of 
 Venice," he said. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you will," she returned. " But you need 
 the rest from this kind of work, now, just as you 
 needed rest from your college work before. You 
 need a change of standpoint, and the American 
 standpoint will be the very thing for you." 
 
 10 
 
146 A FEAEFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 " Perhaps so, perhaps so," he admitted. " At any 
 rate, this is a handsome offer, and most kindly made, 
 Celia. It's a great compliment. I didn't suppose 
 they valued me so much." 
 
 " Of course they valued you, and they will be very 
 glad to get you. I call it merely letting the historic 
 material ripen in your mind, or else I should n't let 
 you accept. And I shall be glad to go home, Owen, 
 on Lily's account. The child is getting no good here : 
 she 's drooping." 
 
 "Drooping?" 
 
 " Yes. Don't you see how she mopes about ? " 
 
 " I 'm afraid that I have noticed." 
 
 He was going to ask why she was drooping ; but 
 he could not. He said, recurring to the letter of the 
 overseers, " So Patmos is a city." 
 
 "Of course it is by this time," said his wife, " with 
 all that prosperity ! " 
 
 Now that they were determined to go, their little 
 preparations for return were soon made ; and a week 
 after Elmore had written to accept the offer of the 
 overseers, they were ready to follow his letter home. 
 Their decision was a blow to Hoskins under which 
 he visibly suffered; and they did not realize till 
 then. in what fond and affectionate friendship he held 
 them. He now frankly spent his whole time with 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 147 
 
 them ; he disconsolately helped them pack, and he 
 did all that a consul can do to secure, free entry for 
 some objects of Venice that they wished to get in 
 without payment of duties at New York. 
 
 He said a dozen times, " I don 't know what I will 
 do when you 're gone" ; and toward the last he alarmed 
 them for his own interests by beginning to say, " Well, 
 I don't see but what I will have to go along." 
 
 The last night but one Lily felt it her duty to talk 
 to him very seriously about his future and what he 
 owed to it. She told him that he must stay in Italy 
 till he could bring home something that would honor 
 the great, precious, suffering country for which he 
 had fought so nobly, and which they all loved. She 
 made the tears come into her eyes as she spoke, and 
 when she said that she should always be proud to 
 be associated with one of his works, Hoskins's voice 
 was quite husky in replying : " Is that the way you 
 feel about it ? " He went away promising to remain 
 at least till he finished his bas-relief of Westward, 
 and his figure of the Pacific Slope; and the next 
 morning he sent around by a facchino a note to 
 Lily. 
 
 She ran it through in the presence of the Elmores, 
 before whom she received it, and then, with a cry 
 of " I think Mr. Hoskins is too lad ! " she threw it 
 
148 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 into Mrs. Elmore's lap, and, catching her handkerchief 
 to her eyes, she broke into tears and went out of the 
 room. The note read : 
 
 DEAR Miss LILY, Your kind interest in me gives me 
 courage to say something that will very likely make me 
 hateful to you forevermore. But I have got to say it, and 
 you have got to know it ; and it 's all the worse for me if you 
 have never suspected it. I want to give my whole life to 
 you, wherever and however you will have it. With you by 
 my side, I feel as if I could really do something that you 
 would not be ashamed of in sculpture, and I believe that I 
 could make you happy. I suppose I believe this because I 
 love you very dearly, and I know the chances are that you 
 will not think this is reason enough. But I would take 
 one chance in a million, and be only too glad of it. I hope it 
 will not worry you to read this: as I said before, I had to tell 
 you. Perhaps it won't be altogether a surprise. I might go 
 on, but I suppose that until I hear from you I had better give 
 you as little of my eloquence as possible. 
 
 CLAY HOSKINS. 
 
 " Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his 
 wife had transferred the letter, "this is very indeli- 
 cate of Hoskins ! I must say 5 I expected something 
 better of him." He looked at the note with a face of 
 disgust. 
 
 "I don't know why you had a right to expect 
 anything better of him, as you call it," retorted his 
 wife. " It 's perfectly natural." 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 149 
 
 " Natural ! " cried Elmore. " To put this upon us at 
 the last moment, when he knows how much trouble 
 I've " 
 
 Lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had 
 left it, and saved him from betraying himself as to 
 the extent of his confidences to Hoskins. " Professor 
 Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon 
 him, "I want you to answer this letter for me ; and I 
 don 't want you to write as you I mean, don 't 
 make it so cutting so so Why, I like Mr! 
 Hoskins ! He 's been so kind ! And if you said 
 anything to wound his feelings " 
 
 " I shall not do that, you may be sure ; because, for 
 one reason, I shall say nothing at all to him," replied 
 Elmore. 
 
 " You won 't write to him ? " she gasped. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Why, what shall I do-o-o-o ? " demanded Lily, 
 prolonging the syllable in a burst of grief and as- 
 tonishment. 
 
 " I don't know," answered Elmore. 
 
 " Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first 
 time, in response to the look of appeal that Lily 
 turned upon her, " you must write ! " 
 
 " Celia," he retorted boldly, "I won 't write. I have 
 a genuine regard for Hoskins ; I respect him, and I 
 
150 A FEAKFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 am very grateful to him for all his kindness to you. 
 He has been like a brother to you both." 
 
 "Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never 
 thought of him as anything ~but a brother." 
 
 " And though I must say I think it would have 
 been more thoughtful and and more considerate 
 in him not to do this " 
 
 " We did everything we could to fight him off from 
 it," interrupted Mrs. Elmore, " both of us. We saw 
 that it was coming, and we tried to stop it. But 
 nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he did 
 have to do it." 
 
 " I did n't dream of his having any such idea," 
 said Elmore. " I felt so perfectly safe in his coming; 
 I trusted everything to him." 
 
 " I suppose you thought his wanting to come was 
 all unconscious cerebration," said his wife disdain- 
 fully. " Well, now you see it was n't." 
 
 " Yes ; but it 's too late now to help it ; and though 
 I think he ought to have spared us this, if he thought 
 there was no hope for him, still I can't bring myself 
 to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short of 
 it is, I won *t" 
 
 " But how is he to be answered ? " 
 
 " I don 't know. You can answer him." 
 
 " I could never do it in the world ! " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 151 
 
 " I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly. 
 
 " Oh, / will answer him I will answer him," 
 cried Lily, "rather than have any trouble about it. 
 Here, here," she said, reaching blindly for pen and 
 paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, " give 
 me the ink, quick. Oh, dear ! What shall I say ? 
 What date is it ? the 25th ? And it does n't mat- 
 ter about the day of the week. ' Dear Mr. Hoskins 
 Dear Mr. Hoskins Dear Mr. Hosk ' Ought you 
 to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top or the bottom 
 or not at all, when you Ve said Dear Mr. Hoskins ? 
 Esquire seerns so cold, anyway, and I won } t put it ! 
 ' Dear Mr. Hoskins ' Professor Elmore ! " she im- 
 plored reproachfully, " tell me what to say ! " 
 
 " That would be equivalent to writing the letter," 
 he began. 
 
 " Well, write it, then," she said, throwing down the 
 pen. " I don 't ask you to dictate it. Write it, 
 write anything, just in pencil, you know ; that 
 won 't commit you to anything ; they say a thing in 
 pencil is n 't legal, and I '11 copy it out in the first 
 person." 
 
 " Owen," said his wife, " you shall not refuse ! It 's 
 inhuman, it 's inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, 
 so ! Why, I never heard of such a thing ! " 
 
 Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on 
 
152 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 which Lily had written "Dear Mr. Hoskins," and 
 groaning out " Well, well ! " he added, 
 
 I have your letter. Come to the station to-morrow and 
 say good-by to her whom you will yet live to thank for re- 
 maining only Your friend, 
 
 ELIZABETH MAYHEW. 
 
 " There ! there, that will do beautifully beauti- 
 fully ! Oh, thank you, Professor Elmore, ever and 
 ever so much ! That will save his feelings, and do 
 everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it ; 
 while Mrs. Elmore, looking over her shoulder, min- 
 gled her hysterical excitement with the girl's, and 
 helped her out by sealing the note when it was fin- 
 ished and directed. 
 
 It accomplished at least one purpose intended. It 
 kept Hoskins away till the final moment, and it 
 brought him to the station for their adieux just be- 
 fore their train started. A consciousness of the ab- 
 surdity of his part gave his face a humorously rueful 
 cast. But he came pluckily to the mark. He marched 
 straight up to the girl. " It 's all right, Miss Lily," he 
 said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong 
 impulse to cry over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, 
 and while he held her hand in his right, he placed his 
 left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and, looking 
 at Lily, he said, " You ought to get Miss Lily to help 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 153 
 
 you out with your history, Professor ; she has a very 
 good style, quite a literary style, I should have 
 said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I don't like 
 her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn 
 laugh together; he wrung their hands once more, 
 without a word, and, without looking back, limped 
 out of the waiting-room and out of their lives. 
 
 They did not know that this was really the last of 
 Hoskins, one never knows that any parting is the 
 last, and in their inability to conceive of a serious 
 passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for 
 what he might suffer. They knew how kindly, how 
 tenderly even, they felt towards him, and by that 
 juggle with the emotions which we all practise at 
 times, they found comfort for him in the fact. 
 Another interest, another figure, began to occupy the 
 morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they approached 
 Peschiera his expectation became intense. There 
 was no reason why it should exist ; it would be by 
 the thousandth chance, even if Ehrhardt were still 
 there, that they should meet him at the railroad 
 station, and there were a thousand chances that he 
 was no longer in Peschiera. He could see that his 
 wife and Lily were restive too : as the train drew into 
 the station they nodded to each other, and pointed 
 out of the window, as if to identify the spot where 
 
154 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Lily had first noticed him ; they laughed nervously, 
 and it seemed to Elmore that he could not endure 
 their laughter. 
 
 During that long wait which the train used to 
 make in the old Austrian times at Peschiera, while 
 the police authorities visd the passports of those 
 about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpet- 
 ually alert. He was aware that he should not know 
 Ehrhardt if he met him ; but he should know that he 
 was present from the looks of Lily and Mrs. Elmore, 
 and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, 
 while he impatiently trifled with the food, and ate 
 next to nothing ; and they calmly returned to their 
 places in the train, to which he remounted after a 
 last despairing glance around the platform in a pas- 
 sion of disappointment. The old longing not to be 
 left so wholly to the effect of what he had done 
 possessed him to the exclusion of all other sensations, 
 and as the train moved away from the station he fell 
 back against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he 
 should never even have looked on the face of the man 
 in whose destiny he had played so fatal a part. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 155 
 
 XIII. 
 
 IN America, life soon settled into form about the 
 daily duties of Elmore's place, and the daily pleasures 
 and cares which his wife assumed as a leader in 
 Patmos society. Their sojourn abroad conferred its 
 distinction ; the day came when they regarded it as a 
 brilliant episode, and it was only by fitful glimpses 
 that they recognized its essential dulness. After 
 they had been home a year or two, Elmore published 
 his Story of Venice in the Lives of her Heroes, 
 which fell into a ready oblivion ; he paid all the ex- 
 penses of the book, and was puzzled that, in spite of 
 this, the final settlement should still bring him in debt 
 to his publishers. He did not understand, but he sub- 
 mitted ; and he accepted the failure of his book very 
 meekly. If he could have chosen, he would have 
 preferred that the" Saturday Keview, which alone 
 noticed it in London with three lines of exquisite 
 slight, should have passed it in silence. But after 
 
156 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 all, he felt that the book deserved no better fate. He 
 always spoke of it as unphilosophized and incom- 
 plete, without any just claim to being. 
 
 Lily had returned to her sister's household, but 
 though she came home in the heyday of her young 
 beauty, she failed somehow to take up the story of 
 her life just where she had left it in Patmos. On the 
 way home she had refused an offer in London, and 
 shortly after her arrival in America she received a 
 letter from a young gentleman whom she had casu- 
 ally seen in Geneva, and who had found exile insup- 
 portable since parting with her, and was ready to 
 return to his native land at her bidding ; but she said 
 nothing of these proposals till long afterwards to 
 Professor Elmore, who, she said, had suffered enough 
 from her offers. She went to all the parties and 
 picnics, and had abundant opportunities of flirtation 
 and marriage; but she neither flirted nor married. 
 She seemed to have greatly sobered ; and the sound 
 sense which she had always shown became more 
 and more qualified with a thoughtful sweetness. At 
 first, the relation between her and the Elmores lost 
 something of its intimacy ; but when, after several 
 years, her health gave way, a familiarity, even kinder 
 than before, grew up. She used to like to come to 
 them, and talk and laugh fondly over their old Vene- 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 157 
 
 tian days. But often she sat pensive and absent, in 
 the midst of these memories, and looked at Elrnore 
 with a regard which he found hard to bear : a gentle, 
 unconscious wonder it seemed, in which he imagined 
 a shade of tender reproach. 
 
 When she recovered her health, after a journey 
 to the West one winter, they saw that, by some 
 subtile and indefinable difference, she was no longer 
 a young girl. Perhaps it was because they had not 
 met her for half a year. But perhaps it was age, 
 she was now thirty. However it was, Elmore recog- 
 nized with a pang that the first youth at least had 
 gone out of her voice and eyes. She only returned to 
 arrange for a long sojourn in the West. She liked the 
 climate and the people, she said ; and she seemed 
 well and happy. She had planned starting a Kinder- 
 garten school in Omaha with another young lady ; 
 she said that she wanted something to do. " She 
 will end by marrying one of those Western widowers," 
 said Mrs. Elmore. 
 
 " I wonder she did n't take poor old Hoskins," 
 mused Elmore aloud. 
 
 " No, you don't, dear," said his wife, who had not 
 grown less direct in dealing with him. " You know 
 it would have been ridiculous ; besides, she never 
 cared anything for him, she could n't. You might 
 
158 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 as well wonder why she did n't take Captain Ehrhardt 
 after you dismissed him." 
 
 "/ dismissed him?" 
 
 " You wrote to him, did n't you ? " 
 
 " Celia," cried Elmore, " this I cannot bear. Did 
 I take a single step in that business without her 
 request and your full approval ? Did n't you both 
 ask me to write?" 
 
 " Yes, I suppose we did." 
 
 " Suppose ? " 
 
 " Well, we did, if you want me to say it. And 
 I 'm not accusing you of anything. I know you 
 acted for the best. But you can see yourself, can't 
 you, that it was rather sudden to have it end so 
 quickly 
 
 She did not finish her sentence, or he did not hear 
 the close in the miserable absence into which he 
 lapsed. " Celia," he asked at last, " do you think 
 she she had any feeling about him ?" 
 
 "Oh," cried his wife restively, "how should / 
 know ? " 
 
 "I didn't suppose you knew," he pleaded. "I 
 asked if y^ou thought so." 
 
 "What would be the use of thinking anything 
 about it ? The matter can't be helped now. If you 
 inferred from anything she said to you " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 159 
 
 "She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions 
 as explicit as I could make them, that she wished 
 him dismissed." 
 
 " Well, then, very likely she did." 
 
 " Very likely, Celia?" 
 
 " Yes. At any rate, it 's too late now." 
 
 " Yes, it 's too late now." He was silent again, and 
 he began to walk the floor, after his old habit, with- 
 out speaking. He was always mute when he was in 
 pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which 
 he now broke forth. " I give it up ! I give it up ! 
 Celia, Celia, I 'm afraid I did wrong ! Yes, I 'm 
 afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay 
 my sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine 
 force was drawing together, and put them asunder. 
 It was a lamentable blunder, it was a crime ! " 
 
 " Why, Owen, how strangely you talk ! How 
 could you have done any differently under the cir- 
 cumstances ? " 
 
 " Oh, I could have done very differently. I might 
 have seen him, and talked with him brotherly, face to 
 face. He was a fearless and generous soul ! And I 
 was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, 
 for my responsibility to her friends, and I gave him 
 no chance." 
 
