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AN 
 
 EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 A it* 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 CTlic Htoersflre Prees, Camirfirp. 
 
 1880. 
 
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 ,MO 
 ss 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1879, 
 BT HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, OAMBRIDQR : 
 TEEBOTTPEB AND PEINTEB BT 
 H. 0. HOUOHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
AK" EARNEST TRIFLEB. 
 
 I. 
 
 A FINE, gray mist was rising from the river, and a 
 fine, gray twilight was falling from above, hushing 
 in their gray fold the diligent activities of the country, 
 when two young men, who had that evening arrived in 
 the mountains, were left in possession of their new 
 and unfamiliar quarters. As the door closed behind 
 them the elder, a tall, plain, and unpretentious man, 
 who excited little inquiry and who made few inquiries 
 himself, crossed the room and looked out upon the 
 looming hills as if his interest were in their dark out 
 lines rather than in his more immediate environment ; 
 while the other, an alert and more lightly built young 
 fellow, glanced over the walls and furniture as if what 
 he saw was but tributary to impressions already sur 
 prising and favorable. 
 
 " Who would have thought," he began, " that we 
 would bring up in such a tender locality ! Are these 
 the simple natives, and is this the shanty you promised 
 me ? " And again he glanced carelessly over the high- 
 hung pictures and the lion s claws which here and 
 there protruded out of the mahogany. " I call it no 
 1 
 
2 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 better than the civilization we left, it s older if any 
 thing." 
 
 "It is a wild country," returned the man at the win 
 dow, irrelevantly, "a wild country ! I don t recall a 
 worse lock-up anywhere around." 
 
 " I thought we were to get off in it somewhere and 
 live like pioneers," pursued the first speaker. " What 
 is the use of working a man up to the stoical point and. 
 then putting him to bed in a room like this ? " And 
 walking up to a portrait of a military-looking gentle 
 man he surveyed it a moment with the able criticism 
 that he brought to bear upon so many faulty objects. 
 " British ! " he exclaimed, in condemnation. Then, as 
 if in search of features of less heavy and offensive 
 nationality, he went over to a long, bisected mirror, 
 where, after due optical refreshment, he adjusted his 
 coarse but finely -fitting clothes. 
 
 But the elder, Jared Dayton, was not to be diverted 
 from the landscape by the humors of his friend. He 
 was a man of affairs, and at all times, perhaps, a trifle 
 irresponsive. He went on staring and speculating. 
 For twenty miles," he shortly observed, " it is as im 
 practicable as you see it yonder. No wonder they ran 
 the road into the side of a mountain and left it." 
 
 " You 11 get through it soon enough and carry emi 
 gration with you," rejoined the young fellow, declining 
 the tacit invitation to look out. " I suppose you are 
 longing to go at it now with that brutal energy of 
 yours ; but you can t begin to-night. You d better 
 make yourself comfortab e while you can. If we get 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 3 
 
 that shanty of ours with its ennobling destitution we 
 won t have the same conveniences." 
 
 With easy accommodation to new surroundings, 
 which was evidently habitual, he seated himself before 
 a huge hair-cloth sofa on which their luggage was de 
 posited ; and opening a portmanteau with his slender, 
 nervous hands, displayed its contents. " This is a fine 
 lot of traps," he said, " to bring into a gentleman s 
 house." 
 
 " Guerrin would insist on our coming here," said the 
 other, turning and looking indifferently at the proper 
 ties to which his attention was thus called. " There 
 seemed to be no choice. We must look around." 
 
 " They might domesticate you," suggested his com 
 rade, " after twenty years of hotels and other dens. 
 He still blesses you, don t he, for running that old line 
 through his land ? Did you stay here then ? " 
 
 " Here ? I ? No, of course not," exclaimed Dayton, 
 as if protesting against the rich imagination which 
 could conceive such an out of character question. 
 
 " Then you never met the daughter ? " continued 
 his companion, still giving his imagination vent. 
 
 " It is n t likely she was born then." 
 
 The young man laid aside an assortment of brushes 
 of the kinds best qualified to remove obnoxious par 
 ticles from the person and clothing of a fastidious 
 citizen, and took a cedar-wood box of rectangular 
 shape from the folds of a coarse, gray blanket. " Don t 
 you believe it," he said smiling. " She is older than 
 that. She may look like twenty, or less, but she haa 
 
4 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 an eye-beam that resembles twenty-five. She sees 
 Who sees at twenty ? " 
 
 Dayton gave it up. 
 
 " I believe her long-fringed glance is sticking some 
 where through me yet," said the other, his humorous 
 intention growing broader. " She is fair looking for 
 the hills." 
 
 A low tattooing recommenced upon the casement 
 gave a grudging assent. It was, in fact, one of many 
 topics broached by his friend, on which Dayton had no 
 opinion. He went on inspecting the horizon as if 
 loth to relinquish the forms which the night was ab 
 sorbing, and it is not impossible that the loss of such 
 visible objects left him frequently at a loss for satis 
 factory subjects of contemplation. His common blue 
 eye rested upon nothing more intently than mountains 
 awaiting his skill, and the young man s susceptible and 
 dissipated vision struck him as a doubtful gift, like a 
 musical talent or an hereditary intemperance. 
 
 " I would like to know," continued the younger, 
 who was also the brighter man, " what this family has 
 ever done that it should be sequestered here. What 
 the" 
 
 " I have heard," said Dayton, his comrade pausing 
 for a desirable word, " that it was originally for the 
 killing of a king. It was some ancestor, the regi 
 cide, not the king. He came here to hide." 
 
 The young fellow laughed. "That beats me," he 
 said, perhaps referring to some pretensions of his own 
 in the way of ancestry. Then leaving the cigar-box 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 5 
 
 and the brushes upon the bureau, he too went up to a 
 second window, as if drawn by the persistent interest 
 of his chief in what lay without. 
 
 Before him were spacious private grounds in which 
 an effort at landscape gardening had once been made, 
 but corrected by subsequent neglect. A semicircular 
 road and a straight path led to the house from three 
 arched gate-ways, and everywhere beyond rose the 
 pine-covered mountains. He looked through the trees 
 and up and down the deserted road, but plainly failed 
 to take a professional interest either in the narrow val 
 ley or the gloomy sierras. 
 
 " And do they call this wilderness a town ? " he in 
 quired. 
 
 " There are a few houses down below," replied Day 
 ton ; " half of them have steeples. If we can t do 
 any better, perhaps we can get one with a steeple. 
 We 11 look around." 
 
 To this repeated proposition the young fellow as 
 sented. " By all means," he said. " We 11 never 
 know any of the delights of barbarism here. There 
 can t be any barbarism where there are women," and 
 he laughed again. Presently, however, he returned to 
 the idea with more seriousness than he had yet shown. 
 k/ You are right about it," he declared. " I want to 
 get away. I can t get far enough. I am not far enough 
 yet. I d rather go into camp with you back on the 
 ridges, or anywhere else, than to go back to France. 
 I ve been drawn around, and drawn around, with my 
 pesky susceptibility to drawings till I ve lost my direc- 
 
6 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 tion. This place is very inviting, but it is n t the in 
 viting we are after. It s discipline. It s hardihood. 
 It is n t enough, I take it, that we get out of Boston 
 and begin to dig again. We want to dispossess our 
 selves of state ideas and habits, to rehabit ourselves. 
 I say we. I mean me. You never have any stale 
 ideas and habits. Yours are the sort that improve with 
 age." 
 
 Of whatever sort, they were plainly so far improved 
 with age that their owner did not start to quick inter 
 est in flattering discussions about himself, and for the 
 twentieth time the young man went on, " As for me," 
 he exclaimed, " I am after some with the dew on them 
 That s why I favor the camping project." 
 
 As they talked, a tall and slim young girl came 
 along the road and passed quickly into the house. 
 Then there was a knock at the door, and Dayton ad 
 mitted a servant with lamps. 
 
 The young fellow still lingered by the window. In 
 the fresh mud of the road and across a corner of the 
 soggy turf were the prints of the young girl s feet. 
 The toes, he idly observed, were narrow, the heels 
 somewhat pointed, and he said to himself that however 
 sequestered her path, and however primeval her heart, 
 she had shod her simplicity with the shoes of sophis 
 tication. 
 
 The mist crept up. The darkness crept down. Only 
 thii.gs near at hand revealed themselves. Here and 
 there in the turf near the foot-prints, were the heads 
 of earth-smelling blossoms. The spring was far ad 
 vanced. 
 
n, 
 
 A FEW hours before, these two well-dressed stran 
 gers had arrived at the little railway station of Beau- 
 deck, with vigor in their well-knit frames, and with a 
 serene hardihood of temper that was in nowise dis 
 turbed by the doubtful question of their immediate 
 lodgings. 
 
 They were the only passengers, but the wonder was 
 not at the smallness of their number, but at the fact 
 that so desolate a terminus should be treated as a possi 
 bly objective point for discriminating travelers. Mount 
 ains rose on every side, and only an ox-team, lumber 
 ing down the declivity of an ancient covered bridge, 
 betrayed a probable habitation of the valley. The 
 small station-house, resembling a powder-magazine, 
 was bare and empty, and as they stood upon the plat 
 form, looking across the turbid little river, even the 
 train which brought them, consisting of an engine and 
 caboose, backed away round the hills with a pro 
 longed hoot of its shrill whistle, indicative of derisive 
 joy at thus leaving them in a trap like those of their 
 own construction. 
 
 " Which way is the village ? " asked the younger, 
 after taking a brief survey of the lonely situation. 
 
 " My dear fellow," answered Dayton, " this is it. 
 Y"ou re in it now." 
 