 "We wouldn't let you give him any," interrupted 
 his wife. 
 
160 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 "Don't try -to deceive yourself, don't try to de- 
 ceive me, Celia ! I know well enough that you 
 would have been glad to have me show mercy ; and 
 I would not even show him the poor grace of passing 
 his offer in silence, if I must refuse it. I could n't 
 spare him even so much as that ! " 
 
 " We decided we both decided that it would 
 be better to cut off all hope at once," urged his 
 wife. 
 
 " Ah, it was I who decided that decided every- 
 thing. Leave me to deal honestly with myself at 
 last, Celia ! I have tried long enough to believe that 
 it was not I who did it I " The pent-up doubt of 
 years, the long-silenced self-accusal, burst forth in 
 his words. " Oh, I have suffered for it ! I thought 
 he must come back, somehow, as long as we stayed in 
 Venice. When, we left Peschiera without a glimpse 
 of hirn I wonder I outlived it. But even if I had 
 seen him there, what use would it have been ? 
 Would I have tried to repair the wrong done ? 
 What did I do but impute unmanly and impudent 
 motives to him when he seized his chance to see her 
 once more at that masquerade " 
 
 " No, no, Owen ! He was not the one. Lily was 
 satisfied of that long ago. It was nothing but a 
 chance, a coincidence. Perhaps it was some one he 
 had told about the affair " 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. ' 161 
 
 " No matter ! no matter ! If I thought it was he, 
 my blame is the same. And she, poor girl, in my 
 lying compassion for him, I used to accuse her of 
 cold-hearted ness, of indifference ! I wonder she did 
 not abhor the sight of me. How has she ever toler- 
 ated the presence, the friendship, of a man who did 
 her this irreparable wrong ? Yes, it has spoiled her 
 life, and it was my work. No, no, Celia ! you and 
 she had nothing to do with it, except as I forced your 
 consent it was my work; and, however I have tried 
 openly and secretly to shirk it, I must bear this fear- 
 ful responsibility." 
 
 He dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his 
 hands, while his wife soothed him with loving ex- 
 cuses for what he had done, with tender protests 
 against the exaggerations of his remorse. She said 
 that he had done the only thing he could do ; that 
 Lily wished it, and that she never had blamed him. 
 " Why, I don't believe she would ever have married 
 Captain Ehrhardt, anyhow. She was full of that 
 silly fancy of hers about Dick Burton, all the time, 
 you know how she used always to be talking about 
 him ; and when she came home and found she had 
 outgrown him, she had to refuse him, and I suppose 
 it's that that's made her rather melancholy." "She 
 explained that Major Burton had become extremely 
 
 11 
 
162 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 fat, that his "moustache was too big and black, and 
 his laugh too loud ; there was nothing left of him, in 
 fact, but his empty sleeve, and Lily was too consci- 
 entious to marry him merely for that. 
 
 In fact, Elmore's regret did reflect a monstrous 
 and distorted image of his conduct. He had really 
 acted the part of a prudent and conscientious man ; 
 he was perfectly justifiable at every step : but in the 
 retrospect those steps which we can perfectly justify 
 sometimes seem to have cost so terribly that we look 
 back even upon our sinful stumblings with better 
 heart. Heaven knows how such things will be at the 
 last day ; but at that moment there was no wrong, no 
 folly of his youth, of which Elmore did not think with 
 more comfort than of this passage in which he had 
 been so wise and right. 
 
 Of course the time came when he saw it all differ- 
 ently again ; when his wife persuaded him that he had 
 done the best that any one could do with the respon- 
 sibilities that ought never to have been laid on a man 
 of his temperament and habits ; when he even came 
 to see that Lily's feeling was a matter of pure con- 
 jecture with him, and that so far as he knew she had 
 never cared anything for Ehrhardt. Yet he was glad 
 to have her away ; he did not like to talk of her with 
 his wife ; he did not think of her if he could help it. 
 
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 163 
 
 They heard from time to time through her sister 
 that her little enterprise in Omaha was prospering, 
 and that she was very contented out West ; at last 
 they heard directly from her that she was going to 
 be married. Till then, Elmore had been dumbly tor- 
 mented in his sombre moods with the solution of a 
 problem at which his imagination vainly toiled, 
 the problem of how some day she and Ehrhardt 
 should meet again and retrieve the error of the past 
 for him. He contrived this encounter in a thou- 
 sand different ways by a thousand different chances ; 
 what he so passionately and sorrowfully longed for 
 accomplished itself continually in his dreams, but 
 only in his dreams. 
 
 In due course Lily married, and from all they could 
 understand, very happily. Her husband was a clergy- 
 man, and she took particular interest in his parochial 
 work, which her good heart and clear head especially 
 qualified her to share with him. To connect her fate 
 any longer with that of Ehrhardt was now not only 
 absurd, it was improper ; yet Elmore sometimes found 
 his fancy forgetfully at work as before. He could not 
 at once realize that, the tragedy of this romance, such 
 as it was, remained to him alone, except perhaps as 
 Ehrhardt shared it. With him, indeed, Elmore still 
 sought to fret his remorse and keep it poignant, and 
 
164 A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 his final failure to do so made him ashamed. But 
 what lasting sorrow can one have from the disap- 
 pointment of a man whom one has never seen ? If 
 Lily could console herself, it seemed probable that 
 Ehrhardt too had " got along." 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 As they bowled along in the deliberate German 
 express train through the Black Forest, Colonel Ken- 
 ton said he had only two things against the region : 
 it was not black, and it was not a forest. He had all 
 his life heard of the Black Forest, and he hoped he 
 knew what it was. The inhabitants burned char- 
 coal, high up the mountains, and carved toys in the 
 winter when shut in by the heavy snows ; they had 
 Easter eggs all the year round, with overshot mill- 
 wheels in the valleys, and cherry-trees all about, 
 always full of blossoms or ripe fruit, just as you liked 
 to think. They were very poor people, but very de- 
 vout, and lived in little villages on a friendly inti- 
 macy with their cattle. The young women of these 
 hamlets had each a long braid of yellow hair down 
 her back, blue eyes, and a white bodice with a cat's- 
 cradle lacing behind ; the men had bell-crowned hats 
 and spindle-legs : they buttoned the breath out of 
 
168 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 their bodies with round pewter buttons on tight, 
 short crimson waistcoats. 
 
 " Now, here," said the colonel, breathing on the 
 window of the car and rubbing a little space clear of 
 the frost, " I see nothing of the sort. Either I have 
 been imposed upon by what I have heard of the 
 Black Forest, or this is not the Black Forest. I 'm 
 inclined to believe that there is no Black Forest, and 
 never was. There is n't," he added, looking again, 
 so as not to speak hastily, " a charcoal-burner, or an 
 Easter egg, or a cherry blossom, or a yellow braid, or 
 a red waistcoat, to enliven the whole desolate land- 
 scape. What are we to think of it, Bessie ? " 
 
 Mrs. Kenton, who sat opposite, huddled in speech- 
 less comfort under her wraps and rugs, and was just 
 trying to decide in her own mind whether it was more 
 delicious to let her feet, now that they were thorough- 
 ly warm, rest upon the carpet-covered cylinder of hot 
 water, or hover just a hair's" breadth above it without 
 touching it, answered a little impatiently that she did 
 not know. In ordinary circumstances she would not 
 have been so short with the colonel's nonsense. She 
 thought that was the way all men talked when they 
 got well acquainted with you ; and, as coming from a 
 sex incapable of seriousness, she could have excused 
 it if it had not interrupted her in her solution of so 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 169 
 
 nice a problem. Colonel Kenton, however, did not 
 rnind. He at once possessed himself of much more 
 than his share of the cylinder, extorting a cry of in- 
 dignation from his wife, who now saw herself reduced 
 from a fastidious choice of luxuries to a mere vulgar 
 strife for the necessaries of life, a thing any woman 
 abhors. 
 
 " Well, well," said the colonel, " keep your old hot- 
 water bottle. If there was any other way of warming 
 my feet, I would n't touch it. It makes me sick to 
 use it ; I feel as if the doctor was going to order me 
 some boneset tea. Give me a good red-hot patent car- 
 heater, that smells enough of burning iron to make 
 your head ache in a minute, and sets your car on fire 
 as soon as it rolls over the embankment. That's 
 what / call comfort. A hot-water bottle shoved 
 under your feet I should suppose I was a woman, 
 and a feeble one at that. 1 11 tell you what / think 
 about this Black Forest business, Bessie : I think it 's 
 part of a system of deception that runs through the 
 whole German character. I have heard the Germans 
 praised for their sincerity and honesty, but I tell you 
 they have got to work hard to convince me of it, from 
 this out. I am on my guard. I am not going to be 
 taken in any more." 
 
 It became the colonel's pleasure to develop and ex- 
 
170 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 emplify this idea at all points of their progress through 
 Germany. They were going to Italy, and as Mrs. 
 Kenton had had enough of the sea in coming to 
 Europe, they were going to Italy by the only all-rail 
 route then existing, from Paris to Vienna, and so 
 down through the Simmering to Trieste and Venice. 
 Wherever they stopped, whatever they did before 
 reaching Vienna, Colonel Kenton chose to preserve' 
 his guarded attitude. "Ah, they pretend this is 
 Stuttgart, do they ? " he said on arriving at the 
 Suabian capital. " A likely story ! They pretended 
 that was the Black Forest, you know, Bessie," At 
 Munich, " And this is Munich ! " he sneered, when- 
 ever the conversation flagged during their sojourn. 
 "It's outrageous, the way they let these swindling 
 little towns palm themselves off upon the traveller for 
 cities he 's heard of. This place will be calling itself 
 Berlin, next." When his wife, guide-book in hand, 
 was struggling to heat her admiration at some cold 
 history of Kaulbach, and in her failure clinging fondly 
 to the fact that Kaulbach had painted it, " Kaul- 
 bach ! " the colonel would exclaim, and half close his 
 eyes and slowly nod his head and smile. "What 
 guide-book is that you Ve got, Bessie ? " looking cu- 
 riously at the volume he knew so well. " Oh ! 
 Baedeker ! And are you going to let a Black Forest 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 171 
 
 Dutchman like Baedeker persuade you that this daub 
 is by Kaulbach ? Come ! That 's a little too much ! " 
 He rejected the birthplaces of famous persons one 
 and all ; they could not drive through a street or into 
 a park, whose claims to be this or that street or park 
 he did not boldly dispute ; and he visited a pitiless 
 incredulity upon the dishes of the table d'hSte, con- 
 cerning which he always answered his wife's ques- 
 tions : " Oh, he says it 's beef," or veal, or fowl, as the 
 case might be ; and though he never failed to relish 
 his own dinner, strange fears began to affect the appe- 
 tite of Mrs. Kenton. It happened that he never did 
 come out with these sneers before other travellers, but 
 his wife was always expecting him to do so, and 
 afterwards portrayed herself as ready to scream, the 
 whole time. She was not a nervous person, and re- 
 garding the colonel's jokes as part of the matrimonial 
 contract, she usually bore them, as I have hinted, 
 with severe composure ; accepting them all, good, bad, 
 and indifferent, as something in the nature of man 
 which she should understand better after they had 
 been married longer. The present journey was made 
 just after the close of the war ; they had seen very 
 little of each other while he was in the army, and it 
 had something of the fresh interest of a bridal tour. 
 But they sojourned only a day or two in the places 
 
172 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 between Strasburg and Vienna ; it was very cold and 
 very unpleasant getting about, and they instinctively 
 felt what every wise traveller knows, that it is folly to 
 be lingering in Germany when you can get into Italy ; 
 and so they hurried on. 
 
 It was nine o'clock one night when they reached 
 Salzburg ; and when their baggage had been visited 
 and their passports examined, they had still half an 
 hour to wait before the train went on. They profited 
 by the delay to consider what hotel they should stop 
 at in Vienna, and they advised with their Bradshaw 
 on the point. This railway guide gave in its laconic 
 fashion several hotels, and specified the Kaiserin Elis- 
 abeth as one at which there was a table d'hote, briefly 
 explaining that at most hotels in Vienna there was 
 none. 
 
 "That settles it," said Mrs. Kenton. "We will go 
 to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, of course. I 'm sure I 
 never want the bother of ordering dinner in English, 
 let alone German, which never was meant for human 
 beings to speak." 
 
 " It 's a language you can't tell the truth in," said 
 the colonel thoughtfully. "You can't call an open 
 country an open country ; you have to call it a Black 
 Forest." Mrs. Kenton sighed patiently. " But I don't 
 know about this Kaiserin Elisabeth business. How 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 173 
 
 do we know that 's the real name of the hotel ? How 
 can we be sure that it isn't an alias, an assumed 
 name, trumped up for the occasion ? I tell you, 
 Bessie, we can't be too cautious as long as we 're in 
 this fatherland of lies. What guide-book is this ? 
 Baedeker ? Oh ! Bradshaw. Well, that 's some com- 
 fort. Bradshaw's an Englishman, at least. If it had 
 been Baedeker " 
 
 " Oh, Edward, Edward ! " Mrs. Kenton burst out. 
 " Will you never give that up ? Here you Ve been 
 harping on it for the last four days, and worrying my 
 life out with it. I think it's unkind. It's perfectly 
 bewildering me. I don't know where or what I am, 
 any more." Some tears of vexation started to her 
 eyes, at which Colonel Kenton put the shaggy arm 
 of his overcoat round her, x and gave her an honest 
 hug. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I give it up, from this out. 
 Though I shall always say that it was a joke that 
 wore well. And I can tell you, Bessie, that it 's no 
 small sacrifice to give up a joke that you Ve just got 
 into prime working order, so that you can use it on 
 almost anything that comes up. But that 's a thing 
 that you can never understand. Let it all pass. 
 We '11 go to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and submit to 
 any sort of imposition they Ve a mind to practise 
 
174 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 upon us. I- shall not breathe freely, I suppose, till 
 we get into Italy, where people mean what they say. 
 Haw, haw, haw!" laughed the colonel, "honest lago's 
 the man I'm after." 
 
 The doors of the waiting-room were thrown open, 
 and cries of " Erste Klasse ! Zweite Klasse ! Dritte 
 Klasse ! " summoned the variously assorted passengers 
 to carriages of their several degrees. The colonel 
 lifted his little wife into a non-smoking first-class 
 carriage, and established her against the cushioned 
 barrier dividing the two seats, so that her feet could 
 just reach the hot-water bottle, as he called it, and 
 tucked her in and built her up so with wraps that 
 she was a prodigy of comfort ; and then folding about 
 him the long fur-lined coat which she had bought 
 him at Munich (in spite of his many protests that 
 the fur was artificial), he sat down on the seat op- 
 posite, and proudly enjoyed the perfect content that 
 beamed from Mrs. Kentpn's face, looking so small 
 from her heap of luxurious coverings. 
 
 " Well, Bessie, this would be very pleasant if 
 you could believe in it," he said, as the train smoothly 
 rolled out of the station. " But of course it can't be 
 genuine. There must be some dodge about it. I 've 
 no doubt you'll begin to feel perfectly horrid, the 
 first thing you know." 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 175 
 
 Mrs. Kenton let him go on, as he did at some 
 length, and began to drowse, while he amused himself 
 with a gross parody of things she had said during the 
 past four days. In those years while their wedded 
 bliss was yet practically new, Colonel Kenton found 
 his wife an inexhaustible source of mental refresh- 
 ment. He prized beyond measure the feminine in- 
 adequacy and excess of her sayings; he had stored 
 away such a variety of these that he was able to talk 
 her personal parlance for an hour together ; indeed, 
 he had learned the trick of inventing phrases so much 
 in her manner that Mrs. Kenton never felt quite safe 
 in disowning any monstrous thing attributed to her. 
 Her drowse now became a little nap, and presently a 
 delicious doze, in which she drifted far away from ac- 
 tual circumstance into a realm where she seemed to 
 exist as a mere airy thought of her physical self; sud- 
 denly she lost this thought, and slept through all 
 stops at stations and all changes of the hot-water 
 cylinder, to renew which the guard, faithful to 
 Colonel Kenton's bribe, alone opened the door. 
 