8 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Then, good heaven, which way is the country ! " 
 he rejoined. And with a short suggestion of his sense 
 of humor, Dayton led the way back along the track, 
 from beneath whose unballasted ties the water oozed 
 toward the bridge in which the dust lay thick as the 
 mud without. 
 
 Coming thence upon a highway bordered on one 
 side by sycamores and on the other by foot-hills, they 
 had proceeded something like half a mile, when they 
 were approached by a slight gentleman, well buttoned 
 up in a beaver coat which shone in spots. He wore a 
 tuft of gray beard on his chin, and about his mouth 
 were grave depressions which had been dimples when 
 he was younger, and might be so designated still when 
 he smiled, though in his sober moments they were but 
 tokens of the hollowness of things grown old. He had 
 mild blue eyes, and a manner in which great geniality 
 struggled with a diffidence not wholly surmountable. 
 His movements were nervously quick, as, descending 
 from a smart road-wagon, he advanced toward Dayton 
 with outstretched palm. 
 
 " Ah, glad to see you," he said, changing from a dull 
 to a brighter red. " Was on my way over," indicating 
 the station. " I m late, or more probably the train s 
 early, comes in most any time. We are looking for 
 you, told my wife you d be along to-day. You never 
 met my wife. She don t get about much. The men 
 all here two hundred of them ; came in on a gravel 
 train. Everything ready. And this ? " he added, tak 
 ing the younger man s hand in one of his while he 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLEU. 
 
 rested the other on his shoulder and looked question- 
 ingly at Dayton. 
 
 " Is my friend Nathan Halstead. Mr. Guerrin," an 
 swered Dayton. 
 
 " Glad to see you too, sir," Mr. Guerrin went on, 
 still holding him by the hand and forearm. " Under 
 stood there would be two of you ; told my wife so. 
 This is my wagon. I ve just driven up from the falls, 
 
 a good twelve miles. Get in, both of you. Place 
 almost in sight." 
 
 " Thank you, but " began Dayton. 
 
 " Get in and we 11 talk about it. Ground s damp/ 
 pursued Mr. Guerrin, and lifting one leg across the 
 knee of the other, he looked for illustration at the sole 
 of his boot. " I calculated to take care of you while 
 you re here, with your indulgence," he continued. 
 " Big house, not many in it. Not here much of the 
 time myself ; too much doing at the falls, but when 
 I m up would like to talk it over with you. You re 
 in the country now, you know no hotel. You will 
 have to take quarters where you find em. It s five 
 o clock ; nearly supper time. "We have dinner at six, 
 
 call it supper to please the Misses Desborough, 
 dinner at six too irregular, you know," and he nodded 
 with a smile as one who knew an easy path around 
 rough places. " Find things much changed, eh ? " 
 
 " We were on our way to the Center, there is a 
 j lace they call the Center ? " Dayton began with one 
 hand on the wagon, xeady to mount. " If you will be 
 so kind as to take us there." 
 
10 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " What for ? A straw-stack ? They are the only 
 edgings left." 
 
 " Nothing so luxurious as that," said Ilalstead. 
 
 O 
 
 " We Ve talked of a tent of anything of camp 
 ing out." 
 
 Mr. Guerrin untied a silk bandana that was wound 
 about his neck and looked curiously from one to the 
 other. Then catching something of Halstead s rejuve 
 nating smile, " Not in Beaudeck," he said with de 
 cision ; and nodding in the direction of Dayton, he 
 added, " He don t count much on his friends, I take 
 it." 
 
 The house to which they were thus rapidly and un 
 expectedly driven was one owned and occupied by the 
 ancient family of Desboroughs, and but recently, as 
 one might say, and perhaps incongruously invaded in 
 a matrimonial way by the hospitable gentleman who 
 was now doing its honors. It was a large house 
 large, respectable, and embowered, with huge wings on 
 either side, spread as if ready for flight. The Des 
 boroughs had always made every preparation for flight, 
 tirst from English officers, then from hostile red men, 
 then from a too great security which was also ob- 
 "curity ; but this flight they had never taken. They 
 were like a big bird which fails to carry out its eagle 
 intentions, and grows old and inactive on the spot 
 where it built its first nest. 
 
 Across the front of the house and across each wins 
 
 o 
 
 were columned porches facing in three directions and 
 with three tiers of steps leading down to the yard. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 11 
 
 The wings were each a single story, but tho fluted col 
 umns of the fa$ade reached past the upper windows 
 and upheld the gable of the roof. It was painted gray, 
 and its shingles curled up under the elms. 
 
 A family tree heavily laden with Desboroughs huug 
 in the wide front hall, and portraits of their soldiers 
 and their missionaries looked darkly down from the 
 paneled walls. High, straight-backed chairs were ar 
 ranged against the wainscoting; flowers were in the 
 windows, and the stairway, wound upward past a win 
 dow, also filled with flowers. It was a house to lend 
 character even to frivolous inmates. But its inmates 
 were not frivolous. They were still as in the begin 
 ning, smooth-browed and grave, and since the days of 
 Cromwell had laid claims to distinction. Their father 
 was the great Desborough who fled from England after 
 the Restoration, owing to his assistance in the death of 
 Charles the First ; and the fact that in the intentions 
 of the monarchists he was beheaded, quartered, and 
 burned in pitch at Charing Cross, did not prevent his 
 establishing a family in the wilds of America, where 
 instead of killing kings they engaged in the no less 
 hazardous occupation of growing up with the country 
 and endeavoring to convert the Pokanokets. 
 
 They were a very different family from the unheroic 
 Guerrins, who manufactured countless buttons in an 
 adjoining village, and the alliance between their young 
 est member and the head of the button establishment 
 liad not, even after many years, entirely lost a certain 
 incongruity. But then, perhaps, any marriage with 
 
12 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 any Desborough would in itself, at any time, have 
 seemed slightly incongruous. 
 
 The two young men, engineers by profession, who 
 had thus been turned from their purpose by the button 
 manufacturer, were shown with brief ceremony into 
 the large and heavily furnished Desborough parlor, 
 where they were shortly joined by three gentlewomen 
 of about the same age and bearing close resemblance 
 to each other. 
 
 These gentlewomen were plainly by custom tolerant 
 of such freaks on the part of the nominal head of 
 their household, and lent themselves with resignation, 
 if not with willful pleasure, to his schemes of enter 
 tainment. Two of them bowed a trifle stiffly, gauging 
 as far as possible in an instantaneous survey the sin 
 cerity of their welcome, but the other, apparently less 
 fearful that cordiality might do violence to her con 
 science, extended a soft hand to the new-comers whose 
 acquaintance she was invited to make. Her features 
 were long and straight, and her composure was that 
 of a person in whom the seriousness of life precluded 
 a vain self-consciousness. 
 
 " My husband frequently brings strangers home with 
 him," she said, addressing Dayton in a soft, monoto 
 nous voice. " They are about the only ones we see. 
 We live very quietly here. Too quietly, he thinks. 
 He is a quiet man himself, but he likes talkers. Per 
 haps you are a talker." 
 
 Dayton seated himself in a straight-backed chair in 
 stead of the low upholstered one offered him, and 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 13 
 
 shook his head at expectations so contrary to the fact. 
 " I am afraid not," he answered, regretfully. 
 
 " We were expecting you yesterday," she went on, 
 with the same monotonous composure. " You arc to 
 have the wing. My husband always want strangers 
 put in the north wing. He has a great many friends. 
 We don t know where he picks them up. The last 
 gentleman who came was from the west, Oswego, I 
 think. He was a starch man. He told us some very 
 interesting things. We think ourselves it is more in 
 teresting when people come. You are from Boston, I 
 believe." 
 
 " I can t exactly say I live there," said Dayton. " I 
 am at a loss to say where I am from, from one place 
 about as much as another." 
 
 To be addressed by a lady much older than himself, 
 who nicely blended distance with friendly overture, 
 was not without a certain charm to him, though it sel 
 dom failed inwardly to embarrass him. In fact, when 
 the attention of any woman was fixed upon him ex 
 clusively, the resources of his common imperturbable 
 strength seemed to take wings, and in the midst of his 
 polite reception of such favors he felt a little helpless. 
 
 " That is very strange," said Mrs. Guerrin with puz 
 zled earnestness. 
 
 " Oh, you must n t think from that," he said, has 
 tening to correct an adverse impression, " that I am 
 a deliberate renegade. It is my misfortune to have 
 claims on no locality." 
 
 " One has a claim on the place where one is born, 
 she answered conclusively. 
 
L4 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I m afraid my birthplace would n t know me," 
 said Dayton, moving his feet about on the much flow 
 ered and faded velvet of the carpet. " It was in South 
 America, among the Portuguese." 
 
 " That is very strange," repeated Mrs. Guerrin, with 
 faint disapproval. 
 
 " I can t lay claims to such a foreign spot as that, 
 you know, without seeming more astray than ever," 
 he went on still apologetically. " It s my business. 
 Another occupation would have fixed me somewhere." 
 
 Mrs. Guerrin picked up her knitting work, and held 
 it, without knitting, in her hands. We are very 
 much interested in your business," she said, giving up 
 the discussion of locality with one of such wild and 
 irrational habits. " It will be a very great change foi 
 us. The town won t be what it has been. Mr. Guer 
 rin has been very active in it. He thinks of it at 
 night. It is his pet scheme, and he has done a great 
 deal for it. We think sometimes he has done too much 
 for his own good." 
 
 " I hope not," answered Dayton, reassuringly. 
 
 " It seems thus far as if the road had only served to 
 take our people off. They have had a fever for the 
 prairie lands. Joseph Morgan was the last who went. 
 He was a very useful man, and one of his sons is in 
 India now, doing mission-work. When the people go 
 they go to the farthest places they can hear of. My 
 husband says when the road runs through others may 
 come in, but we are afraid they won t." 
 
 " It will be a great line," he declared. 
 
AN EARNKST TRIFLEB. 15 
 
 " Hannah calls it progress," said Mrs. Guerrin. " I 
 suppose it is." 
 
 Dayton looked with reverence at the person thus 
 referred to as holding advanced opinions, and at that 
 moment the dining-room door opened. 
 
 Preliminary to any movement in that direction, Mr. 
 Gtierrin hesitated and looked about him. " Where is 
 Rachel ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I m coining, father," some one answered, and there 
 entered with slight precipitation a slender, blooming 
 girl. She had her hat in her hand, and a brown set 
 ter followed at her heels. Going up to Mr. Guerrin 
 he took her head in his hands and kissed her, while the 
 elder women glanced up with a flutter of the eyelids. 
 She had their height, the same lack of self-conscious 
 ness, the same straightness of nose, the same contour 
 of face, but in the different expression she gave them 
 she seemed almost to make light of the family features. 
 She carried with confidence the bowed head of her 
 forefathers. She raised from time to time the ancestral 
 eyebrows. She allowed a restless light to shine in the 
 gray Desborough optics, and destroyed with a reckless 
 smile their careful gravity. 
 
 Dayton bowed as he was presented, a bow of proper 
 depth and deference, but nevertheless a bow of blind 
 indifference, the bow of one who expected nothing 
 of the new acquaintance, of one introduced to no 
 new impressions. There was in his quiet glance no 
 recognition of her fairness, and he immediately went 
 on talking with her mother. 
 
16 . AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Halstead, also, in his turn, made a bow of proper 
 depth and deference, a quiet bow accompanied by a 
 quiet glance ; but by the tune his eyes had fairly made 
 their delicate observations, she was connected in his 
 mind with the freshness of the spring, and the on 
 coming warmth of the summer. 
 
 " My daughter," Mr. Guerrin had stated, and " These 
 are the gentlemen of whom I told you." 
 
 " You are to blow up our hills," said Rachel with her 
 smile. 
 
 " If you wish," murmured Halstead, with such di 
 rectness as struck three of them, at least, as of tremen 
 dous import. 
 
 Mr. Guerrin had, indeed, been somewhat surprised 
 when he surveyed at his leisure the young fellow whom 
 Dayton had brought with him. He was not what might 
 be expected ; younger, lighter, easier, more pictur 
 esque ; the sort of a fellow to look for in a drawing- 
 room, not in a railroad corps, roughing it in the mount 
 ains. He did not remember ever to have met any one 
 like him, but he shook him by the hand and had no 
 misgivings. 
 
 Not so the others. They looked at him closely, 
 askance, questioningly, and when he murmured, " If 
 you wish," they could almost have put their fingers 
 in their ears, so loudly and with such far reverberations 
 did it seem to ring. 
 
 u Who is this Mr. Halstead ? " asked Miss Hannah 
 later, coming into the sitting room with a basket piled 
 high with underwear. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 17 
 
 " That is not quite clear yet " answered Mr. Guerrin, 
 turning, with his hands behind him, and facing the only 
 tribunal of practical consequence to him. " He came 
 with Dayton. Dayton is very reliable. He seems a 
 clever sort of young man." 
 
 " He is too clever, too everything," she said, draw 
 ing to its distant end her thread of darning cotton. 
 
 "All the more reason why you ought to like him, 
 Hannah," he returned, eagerly seizing the thought. 
 
 " Hannah may like him, and still not think he will 
 do good here," began the elder Miss Desborough. 
 
 " There is Rachel," suggested Miss Hannah, deli 
 cately. 
 
 " Oh, it s Rachel, is it?" he cried, the light break 
 ing in upon him. " I can make it right with Rachel. 
 She 11 treat him well." 
 
 The youth under discussion had in reality a good 
 though slight figure, and a fine head, well set on his 
 shoulders. One of his white teeth was broken ; there 
 were two vertical lines in the middle of his forehead, 
 and he was slightly near-sighted ; but those who knew 
 him thought him enhanced by these as well as more 
 serious defects. Wherever there was a flaw in him 
 there also was an added charm. His faults were the 
 most becoming faults of which youth could be guilty, 
 and the man or the woman had yet to be found who 
 would not forgive him his graceful trespasses. A 
 commercial friend of his had once frowned upon him 
 with impatience and an angry sense of wrong, when 
 Halstead looked up with his disarming smile. " What- 
 2 
 
^8 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 ever fault you have to find with me," he said, " now is 
 the opportunity." 
 
 "It is a very good opportunity," said his friend 
 presently, as he turned away, " but I have no stock." 
 It was always so when they came to designate his short 
 comings. 
 
 Nothing, apparently, had ever gone deeply wrong 
 with him ; or if there had, and he was twenty-eight 
 which made it probable, he interposed so many in 
 terests between his present self and his memory of 
 disaster, that he seemed to have escaped mischances ; 
 there were, at least, no outward signs of that accumu 
 lation of disappointments which seems necessary to 
 give the soul at twenty-eight the proper consistency. 
 
 His vitality was always aglow. His sensibilities were 
 always abroad. When he walked out under the twink 
 ling heavens he observed both the stars above and the 
 cowslips below, and if the one were sometimes ob 
 scured, and if he sometimes knocked the head off the 
 other, he whistled and went on. He was remarkable 
 for always going on. Even when he stood momenta 
 rily in the attitude of a spectator, it was as a spectatoi 
 who could easily seize anything he wanted, if his ar 
 dor came to the assistance of his indifferent wishes. 
 
 His mother, a stately and ambitious woman, had sent 
 him to the Boston Institute of Technology, and then 
 to the Central School of Arts and Manufactures in 
 Paris, where he spent five years. Apart from his ac 
 quirements as a student, which, in truth, were not pres 
 tigious, she intended him to be something brilliant in 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 19 
 
 a social way. She also meant him to prosper in busi 
 ness, to be rich, to be talented, to be politic ; and he in 
 tended some day to indulge these whims of his mother. 
 His father, deceased, had been inclined toward prodi 
 gal living, spending much money in the greed of that 
 inclination, and the son developed a taste for pleasure 
 which as his father s son rendered him liable to suspi 
 cion. Once or twice he had fancied elegant women 
 older than himself, and it was said that for so young a 
 man he had made some extensive journey ings in pur 
 suit of these superb objects of his interest, beside 
 other things indicative of great strength of fancy. 
 
 On the other hand, he considered dissipation a sense 
 less pastime, and it must be admitted that he had a ca 
 pacity for application and a degree of uprightness that 
 might carry him through. 
 
 
m. 
 
 SEVERAL days later Dayton and Halstead again 
 found themselves together in the quarters now grown 
 familiar, Halstead having made himself acquainted 
 with even the most distant views, and Dayton having 
 more than once recruited his energy and lost sight of 
 the hills in chairs which seemed kindly disposed to ac 
 commodate themselves to every peculiarity of the hu 
 man back. They had been days of unusual exertion, 
 and while each had kept flowing a small current of 
 lighter thoughts, they had been deterred by certain un 
 foreseen eccentricities in those currents from a free 
 interchange of impressions. 
 
 Halstead on this occasion was seated by a table near 
 the window, endeavoring to catch the last rays of light 
 upon borne sheets of card-board which he was system 
 atically defacing, when Dayton came wandering in from 
 the side piazza, with the look of one from whom the 
 lethargy had recently been shaken. He prepared the 
 lamp ready for lighting, arranged some news and other 
 papers, placed advantageously for the light one of the 
 comfortable and reverie-breeding receptacles for his per 
 son, and then as if these preparations for the evening 
 were slightly in advance of the evening itself, or as it 
 he were in no mood for immediate subsidence, paused on 
 his way for a match and squared himself upon the rug 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 2] 
 
 u The young lady here is something unusual for this 
 locality, is n t she?" he began as if it were the Qrst 
 time the subject had been mentioned. " Have you 
 seen much of her ? " 
 
 " You have looked at her, finally, have you ? " said 
 Halstead, adding some corrective touches to the way 
 ward lines upon his paper. 
 
 " I have looked at her, yes, perhaps not finally," 
 returned Dayton. 
 
 Halstead glanced up, suspending his implement mid 
 way between his eye and card-board, and suppressing 
 a whistle, not to express too rude a surprise. Then 
 catching his comrade s uncommon and unbusiness-like 
 air he bent to his work again, to hide his impudent in 
 sight. 
 
 "Have you talked with her much?" Dayton k- 
 quired. 
 
 " No, scarcely at all in fact." 
 
 " I supposed you would know her well by this time. 
 We have been here three days, man ! " 
 
 " I don t. You Ve begun it ! " 
 
 " Begun what ? " 
 
 " Her acquaintance. If you make it, it opens that 
 pasture to the rest of us, does n t it ? " 
 
 Dayton laughed, a short, half-amused laugh. " It is 
 full of greenness," he returned. 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 " Not what you mean by greenness. I am no judge 
 of that, freshness, you know." 
 
 I dare say," repeated Halstead. 
 
22 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Come," said Dayton, " you would like her." 
 
 Halstead went on diligently with his unintelligible 
 draft. " Well ? " he said presently, without lifting his 
 glance. 
 
 " Well what ? " echoed Dayton. 
 
 " Go on if you are going to ? Where did you eec 
 her ? " 
 
 " Just now. We came down through the gorge over 
 yonder. There is a road through. I heard there was 
 a house up there we could get, and went up for a walk 
 to look at it. It s a good mile." 
 
 " Too far," said Halstead. 
 