 " Wake up, Bessie ! " she heard her husband saying. 
 " We 're at Vienna." 
 
 It seemed very improbable, but she did not dispute 
 it. " What time is it ? " she asked, as she suffered 
 herself to be lifted from the carriage into the keen air 
 of the winter night 
 
176 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Three o'elock," said the colonel, hurrying her into 
 the waiting-room, where she sat, still somewhat re- 
 mote from herself but getting nearer and nearer, 
 while he went off about the baggage. " Now, then ! " 
 he cried cheerfully when he returned ; and he led his 
 wife out and put her into a fiacre. The driver bent 
 from his perch and arrested the colonel, as he was 
 getting in after Mrs. Kenton, with words in them- 
 selves unintelligible, but so probably in demand for 
 neglected instructions that the colonel said, " Oh ! 
 Kaiserin Elisabeth ! " and again bowed his head to- 
 wards the fiacre door, when the driver addressed fur- 
 ther speech to him, so diffuse and so presumably 
 unnecessary that Colonel Kenton merely repeated, 
 with rising impatience, " Kaiserin Elisabeth, Kai- 
 serin Elisabeth, I tell you ! " and getting in shut the 
 fiacre door after him. 
 
 The driver remained a moment in mumbled solilo- 
 quy ; then he smacked his whip and drove rapidly 
 away. They were aware of nothing outside but the 
 starlit winter morning in unknown streets, till they 
 plunged at last under an archway and drew up at a 
 sort of lodge door, from which issued an example of 
 the universal gold-cap-banded continental hotel por- 
 tier, so like all others in Europe that it seemed idle 
 for him to be leading an individual existence. He 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 177 
 
 took the colonel's passport and summoned a waiter, 
 who went bowing before them up a staircase more or 
 less grandiose, and led them to a pleasant chamber, 
 whither he sent directly a woman servant. She bade 
 them a hearty good morning in her tongue, and, 
 kneeling down before the tall porcelain stove, kindled 
 from her apronful of blocks and sticks a fire that soon 
 penetrated the travellers with a rich comfort. It was 
 of course too ear'y yet to think of breakfast, but it 
 was fortunately not too late to think of sleep. They 
 were both very tired, and it was almost noon when 
 they woke. The colonel had the fire rekindled, and 
 he ordered breakfast to be served them in their room. 
 " Beefsteak and coffee here !" he said, pointing to 
 the table ; and as he made Mrs. Kenton snug near the 
 stove he expatiated in her own terms upon the per- 
 fect loveliness of the whole affair, and the touch of 
 nature that made coffee and beefsteak the same in 
 every language. It seemed that the Kaiserin Elisa- 
 beth knew how to serve such a breakfast in faultless 
 taste; and they sat long over it, in that sense of 
 sovereign satisfaction which beefsteak and coffee in 
 your own room can best give. At last the colonel 
 rose briskly and announced the order of the day. 
 They were to go here, they were to stop there ; they 
 were to see this, they were to do that. 
 
 12 
 
178 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Kentoii. " I am 
 not going out at all to-day. It 's too cold ; and if we 
 are to push on to Trieste to-morrow, I shall need the 
 whole day to get a little rested. Besides, I have 
 some jobs of mending to do that can't be put off any 
 longer." 
 
 The colonel listened with an air of joyous admira- 
 tion. " Bessie," said he, " this is inspiration. / don't 
 want to see their old town ; and I shall ask nothing 
 better than to spend the day with you here at our 
 own fireside. You can sew, and I I '11 read to you, 
 Bessie ! " This was a little too gross ; even Mrs. 
 Kenton laughed at this, the act of reading being so 
 abhorrent to Colonel Kenton's active temperament 
 that he was notorious for his avoidance of all litera- 
 ture except newspapers. In about ten minutes, passed 
 in an agreeable idealization of his purpose, which 
 came in that time to include the perusal of all the 
 books on Italy he had picked up on their journey, 
 the colonel said he would go down and ask the por- 
 tier if they had the New York papers. 
 
 When he returned, somewhat disconsolate, to say 
 they had not, and had apparently never heard of the 
 Herald or Tribune, his wife smiled subtly : " Then I 
 suppose you 11 have to go to the consul's for them." 
 
 " Why, Bessie, it is n't a thing I should have sug- 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 179 
 
 gested ; I can't bear the thoughts of leaving you here 
 alone ; but as you say ! No, 1 11 tell you : I '11 not go 
 for the New York papers, but I will just step round 
 and call upon the representative of the country 
 pay my respects to him, you know if you wish it. 
 But I'd far rather spend the time here with you, 
 Bessie, in our cosy little boudoir ; I would, indeed." 
 
 Mrs. Kenton now laughed outright, and it was a 
 tremendous sarcasm for her asked him if he were 
 not afraid the example of the Black Forest was be- 
 coming infectious. 
 
 " Oh, come now, Bessie ; no joking," pleaded the 
 colonel, in mock distress. " I '11 tell you what, my 
 dear, the head waiter here speaks English like a 
 an Ollendorff; and if you get to feeling a little lone- 
 some while I'm out, you can just ring and order 
 something from him, you know. It will cheer you 
 up to hear the sound of your native tongue in a 
 foreign land. But, pshaw ! / sha 'nt be gone a 
 minute ! " 
 
 By this time the colonel had got on his overcoat 
 and gloves, .and had his hat in one hand, and was 
 leaning over his wife, resting the other hand on the 
 back of the chair in which she sat warming the toes 
 of her slippers at the draft of the stove. She popped 
 him a cheery little kiss on his mustache, and gave 
 
180 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 him a small push : " Stay as long as you like, Ned. I 
 shall not be in the least lonesome. I shall do my 
 mending, and then I shall take a nap, and by that 
 time it will be dinner. You need n't come back 
 before dinner. What hour is the table d'hote ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " cried the colonel guiltily. " The fact is, I 
 was n't going to tell you, I thought it would vex you 
 so much : there is no table d'hote here and never was. 
 Bradshaw has been depraved by the moral atmos- 
 phere of Germany. I 'd as soon trust Baedeker after 
 this." 
 
 " Well, never mind," said Mrs. Kenton. " We can 
 tell them to bring us what they like for dinner, and 
 we can have it whenever we like." 
 
 " Bessie I " exclaimed the colonel, " I have not 
 done justice to you, and I supposed I had. I knew 
 how bright and beautiful you were, but I didnt 
 think you were so amiable. I did n't, indeed. This 
 is a real surprise," he said, getting out at the door. 
 He opened it to add that he would be back in an 
 hour, and then he went his way, with the light heart 
 of a husband who has a day to himself with his wife's 
 full approval. 
 
 At the consulate a still greater surprise awaited 
 Colonel Kenton. This was the consul himself, who 
 proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and into 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 181 
 
 whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a 
 Hausmeister in a cocked hat and a gold-braided uni- 
 form finer than that of all the American major- 
 generals put together. The friends both shouted 
 " Hollo ! " and " You don't say so ! " and threw back 
 their heads and laughed. 
 
 " Why, did n't you know I was here ? " demanded 
 the consul when the hard work of greeting was. over. 
 " I thought everybody knew that." 
 
 " Oh, I knew you were rusting out in some of these 
 Dutch towns, but I never supposed it was Vienna. 
 But that does n't make any difference, so long as you 
 are here." At this they smacked each other on the 
 knees, and laughed again. That carried them by a 
 very rough point in their astonishment, and they now 
 composed themselves to the pleasure of telling each 
 other how they happened to be then and there, with 
 glances at their personal history when they were 
 making it together in the field. 
 
 " Well, now, what are you going to do the rest of 
 the day ? " asked the consul at last, with a look at his 
 watch. " As I understand it, you 're going to spend 
 it with me, somehow. The question is, how would 
 you like to spend it ? " 
 
 " This is a handsome offer, Davis ; but I don't see 
 how I 'm to manage exactly," replied the colonel, for 
 
182 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 the first time distinctly recalling the memory of Mrs, 
 Kenton. " My wife would n't know what had become 
 of me, you know." 
 
 " Oh, yes, she would," retorted the consul, with a 
 bachelor's ignorant ease of mind on a point of that 
 kind. " We 11 go round and take her with us." 
 
 The colonel gravely shook his head. " She would n't 
 go, old fellow. She 's in for a day's rest and odd jobs. 
 I'll tell you what, I'll just drop round and let her 
 know I 've found you, and then come back again. 
 You 11 dine with us, won't you ? " Colonel Kenton 
 had not always found old comradeship a bond between 
 Mrs. Kenton and his friends, but he believed he 
 could safely chance it with Davis, whom she had 
 always rather liked, with such small regard as a 
 lady's devotion to her husband leaves her for his 
 friends. 
 
 " Oh, 1 11 dine with you fast enough," said his 
 friend. "But why don't you send a note to Mrs. 
 Kenton to say that we 11 be round together, and save 
 yourself the bother ? Did you come here alone ? " 
 
 " Bless your heart, no ! I forgot him. The poor 
 devil 's out there, cooling his heels on your stairs all 
 this time. I came with a complete guide to Vienna. 
 Can't you let him in out of the weather a minute ? " 
 
 " We '11 have him in, so that he can take your note 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 183 
 
 back ; but he does n't "expect to be decently treated : 
 they don't, here. You just sit down and write it," 
 said the consul, pushing the colonel into his own 
 chair before his desk; and when the colonel had 
 superscribed his note, he called in the Lohndiener, 
 patient, hat in hand, and, " Where are you stop- 
 ping ? " he asked the colonel. 
 
 " Oh, I forgot that. At the Kaiserin Elisabeth. 
 I'll just write it"- 
 
 " Never mind ; we '11 tell him where to take it. 
 See here," added the consul in a serviceable Viennese 
 German of his own construction. " Take this to the 
 Kaiserin Elisabeth, quick ; " and as the man looked up 
 in a dull surprise, " Do you hear ? The Kaiserin 
 Elisabeth ! " 
 
 " / don't know what it is about that hotel," said 
 the colonel, when the man had meekly bowed him- 
 self away, with a hat that swept the ground in honor 
 of a handsome drink-money ; " but the mention of it 
 always seems to awaken some sort of reluctance in 
 the minds of the lower classes. Our driver wanted to 
 enter into conversation with me about it this morn- 
 ing at three o'clock, and I had to be pretty short with 
 him. If you don't know the language, it is n't so 
 difficult to be short in German as I 've heard. And 
 another curious thing is that Bradshaw says the 
 
184 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 Kaiserin Elisabeth has a table d'hOte, and the head- 
 waiter says she has n't, and "never did have.'" 
 
 " Oh, you can't trust anybody in Europe," said the 
 consul sententiously. " I 'd leave Bradshaw and the 
 waiter to fight it out among themselves. We '11 get 
 back in time to order a dinner; it's always better, 
 and then we can dine alone, and have a good time." 
 
 "They couldn't keep us from having a good time 
 at a table d'h6te, even. But I don't mind." 
 
 By this time they had got on their hats and coats 
 and sallied forth. They first went to a cafe and had 
 some of that famous Viennese coffee ; and then they 
 went to the imperial and municipal arsenals, and 
 viewed those collections of historical bricabrac, in- 
 cluding the head of the unhappy Turkish general 
 who was strangled by his sovereign because he failed 
 to take Vienna in 1683. This from familiarity had 
 no longer any effect upon the consul, but it gave 
 Colonel Kenton prolonged pause. " I should have pre- 
 ferred a subordinate position in the sultan's army, I be- 
 lieve," he said. " Why, Davis, what a museum we 
 could have had out of the Army of the Potomac alone, 
 if Lincoln had been as particular as that sultan ! " 
 
 From the arsenals they went to visit the parade- 
 ground of the garrison, and came in time to see a 
 manoeuvre of the troops, at which they looked with 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 185 
 
 the frank respect and reserved superiority with which 
 our veterans seem to regard the military of Europe. 
 Then they walked about and noted the principal 
 monuments of the city, and strolled along the prom- 
 enades and looked at the handsome officers and the 
 beautiful women. Colonel Kenton admired the life 
 and the gay movement everywhere ; since leaving 
 Paris he had seen nothing so much like New York. 
 But he did not like their shovelling up the snow into 
 carts everywhere and dumping all that fine sleighing 
 into the Danube. "By the way," said his friend, 
 " let 's go over into Leopoldstadt, and see if we can't 
 scare up a sleigh for a little turn in the suburbs." 
 
 " It 's getting late, is n't it ? " asked the colonel. 
 
 " iSTot so late as it looks. You know we have n't 
 the high American sun, here." 
 
 Colonel Kenton was having such a good time that 
 he felt no trouble about his wife, sitting over her 
 mending in the Kaiserin Elisabeth ; and he yielded 
 joyfully, thinking how much she would like to hear 
 about the suburbs of Vienna: a husband will go 
 through almost any pleasure in order to give his wife 
 an entertaining account of it afterwards ; besides, a 
 bachelor companionship is confusing : it makes many 
 things appear right and feasible which are perhaps 
 not so. It was not till their driver, who had turned 
 
186 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 out of the beaten track into a wayside drift to make 
 room for another vehicle, attempted to regain the road 
 by too abrupt a movement, and the shafts of their 
 sledge responded with a loud crick-crack, that Colonel 
 Kenton perceived the error into which he had suffered 
 himself to be led. At three miles' distance from the 
 city, and with the winter twilight beginning to fall, he 
 felt the pang of a sudden remorse. It grew sorer with 
 every homeward step and with each successive fail- 
 ure to secure a conveyance for their return. In fine, 
 they trudged back to Leopoldstadt, where an absurd 
 series of discomfitures awaited them in their attempts 
 to get a fiacre over into the main city. They visited 
 all the stands known to the consul, and then they 
 were obliged to walk. But they were not tired, and 
 they made " their distance so quickly that Colonel 
 Ken ton's spirits rose again. He was able for the 
 first time to smile at their misadventure, and some 
 misgivings as to how Mrs. Kenton might stand af- 
 fected towards a guest under the circumstances 
 yielded to the thought of how he should make her 
 laugh at them both. " Good old Davis ! " mused the 
 colonel, and affectionately linked his arm through that 
 of his friend ; and they stamped through the brilliantly 
 lighted streets gay with uniforms and the picturesque 
 costumes with which the Levant at Vienna encoun- 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 187 
 
 ters the London and Paris fashions. Suddenly the 
 consul arrested their movement. " Did n't you say 
 you were stopping at the Kaiserin Elisabeth ? " 
 
 " Why, yes ; certainly." 
 
 "Well, it's just around the corner, here." The 
 consul turned him about, and in another minute they 
 walked under an archway into a court-yard, and were 
 met by the portier at the door of his room with an 
 inquiring obeisance. 
 
 Colonel Kenton started. The cap and the cap- 
 band were the same, and it was to all intents and 
 purposes the same portier who had bowed him away 
 in the morning; but the face was different; On 
 noting this fact Colonel Kenton observed so general 
 a change in the appointments and even architecture 
 of the place that, " Old fellow," he said to the consul, 
 " you 've made a little mistake ; this is n't the Kaiserin 
 Elisabeth." 
 
 The consul referred the matter to the portier. Per- 
 fectly; that was the Kaiserin Elisabeth. "Well, 
 then," said the colonel, " tell him to have us shown 
 to my room." The portier discovered a certain em- 
 barrassment when the colonel's pleasure was made 
 known to him, and ventured something in reply 
 which made the consul smile. 
 
 " Look here, Kenton," he said, " you 've made a 
 
188 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 little mistake, this time. You 're not stopping at the 
 Kaiserin Elisabeth ! " 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! Come now ! Don't bring the con- 
 sular dignity so low as to enter into a practical joke 
 with a hotel porter. It won't do. We got into 
 Vienna this morning at three, and drove straight to 
 the Kaiserin Elisabeth. We had a room and fire, 
 and breakfast about noon. Tell him who I am, and 
 what I say." 
 
 The consul did so, the portier slowly and respect- 
 fully shaking his head at every point. When it carne 
 to the name, he turned to his books, and shook his 
 head yet more impressively. Then he took down a 
 letter, spelled its address, and handed it to the 
 colonel ; it was his own note to Mrs. Kenton. That 
 quite crushed him. He looked at it in a dull, me- 
 chanical way, and nodded his head with compressed 
 lips. Then he scanned the portier, and glanced round 
 once more at the bedevilled architecture. "Well," 
 said he, at last, " there 's a mistake somewhere. Un- 
 less there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths Davis, ask 
 him if there are two Kaiserin Elisabeths." 
 
 The consul compassionately put the question, re- 
 ceived with something like grief by the portier. Im- 
 possible ! 
 
 " Then I 'm not stopping at either of them," con- 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 189 
 
 tinned the colonel. " So far, so good, if you want 
 to call it good. The question is now, if I'm not 
 stopping fit the Kaiserin Elisabeth," he demanded, 
 with sudden heat, and raising his voice, " how the 
 devil did I get there?" 
 
 The consul at this broke into a fit of laughter so 
 violent that the portier retired a pace or two from 
 these maniacs, and took up a safe position within his 
 doorway. "You didn't you didn't - get there!" 
 shrieked the consul. " That 's what made the whole 
 trouble. You you meant well, but you got some- 
 where else." He took out his handkerchief and 
 wiped the tears from his eyes. 
 
 The colonel did not laugh ; he had no real pleasure 
 in the joke. On the contrary, he treated it as a 
 serious business. " Very well," said he, " it will be 
 proved next that I never told that driver to take me 
 to the Kaiserin Elisabeth, as it appears that I never 
 got there and am not stopping there. Will you be 
 good enough to tell me," he asked, with polished sar- 
 casm, " where I am stopping, and why, and how ? ' 
 
 "I wish with all my heart I could," gasped his 
 friend, catching his breath, " but I can't, and the only 
 way is to go round to the principal hotels till we hit 
 the right one. It won't take long. Come ! " He 
 passed his arm through that of the colonel, and made 
 
190 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 an explanation to the portier, as if accounting for the 
 vagaries of some harmless eccentric he had in charge. 
 Then he pulled his friend gently away, who yielded 
 after a survey of the portier and the court-yard with 
 a frown in which an indignant sense of injury quite 
 eclipsed his former bewilderment. He had still this 
 defiant air when they came to the next hotel, and 
 used the portier with so much severity on finding 
 that he was not stopping there, either, that the consul 
 was obliged to protest : " If you behave in that way, 
 Kenton, I won't go with you. The man 's perfectly 
 innocent of your stopping at the wrong place ; and 
 some of these hotel people know me, and I won't 
 stand your bullying them. And I tell you what : 
 you 've got to let me have my laugh out, too. You 
 know the thing 's perfectly ridiculous, and there 's no 
 use putting any other face on it." The consul did 
 not wait for leave to have his laugh out, but had it 
 out in a series of furious gusts. At last the colonel 
 himself joined him ruefully. 
 
 " Of course," said he, " I know I 'm an ass, and I 
 would n't mind it on my own account. / would as 
 soon roam round after that hotel the rest of the night 
 as not, but I can't help feeling anxious about my 
 wife. I 'm afraid she '11 be getting very uneasy at 
 my being gone so long. She 's all alone, there, 
 wherever it is, and " 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 191 
 
 " Well, but she 's got your note. She '11 under- 
 stand " 
 
 " What a fool you are, Davis ! There 's my note ! " 
 cried the colonel, opening his fist and showing a- very 
 small wad of paper in his palm. " She 'd have got 
 my note if she 'd been at the Kaiserin Elisabeth ; but 
 she 's no more there than I am." 
 
 " Oh ! " said his friend, sobered at this. " To be 
 sure! Well?" 
 
 " Well, it 's no use trying to tell a man like you ; 
 but I suppose that she 's simply distracted by this 
 time. You don't know what a woman is, and how 
 she can suffer about a little matter when she gives 
 her mind to it." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the consul again, very contritely. 
 " I 'm very sorry I laughed ; but " here he looked 
 into the colonel's gloomy face with a countenance 
 contorted with agony " this only makes it the more 
 ridiculous, you know ; " and he reeled away, drunk 
 with the mirth which filled him from head to foot. 
 But he repented again, and with a superhuman effort 
 so far subdued his transports as merely to quake in- 
 ternally, and tremble all over, as he led the way to 
 the next hotel, arm in arm with the bewildered and 
 embittered colonel. He encouraged the latter with 
 much genuine sympathy, and observed a proper 
 
192 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 decorum in his interviews with one portier after 
 another, formulating the colonel's story very neatly, 
 and explaining at the close that this American Herr, 
 who "had arrived at Vienna before daylight and di- 
 rected his driver to take him to the Kaiserin Elisa- 
 beth, and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the 
 belief that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth, felt now 
 an added eagerness to know what his hotel really was 
 from the circumstance that his wife was there quite 
 alone and in probable distress at his long absence. 
 At first Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this 
 statement of his case, and prompted the consul with 
 various remarks and sub-statements ; he was grateful 
 for the compassion generally shown him by the por- 
 tiers, and he strove with himself to give some account 
 of the exterior and locality of his mysterious hotel. 
 But the fact was that he had not so much as looked 
 behind him when he quitted it, and knew nothing 
 about its appearance ; and gradually the reiteration of 
 the points of his misadventure to one portier after 
 another began to be as " a tale of little meaning, 
 though the words are strong." His personation of an 
 American Herr in great trouble of mind was an 
 entire failure, except as illustrating the national 
 apathy of countenance when under the influence of 
 strong emotion. He ceased to take part in the con- 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 193 
 
 sul's efforts in his behalf: the whole abominable 
 affair seemed as far beyond his forecast or endeavor 
 as some result of malign enchantment, and there 
 was no such thing as carrying off the tragedy with 
 self-respect. Distressing as it was, there could be no 
 question but it was entirely ridiculous ; he hung his 
 head with shame before the portiers at being a party 
 to it ; he no longer felt like resenting Davis's amuse- 
 ment ; he only wondered that he could keep his face 
 in relating the idiotic mischance. Each successive 
 failure to discover his lodging confirmed him in his 
 humiliation and despair. Very likely there was a 
 way out of the difficulty, but he did not know it. 
 He became at last almost an indifferent spectator of 
 the consul's perseverance. He began to look back 
 with incredulity at the period of his life passed be- 
 fore entering the fatal fiacre that morning. He 
 received the final portier's rejection with something 
 like a personal derision. 
 
 " That 's the last place I can think of," said the 
 consul, wiping his brow as they emerged from the 
 court-yard, for he had grown very warm with walking 
 so much. 
 
 ' Oh, all right," said the colonel languidly. 
 
 " But we won't give it up. Let 's go in here and 
 get some coffee, and think it over a bit." They were 
 
 13 
 
194 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 near one of the principal cafes, which was full of 
 people smoking, and drinking the Viennese melange 
 out of tumblers. 
 
 " By all means," assented Colonel Kenton with 
 inconsequent courtliness, " think it over. It 's all 
 that's left us." 
 
 Matters did not look so dark, quite, after a tumbler 
 of coffee with milk, but they did not continue to 
 brighten so much as they ought with the cigars. 
 " Now let us go through the facts of the case," said 
 the consul, and the colonel wearily reproduced his 
 original narrative with every possible circumstance. 
 " But you know all about it," he concluded. " I don't 
 see any end of it. I don't see but I 'm to spend the 
 rest of my life in hunting up a hotel that professes 
 to be the Kaiserin Elisabeth, and is n.'t. I never 
 knew anything like it." 
 
 " It certainly has the charm of novelty," gloomily 
 assented the consul : it must be owned that his gloom 
 was a respectful feint. " I have heard of men run- 
 ning away from their hotels, but I never did hear 
 of a hotel running away from a man before now. 
 Yes hold on ! I have, too. Aladdin's palace 
 and with Mrs. Aladdin in it, at that ! It 's a parallel 
 case." Here he abandoned himself as usual, while 
 Colonel Kenton viewed his inirth with a dreary grin. 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 195 
 
 When he at last caught his breath, " I beg your 
 pardon, I do, indeed," the consul implored. " I know 
 just how you feel, but of course it 's coming out 
 right. We 've been to all the hotels I know of, but 
 there must be others. We 11 get some more names 
 and start at once ; and if the genie has dropped your 
 hotel anywhere this side of Africa we shall find it. 
 If the worst comes to the worst, you can stay at my 
 house to-night and start new to-m Oh, I forgot ! 
 Mrs. Kenton ! Eeally, the whole thing is such an 
 amusing muddle that I can't seem to get over it." 
 He looked at Kenton with tears in his eyes, but con- 
 tained himself and decorously summoned a waiter, 
 who brought him whatever corresponds to a city di- 
 rectory in Vienna. " There ! " he said, when he had 
 copied into his note-book a number of addresses, " I 
 don't think your hotel will escape us this time ; " and 
 discharging his account he led the way to the door, 
 Colonel Kenton listlessly following. 
 
 The wretched husband was now suffering all the 
 anguish of a just remorse, and the heartlessness of 
 his behavior in going off upon his own pleasure the 
 whole afternoon and leaving his wife alone in a 
 strange hotel to pass the time as she might was no 
 less a poignant reproach, because it seemed so incon- 
 ceivable in connection with what he had always 
 
196 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 taken to be the kindness and unselfishness of his 
 character. We all know the sensation ; and I know 
 none, on the whole, so disagreeable, so little flat- 
 tering, so persistent when once it has established 
 itself in the ill-doer's consciousness. To find out 
 that you are not so good or generous or magnan- 
 imous as you thought is, next to having other 
 people find it out, probably the unfriendliest dis- 
 covery that can be made. But I suppose it has 
 its uses. Colonel Kenton now saw the unhandsome- 
 ness of his leaving his wife at all, and he beheld in 
 its true light his shabbiness in not going back to tell 
 her he had found his old friend and was to brincj him 
 
 O 
 
 to dinner. The Lohndiener would of course have 
 taken him straight to his hotel, and he would have 
 been spared this shameful exposure, which, he knew 
 well enough, Davis would never forget, but would 
 tell all his life with an ever-increasing garniture of 
 fiction. He cursed his weakness in allowing himself 
 to dawdle about those arsenals and that parade- 
 ground, and to be so far misguided by a hardened 
 bachelor as to admire certain yellow-haired German 
 and black-haired Hungarian women on the prom- 
 enade ; when he came to think of going out in that 
 sledge, it was with anathema maranatha. He groaned 
 in spirit, but he owned that he was rightly punished, 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 197 
 
 though it seemed hard that his wife should be 
 punished too. And then he went on miserably to 
 figure first her slight surprise at his being gone so 
 long ; then her vague uneasiness and her conjectures ; 
 then her dawning apprehensions and her helpless- 
 ness ; her probable sending to the consulate to find 
 out what had become of him ; her dismay at learning 
 nothing of him there; her waiting and waiting in 
 wild dismay as the moments and hours went by ; her 
 frenzied running to the door at every step and her 
 despair when it proved not his. He had seen her 
 suffering from less causes. And where was she? 
 In what low, shabby tavern had he left her ? He 
 choked with rage and grief, and could hardly speak 
 to the gentleman, a naturalized fellow-citizen of 
 Vienna, to whom he found the consul introducing 
 him. 
 
 " I wonder if you can't help us," said the consul. 
 " My friend here is the victim of a curious annoy- 
 ance ; " and he stated the case in language so sympa- 
 thetic and decorous as to restore some small shreds of 
 the colonel's self-respect. 
 
 " Ah," said their new acquaintance, who was mer- 
 cifully not a man of humor, or too polite to seem 
 so, "that's another trick of those scamps of fiacre- 
 drivers. He took you purposely to the wrong hotel, 
 
198 AT" THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 and was probably feed by the landlord for bringing 
 you. But why should you make yourselves so much 
 trouble ? You know Colonel Kenton's landlord had 
 to send his name to the police as soon as he caine, 
 and you can get his address there at once." 
 
 " Good-by ! " said the consul very hastily, with a 
 crestfallen air. " Come along, Kenton." 
 
 " What did he send my name to the police for ? " 
 demanded the colonel, in the open air. 
 
 "Oh, it's a form. They do it with all travel- 
 lers. It 's merely to secure the imperial government 
 against your machinations." 
 
 "And do you mean to say you ought to have 
 known," cried the colonel, halting him, "that you 
 could have found out where I was from the police at 
 once, before we had walked all over this moral vine- 
 yard, and wasted half a precious lifetime ? " 
 
 " Kenton," contritely admitted the other, " I never 
 happened to think of it." 
 
 " Well, Davis, you 're a pretty consul ! " That was 
 all the colonel said, and though his friend was voluble 
 in self-exculpation and condemnation, he did not 
 answer him a word till they arrived at the police 
 office. A few brief questions and replies between 
 the commissary and the consul solved the long mys- 
 tery, and Colonel Kenton had once more a hotel over 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 199 
 
 his head. The commissary certified to the respecta- 
 bility of the place, but invited the colonel to prose- 
 cute the driver of the fiacre in behalf of the general 
 public, which seemed so right a thing that the 
 colonel entered into it with zeal, and then suddenly 
 relinquished it, remembering that he had not the 
 rogue's number, that he had not so much as looked at 
 him, and that he knew no more what manner of man 
 he was than his own image in a glass. Under the 
 circumstances, the commissary admitted that it was 
 impossible, and as to bringing the landlord to justice, 
 nothing could be proved against him. 
 
 " Will you ask him," said the colonel, " the outside 
 price of a first-class assault and battery in Vienna ? " 
 
 The consul put as much of this idea into German 
 as the language would contain, which was enough to 
 make the commissary laugh and shake his head 
 warningly. 
 
 " It would n't do, he says, Kenton ; it is n't the 
 custom of the country." 
 
 "Very well, then, I don't see why we should 
 occupy his time." He gave his hand to the com- 
 missary, whom he would have liked to embrace, and 
 then hurried forth again with the consul. " There is 
 one little thing that worries me still," he said. " I 
 suppose Mrs. Kenton is simply crazy by this time." 
 
200 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Is she of a very nervous disposition ? " fal- 
 tered the consul. 
 
 " Nervous ? Well, if you could witness the ex- 
 pression of her emotions in regard to mice, you 
 would n't ask that question, Davis." 
 
 At this desolating reply the consul was mute for a 
 moment. Then he ventured : " I' ve heard or read, 
 I don't know which that women have more real 
 fortitude than men, and that they find a kind of 
 moral support in an actual emergency that they 
 would n't find in mice." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " answered the colonel. " You wait till 
 you see Mrs. Kenton." 
 
 " Look here, Kenton," said the consul seriously, 
 and stopping short. " I 've been thinking that per- 
 haps I I had better dine with you some other 
 day. The fact is, the situation now seems so purely 
 domestic that a third person, you know 
 
 " Come along ! " cried the colonel. " I want you 
 to help me out of this scrape. I 'm going to leave 
 that hotel as soon as I can put my things together, 
 and you 've got to browbeat the landlord for me 
 while I go up and reassure my wife long enough to 
 get her out of that den of thieves. What did you 
 say the scoundrelly name was ? " 
 
 " The Gasthof zum Wilden Manne." 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 201 
 
 " And what does Wildun Manny mean ? " 
 
 " The Sign of the Savage, we should make it, I 
 suppose, the Wild Man." 
 