 " Rather far," assented Dayton, resuming his usual 
 manner, " but it might do. It is in pretty good re 
 pair, only the windows broken. Four rooms. Good 
 spring and fine view. You could lie outside and apos 
 trophize the planets, I believe you like that sort of 
 thing. Rather breezy, but we won t object to breezes 
 soon." 
 
 " Never mind the house," interrupted his charming 
 listener dryly. 
 
 " Whoever lived there probably blew away," con 
 tinued Dayton. 
 
 " The pretty, hectic girls went the rest of the way 
 up/ conjectured Halstead, " and the men went west. 
 Go on with your story." 
 
 " That is all of it." 
 
 " What was she doing ? " 
 
 She seemed to be swinging her hat." 
 
 " She feels easier, apparently, in the company of 
 her hat." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 23 
 
 To this Dayton made no response. He glanced idly 
 about the room. He was still in no hurry to proceed 
 with his usual evening occupations. 
 
 " Confound it ! " exclaimed Halstead, " what did she 
 say?" 
 
 " She talked away. It is very pleasant out." 
 
 " What did you say then ? one is pretty sure to re> 
 member that." 
 
 " There was a foolish brook," answered Dayton, 
 getting a match but not striking it, " and I wanted 
 to help her across. I told her I had never known a 
 woman yet who did not fall in when an opportunity 
 presented itself. Fall in what? she said." 
 
 " What did you say to that ? " 
 
 " I told her, Whatever chasm there was. She 
 did n t let me help her." 
 
 " No wonder. She could n t very well after that, 
 you know. Was she alone ? " 
 
 " There were some ragamuffins with her. The Dan 
 Drueys she called them, it seems they live on the 
 place. She introduced them as if they were a pair 
 of grandees. They were driving some sheep, and we 
 walked down through the gorge together. It could n t 
 be helped." 
 
 Halstead rose abruptly with his hands full of pen 
 cils. " To think of you, my dear fellow," he cried 
 with mocking incredulity, " playing the part of a rustic. 
 I thought I knew you. What next ? Where are your 
 sheep, and what have you done with the shepherdess ? 
 It is beastly wet for driving sheep, eh ? " 
 
24 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " "What do you think of the house? " asked Dayton. 
 He wondered if he had been a trifle ridiculous. He 
 thought he might have been. Halstead s sense on such 
 points was unerring. 
 
 " I confess I have n t thought of it at all," he re 
 plied. " I have n t had time. Your subsequent bu 
 colic drove it out of my head. I imagined you had 
 given it up, you have been so long about it." 
 
 " I thought you did n t care for it," Dayton rejoined. 
 
 " I ? It & you ! " said Halstead going back to his 
 desk. 
 
 " The trouble with you," began Dayton after a time, 
 as if their thoughts in the dark pursued the same chan 
 nel, " is that you don t know how to make an acquaint 
 ance in the ordinary sense. It is one of the few things 
 that you do with excessive thoroughness ; the rest of 
 us are satisfied to be tolerably superficial in that line ! 
 If you are entertaining any such purpose don t say 
 I began it. There are some of your lighter pursuits 
 that I am proud to inaugurate, you know ; but when it 
 comes to a bit of skilled labor, like the making of an 
 acquaintance, on which you exercise your peculiar 
 gifts, you need n t point back at me. It is more than 
 I bargained for." 
 
 "You are too modest," said Halstead. 
 
 " Well, your conscience is clear," retorted the elder. 
 
 " You are right. I m not modest, I admit," cried 
 Halstead, and as he spoke he had a certain pleasant 
 sense of inextinguishable brightness. To be an easy 
 fellow, a clever fellow, a fellow who kept his lights 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLEK. 25 
 
 well burning, seemed to him too charming a destiny to 
 be muffled in modesty. 
 
 " When I think of some of your acquaintances, 
 began Dayton again, a little uncomfortably 
 
 " Don t think of them if it makes you uneasy, 
 what s the use ? " interrupted his frank assistant. And 
 to all appearances Dayton concluded to accept this 
 piece of cheerful advice. 
 
 He went on smoking, and there was a second long 
 interval of silence, till, completing a portion of his 
 drawing, Halstead held it out and carefully surveyed 
 it at arm s length. 
 
 " I suspect," he said slowly, and for a moment 
 Dayton thought he was reading from the card-board 
 "I suspect that the Desborough economy has bios 
 somed into an extravagance. Their sobriety has fer 
 mented. Their grays have grown rosy. Their tame- 
 ness is running a little wild. There is some life and 
 color in the last member of the family. It is amusing 
 to see her apprehensive elders look at her ; have you 
 noticed ? They are afraid she will ruffle their pro 
 found serenity. She whispers in the ears of the sleep 
 ers ! You are a sleeper ; ,you would better look out ; 
 she might begin talking to you ! I say it is n t much 
 she wants of us, is it ? " he went on, adding a line 
 here and there to his work. " We did not come to 
 seek her or to be entertained by her, and she scorns to 
 take advantage of the accident that brought us to her 
 house for lesser purposes. Perhaps she takes us for 
 her father s clerks ! " 
 
26 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 It was Dayton s turn now to whistle but he, too, for 
 bore. 
 
 " I thought you had taken her measurement," he 
 said, and then he composed himself among his papers, 
 running his unarrested eyes up and down the columns 
 
 The chances of conversation were at an end, and 
 after a time Halstead tipped back in his chair, and 
 with his hands clasped behind his neck looked out at 
 the gloaming. It was the hour when, for eighteen 
 years, he had turned from his multifarious occupations 
 to his multifarious pleasures, and the remission of the 
 latter filled him with a burdensome impatience at the 
 former. He looked out idly, leisurely at first, then 
 frowningly, restlessly. The white gate-way raised its 
 arms aloft and beckoned him in the gloom. The de 
 serted road urged him away. A gap in the horizon 
 offered him an easy transit. But these familiar ave 
 nues would but trick him into a deeper dullness. There 
 were no tickets taken at the gate-way, no flights of 
 steps, no gas-jets, no voices awaited him at the end of 
 (.he high-road, and no novelty of adventure in the 
 mountains ; and turning away from the raw country 
 scene with its raw depressions he sauntered out into 
 the main hall of the house. Through the open door 
 of the sitting-roorn came the smooth sound of desul 
 tory music ; and catching the air on his Eolian spirit 
 he presented himself at the threshold, and was bidden 
 to enter by Miss Hannah herself. 
 
 Mrs. Guerrin was there still engaged with her soft 
 blue wools ; Mr. Guerrin was deep in the wisdom oi 
 
AK EARNEST TRIFLER. 27 
 
 the " Springfield Republican," the great staple of his 
 reading ; Miss Desborough was going through an epis 
 tolary struggle with her desk upon her lap, and Rachel 
 was seated at the piano, on which much abused, domes 
 tic instrument she was playing, as to herself, somo 
 very undomestic arias. 
 
 It was to Miss Hannah that our young gentleman 
 first addressed himself in lively pantomime. Indeed, 
 from the very beginning and with wisdom greater than 
 he knew he had addressed himself largely and effect 
 ively in that direction, and it was not until her appro 
 bation seemed the chief object of his visit that he 
 permitted himself to go on to the piano. 
 
 Rachel continued her uninterrupted measures for 
 some moments, while Halstead stood near, listening 
 perhaps, perhaps merely waiting. Presently and al 
 most imperceptibly her fingers faltered, and the consist 
 ent melody seemed to scatter, to lose itself in chords 
 and disconnected notes ; then, from some disturbing 
 cause, it discomposed into the silence that originally 
 held it, and she looked up at him over the score. 
 
 " Are you a musician ? " she asked. 
 
 " It is rather a matter of by-gones," he replied, re 
 adjusting himself hi an attitude of fresh interest. " I 
 played the violin at one time in a college band ; and I 
 was once guilty of owning a guitar." 
 
 " There is a guitar somewhere about the house," 
 said Rachel. 
 
 "You should not tell me that as an isolated fact/ 
 tie rejoined. " You should add that you would resur 
 
28 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 reel it, and that we would throw open the windows and 
 have a summer garden. There is an immense amount 
 of music, among other things, in a summer garden." 
 
 " Is there ? I was never in one." 
 
 " Whatever one wants up here one must make, even 
 to an orchestra," he declared. " To-day I wanted a 
 rope, and we twisted it of straw ; one can get most 
 anything if one twists up the straws." 
 
 " I don t know about that," said Rachel, rising 
 But her doubt did not extend to the confident and 
 smiling young man who affirmed it, and compared with 
 whose knowledge her own hearsay seemed vapid and 
 valueless. 
 
 There was no particular reason why she should have 
 risen. It was an unreasonable impulse of which she 
 had no warning. It was the first time this strange, 
 young foreign native had sought and addressed her, 
 yet at the first available moment some struggling mo 
 tive in her sought to put an end to it. She wondered 
 greatly about him, and on some of her recent animated 
 strollings she had speculated upon that larger life 
 which he so ably epitomized. She expected to know 
 him well before the summer was over, but was con 
 scious of satisfaction in its delay, its slow beginning. 
 He looked at her with a certain bright deliberateness 
 which had in it no element of impertinence, yet in the 
 light of this experienced gaze she seemed singularly 
 ignorant and elementary ; and when he spoke to her 
 she felt that she could only help him in short and des 
 ultory sentences, since the smallness of her range when 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 29 
 
 compared with his extensive familiarity, must mako 
 wide silences between them. Perhaps it was in antici 
 pation of some such coming silence that she so sud 
 denly broke off their brief dialogue, and rising, hesi 
 tated. 
 
 "How is the road, Halstead?" asked Mr. Guerrin, 
 hearing the stir from behind the " Republican." And 
 Halstead advancing, explained to him some of their 
 engineering difficulties ; while Rachel going over to 
 the windows dropped the damask curtains as if the 
 spreading of their crimson arabesques had been the 
 duty which she found it impossible longer to post 
 pone. 
 