 " Well, I don't know whether it was named after 
 me or not ; but if I 'd found that sign anywhere for 
 the last four or five hours, I should have known it for 
 home. There has n't been any wilder man in Vienna 
 since the town was laid out, I reckon ; and I don't 
 believe there ever was a wilder woman anywhere 
 than Mrs. Kenton is at this instant." 
 
 Arrived at the Sign of the Savage, Colonel Ken- 
 ton left his friend below with the portier, and 
 mounting the stairs three steps at a time flew to 
 his room. Flinging open the door, he beheld 
 his wife dressed in one of her best silks, before 
 the mirror, bestowing some last prinks, touching her 
 back hair with her hand and twitching the bow 
 at her throat into perfect place. She smiled at 
 him in the glass, and said, " Where 's Captain 
 Davis ? " 
 
 " Captain Davis ? " gasped the colonel, dry-tongued 
 with anxiety and fatigue. " Oh ! He 's down there. 
 He '11 be up directly/' 
 
 She turned and came forward to him : " How do 
 you like it ? " Then she advanced near enough to 
 encounter the moustache : " Why, how heated and 
 tired you look ! " 
 
202 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Yes, yes, we Ve been walking. I I 'm rather 
 late, ain't I, Bessie ? " 
 
 " About an hour. I ordered dinner at six, and it 's 
 nearly seven now." The colonel started ; he had not 
 dared to look at his watch, and he had supposed it 
 must be about ten o'clock ; it seemed years since his 
 search for the hotel had begun. But he said nothing ; 
 he felt that in some mysterious and unmerited man- 
 ner Heaven was having mercy upon him, and he 
 accepted the grace in the sneaking way we all accept 
 mercy. " I knew you 'd stay longer than you ex- 
 pected, when you found it was Davis." 
 
 " How did you know it was Davis ? " asked the 
 colonel, blindly feeling his way. 
 
 Mrs. Kenton picked up her Almanach de Gotha. 
 " It has all the consular and diplomatic corps in 
 it." 
 
 " I won't laugh at it any more," said the colonel, 
 humbly. " Were n't you uneasy, Bessie ? " 
 
 " No. I mended away, here, and fussed round the 
 whole afternoon, putting the trunks to rights ; and 
 I got out this dress and ran a bit of lace into the 
 collar ; and then I ordered dinner, for I knew you 'd 
 bring the captain ; and I took a nap, and by that it 
 was nearly dinner-time." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the colonel. 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 203 
 
 " Yes ; and the head-waiter was as polite as peas ; 
 they've all been very attentive. I shall certainly 
 recommend everybody to the Kaiserin Elisabeth." 
 
 " Yes," assented the wretched man. " I reckon it 's 
 about the best hotel in Yienna." 
 
 " Well, now, go and get Captain Davis. You can 
 bring him right in here ; we 're only travellers. Why, 
 what makes you act so queerly ? Has anything hap- 
 pened ? " Mrs. Kenton was surprised to find herself 
 gathered into her husband's arms and embraced 
 with a rapture for which she could see no par- 
 ticular reason. 
 
 " Bessie," said her husband, " I told you this morn- 
 ing that you were amiable as well as bright and 
 beautiful ; I now wish to add that you are sensible. 
 I 'm awfully ashamed of being gone so long. But the 
 fact is we had a little accident. Our sleigh broke 
 down out in the country, and we had to walk back." 
 
 " Oh, you poor old fellow ! No wonder you look 
 tired." 
 
 He accepted the balm of her compassion like a 
 candid and innocent man : " Yes, it was pretty rough. 
 But / did n't mind it, except on your account. I 
 thought the delay would make you uneasy." With 
 that he went out to the head of the stairs and called, 
 " Davis ! " 
 
204 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Yes ! " responded the consul ; and he ascended the 
 stairs in such trepidation that he tripped and fell part 
 of the way up. 
 
 " Have you been saying anything to that man 
 about my going away ? " 
 
 " No, I Ve simply been blowing him up on the 
 fiacre driver's account. He swears they are innocent 
 of collusion. But of course they 're not." 
 
 " Well, all right. Mrs. Kenton is waiting for us 
 to go to dinner. And look here," whispered the 
 colonel, " don't you open your mouth, except to put 
 something into it, till I give you the cue." 
 
 The dinner was charming, and had suffered little 
 or nothing from the delay. Mrs. Kenton was in rap- 
 tures with it, and after a thimbleful of the good Hun- 
 garian wine had attuned her tongue, she began to sing 
 the praises of the Kaiserin Elisabeth. 
 
 " The K " began the consul, who had hitherto 
 guarded himself very well. But the colonel arrested 
 him at that letter with a terrible look. He returned 
 the look with a glance of intelligence, and resumed : 
 "The Kaiserin Elisabeth has the best cook in Vi- 
 enna." 
 
 " Arid everybody about has such nice, honest faces," 
 said Mrs. Kenton. " I 'm sure I could n't have felt 
 anxious if you had n't come till midnight : I knew I 
 was perfectly secure here." 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 205 
 
 " Quite right, quite right/' said the consul. " All 
 classes of the Viennese are so faithful. Now, I dare 
 say you could have trusted that driver of yours, who 
 brought you here before daylight this morning, with 
 untold gold. No stranger need fear any of the tricks 
 ordinarily practised upon travellers in Vienna. They 
 are a truthful, honest, virtuous population, like all 
 the Germans in fact." 
 
 " There, Ned ! What do you say to that, with your 
 Black Forest nonsense ? " triumphed Mrs. Kentoii. 
 
 Colonel Kenton laughed sheepishly : " Well, I take 
 it all back, Bessie. I was n't quite satisfied with the 
 appearance of the Black Forest country when I came 
 to it," he explained to the consul, " and Mrs. Kenton 
 and I had our little joke about the fraudulent nature 
 of the Germans." 
 
 " Our little joke ! " retorted his wife. " I wish we 
 were going to stay longer in Vienna. They say you 
 have to make bargains for everything in Italy, and 
 here I suppose I could shop just as at home." 
 
 "Precisely," said the consul; the Viennese shop- 
 keepers being the most notorious Jews in Europe. 
 
 " Oh, we can't stop longer than till the morning," 
 remarked the colonel. "I shall be sorry to leave 
 Vienna and the Kaiserin Elizabeth, but we must 
 go." 
 
206 AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 
 
 " Better hang on awhile ; you won't find many 
 hotels like it, Kenton," observed his friend. 
 
 " No, I suppose not," sighed the colonel ; " but I '11 
 get the address of their correspondent in Venice and 
 stop there." 
 
 Thus these craven spirits combined to delude and 
 deceive the helpless woman of whom half an hour 
 before they had stood in such abject terror. If they 
 had found her in hysterics they would have pitied 
 and respected her ; but her good sense, her amiability, 
 and noble self-control subjected her to their shameless 
 mockery. 
 
 Colonel Kenton followed the consul downstairs 
 when he went away, and pretended to justify himself. 
 " I '11 tell her one of these days," he said, " but there 's 
 no use distressing her now." 
 
 " I did n't understand you at first," said the other. 
 " But I see now it was the only way." 
 
 " Yes ; saves needless suffering. I say, Davis, this 
 is about an even thing between us ? A United States 
 consul ought to be of some use to his fellow-citizens 
 abroad ; and if he allows them to walk their legs off 
 hunting up a hotel which he could have found at the 
 first police-station if he had happened to think of 
 it, he won't be very anxious to tell the joke, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
AT THE SIGN OF THE SAVAGE. 207 
 
 " I don't propose to write home to the papers about 
 it." 
 
 "All right." So, in the court-yard of the Wild 
 Man, they parted. 
 
 Long after that Mrs. Kenton continued to re- 
 commend people to the Kaiserin Elisabeth. Even 
 when the truth was made known to her she did 
 not see much to laugh at. " I 'm sure I was always 
 very glad the colonel did n't tell me at once," she 
 said, " for if I had known what I had been through, I 
 certainly should have gone distracted." 
 
TONELLFS MAREIAGE. 
 
TONELLFS MAEEIAGE. 
 
 THERE was no richer man in Venice than Tom- 
 maso Tonelli, who had enough on his florin a day ; 
 and none younger than he, who owned himself forty- 
 seven years old. He led the cheerfullest life in the 
 world, and was quite a monster of content ; hut 
 when I come to sum up his pleasures, I fear that I 
 shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very 
 insipid and monotonous existence. I doubt if even 
 a summary of his duties could be made attractive to 
 the conscientious imagination of hard-working peo- 
 ple ; for Tonelli's labors were not killing, nor, for 
 that matter, were those of any Venetian that I ever 
 knew. He had a stated employment in the office of 
 the notary Cenarotti ; and he passed there so much 
 of every working day as lies between nine and five 
 o'clock, writing upon deeds and conveyances and peti- 
 tions and other legal instruments for the notary, who 
 sat in an adjoining room, secluded from nearly every- 
 thing in this world but snuff. He called Tonelli by 
 the sound of a little bell ; and, when he turned to take 
 
212 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 a paper from his safe, he seemed to be abstracting 
 some secret from long-lapsed centuries, which he 
 restored again, and locked back among the dead ages 
 when his clerk replaced the document in his hands. 
 These hands were very soft and pale, and their owner 
 was a colorless old man, whose silvery hair fell down 
 a face nearly as white ; but, as he has almost nothing 
 to do with the present affair, I shall merely say that, 
 having been compromised in the last revolution, he 
 had been obliged to live ever since in perfect retire- 
 ment, and that he seemed to have been blanched in 
 this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth 
 in a cellar. His enemies said that he was naturally 
 a timid man, but they could not deny that he had 
 seen things to make the brave afraid, or that he had 
 now every reason from the police to be secret and 
 cautious in his life. He could hardly be called com- 
 pany for Tonelli, who must have found the day in- 
 tolerably long but for the visit which the notary's 
 pretty granddaughter contrived to pay every morning 
 in the cheerless mezzd. She commonly appeared on 
 some errand from her mother, but her chief business 
 seemed to be to share with Tonelli the modest feast 
 of rumor and hearsay which he loved to furnish forth 
 for her, and from which doubtless she carried back 
 some fragments of gossip to the family apartments. 
 
TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 213 
 
 Tonelli called her, with that mingled archness and 
 tenderness of the Venetians, his Paronsina ; and, as 
 he had seen her grow up from the smallest possible 
 of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness between 
 them, and they were fully privileged to each other's 
 society by her mother. When she flitted away again, 
 Tonelli was left to a stillness broken only by the soft 
 breathing of the old man in the next room, and by 
 the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that 
 he was commonly glad enough when it came five 
 o'clock. At this hour he put on his black coat, that 
 shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, 
 worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brush- 
 ing, and caught up a very jaunty cane in his hand. 
 Then, saluting the notary, he took his way to the 
 little restaurant, where it was his custom to dine, and 
 had his tripe soup and his risotto, or dish of fried 
 liver, in the austere silence imposed by the presence 
 of a few poor Austrian captains and lieutenants. It 
 was not that the Italians feared to be overheard by 
 these enemies ; but it was good dimostrazione to be 
 silent before the oppressor, and not let him know 
 that they even enjoyed their dinners well enough, 
 under his government, to chat sociably over them. 
 To tell the truth, this duty was an irksome one to To- 
 nelli, who liked far better to dine, as he sometimes 
 
214 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 did, at a cook-shop, where he met the folk of the peo- 
 ple (gente del popolo), as he called them ; and where, 
 though himself a person of civil condition, he dis- 
 coursed freely with the other guests, and ate of their 
 humble but relishing fare. He was known among 
 them as Sior Tommaso ; and they paid him a hom- 
 age, which they enjoyed equally with him, as a per- 
 son not only learned in the law, but a poet of gift 
 enough to write wedding and funeral verses, and a 
 veteran who had fought for the dead Eepublic of 
 Forty-eight. They honored him as a most travelled 
 gentleman, who had been in the Tyrol, and who could 
 have spoken German, if he had not despised that 
 tongue as the language of the ugly Croats, like one 
 born to it. Who, for example, spoke Venetian more 
 elegantly than Sior Tominaso ? or Tuscan, when he 
 chose ? and yet he was poor, a man of that genius ! 
 Patience ! When Garibaldi came, we should see ! 
 The facchini and gondoliers, who had been wagging 
 their tongues all day at the church corners and fer- 
 ries, were never tired of talking of this gifted friend 
 of theirs, when, having ended some impressive dis- 
 course or some dramatic story, he left them with a 
 sudden adieu, and walked quickly away toward the 
 liiva degli Schiavoni. 
 
 Here, whether he had dined at the cook-shop, or at 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 215 
 
 his more genteel and gloomy restaurant of the Bronze 
 Horses, it was his custom to lounge an hour or two 
 over a cup of coffee and a Virginia cigar at one of the 
 many caffes, and to watch all the world as it passed to 
 and fro on the quay. Tonelli was gray, he did not 
 disown it ; but he always maintained that his heart 
 was still young, and that there was, moreover, a great 
 difference in persons as to age, which told in his 
 favor. So he loved to sit there, and look at the 
 ladies ; and he amused himself by inventing a pet 
 name for every face he saw, which he used to teach 
 to certain friends of his, when they joined him over 
 his coffee. These friends were all young enough to 
 be his sons, and wise enough to be his fathers ; but 
 they were always glad to be with him, for he "had so 
 cheery a wit and so good a heart that neither his 
 years nor his follies could make any one sad. His 
 kind face beamed with smiles, when Pennellini, chief 
 among the youngsters in his affections, appeared on 
 the top of the nearest bridge, and thence descended 
 directly towards his little table. Then it was that he 
 drew out the straw which ran through the centre of 
 his long Virginia, and lighted the pleasant weed, and 
 gave himself up to the delight of making aloud those 
 comments on the ladies which he had hitherto stifled 
 in his breast. Sometimes he would feign himself too 
 
216 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 deeply taken with a passing beauty to remain quiet, 
 and would make bis friend follow with him in chase 
 of her to the Public Gardens. But he was a fickle 
 lover, and wanted presently to get back to his caffe, 
 where, at decent intervals of days or weeks, he would 
 indulge himself in discovering a spy in some harm- 
 less stranger, who, in going out, looked curiously at 
 the scar Tonelli's cheek had brought from the battle 
 of Vicenza in 1848. 
 
 " Something of a spy, no ? " he asked at these 
 times of the waiter, who, flattered by the penetration 
 of a frequenter of his caffe, and the implication that 
 it was thought seditious enough to be watched by the 
 police, assumed a pensive importance, and answered, 
 " Something of a spy, certainly." 
 
 Upon this Tonelli was commonly encouraged to 
 proceed : " Did I ever tell you how I once sent 
 one of those ugly muzzles out of a caffe ? I knew 
 him as soon as I saw him, I am never mistaken 
 in a spy, and I went with my newspaper, and sat 
 down close at his side. Then I whispered to him 
 across the sheet, ' We are two.' ' Eh ? ' says he. ' It 
 is a very small caffe, and there is no need of more 
 than one,' and then I stared at him and frowned. 
 He looks at me fixedly a moment, then gathers up 
 his hat and gloves, and takes his pestilency off." 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 217 
 
 The waiter, who had heard this story, man and 
 boy, a hundred times, made a quite successful show 
 of enjoying it, as he walked away with Tonelli's fee 
 of half a cent in his pocket. Tonelli then had left 
 from his day's salary enough to pay for the ice which 
 he ate at ten o'clock, but which he would sometimes 
 forego, in order to give the money in charity, though 
 more commonly he indulged himself, and put off the 
 beggar with, "Another time, my dear. I have no 
 leisure now to discuss those matters with thee." 
 
 On holidays this routine of Tonelli's life was va- 
 ried. In the forenoon he went to mass at St. Mark's, 
 to see the beauty and fashion of the city ; and then 
 he took a walk with his four or five young friends, or 
 went with them to play at bowls, or even made an 
 excursion to the main land, where they hired a car- 
 riage, and all those Venetians got into it, like so 
 many seamen, and drove the horse with as little 
 mercy as if he had been a sail-boat. At seven 
 o'clock Tonelli dined with the notary, next whom he 
 sat at table, and for whom his quaint pleasantries 
 had a zest that inspired the Paronsina and her 
 mother to shout them into his dull ears, that he 
 might lose none of them. He laughed a kind of faded 
 laugh at them, and, rubbing his pale hands together, 
 showed by his act that he did not think his best 
 
218 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 wine too good for his kindly guest. The signora 
 feigned to take the same delight shown by her 
 father and daughter in Tonelli's drolleries ; but I 
 doubt if she had a great sense of his humor, or, in- 
 deed, cared anything for it save as she perceived that 
 it gave pleasure to those she loved. Otherwise, how- 
 ever, she had a sincere regard for him, for he was 
 most useful and devoted to her in her quality of 
 widowed mother ; and if she could not feel wit, she 
 could feel gratitude, which is perhaps the rarer gift, 
 if not the more respectable. 
 
 The Little Mistress was dependent upon him for 
 nearly all the pleasures and for the only excitements 
 of her life. As a young girl she was at best a sort 
 of caged bird, who had to be guarded against the 
 youth of the other sex as if they, on their part, were 
 so many marauding and ravening cats. During most 
 days of the year the Paronsina's parrot had almost as 
 much freedom as she. He could leave his gilded 
 prison when he chose, and promenade the notary's 
 house as far down as the marble well in the sunless 
 court, and the Paronsina could do little more. The 
 signora would as soon have thought of letting the 
 parrot walk across their campo alone as her daughter, 
 though the local dangers, either to bird or beauty, 
 could not have been very great. The green-grocer 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 219 
 
 of that sequestered campo was an old woman, the 
 apothecary was gray, and his shop was haunted by 
 none but superannuated physicians ; the baker, the 
 butcher, the waiters at the caffe were all profession- 
 ally, and, as purveyors to her family, out of the ques- 
 tion ; the sacristan, who sometimes appeared at the 
 perruquier's to get a coal from under the curling- 
 tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he 
 kept single to the service of the Church, and his per- 
 quisite of candle-drippings ; and I hazard little in 
 saying that the Paronsina might have danced a polka 
 around Campo San Giuseppe without jeopardy so far 
 as concerned the handsome wood-carver, for his wife 
 always sat in the shop beside him. Nevertheless, a 
 custom is not idly handed down by mother to daugh- 
 ter from the dawn of Christianity to the middle of 
 the nineteenth century; and I cannot deny that 
 the local perruquier, though stricken in years, was 
 still so far kept fresh by the immortal youth of the 
 wax heads in his window as to have something beau- 
 ish about him ; or that, just at the moment the Paron- 
 sina chanced to go into the campo alone, a leone from 
 Florian's might not have been passing through it, 
 when he would certainly have looked boldly at her, 
 perhaps spoken to her, and possibly pounced at once 
 upon her fluttering heart. So by day the Paronsina 
 
220 TONELLl'S MAKRIAGE. 
 
 rarely wenfc out, and she never emerged unattended 
 from the silence and shadow of her grandfather's 
 house. 
 
 If I were here telling a story of the Paronsina, or 
 indeed any story at all, 1, might suffer myself to en- 
 large somewhat upon the daily order of her secluded 
 life, and show how the seclusion of other Venetian 
 girls was the widest liberty as compared with hers ; 
 but I have no right to play with the reader's patience 
 in a performance that can promise no excitement of 
 incident, no charm of invention. Let him figure to 
 himself, if he will, the ancient and half-ruined palace 
 in which the notary dwelt, with a gallery running 
 along one side of its inner court, the slender pillars 
 supporting upon the corroded sculpture of their capi- 
 tals a clinging vine, that dappled the floor with pal- 
 pitant light and shadow in the afternoon sun. The 
 gate, whose exquisite Saracenic arch grew into a 
 carven flame, was surmounted by the armorial bear- 
 ings of a family that died of its sins against the 
 Serenest Kepublic long ago ; the marble cistern which 
 stood in the middle of the court had still a ducal 
 rose upon either of its four sides ; and little lions of 
 stone perched upon the posts at the head of the mar- 
 ble stairway climbing to the gallery, their fierce 
 aspects worn smooth and amiable by the contact of 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 221 
 
 hands that for many ages had mouldered in tombs. 
 Toward the canal the palace windows had been im- 
 memorially bricked up for some reason or caprice, 
 and no morning sunlight, save such as shone from 
 the bright eyes of the Paronsina, ever looked into the 
 dim halls. It was a fit abode for such a man as the 
 notary, exiled in the heart of his native city, and it 
 was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vege- 
 tation like the signora's ; but to the Paronsina it was 
 sad as Venice itself, where, in some moods, I have 
 wondered that any sort of youth could have the cour- 
 age to exist. Nevertheless, the Paronsina had con- 
 trived to grow up here a child of the gayest and 
 archest spirit, and to lead a life of due content, till 
 after her return home from the comparative freedom 
 and society of Madame Prateux's school, where she 
 spent three years in learning all polite accomplish- 
 ments, and whence she came, with brilliant hopes and 
 romances ready imagined, for any possible exigency 
 of the future. She adored all the modern Italian 
 poets, and read their verse with that stately and 
 rhythmical fulness of voice which often made it sub- 
 lime and always pleasing. She was a relentless pa- 
 triot, an Italianissima of the vividest green, white, 
 and red ; and she could interpret the historical novels 
 of her countrymen in their subtilest application to 
 
222 TONELLI'S MARKIAGE. 
 
 the modern " enemies of Italy. Bat all the Paron- 
 siria's gifts and accomplishments were to poor pur- 
 pose, if the} 7 brought no young men a- wooing under 
 her balcony ; and it was to no effect that her fervid 
 fancy peopled the palace's empty halls with stately 
 and gallant company out of Marco Visconti, Nicolo de' 
 Lapi, Margherita Pusterla, and the other romances, 
 since she could not hope to receive any practica- 
 ble offer of marriage from the heroes thus assembled. 
 Her grandfather invited no guests of more substan- 
 tial presence to his house. In fact, the police watched 
 him too narrowly to permit him to receive society, 
 even had he been so minded, and for kindred reasons 
 his family paid few visits in the city. To leave Ven- 
 ice, except for the autumnal villeggiatura was almost 
 out of the question; repeated applications at the 
 Luogotenenza won the two ladies but a tardy and 
 scanty grace ; and the use of the passport allowing 
 them to spend a few weeks in Florence was attended 
 with so much vexation, in coming and going upon 
 the imperial confines, and when they returned 
 home they were subject to so great fear of perqui- 
 sition from the police, that it was after all rather 
 a mortification than a pleasure that the government 
 had given them. The signora received her few ac- 
 quaintances once a week; but the Paronsina found 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 223 
 
 the old ladies tedious over their cups of coffee or 
 tumblers of lemonade, and declared that her mam- 
 ma's reception days were a martyrdom, actually a 
 martyrdom, to her. She was full of life and the 
 beautiful and tender longing of youth ; she had a 
 warm heart and a sprightly wit ; but she led an exis- 
 tence scarce livelier than a ghost's, and she was so poor 
 in friends and resources that she shuddered to think 
 what must become of her if Toiielli should die. It 
 was not possible, thanks to God ! that he should 
 marry. 
 
 The signora herself seldom cared to go out, for the 
 reason that it was too cold in winter and too hot in 
 summer. In the one season she clung all day to her 
 wadded arm-chair, with her sealdino in her lap ; and 
 in the other season she found it a sufficient diversion 
 to sit in the great hall of the palace, and be fanned 
 by the salt breeze that came from the Adriatic 
 through the vine-garlanded gallery. But besides 
 this habitual inclemency of the weather, which for- 
 bade out-door exercise nearly the whole year, it was 
 a displeasure to walk in Venice on account of the 
 stairways of the bridges ; and the signora much pre- 
 ferred to wait till they went to the country in the 
 autumn, when she always rode to take the air. The 
 exceptions to her custom were formed by those after- 
 
224 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 dinner promenades which she sometimes made on 
 holidays, in summer. Then she put on her richest 
 black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, 
 and they both went to walk on the Molo, before the 
 pillars of the lion and the saint, under the escort of 
 Tonelli. 
 
 It often happened that, at the hour of their arrival 
 on the Molo, the moon was coming up over the low 
 bank of the Lido in the east, and all that prospect of 
 ship-bordered quay, island, and lagoon, which, at its 
 worst, is everything that heart can wish, was then at 
 its best, and far beyond words to paint. On* the right 
 stretched the long Giudecca, with the domes and 
 towers of its Palladian church, and the swelling foli- 
 age of its gardens, and its line of warehouses 
 painted pink, as if even Business, grateful to be tol- 
 erated amid such lovely scenes, had striven to adorn 
 herself. In front lay San Giorgio, picturesque with 
 its . church and pathetic with its political prisons ; 
 and, farther away to the east again, the gloomy mass 
 of the madhouse at San Servolo, and then the slen- 
 der campanili of the Armenian convent rose over the 
 gleaming and tremulous water. Tonelli took in the 
 beauty of the scene with no more consciousness than 
 a bird ; but the Paronsina had learnt from her ro- 
 mantic poets and novelists to be complimentary to 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 225 
 
 prospects, and her heart gurgled out in rapturous 
 praises of this. The unwonted freedom exhilarated 
 her ; there was intoxication in the encounter of faces 
 on the promenade, in the dazzle and glimmer of the 
 lights, and even in the music of the Austrian band 
 playing in the Piazza, as it came purified to her 
 patriotic ear by the distance. There were none but 
 Italians upon the Molo, and one might walk there 
 without so much as touching an officer with the hem 
 of one's garment ; and, a little later, when the band 
 ceased playing, she should go with the other Italians 
 and possess the Piazza for one blessed hour. In the 
 mean time, the Paronsina had a sharp little tongue ; 
 and, after she had flattered the landscape, and had, 
 from her true heart, once for all, saluted the prome- 
 naders as brothers and sisters in Italy, she did not 
 mind making fun of their peculiarities of dress and 
 person. She was signally sarcastic upon such ladies 
 as Tonelli chanced to admire, and often so stung him 
 with her jests that he was glad when Pennellini ap- 
 peared, as he always did exactly at nine o'clock, and 
 joined the ladies in their promenade, asking and an- 
 sweriug all those questions of ceremony which form 
 Venetian greeting. He was a youth of the most 
 methodical exactness in his whole life, and could no 
 more have arrived on the Molo a moment before or 
 
 15 
 
223 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 after nine than the bronze giants on the clock-tower 
 co aid have hastened or lingered in striking the hour. 
 Nature, which had made him thus punctual and pre- 
 cise, gave him also good looks, and a most amiable 
 kindness of heart. The Paronsina cared nothing at 
 all for him in his quality of handsome young fellow ; 
 but she prized him as an acquaintance whom she 
 might salute, and be saluted by, in a city where her 
 grandfather's isolation kept her strange to nearly all 
 the faces she saw. Sometimes her evenings on the 
 Molo wasted away without the exchange of a word 
 save with Tonelli, for her mother seldom talked ; 
 and then it was quite possible her teasing was greater 
 than his patience, and that he grew taciturn under 
 her tongue. At such times she hailed Pennellini's 
 appearance with a double delight ; for, if he never 
 joined in her attacks upon Tonelli's favorites, he 
 always enjoyed them, and politely applauded them. 
 If his friend reproached him for this treason, he 
 made him every amend in answering, " She is jeal- 
 ous, Tonelli," a wily compliment, which had the 
 most intense effect in coming from lips ordinarily so 
 sincere as his. 
 
 The signora was weary of the promenade long 
 before the Austrian music ceased in the Piazza, and 
 was very glad when it came time for them to leave 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 227 
 
 the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Gaffe 
 Florian. This was the supreme hour to the Paron- 
 sina, the one heavenly excess of her restrained and 
 eventless life. All about her were scattered tranquil 
 Italian idlers, listening to the music of the strolling 
 minstrels who had succeeded the military band ; on 
 either hand sat her friends, and she had thus the 
 image of that tender devotion without which, a young 
 girl is said not to be perfectly happy ; while the very 
 heart of adventure seemed to bound in her exchange 
 of glances with a handsome foreigner at a neighbor- 
 ing table. On the other side of the Piazza a few of- 
 ficers still lingered at the Gaffe Quadri ; and at the 
 Specchi sundry groups of citizens in their dark dress 
 contrasted well with these white uniforms ; but, for 
 the most part, the moon and gas-jets shone upon the 
 broad, empty space of the Piazza, whose loneliness 
 the presence of a few belated promenaders only 
 served to render conspicuous. As the giants ham- 
 mered eleven upon the great bell, the Austrian 
 sentinel, under the Ducal Palace, uttered a long, 
 reverberating cry ; and soon after a patrol of sol- 
 diers clanked across the Piazza, and passed with 
 echoing feet through the arcade into the narrow and 
 devious streets beyond. The young girl found it 
 hard to rend herself from the dreamy pleasure of the 
 
228 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 scene, or even to turn from the fine impersonal pain 
 which the presence of the Austrians in the spectacle 
 inflicted. All gave an impression something like that 
 of the theatre, with the advantage that here one's self 
 was part of the pantomime ; and in those days, when 
 nearly everything but the puppet-shows was forbid- 
 den to patriots, it was altogether the greatest enjoy- 
 ment possible to the Paronsina. The pensive charm 
 of the place imbued all the little company so deeply 
 that they scarcely broke it, as they loitered slowly 
 homeward through the deserted Merceria. When 
 they reached the Campo San Salvatore, on many a 
 lovely summer's midnight, their footsteps seemed to 
 waken a nightingale whose cage hung from a lofty 
 balcony there ; for suddenly, at their coming, the 
 bird broke into a wild and thrilling song, that touched 
 them all, and suffused the tender heart of the Paron- 
 sina with an inexpressible pathos. 
 
 Alas ! she had so often returned thus from the 
 Piazza, and no stealthy footstep had followed hers 
 homeward with love's persistence and diffidence ! 
 She was young, she knew, and she thought not 
 quite dull or hideous ; but her spirit was as sole 
 in that melancholy city as if there were no youth 
 but hers in the world. And a little later than this, 
 when she had her first affair, it did not originate in 
 
TONELLI' S MARRIAGE. 229 
 
 the Piazza, nor at all respond to her expectations 
 in a love-affair. In fact, it was altogether a business 
 affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who hav- 
 ing met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at 
 Padua, had heard him express so pungent a curiosity 
 to know what the Paronsina would have to her 
 dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love 
 with her. So with the consent of the signora he had 
 arranged a correspondence between the young people ; 
 and all went on well at first, the letters from both 
 passing through his hands. But his office was any- 
 thing but a sinecure, for while the Doctor was on his 
 part of a cold temperament, and disposed to regard 
 the affair merely as a proper way of providing for 
 the natural affections, the Paronsina cared nothing for 
 him personally, and only viewed him favorably as 
 abstract matrimony, as the means of escaping from 
 the bondage of her girlhood and the sad seclusion of 
 her life into the world outside her grandfather's 
 house. So presently the correspondence fell almost 
 wholly upon Tonelli, who worked up to the point of 
 betrothal with an expense of finesse and sentiment 
 that would have made his fortune in diplomacy or 
 poetry. What should he say now ? that stupid young 
 Doctor would cry in a desperation, when Tonelli deli- 
 cately reminded him that it was time to answer the 
 
230 TONELLl'S MARK I AGE. 
 
 Paronsina's last note. Say this, that, and the other, 
 Tonelli would answer, giving him the heads of a 
 proper letter, which the Doctor took down on square 
 bits of paper, neatly fashioned for writing prescrip- 
 tions. " And for God's sake, caro dottore, put a little 
 warmth into it ! " The poor Doctor would try, but it 
 must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost 
 dictating every sentence ; and then the letter, being 
 carried to the Paronsina made her laugh : " This is 
 very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my 
 onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender com- 
 pliments. Ah ! that allusion to my mouth and eyes 
 could only have come from the heart of a great poet. 
 It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, 
 taken in his weak point of literature, could make but 
 a feeble pretence of disclaiming the child of his fancy, 
 while the Paronsina, being in this reckless humor, 
 more than once responded to the Doctor in such 
 fashion that in the end the inspiration of her altered 
 and amended letter was Tonelli's. Even after the 
 betrothal, the lovemaking languished, and the Doctor 
 was indecently patient of the late day fixed for the 
 marriage by the notary. In fact, the Doctor was very 
 busy; and, as his practice grew, the dower of the 
 Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he 
 treated the whole question of their marriage with 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 231 
 
 such coldness and uncertainty in his talk with To- 
 nelli, that the latter saw whither his thoughts were 
 drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to 
 the Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her 
 first sincere letter to the Doctor, dismissing him. 
 