 " It s heavy work, heavy work, no doubt about that," 
 Baid Mr. Guerrin shortly, rubbing a thin hand over 
 his sharp knee, " but there is nothing like work for a 
 young man." 
 
 " I suppose not," answered the young man lightly. 
 " It is what they all tell us. We have to come to it 
 ta self-defense. Life soon ceases to give us satisfac 
 tion gratuitously." 
 
 Rachel drew near again. Epigrams upon life had a 
 great attraction for her. She would have liked herself 
 to be able to make them. Whenever she heard one, 
 which was not often, her imagination took it up and 
 she tried to conceive the vivid and varied existence 
 condensed into that compact and portable form. Sha 
 had never seen any one who seemed himself such an 
 epigram as young Halstead, who had observed every 
 thing, and who had so well digested human-kind. If 
 
30 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 the princes of the " Arabian Nights " had been men- 
 tioned, she would have expected him to twist his rnus> 
 tache and say, "Ah, yes, I know them; once when 
 in Arabia " Perhaps it was the Paris in him. She 
 had heard he had been in Paris. Parisians knew 
 everything ; smiled at everything. 
 
 Miss Hannah also raised her regular and inflexible 
 features. To her this light generalizing seemed to 
 imply years of anterior recreancy. It was as if he had 
 poked his nose in many crooked alleys and then com 
 ing out upon the highway, sniffed the air, exclaiming, 
 " How sweet it smells." 
 
 " It is n t to this life that one must look for satisfac 
 tion," she said, closing her lips upon the sentence as 
 if to suppress others that would follow in case of con 
 tradiction. 
 
 " True, madam," said Halstead, forestalling them 
 with a little bow. 
 
 " When I was in the senate," said Mr. Guerrin, 
 " every other man I met seemed to be a shirker. They 
 were all after soft places no work and good pay." 
 
 " You have been in the senate, then, sir ? " 
 
 "For a term only. From the manufacturing dis 
 trict. I took my family with me to Boston, but my 
 wife did not like it. She missed her sisters, and she 
 couldn t bear the people slipping about the hotels. 
 She thought they seemed guilty. I rather liked it 
 myself, but after all it did n t pay. Whatever you do, 
 eir, never go into politics. Better loaf, and be done 
 with it. It s cheaper and more certain." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 31 
 
 "Oh, I ve tried that!" said Halstead, with what 
 seemed to Miss Hannah to be the beginning of end 
 less confession. " I might, perhaps, be at it yet if it 
 were not for Dayton. He took me by the shoulders 
 and set me to work, without even saying By your 
 leave. Ihad begun to yawn when he came along* 
 He was right ; he is always right. I was a great idler. 
 He thinks a great deal of making money, Dayton does. 
 I don t know why. He don t care for it, much less 
 for what he can get with it. It s habit with him. He 
 is devoted to his profession, and it seems to enable him 
 to dispense with other pastimes. You see it isn t 
 merely that he desires a fortune ; he desires to make 
 it by high methods. He stubbornly does his best, 
 that s habit, too ! " 
 
 " It is a good one to fall into," remarked Miss Han 
 nah. 
 
 " I don t see how he comes by it," said Mrs. Guerrin. 
 " He has led a very irregular life. He told me himself 
 he was from South America. It seems to me, and I 
 am sure it must seem so to you, too, Hannah, that 
 good habits don t come with much moving about, 
 they are like moss, they don t .grow on rolling 
 stones." 
 
 " Oh, he is no rolling stone," cried Halstead. " He 
 has really been about very little. With the exception 
 of a few years in California, he has lived all his life 
 right around here, between the Atlantic and the Mis 
 sissippi. Besides, wherever he goes he has the same 
 general purpose. When he moves off with his valise 
 
32 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 in his hand, he is all there ; purpose, energy, outfit, 
 his darling, which is his profession, everything. He 
 leaves nothing. It is like the motion of the earth; 
 everything moves with him, so he feels no motion at 
 all. He is no rolling stone ! " 
 
 " I don t accuse him," said Mrs. Guerrin, bewildered 
 at the likeness between her accusation, if she had made 
 one, and its defense. " We all think highly of him, 
 ask Hannah, ask Mr. Guerrin. We think very highly 
 of him, indeed, only it is strange that with his draw 
 backs he is what he is. He " 
 
 Halstead, who had remained standing, happened to 
 look down at his boots, and his averted attention seemed 
 to relieve her from words that were suggested and vo 
 calized only through his appealing amiability, and she 
 stopped, paralyzed by the diminutive and door-yard 
 view that she was asked to take of a large part of the 
 Western Continent. 
 
 " I believe it was in California that he made his 
 reputation," said Mr. Guerrin, bringing the conversa 
 tion back to a safe basis. "Pie made a good one." 
 
 " Without a blotch," assented Halstead, " or rather 
 without a botch." 
 
 Again he looked at Rachel with his bright deliber 
 ate gaze. 
 
 " So perfect as that ? " she said, thinking something 
 was expected of her. 
 
 " Oh, it will do for me to find him perfect," he an 
 swered. " It becomes me. Men generally approve 
 him whether they like him or not, but they don t ex- 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 33 
 
 pect to foist their unqualified approbation upon those 
 from whom he himself don t ask or deserve it. lie 
 is n t a woman-hater, nor even a woman shunner. lie 
 is a woman iguorer. It would n t be fair with such a 
 defect as that to ask you to think him perfect, too. 
 My sister gets more responses from him than any one 
 I know. She is older than I, and married, and sJu> 
 talks to him upon some widely impersonal subject, like 
 the copper mines of Michigan, or the cockatoos of the 
 Molucca Islands. Copper mines are safe ; cockatoos 
 are safe. Nothing personal about that. He has been 
 known to go up there with me to dinner when we were 
 in Boston." 
 
 "You are friends, then, as well as business asso 
 ciates ? " conjectured Mr. Guerrin. 
 
 " Friends first and foremost. I am under obligations 
 to him. Perhaps I can repay him some day, but I 
 doubt it. He is obstinate ; he goes his own way, and 
 you can t do much for him. I would like to catch him 
 some time under stress for help, and clap a favor on 
 him before he knew it. You think you are doing 
 something for him, arid the first thing you know you 
 are over head and ears in his debt ; and he does n t 
 seem to intend it either. Just now, sir, he permits 
 himself to be under obligations to you, but in the end 
 you can t tell where you 11 be." 
 
 "You are mistaken," said Mr. Guerrin with more 
 positiveness than he generally ventured upon. " I am 
 under obligations to him now and all the time, with 
 long arrears of interest. Don t let me hear any more 
 
84 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 about that. All you have to do is to make yourselves 
 comfortable if you can." 
 
 "The wing," began his wife tentatively, "is cold in 
 winter, but it is generally considered pleasant in sum 
 mer." 
 
 " Delightful," assented Halstead. 
 
 " Then use it," said Miss Hannah, with the brevity 
 of one who assumed an almost tragic responsibility. 
 
 Bachel, under the lamp-light, continued her gentle 
 occupation, paying no further attention to the conver 
 sation or to the novel central figure, who from his posi 
 tion on the rug, which seemed to serve him as a sort of 
 stage, turned first to one and then to another of her 
 serious elders. He was not without a certain sense of 
 dramatic effect upon his audience, and that that effect 
 was not wholly unfavorable he felt assured from Miss 
 Hannah s dictum ; but what it might be upon the pas 
 sive embroiderer who was rather withdrawn from the 
 circle, he had scant means of knowing. " Never," he 
 said to himself as he went to his room, " was there 
 a girl so amply fathered and mothered, particularly 
 mothered. Three of them, heavens ! " 
 
IV. 
 
 IT was the first Sunday after their arrival in Beau- 
 deck and Halstead found the time rather heavy on his 
 hands. He spent the morning as he spent his evenings, 
 bending over the table on which lay the symbols of his 
 art ; and from this position he saw the remnant of the 
 historic Desboroughs go down the long walk to the 
 sound of bells, from the economy of whose resonance 
 he argued a corresponding frugality in the feast to 
 which they gave summons. He put his elbows on the 
 table and his pencil behind his ear, and presently there 
 floated to him on the hopeful morning air a despairing 
 psalm, to which incongruous entertainment he listened 
 with amused benevolence. It seemed to him that he 
 had never since his birth been caught in such profound 
 stillness as followed the singing of that psalm. He 
 even felt a difficulty in breathing it, and resorted to 
 drubbing as a precaution against asphyxia. 
 
 But it was in the afternoon that the length as well 
 &s the depth of the stillness most impressed him. He 
 went out upon the piazza and watched for a while the 
 holy sun in its slow progression from the zenith to the 
 mountain-tops, till blinded by that pastime he went 
 within and turned over some old volumes that crowded 
 the book-shelves in his room. Selecting one of the 
 lightest, he finally composed himself for literary im- 
 
36 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 provement, but, as was often the case with him, hiai 
 composure proved greater than his mental activity. 
 While the subject of the sketch was still a boy in Lon 
 don, Halstead s mind wandered, and when he came to, 
 as he expressed it, the obscure infant had grown to 
 eminent maturity. How he did it Nathan never knew. 
 He closed the book, and picked up his hat. 
 
 " This won t do," he said to Dayton as he passed him 
 on the piazza ; " we must go down to Boston another 
 Sunday." 
 
 " What s the matter ? " answered Dayton ; " I con 
 fess I don t see the attractions of that famous metrop 
 olis." 
 
 "Do as you please," rejoined the other, "I can t 
 stand a vacuum like this." 
 
 " Like what ? " said Dayton ; but Halstead did not 
 stop to make himself intelligible to such perverse sto 
 lidity. 
 
 Going down the steps, he followed the semicircular 
 road a short distance, looking down at himself as if his 
 interest were in the pleasing exercise of his legs ; then 
 he swung himself across the lawn; then turned at 
 right angles and went down toward the garden, gradu 
 ally losing his vivacious restlessness in a leisurely, Sun 
 day inquisitiveness. He had never been down in the 
 garden, and pausing midway among the herbs, lie 
 broke off a tansy leaf and looked back at the house. 
 There was no one at any of the windows, no one on 
 any of the porches. It stood there trustful and vacant ; 
 and feeling himself alone on unexplored territory, he 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 37 
 
 went on down the path walking with his hands behind 
 him as men will on Sunday. Behind the garden, which 
 was devoted to domestic and floral purposes, was an 
 orchard, to which he admitted himself through a hinge- 
 less gate, and again looked about him. 
 
 A number of lots had evidently been sold off the 
 place where it bordered on the village street, but it ex 
 tended back of these for a long, lean distance down the 
 river. In the angle thus formed and behind the town 
 lots was a low stone embankment, whose singular posi 
 tion attracted his loose-flying curiosity, and strolling in 
 that direction he came upon an old and populous grave 
 yard, long since disused and overgrown with vines and 
 brambles. It was drearily old. Time there was over 
 and eternity had set in. The grave-stones had ceased 
 to be painstaking and elegant, and had fallen into shift 
 less attitudes. The very ghosts were taking their ease, 
 and the grief, the anguish, the joy, the sense which 
 afflict mankind seemed distilled into mellow humor and 
 overhanging sunshine. Its manifest disuse, its sunny 
 neglect, its evident desire to bury its own remains 
 ander the sods and creepers ; its tottering monuments 
 once upright and firm as the low-lying Christians ; its 
 baby-stones sunken like mumble-the-pegs, all gave 
 the impression that death itself was so old and so obso 
 lete as to have lost its sting. Halstead hailed it as tke 
 secret spot from which emanated the stillness and so 
 lemnity which flooded the valley, and reviewed its tan 
 gles with the confidence of assured immortality. He 
 was fashioned according to the latest pattern of life, 
 
38 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 and he smiled at the quaintness of death. lie seemed 
 to himself to be talking aloud, so clearly did his 
 thoughts flow in that otherwise thoughtless silence. 
 
 One hand was on the branch of a crab-apple tree, and 
 he was about to mount to the higher level of the an 
 cient dead, when a daub of invisible blue such as nature 
 never paints upon her grave-yard walls, struck across 
 his eye. Pushing aside the brambles he discovered 
 that the foreign coloring was the dress of Miss Rachel 
 Desborough Guerrin. She was seated upon a monu 
 ment of slate that had fallen face downward upon the 
 wall. Her back was turned toward him, and her so 
 phisticated shoes projected a few inches into the spaces 
 of the orchard. Observing this, the trespasser be 
 hind her suddenly turned and went strolling off down 
 the river, wondering as he came within range of her 
 vision if her clear-sighted eyes were looking at him 
 over the top of her magazine. He was sure they were, 
 and also sure of a certain picturesqueness in his appear 
 ance as he followed a meandering path by the water s 
 edge. 
 
 But the channel of his inquisitiveness was changed, 
 and coming after a time to some marshy ground he re 
 traced his steps, and without any deliberate intention of 
 so doing turned again to the wall near the effective 
 smattering of blue. 
 
 " I supposed," he said, as he lifted his hat, " that 
 you had gone to some afternoon service. I heard more 
 bells. It seems I was mistaken." 
 
 "Yes," assented Miss Guerrin, smiling sufficiently 
 to lead him to make a further remark. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 39 
 
 " I congratulate you upon your absence," he went 
 on, still holding his hat, and pausing as if for a mere 
 momentary discontinuance of his strolling. 
 
 " It was the sunshine," explained Rachel, expecting 
 him to go. 
 
 " The true religion is in it," he waited to say. 
 
 " Oh, it was n t that," she answered ; " I did n t ana 
 lyze it to better my excuse." 
 
 " I not only congratulate you," pursued Halstead, 
 " I congratulate myself too. You look so harmonious, 
 you make one ashamed of one s distempers." 
 
 " Did you have a distemper ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You found it dull," suggested Miss Guerrin. 
 
 " Very," he replied, putting on his hat. 
 
 " You will get used to it," she declared. 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 " You should rather hope you would. We are all 
 used to it." 
 
 " Should I ? " he inquired, coming forward and lean 
 ing against the wall. 
 
 " Then it would n t seem dull any more." 
 
 " What would prevent ? " 
 
 " You would begin to hear the chickens, for one 
 thing," she answered with an expression which puzzled 
 him. " They make it very lively." 
 
 " Happy day ! " exclaimed Halstead, half suspecting 
 her of wit. 
 
 " They would take the place in your ears of whistles 
 and omnibuses and the sounds of the streets," she went 
 
40 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 on. " It is really very noisy here. When the crick 
 ets and frogs begin, you can scarcely hear yourself 
 think." 
 
 " What do you do when it is the liveliest?" 
 
 " Oh, I am a part of it," she answered, " of the 
 buzzing and droning and croaking." 
 
 " And blooming," he added, looking straight aheaI 
 of him at the many mounds of many lengths. 
 
 She made no reply, apparently losing him altogether 
 in the sweep of the river, and he wished he had not 
 been so ready with his shallow compliment. He also 
 thought that if she too had lived within the sound of 
 the streets and had said, " Oh, I m a part of it, of 
 the bowing and smiling and acting," she could not have 
 done it with more charming grace. 
 
 " I imagine," he began again, " that it was n t alto 
 gether because of the sunshine, that you happened to be 
 here. Is n t it the least bit prosy yonder in your hal 
 lowed rendezvous ? The whole congregation sing alto, 
 eh ? Down here they don t. You like this better." 
 
 " Are we a congregation ? " she inquired. 
 
 " You and I and Deacon Mayflower, Concurrence 
 Primrose, and all the rest," he replied, as if reading the 
 names from the stones about them. " I did n t know 
 there were any grave-yards in America. I thought 
 they were all in Europe." 
 
 " I am a very good friend of all those people in 
 there," she said, indicating the abode of the obsolete. 
 
 "Are you? Well, their singing could never offend 
 any one." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 41 
 
 " They are my intimates," pursued the girl, keep 
 ing her eyes upon the mounds. " There is Hannah 
 Fletcher, who has been only nineteen since seventeen 
 hundred and eleven." 
 
 " Have you learned the art of remaining nineteen 
 for that length of time ? " 
 
 " I have missed my opportunity for that," she de 
 clared. 
 
 " Ah ! " observed Halstead. 
 
 " I am twenty-two. Is it proper to tell how old one 
 is?" 
 
 " If one is only twenty-two. We make distinc 
 tions." 
 
 " We ? " she repeated. 
 
 " We who do what is proper," answered the young 
 man. 
 
 " We think we do what is proper, too," said Rachel, 
 " but I fear our rules are different. We tell how old 
 we are till it gets to be terrible." 
 
 "You are a terrible family," returned Halstead. 
 " You have no respect for vanity. You make no al 
 lowance for youth. You endeavor to be always the 
 same wise age. You are good. We are proper. There 
 is a difference." 
 
 " I wonder if that is true," said Rachel. 
 
 " I am surprised that you should even wish to IB- 
 main nineteen," he continued. " If you would avoid 
 the twenties after the manner of your quiet friend 
 yonder, I am afraid you don t appreciate your advan 
 tages. Perhaps you are not getting the worth of your 
 time." 
 
42 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I did n t say that I wished it," replied the girl with 
 some reserve. 
 
 " Did you never think you would like to meet some 
 one who was absolutely living ? " he pursued. " Would 
 one of the present century be distasteful to you ? " 
 
 " To what century do you suppose I belong ? " 
 
 " I have no right to suppose anything about you," 
 said Halstead, raising his discriminating, humid eyes 
 from the boots, with whose type he had long been ac 
 quainted, to the face with whose type he acknowledged 
 himself a stranger. " I have been trying for days to 
 keep my suppositions away from you. My ignorance 
 of you is profound." 
 
 But Rachel did not seem inclined further to en 
 lighten him. 
 
 " Why did you say," she asked presently, " that you 
 hoped you would n t get used to it, to the dull 
 ness ? " 
 
 " I thought that implied accepting it with resignation, 
 partaking of it, in short," he answered. " I could n t 
 do that without a struggle, you know. I should look 
 about me. I should adopt some means, do something, 
 enjoy something. One only needs to be a little in 
 genious. You see I did n t endure it long as it was. 
 I came here. You must n t fear though that I am al 
 ways going to call upon you for relief " 
 
 " You would be too ingenious for that," she replied. 
 fc You would know that always would be too often for 
 success." 
 
 Halstead looked at her with astonishment which 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 43 
 
 was, perhaps, slightly patronizing, He thought her 
 remark exceeding pertinent, and wondered if she knew 
 how pertinent, or if it were one of the truths such as 
 fall from the mouths of babes and sucklings. 
 
 " I don t know how to take that," he said. " I 
 should n t wonder if you were clever." 
 
 " Oh, yes you would," protested Rachel, " you would 
 say to yourself, That can t be." 
 
 " Upon my word, I would n t. not now. I am 
 convinced. I suspect you have inherited the bright 
 ness extinguished below," and he nodded again toward 
 the populous inclosure. 
 
 " I wish I had," said the girl. 
 
 " What would you do with it ? " 
 
 " I would shine," she answered. 
 
 " Before men ? " added Halstead, half inquiringly, 
 half affirmatively. 
 