 " It is finished," she said, " and I am glad. After 
 all, perhaps, I don't want to be any freer than I am ; 
 and while I have you, Tonelli, I don't want a younger 
 lover. Younger ? Diana ! You are in the flower of 
 youth, and I believe you will never wither. Did 
 that rogue of a Doctor, then, really give you the elixir 
 of youth for writing him those letters ? Tell me, 
 Tonelli, as a true friend, how long have you been 
 forty-seven ? Ever since your fiftieth birthday ? 
 Listen ! I have been more afraid of losing you than 
 my sweetest Doctor. T thought you would be so 
 much in love with lovemaking that you would go 
 break-neck and court some one in earnest on your 
 own account ! " 
 
 Thus the Paronsina made a jest of the loss she had 
 sustained ; but it was not pleasant to her, except as it 
 dissolved a tie which love had done nothing to form. 
 Her life seemed colder and vaguer after it, and the 
 hour very far away when the handsome officers of her 
 king (all good Venetians in those days called Victor 
 Ernanuel "our king") should come to drive out tha 
 
232 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 Austrians, and marry their victims. She scarcely en- 
 joyed the prodigious privilege, offered her at this time 
 in consideration of her bereavement, of going to the 
 comedy, under Tonelli's protection and along with 
 Pennellini and his sister, while the poor signora after- 
 wards had real qualms of patriotism concerning the 
 breach of public duty involved in this distraction of 
 her daughter. She hoped that no one had recognized 
 her at the theatre, otherwise they might have a warn- 
 ing from the Venetian Committee. " Thou knowest," 
 she said to the Paronsina, " that they have even ad- 
 monished the old Conte Tradonico, who loves the 
 comedy better than his soul, and who used to go 
 every evening. Thy aunt told me, and that the old 
 rogue, when people ask him why he does n't go to the 
 play, answers, ' My mistress won't let me.' But tie ! 
 I am saying what young girls ought not to hear." 
 
 After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life refused 
 to return exactly to its old expression, and I suppose 
 that, if what presently happened was ever to happen, 
 it could not have occurred at a more appropriate time 
 for a disaster, or at a time when its victims were less 
 able to bear it. I do not know whether I have yet 
 sufficiently indicated the fact, but the truth is both 
 the Paronsina and her mother had from long use come 
 to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of theirs, 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 233 
 
 which had no right in any way to alienate itself. 
 They would have felt an attempt of this sort to be 
 not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of 
 their affection for him and dependence upon him; 
 and while the Paronsina thanked God that he would 
 never marry, she had a deep conviction that he ought 
 not to marry, even if he desired. It was at the 
 same time perfectly natural, nay, filial, that she should 
 herself be ready to desert this old friend, whom she 
 felt so strictly bound to be faithful to her loneliness. 
 As matters fell out, she had herself primarily to 
 blame for Tonelli's loss ; for, in that interval of disgust 
 and ennui following the Doctor's dismissal, she had 
 suffered him to seek his own pleasure on holiday 
 evenings ; and he had thus wandered alone to the 
 Piazza, and so, one night, had seen a lady eating an 
 ice there, and fallen in love without more ado than 
 another man should drink a lemonade. 
 
 This facility came of habit, for Tonelli had now 
 been falling in love every other day for some forty 
 years ; and in that time had broken the hearts of in- 
 numerable women of all nations and classes. The 
 prettiest water-carriers in his neighborhood were 
 in love with him, as their mothers had been before 
 them, and ladies of noble condition were believed 
 to cherish passions for him. Especially, gay and 
 
234 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 beautiful foreigners, as they sat at Florian's, were 
 taken with hopeless love of him ; and he could tell 
 stories of very romantic adventure in which he 
 figured as hero, though nearly always with moral 
 effect. For example, there was the countess from the 
 mainland, she merited the sad distinction of being 
 chief among those who had vainly loved him, if you 
 could believe the poet who both inspired and sang 
 her passion. When she took a palace in Venice, he 
 had been summoned to her on the pretended business 
 of a secretary ; but when she presented herself with 
 those idle accounts of her factor and tenants on the 
 mainland, her household expenses and her corre- 
 spondence with her advocate, Tonelli perceived at 
 once that it was upon a wholly different affair that 
 she had desired to see him. She was a rich widow of 
 forty, of a beauty supernaturally preserved and very 
 great. " This is no place for thee, Tonelli mine," the 
 secretary had said to himself, after a week had passed, 
 and he had understood all the waywardness of that 
 unhappy lady's intentions. " Thou art not too old, but 
 thou art too wise, for these follies, though no saint " ; 
 and so had gathered up his personal effects, and 
 secretly quitted the palace. But such was the count- 
 ess's fury at his escape that she never paid him his 
 week's salary ; nor did she manifest the least gratitude 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 235 
 
 that Tonelli, out of regard for her son, a very honest 
 young man, refused in any way to identify her, but, 
 to all except his closest friends, pretended that he 
 had passed those terrible eight days on a visit to the 
 country village where he was born. It showed Pen- 
 nellini's ignorance of life that he should laugh at this 
 history ; and I prefer to treat it seriously, and to use 
 it in explaining the precipitation with which Tonelli's 
 latest inamorata returned his love. 
 
 Though, indeed, why should a lady of thirty, and 
 from an obscure country town, hesitate to be en- 
 amored of any eligible suitor who presented himself 
 in Venice ? It is not my duty to enter upon a detail 
 or summary of Carlotta's character or condition, or to 
 do more than indicate that, while she did not greatly 
 excel in youth, good looks, or worldly gear, she had 
 yet a little property, and was of that soft prettiness 
 which is often more effective than downright beauty. 
 There was, indeed, something very charming about 
 her ; and, if she was a blonde, I have no reason to 
 think she was as fickle as the Venetian proverb 
 paints that complexion of woman ; or that she had 
 not every quality which would have excused any one 
 but Tonelli for thinking of marrying her. 
 
 After their first mute interview in the Piazza, the 
 two lost no time in making each other's acquaintance ; 
 
236 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 but though the affair was vigorously conducted, no 
 one could say that it was not perfectly in order. 
 Tonelli on the following day, which chanced to be 
 Sunday, repaired to St. Mark's at the hour of the 
 fashionable mass, where he gazed steadfastly at the 
 lady during her orisons, and whence, at a discreet dis- 
 tance, he followed her home to the house of the 
 friends whom she was visiting. Somewhat to his 
 discomfiture at first, these proved to be old acquain- 
 tances of his ; and when he came at night to walk up 
 and down under their balconies, as bound in true love 
 to do, they made nothing of asking him indoors, and 
 presenting him to his lady. But the pair were not to 
 be entirely balked of their romance, and they still 
 arranged stolen interviews at church, where one 
 furtively whispered word had the value of whole 
 hours of unrestricted converse under the roof of their 
 friends. They quite refused to take advantage of 
 their anomalously easy relations, beyond inquiry on 
 his part as to the amount of the lady's dower, and on 
 hers as to the permanence of Tonelli's employment. 
 He in due form had Penriellini to his confidant, and 
 Carlotta unbosomed herself to her hostess ; and the 
 affair was thus conducted with such secrecy that not 
 more than two thirds of Tonelli's acquaintance knew 
 anything about it when their engagement was an- 
 nounced. 
 
TONELLl'S MAKRIAGE. 237 
 
 There were now no circumstances to prevent their 
 early union, yet the happy conclusion was one to 
 which Tonelli urged himself after many secret and 
 bitter displeasures of spirit. I am persuaded that 
 his love for Carlotta must have been most ardent and 
 sincere, for there was everything in his history and 
 reason against marriage. He could not disown that 
 he had hitherto led a joyous and careless life, or that 
 he was exactly fitted for the modest delights, the dis- 
 creet variety, of his present state, for his daily 
 routine at the notary's, his dinner at the Bronze 
 Horses or the cook-shop, his hour at the caffe, his 
 walks and excursions, for his holiday banquet with 
 the Cenarotti, and his formal promenade with the 
 ladies of that family upon the Molo. He had a good 
 employment, with a salary that held him above want, 
 and afforded him the small luxuries already named ; 
 and he had fixed habits of work and of relaxation, 
 which made both a blessing. He had his chosen 
 circle of intimate equals, who regarded him for his 
 good-heartedness and wit and foibles ; and his little 
 following of humble admirers, who looked upon him 
 as a gifted man in disgrace with fortune. His friend- 
 ships were as old as they were secure and cordial ; he 
 was established in the kindliness of all who knew 
 him ; and he was flattered by the dependence of the 
 
238 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 Paronsina and her mother, even when it was trouble- 
 some to him. He had his past of sentiment and war, 
 his present of story-telling and romance. He was 
 quite independent : his sins, if he had any, began and 
 ended in himself, for none was united to him so closely 
 as to be hurt by them ; and he was far too imprudent 
 a man to be taken for an example by any one. He 
 came and went as he listed, he did this or that with- 
 out question. With no heart chosen yet from the 
 world of woman's love, he was still a young man, with 
 hopes and affections as pliable as a boy's. He had, 
 in a word, that reputation of good-fellow which in 
 Venice gives a man the title of buon diavolo, but on 
 which he does not anywhere turn his back with im- 
 punity, either from his own consciousness or from 
 public opinion. There never was such a thing in the 
 world as both good devil and good husband ; and even 
 with his betrothal Tonelli felt that his old, careless, 
 merry life of the hour ended, and that he had tacitly 
 recognized a future while he was yet unable to cut 
 the past. If one has for twenty years made a jest of 
 women, however amiably and insincerely, one does 
 not propose to marry a woman without making a jest 
 of one's self. The avenging remembrance of elderly 
 people whose late matrimony had furnished food for 
 Tonelli's wit now rose up to torment him, and in his 
 
TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 239 
 
 morbid fancy the merriment he had caused was echoed 
 back in his own derision. 
 
 It shocked him to find how quickly his secret took 
 wing, and it annoyed him that all his acquaintances 
 were so prompt to felicitate him. He imagined a 
 latent mockery in their speeches, and lie took them 
 with an argumentative solemnity. He reasoned sepa- 
 rately with his friends ; to all who spoke to him of 
 his marriage he presented elaborate proofs that it was 
 the wisest thing he could possibly do, and tried to 
 give the affair a cold air of prudence. " You see, I 
 r,m getting old ; that is to say, I am tired of this 
 bachelor life in which I have no one to take care of 
 me, if I fall sick, and to watch that the doctors do 
 not put me to death. My pay is very little, but, 
 with Carlotta's dower well invested, we shall both 
 together live better than either of us lives alone. She 
 is a careful woman, and will keep me neat and com- 
 fortable. She is not so young as some women I had 
 thought to marry, no, but so much the better ; no- 
 body will think her half so charming as I do, and at 
 my time of life that is a great point gained. She is 
 good, and has an admirable disposition. She is not 
 spoiled by Venice, but as innocent as a dove. 0, I 
 shall find myself very well with her ! " 
 
 This was the speech which with slight modification 
 
240 TOXELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 Tonelli made over and over again to all his friends 
 but Pennellini. To him he unmasked, and said 
 boldly that at last he was really in love ; and being 
 gently discouraged in what seemed his folly, and in- 
 credulously laughed at, he grew angry, and gave such 
 proofs of his sincerity that Pennellini was convinced, 
 and owned to himself, " This madman is actually en- 
 amored, enamored like a cat! Patience! What 
 will ever those Cenarotti say ?" 
 
 In a little while poor Tonelli lost the philosophic 
 mind with which he had at first received the congrat- 
 ulations of his friends, and, from reasoning with 
 them, fell to resenting their good wishes. Very little 
 things irritated him, and pleasantries which he had 
 taken in excellent part, time out of mind, now raised 
 his anger. His barber had for many years been in 
 the habit of saying, as he applied the stick of fixature 
 to Tonelli's mustache, and gave it a jaunty upward 
 curl, " Now we will bestow that little dash of youth- 
 fulness " ; and it both amazed and hurt him to have 
 Tonelli respond with a fierce " Tsit ! " and say that 
 this jest was proper in its antiquity to the times of 
 Romulus rather than our own period, and so go out of 
 the shop without that " Adieu, old fellow," which he 
 had never failed to give in twenty years. "Cap- 
 peri ! " said the barber, when he emerged from a pro- 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 241 
 
 found revery into which this outbreak had plunged 
 him, and in which he had remained holding the nose 
 of his next customer, and tweaking it to and fro in 
 the violence of his emotions, regardless of those 
 mumbled maledictions which the lather would not 
 permit the victim to articulate. " If Tonelli is so sav- 
 age in his betrothal, we must wait for his marriage to 
 tame him. I am sorry. He was always such a good 
 devil." 
 
 But if many things annoyed Tonelli, there were 
 some that deeply wounded him, and chiefly the fact 
 that his betrothal seemed to have fixed an impassable 
 gulf of years between him and all those young men 
 whose company he loved so well. He had really a 
 boy's heart, and lie had consorted with them be- 
 cause he felt himself nearer their age than his own. 
 Hitherto they had in no wise found his presence a 
 restraint. They had always laughed, and told their 
 loves, and spoken their young men's thoughts, and 
 made their young men's jokes, without fear or shame, 
 before the merry-hearted sage, who never offered good 
 advice, if indeed he ever dreamed that there was a 
 wiser philosophy than theirs. It had been as if he 
 were the youngest among them ; but now, in spite of 
 all that he or they could do, he seemed suddenly and 
 irretrievably aged. They looked at him strangely, as if 
 
 13 
 
242 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 for the first time they saw that his mustache was gray, 
 that his brow was not smooth like theirs, that there 
 were crow's-feet at the corners of his kindly eyes. 
 They could not phrase the vague feeling that haunted 
 their hearts, or they would have said that Tonelli, in 
 offering to marry, had voluntarily turned his back upon 
 his youth ; that love, which would only have brought 
 a richer bloom to their age, had breathed away for- 
 ever the autumnal blossom of his. 
 