 Her idea, however, had not the definiteness he gave 
 it, and not knowing whether to accept or repel a sug 
 gestion capable of such varied import, she said noth 
 ing. He thought he had never seen a young woman 
 capable of such sudden and complete silences. She did 
 not even seem to be trying to say anything. Her 
 thoughts, he would have said, were going on unembar 
 rassed, without help or hindrance from without, and 
 about those thoughts he was still curious. 
 
 Are you going to let me remain in my ignorance ? " 
 he inquired, " or are you going to tell me what your 
 life has been like ? " 
 
 " Like nothing with which you are familiar," she re- 
 piied. 
 
44 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I am familiar with several varieties of life, lie 
 persisted. " Perhaps I could be made to understand." 
 
 " I don t doubt that," Rachel declared. She looked 
 down at his light mustache and at the cameo ring on 
 his finger, and again her imagination went off into the 
 spaces through which the smiling person before hei 
 had carelessly come. She peopled them with charm 
 ing figures, all rapidly gliding about. With exquisite 
 women nodding their acquiescent heads, with ambi 
 tious, quick-stepping men, with beggars, with drivers, 
 they were all drivers with buyers and sellers, 
 with loafers, with passengers, and in the motley assem 
 blage her interest made no marked distinctions. 
 
 " You have always lived here ? " asked Halstead, as 
 if to make the contrast greater. 
 
 " For generations." 
 
 He would have liked next to ask her where she got 
 her dresses and who sent her her hats, which becoming 
 articles seemed to have no possible connection with 
 Beaudeck ; but he contented himself with mute spec 
 ulation upon those important points. 
 
 " Except when I was away at school," she added 
 shortly. 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, " that is it. Were you iway 
 ong ? " 
 
 " The difference was not so great as you may sup 
 pose. It was very much like this, more so if any 
 thing. The house was larger. It was farther in the 
 country. From the top of the hill you could see only 
 hills. It was the country, everywhere the country 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 45 
 
 There was even a grave-yard across the road." Rachel 
 smiled. She seemed to be talking of herself in the 
 half-humorous spirit of a third person, and he felt that 
 he was being taken into her inner confidence. Theie 
 ivas an emptiness there which made him laugh. She 
 laughed too. She did n t know why. They seemed 
 to be putting their heads together over the very simple 
 record of a very simple person. 
 
 " I visited once in Indiana," she went on, " and once 
 in Iowa." 
 
 " My poor child ! " he interrupted. 
 
 " That was when I was very small," she continued, 
 taking no notice of his pity. " I was in Boston, too, 
 one winter, but we knew scarcely any one. When I 
 walked about among the shops I laughed to think how 
 green I was. It was all I could do to keep the proper 
 colors on the surface." 
 
 " There is no doubt about the propriety of the colors 
 on the surface," said Halstead, " art or nature, in 
 their perfection the resemblance is very close." And 
 again he looked away to give his speech a greater in 
 direction. 
 
 All the same it seemed to have the effect of check 
 ing Rachel s light confession, and there was another 
 pause. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Halstead shortly. " I 
 won t do that again. I meant it, but it offends perhaps 
 the the greenness underneath. If you were used to 
 it you would n t mind." 
 
 (< Then what is the use of getting used to it ? " she 
 inquired. 
 
46 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " You require a man to be more than honest," he re- , 
 turned. " I confess my standard has been much lo\ver. 
 I have n t always been even that. With you I 11 go 
 farther. I 11 be punctilious." 
 
 The afternoon sun struck athwart the crowded stones 
 and filled the sunken graves with shadows. It also 
 struck athwart the river, the garden, and the lithe fig 
 ure of Miss Guerrin, and Halstead with his arms 
 folded across the top of the wall, took into his now 
 appeased consciousness the various charming features 
 on which the sunshine slanted. He did not know when 
 he had been contented with so little. He was not even 
 smoking nor thinking of smoking. From somewhere 
 on the hills came the cries of sheep, and not a moment 
 of silence intervened between the successive bleats now 
 near and now far. The tender leaves of grass were 
 very green. A little breeze came along and rustled 
 the birches. A bumble-bee buzzed out of a tulip. A 
 plover whistled down among the water-grasses. 
 
 "Do you know," he began, "I like it here im 
 mensely. There is a perpetual lullaby crooning through 
 these valleys. The mountains for one s friends ; the 
 Bummer for one s sweetheart, it is delightful." 
 
 Rachel began to laugh. " To be sure," he added 
 catching at her meaning, " it is n t an hour since I 
 thought it tame, but that does n t prevent my liking it 
 now. To decry a thing one moment and like it the 
 aext is nothing unusual ; beside it has ceased to be 
 tame." 
 
 " I like it too," said Rachel, " except sometimes." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 47 
 
 " And why not sometimes ? " 
 
 " We seem so, so unnecessary, you know." 
 
 " That shows that you are self-seeking ; that you 
 have feeling; that you would like to be appreciated. 
 T would never have accused you of that. You will 
 luive to resort to the living. There is nothing, to my 
 notion, like the voice that says Come on, my friend." 
 
 " Come," said Rachel rising, " we must go back." 
 
 " Do you mean to say it then ? " 
 
 " Say what, sir?" 
 
 " Come on, my friend." 
 
 " I had not thought of it." 
 
 " I would like to insist upon the formula." 
 
 " I would never think," she said, " of taking the 
 lead like that, and calling back to you." 
 
 " Then, with your permission, I 11 do it myself," 
 and he held up his hands to lift her from the wall. 
 
 Halstead found Dayton just where he left him, and 
 on coming out of the inner room where he had been 
 washing the tansy off his hands (he was very partic 
 ular about his hands), he recounted in part his after 
 noon experience. He was in a royal good humor, and 
 although his royal good humors never betrayed them 
 selves aggressively, Dayton generally enjoyed his so 
 ciety best when his spirits were low. At their high 
 est, he felt like an alien, at their level he felt cheered, 
 entertained, but at their lowest, which was after all 
 but a slight recognition of the more serious thoughts 
 with which spirits are freighted, he felt drawn toward 
 him with a friendship which was perhaps the strongest 
 
48 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 attachment of his detached life. " God never made 
 but one Nathan Halstead," he once exclaimed, in an 
 ebullition of sentiment. To which Nathan, when his 
 sister repeated it, responded " No wonder He quit." 
 
 On this present occasion, his humor was so good as 
 to seem almost fantastic to the sober mind of his 
 friend. " Well," he began, " I let down the bars of 
 that pasture this afternoon, and went in, a good 
 ways in. The pasture you described as Miss Guer- 
 rin s acquaintance," he added, seeing the blankness 
 upon Dayton s face. " It is a delightfully rural spot, 
 no worn places, no hollows, no swamps. You get 
 in and you are in no hurry to get out again. Some 
 thing detains you. You have a fresh, leisurely feeling. 
 You feel like a boy up the creek on a Saturday. She 
 is more simple than I supposed, more so than you 
 would think from her make-up, particularly her shoes. 
 I am bound to believe from the style of her shoes, that 
 there is a bit of the boulevard in her intentions. She 
 knows nobody. She loves the weather. She listens 
 to the chickens, the frogs, and the crickets. But back 
 of it all I am bound to believe she quietly craves our 
 monstrous amusements. She looks like it. She smiles 
 like it. Her profile alone would make it impossible 
 for her to be happy in obscurity. When she projects 
 it on the vision of a feeble man like me, he is afraid. 
 I think she must have bent her full face upon you the 
 day you drove the sheep; if I remember rightly you 
 were not intimidated. I talked to her for an hour, 
 and, unlike you, I remember what she said. She said 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 49 
 
 she, was twenty-two. She said she haJ been away at 
 school. She said she would like to shine. She had on 
 a hat that came over her eyes, and a blue flannel dress." 
 
 " You should tell all that to her mother," said Day 
 ton, without looking up. 
 
 "Or lo her aunts. There is always a perspective of 
 aunts agreed Ilalstead. 
 
 " But whatever you do," the young fellow rambled 
 on in his original tone, " you must n t bow and pay 
 her compliments. She does n t know what to do with 
 pretty speeches like most of her sisters. I tried it, 
 naturally enough, and she rejected them with silence. 
 I tell you that you may avoid a like profanity." 
 
 " You need n t put your remarks in the form of ad 
 vice, unless you mean to follow it yourself," interpo 
 lated Dayton. 
 
 "You said you had looked at her, but perhaps not 
 finally," returned his comrade. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Dayton, who was made strangely 
 uncomfortable by this pleasant recital. He remem 
 bered sitting once near a shrill clarionet, when he feit 
 the same way. "If it is profanity to discuss her per 
 sonal qualities in talking with her, had n t we better 
 drop her ? " 
 
 That very same evening, Halstead again saw her 
 upon the front piazza, where she had been walking up 
 and dDwn. 
 
 " You want to give a greater value to my time," 
 ghe said to him when he asked permission to join her. 
 
 " And to mine," he answered. " I am one of those 
 
50 AN EARNEST TRIFLEU. 
 
 gregarious mortals to whom solitude means time 
 wasted. You live in New England, you ought to 
 hate waste of any sort." 
 
 " I ought to hate it for myself, but to encourage it 
 in my neighbors." . 
 
 " Do you mean to say, then, that solitude on my 
 part would be to your advantage ? " 
 
 " If I did I could not say it so well as that." 
 
 " But did you ? " 
 
 " What I really think," she said, slackening her pace 
 and putting her hands upon her elbows, " is that it 
 would be much to my advantage that you should not 
 be solitary. I would like to know the things that you 
 do." 
 
 " No you would n t," he answered. " I know some 
 things that I would rather not know myself, some 
 tolerably burdensome things. I am coming to you to 
 revive my ignorance. I have n t been so ignorant in 
 ten years as I was this afternoon." 
 