 Something of this made itself felt in Tonelli's own 
 consciousness, whenever he met them, and he soon 
 grew to avoid these comrades of his youth. It was 
 therefore after a purely accidental encounter with one 
 of them, and as he was passing into the Campo Sant' 
 Angelo, head down, and supporting himself with an 
 inexplicable sense of infirmity upon the cane he was 
 wont so jauntily to flourish, that he heard himself ad- 
 dressed with, " I say, master ! " He looked up, and 
 beheld the fat madman who patrols that campo, and 
 who has the license of his affliction to utter insolences 
 to whomsoever he will, leaning against the door of a 
 tobacconist's shop, with his arms folded, and a lazy, 
 mischievous smile loitering down on his greasy face. 
 As he caught Tonelli's eye he nodded, " Eh ! I have 
 heard, master " ; while the idlers of that neighbor- 
 hood, who relished and repeated his incoherent 
 
TONELLl's MARRIAGE. 243 
 
 pleasantries like the mots of some great diner-out, 
 gathered near with expectant grins. Had Tonelli 
 been altogether himself, as in other days, he would 
 have been far too wise to answer, " What hast thou 
 heard, poor animal ? " 
 
 "That you are going to take a mate when most 
 birds think of flying away," said the madman. " Be- 
 cause it has been summer a long time with you, mas- 
 ter, you think it will never be winter. Look out : 
 the wolf does n't eat the season." 
 
 The poor fool in these words seemed to utter a 
 public voice of disapprobation and derision ; and as 
 the pitiless bystanders, who had many a time laughed 
 with Tonelli, now laughed at him, joining in the ap- 
 plause which the madman himself led off, the miser- 
 able good devil walked away with a shiver, as if the 
 weather had actually turned cold. It was not till he 
 found himself in Carlotta's presence that the long 
 summer appeared to return to him. Indeed, in her 
 tenderness and his real love for her he won back all 
 his youth again; and he found it of a truer and 
 sweeter quality than he had known even when his 
 years were few, while the gay old-bachelor life he 
 had long led seemed to him a period of miserable 
 loneliness and decrepitude. Mirrored in her fond 
 eyes, he saw himself alert and handsome ; and, since 
 
244 TONELLl'S MAERIAGE. 
 
 for the time being they were to each other all the 
 world, we may be sure there was nothing in the world 
 then to vex or shame Tonelli. The promises of the 
 future, too, seemed not improbable of fulfilment, for 
 they were not extravagant promises. These people's 
 castle in the air was a house furnished from Car- 
 lotta's modest portion, and situated in a quarter of 
 the city not too far from the Piazza, and convenient 
 to a decent caffe, from which they could order a 
 lemonade or a cup of coffee for visitors. Tonelli's 
 stipend was to pay the housekeeping, as well as the 
 minute wage of a servant-girl from the country ; and 
 it was believed that they could save enough from 
 that, and a little of Carlotta's money at interest, to 
 go sometimes to the Malibran theatre or the Marion- 
 ette, or even make an excursion to the mainland 
 upon a holiday; but if they could not, it was cer- 
 tainly better Italianism to stay at home ; and at least 
 they could always walk to the Public Gardens. At 
 one time, religious differences threatened to cloud this 
 blissful vision of the future ; but it was finally agreed 
 that Carlotta should go to mass and confession as 
 often as she liked, and should not tease Tonelli about 
 his .soul ; while he, on his part, was not to speak ill 
 of the pope except as a temporal prince, or of any of 
 the priesthood except of the Jesuits when in com- 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 245 
 
 pany, in order to show that marriage had not made 
 him a codino. For the like reason, no change was to 
 be made in his custom of praising Garibaldi and revil- 
 ing the accursed Germans upon all safe occasions. 
 
 As Tonelli had nothing in the world but his salary 
 and his slender wardrobe, Carlotta eagerly accepted 
 the idea of a loss of family property during the revo- 
 lution. Of Tonelli's scar she was as proud as Tonelli 
 himself. 
 
 When she came to speak of the acquaintance of all 
 those young men, it seemed again like a breath from 
 the north to her betrothed ; and he answered, with a 
 sigh, that this was an affair that had already finished 
 itself. " I have long thought them too boyish for 
 me," he said, "and I shall keep none of them but 
 Pennellini, who is even older than I, who, I be- 
 lieve, was never born, but created middle-aged out of 
 the dust of the earth, like Adam. He is not a good 
 devil, but he has every good quality." 
 
 While he thus praised his friend, Tonelli was medi- 
 tating a service, which when he asked it of Pennellini, 
 had almost the effect to destroy their ancient amity. 
 This was no less than the composition of those 
 wedding-verses, without which, printed and exposed 
 to view in all the shop-windows, no one in Venice 
 feels himself adequately and truly married. Permel- 
 
246 TONELLI'S MAREIAGE. 
 
 lini had never willingly made a verse in his life ; and 
 it was long before he understood Tonelli, when he 
 urged the delicate request. Then in vain he pro- 
 tested, recalcitrated. It was all an offence to To- 
 nelli's morbid soul, already irritated by his friend's 
 obtuseness, and eager to turn even the reluctance of 
 nature into insult. He took his refusal for a sign 
 that he, too, deserted him ; and must be called back, 
 after bidding Pennellini adieu, to hear the only 
 condition on which the accursed sonnet would be 
 furnished, namely, that it should not be signed Pen- 
 nellini, but An Affectionate Friend. Never was sonnet 
 cost poet so great anguish as this : Pennellini went at 
 it conscientiously as if it were a problem in math- 
 ematics; he refreshed his prosody, he turned over 
 Carrer, he toiled a whole night, and in due time 
 appeared as Tonelli's affectionate friend in all the 
 butchers' and bakers' windows. But it had been too 
 much to ask of him, and for a while he felt the shock 
 of Tonelli's unreason and excess so much that there 
 was a decided coolness between them. 
 
 This important particular arranged, little remained 
 for Tonelli to do but to come to that open under- 
 standing with the Paronsina and her mother which 
 he had long dreaded and avoided. He could not con- 
 ceal from himself that his marriage was a kind of de- 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 247 
 
 sertion of the two dear friends so dependent upon 
 his singleness, and he considered the case of the 
 Paronsina with a real remorse. If his meditated act 
 sometimes appeared to him a gross inconsistency and 
 a satire upon all his former life, he had still consoled 
 himself with the truth of his passion, and had found 
 love its own apology and comfort ; but in its relation 
 to these lonely women, his love itself had no fairer 
 aspect than that of treason, and he shrank from own- 
 ing it before them with a sense of guilt. Some wild 
 dreams of reconciling his future with his past occa- 
 sionally haunted him ; but in his saner moments, he 
 perceived their folly. Carlotta, he knew, was good 
 and patient, but she was nevertheless a woman, and 
 she would never consent that he should be to the 
 Cenarotti all that he had been ; these ladies also 
 were very kind and reasonable, but they too were 
 women, and incapable of accepting a less perfect de- 
 votion. Indeed, was not his proposed marriage too 
 much like taking her only son from the signora and 
 giving the Paronsina a stepmother ? It was worse, 
 and so the ladies of the notary's family viewed it, 
 cherishing a resentment that grew with Tonelli's de- 
 lay to deal frankly with them ; while Carlotta, on 
 her part, was wounded that these old friends should 
 ignore his future wife so utterly. On both sides 
 evil was stored up. 
 
248 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity 
 to the Paronsina and her mother, they accepted his 
 awkward advances, the latter with a cold visage, the 
 former with a sarcastic face and tongue. He had 
 managed particularly ill with the Paronsina, who, 
 having no romance of her own, would possibly have 
 come to enjoy the autumnal poetry of his love if he 
 had permitted. But when she first approached him 
 on the subject of those rumors she had heard, and 
 treated them with a natural derision, as involving the 
 most absurd and preposterous ideas, he, instead of 
 suffering her jests, and then turning her interest to 
 his favor, resented them, and closed his heart and 
 its secret against her. What could she do, thereafter, 
 but feign to avoid the subject, and adroitly touch it 
 with constant, invisible stings ? Alas ! it did not 
 need that she should ever speak to Tonelli with the 
 wicked intent she did; at this time he would have 
 taken ill whatever most innocent thing she said. 
 When friends are to be estranged, they do not require 
 a cause. They have but to doubt one another, and 
 no forced forbearance or kindness between them can 
 do aught but confirm their alienation. This is on the 
 whole fortunate, for in this manner neither feels to 
 blame for the broken friendship, and each can declare 
 with perfect truth that he did all he could to main- 
 
TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 249 
 
 tain it. Tonelli said to himself, "If the Paronsina 
 had treated the affair properly at first ! " arid the Pa- 
 ronsina thought, " If he had told me frankly about it 
 to begin with ! " Both had a latent heartache over 
 their trouble, and both a sense of loss the more bitter 
 because it was of loss still unacknowledged. 
 
 As the day fixed for Tonelli's wedding drew near, 
 the rumor of it came to the Cenarotti from all their 
 acquaintance. But when people spoke to them of it, 
 as of something they must be fully and particularly 
 informed of, the signora answered coldly, " It seems 
 that we have not merited Tonelli's confidence " ; and 
 the Paronsina received the gossip with an air of 
 clearly affected surprise, and a " Davoero!" that at 
 least discomfited the tale-bearers. 
 
 The consciousness of the unworthy part he was 
 acting toward these ladies had come at last to poison 
 the pleasure of Tonelli's wooing, even in Carlotta's 
 presence ; yet I suppose he would still have let his 
 wedding-day come and go, and been married beyond 
 hope of atonement, so loath was he to inflict upon 
 himself and them the pain of an explanation, if one 
 day, within a week of that time, the notary had not 
 bade his clerk dine with him on the morrow. It was 
 a holiday, and as Carlotta was at home, making ready 
 for the marriage, Tonelli consented to take his place 
 
250 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 at the table from which he had been a long time 
 absent. But it turned out such a frigid and melan- 
 choly banquet as never was known before. The old 
 notary, to whom all things came dimly, finally missed 
 the accustomed warmth of Tonelli's fun, and said, 
 with a little shiver, " Why, what ails you, Tonelli ? 
 You are as moody as a man in love." 
 
 The notary had been told several times of Tonelli's 
 affair, but it was his characteristic not to remember 
 any gossip later than that of 'Forty- eight. 
 
 The Paronsina burst into a laugh full of the cruelty 
 and insult of a woman's long-smothered sense of in- 
 jury. " Caro nonno," she screamed into her grand- 
 father's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to 
 support his happiness. He is shy, even of his old 
 friends, he has had so little experience. It is the 
 first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la 
 gioventu, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally 
 loosed, the Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, 
 that hurt more from their purpose than their point, 
 and gave no one greater pain than herself. 
 
 Tonelli sat sad and perfectly mute under the inflic- 
 tion, but he said in his heart, " I have merited worse." 
 
 At first the signora remained quite aghast; but 
 when she collected herself, she called out peremp- 
 torily, " Madamigella, you push the affair a little 
 beyond. Cease ! " 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 251 
 
 The Paronsina, having said all she desired, ceased, 
 panting. 
 
 The old notary, for whose slow sense all but her 
 first words had been too quick, though all had been 
 spoken at him, said dryly, turning to Tonelli, " I im- 
 agine that my deafness is not always a misfortune." 
 
 It was by an inexplicable, but hardly less inevita- 
 ble, violence to the inclinations of each that, after 
 this miserable dinner, the signora, the Paronsina, and 
 Tonelli should go forth together for their wonted 
 promenade on the Molo. Use, which is the second, 
 is also very often the stronger nature, and so these 
 parted friends made a last show of union and har- 
 mony. In nothing had their amity been more fa- 
 tally broken than in this careful homage to its forms ; 
 and now, as they walked up and down in the moon- 
 light, they were of the saddest kind of apparitions, 
 not mere disembodied spirits, which, however, are 
 bad enough, but disanimated bodies, which are far 
 worse, and of which people are not more afraid only 
 because they go about in society so commonly. As 
 on many and many another night of summers past, 
 the moon came up and stood over the Lido, striking 
 far across the glittering lagoon, and everywhere win- 
 ning the flattered eye to the dark masses of shadow 
 upon the water ; to the trees of the Gardens, to the 
 
252 TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 trees and towers and domes of the cloistered and 
 templed isles. Scene of pensive and incomparable 
 loveliness ! giving even to the stranger, in some faint 
 and most unequal fashion, a sense of the awful mean- 
 ing of exile to the Venetian, who in all other lands 
 in the world is doubly an alien, from their unuttera- 
 ble unlikeness to his sole and beautiful city. The 
 prospect had that pathetic unreality to the friends 
 which natural things always assume to people play- 
 ing a part, and I imagine that they saw it not more 
 substantial than it appears to the exile in his dreams. 
 In their promenade they met again and again the 
 unknown, wonted faces; they even encountered some 
 acquaintances, whom they greeted, and with whom 
 they chatted for a while; and when at nine the 
 bronze giants beat the hour upon their bell, with 
 as remote effect as if they were giants of the times 
 before the flood, they were aware of Pennellini, 
 promptly appearing like an exact and methodical 
 spectre. 
 
 But to-night the Paronsina, who had made the 
 scene no compliments, did not insist as usual upon 
 the ice at Florian's ; and Pennellini took his formal 
 leave of the friends under the arch of the Clock 
 Tower, and they walked silently homeward through 
 the echoing Merceria. 
 
TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 253 
 
 At the notary's gate Tonelli would have said good- 
 night, but the signora made him enter with them, 
 and then abruptly left him standing with the Paron- 
 sina in the gallery, while she was heard hurrying away 
 to her own apartment. She reappeared, extending 
 toward Tonelli both hands, upon which glittered and 
 glittered manifold skeins of the delicate chain of 
 Venice. 
 
 She had a very stately and impressive bearing, as 
 she stood there in the moonlight, and addressed him 
 with a collected voice. " Tonelli," she said, " I think 
 you have treated your oldest and best friends very 
 cruelly. Was it not enough that, you should take 
 yourself from us, but you must also forbid our hearts 
 to follow you even in sympathy and good wishes ? I 
 had almost thought to say adieu forever to-night ; 
 but," she continued, with a breaking utterance, and 
 passing tenderly to the familiar form of address, "I 
 cannot part so with thee. Thou hast been too like a 
 son to me, too like a brother to my poor Clarice. 
 Maybe thou no longer lovest us, yet I think thou 
 wilt not disdain this gift for thy wife. Take it, To- 
 nelli, if not for our sake, perhaps then for the sake 
 of sorrows that in times past we have shared together 
 in this unhappy Venice." 
 
 Here the signora ended perforce the speech, which 
 
254 TONELLl'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 had been long for her, and the Paronsina burst into 
 a passion of weeping, not more at her mamma's 
 words than out of self-pity and from the national 
 sensibility. 
 
 Tonelli took the chain, and reverently kissed it 
 and the hands that gave it. He had a helpless sense 
 of the injustice the signora's words and the Paron- 
 sina's tears did him; he knew that they put him 
 with feminine excess further in the wrong than even 
 his own weakness had ; but he tried to express noth- 
 ing of this, it was but part of the miserable maze 
 in which his life was involved. With what courage 
 he might he owned his error, but protested his faith- 
 ful friendship, and poured out all his troubles, his 
 love for Carlotta, his regret for them, his shame and 
 remorse for himself. They forgave him, and there 
 was everything in their words and will to restore 
 their old friendship, and keep it ; arid when the gate 
 with a loud clang closed upon Tonelli, going from 
 them, they all felt that it had irrevocably perished. 
 
 I do not say that there was not always a decent 
 and affectionate bearing on the part of the Paronsiua 
 and her mother towards Tonelli and his wife ; I 
 acknowledge that it was but too careful and faultless 
 a tenderness, ever conscious of its own fragility. Far 
 more natural was the satisfaction they took in the 
 
TONELLI'S MARRIAGE. 255 
 
 delayed fruitfulness of Tonelli's marriage, and then 
 in the fact that his child was a girl, and not a boy. 
 It was but human that they should doubt his happi- 
 ness, and that the signora should always say, when 
 hard pressed with questions upon the matter : " Yes, 
 Tonelli is married ; but if it were to do again, I think 
 he would do it to-morrow rather than to-day." 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
 DEC 22 76 
 
 JAN 1 7 REC'D 
 
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