 " Ignorance is n t so so communicable," she re 
 joined, pausing at the end of the piazza. 
 
 "Yes it is," he gently insisted, raising one arm 
 against a pillar, " it is a feeling, a young, humble 
 sort of feeling." 
 
 Rachel raised her glance to his face and found him 
 slightly smiling, rather with his eyes than with his 
 mouth. She wondered why it was that in their con 
 versation they both so constantly smiled. "It is n t 
 ihat with me," she replied ; " . t is a greedy, hungry 
 feeling. I want to feed it." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 51 
 
 " Don t do it," he said. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Don t do it," he repeated. 
 
 " One would not expect you to feel humble and to 
 like it," said Rachel at length. 
 
 " Neither would one expect you to be rapacious," 
 be retorted. 
 
 " I am not, not always." 
 
 " Nor am I humble always, only when the sun 
 shines on grave-yard walls. Then I would like to be 
 a Puritan, a Puritan peasant. 
 
 " And when it goes down behind the hills," returned 
 Rachel with a wish born upon the instant, " I would 
 like to be a woman of the world." 
 
 " There are many different species of that beautiful 
 being," answered Halstead. 
 
 " Of course I would like to be the finest." 
 
 " It is down now," he cried, his affinity for women 
 of the world stealing over him. He looked through 
 the warm dusk at the bright horizon, and back again to 
 the face turned toward him with parted lips ; then 
 gathering a handful of the summer ethei he blew it 
 back toward the golden west with a careless, contem 
 plative air. "The world, if you had it," he said, 
 " might not please you more than so much atmos 
 phere." 
 
 " Oh, I have breathed miles upon miles of the at 
 mosphere," said Miss Rachel Guerrin. " I know the 
 pleasure of that ! " 
 
 " And I have been over miles upon miles of the 
 
52 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 aether territory, and know the pleasure of that. That 
 is why I envy you." 
 
 "You envy me for amusement," she answered 
 " That is where you show your ingenuity again." 
 
 " Upon my word ! " exclaimed the young man, 
 thinking how efficacious in this case his ingenuity was. 
 
 " You make me feel blank, unfurnished," the girl 
 Went on, surprised at her own communicativeness. " I 
 told you I was twenty-two, but on review I am only 
 eleven. I wish that a great deal had happened to me, 
 and that I had seen and known a great many people 
 and places, but I have n t. You see I have thought of 
 myself a great deal. Mine is n t much of an ambition, 
 of course," she added ; " but it seems to me that if one 
 is too comfortable to have an occupation which one 
 follows for dear life s sake, the next best thing is to be 
 very, very gay in a social way, to know a great 
 many people and places as you do." 
 
 " Don t put it in that way," said Halstead. " There 
 are only two classes of persons that it is worth while to 
 be. One is the women whom men conspire to lift 
 above all occupation for dear life s sake ; as you say ; 
 and the other the men with the ability to keep them 
 there." 
 
 " I wonder if that is true," said Rachel. 
 
 " Just as you like," answered Halstead. " Tt is a 
 matter of opinion. I give you mine. Meanwhile," 
 ho continued, "before you attain the full dimensions 
 of the resplendent, but perturbed being you desire to 
 be, I would like to learn the secret of your present se 
 renity." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 53 
 
 " For that you should go to aunt Hannah," she ad 
 vised. 
 
 He hesi;ated a moment, then laughed rather to him 
 self. " I believe I should," he declared. " I 11 go 
 now." 
 
 He went down the steps, and ascending the piazza 
 of the wing, walked its length, then retraced his steps 
 Dayton was within and he tapped upon the window. 
 
 " I believe," he said, " that I 11 go up and look at 
 that house. Which way is it ? " 
 
 " All right," answered Dayton, " I 11 go with you." 
 And the two friends started up the road together. 
 
 There was nothing said on the way about the object 
 of their journey, and it might have been supposed dur 
 ing the first quarter of an hour that they were a couple 
 of Turks in the mountains of Roumania with such 
 close interest did their conversation keep to the war 
 then in progress between the Sultan and the Emperor 
 of all the Russias. From this it branched off to the 
 management of the Suez Canal ; thence, using M. de 
 Lesseps as a conjunction, to the Grand Central Asiatic 
 Railway Society and the projected road between Oren 
 burg and Peshawur by way of Samarkand. Halstead, 
 slipping his arm in that of his chief with a virtuous 
 sense of carrying out a well-advised resolution, told 
 some anecdotes of the oil-wells on the Caspian Sea : 
 which Dayton followed with some peculiarities of the 
 river Ozus ; and when they came to the object of their 
 expedition they were still rambling over the Asiatic 
 steppes Through the dilapidated gate of their pro- 
 
54 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 posed residence they reentered once more the land of 
 the free and the home of the brave, and Halstead 
 boldly said he thought they might remove their effects 
 at once unless it was altogether too far from the 
 village, and did he, Dayton, suppose it would be pos 
 sible to find a cook. 
 
 Dayton produced a key, and they went through the 
 rooms of the lower floor, making an immense noise 
 through the dark recesses. 
 
 Halstead would have walked with a lighter tread, 
 and have spoken with a less tremendous voice, but his 
 companion was no such respecter of the musty silence. 
 He opened the door of the stair- way and shouted 
 through the reverberating passage that it was not worth 
 while to go into the attic, that the rooms below were 
 more than enough. 
 
 " It would be a great lark," echoed Nathan with an 
 irrepressible chill. And then lighting their cigars they 
 trudged back through the gorge. 
 
 When they were again in their room with the cur 
 tains drawn, Halstead put his hands behind him and 
 looked around, as in a gallery, at the antiquities on the 
 wall. " If we do stay," he finally observed, " we must 
 end tb.3 Cesnola Collection to our hostess in the fall " 
 
V. 
 
 EARLY each morning Dayton and Halstead went off 
 together to their bridges and tunnels, returning only 
 at night, or, as was frequently the case, not returning 
 for several days. There was some exceedingly heavy 
 work to be done in the vicinity of Beaudeck which bid 
 fair to detain them in that section for months to come. 
 
 The village itself, with its gangs of laborers, began 
 to look more like a mining station in Arizona, than a 
 respectable New England town ; but the sight of the 
 men as they tramped in ragged procession, was beauti 
 ful in the eyes of the hopeful townsmen. Great wag 
 ons, loaded with dynamite, passed mysteriously through 
 the streets in the dead of night, and at intervals during 
 the day, loud explosions ripped through the aged si 
 lence of the valley. livery where there was progress 
 and bustle. 
 
 At the Desborough place as elsewhere, a new and 
 livelier atmosphere was created, and a breeze fresh 
 from Boston seemed to be blowing through the house. 
 Rachel no longer carried a sense of loneliness around 
 with her, and never once felt that her youth was going 
 to waste. Although learning nothing new of her own 
 Knowledge, she felt that something was slowly happen 
 ing, something with great power to awaken and to 
 agitate. She no longer even cared to get beyond ner 
 
56 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 usual circumference ; and instead of going out into the 
 great unknown, she would close the valley at both 
 ends, lest some of its charm should ooze away. 
 
 During this time, she heard a great deal of worldly 
 talk, which kept a commotion in her veins, the sort 
 of commotion it seemed which went on in city thor 
 oughfares. When she went out upon the piazza, or 
 upon the lawn after tea, her presence seemed to con 
 jure another presence into the same vicinage ; and if 
 she stooped to look at a butterfly, or a lady-bird, she 
 was sure not to remain alone in her brief admira 
 tion of those fly-away objects ; even when she called 
 her dog he never came unaccompanied. She heard 
 Von Biilow compared with Liszt. She heard of the 
 Grand Opera in Paris, and the people who walked 
 in the foyer. She heard of George Sand and Alfred 
 de Musset. She heard of a steerage passenger who, 
 going ashore at the last moment for some forgotten 
 bundle of rags, was left by the departing ship, which 
 carried her seven little paddies to an unknown land. 
 She heard of a boot-black whose name was Alexan 
 der Von Humboldt ; and she heard of certain roulette 
 tables. " I only had ten dollars in the pool," Hal- 
 t tead said to her with a grimace, " and if I had won 
 I would have had a thousand. I call that doing pretty 
 well for me. It is as near as I ever came to a fine 
 speculation." 
 
 He told good and bad in the same tone, and with a 
 strange indifference to their boundary lines, as drawn 
 in Beaudeck ; and Rachel listened with wide eyes and 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 57 
 
 anappeased appetite. Now and then there were deep 
 rifts in the smiling surface of his meaning over which 
 she lightly skipped without looking down ; and now 
 and then there were subtle barbs which seemed to 
 aim at susceptibilities in her nature that had hitherto 
 been hidden in the dark 
 
 " There is n t much of me to know," she said to him 
 one day, " but there is a great deal to experiment 
 upon. I believe what you like best in me is A he visi 
 ble effect of your own wit." 
 
 " Never mind, 1 he said, " what I like best in you. 
 I hesitate to inquire. You are a very misleading per 
 son. By nature you are one thing ; by education an 
 other. You should forego one or the other, and stand 
 out clearly for what you are. You carry a watering- 
 pot and a trowel, but I suspect you of the deepest arts. 
 While you pretend to care immensely to hear of the 
 outside world, you and your garden together are ob 
 scuring what fragmentary memories I have. Is it 
 these fragrant stuffs, these infernal herbs, whose roots 
 you dig about ? I am losing both mind and ambi 
 tion. All I ask is to vegetate in your garden. The 
 other day, down at the junction, there came up to me 
 with outstretched hand a sleek fellow, with an eye 
 glass, and hair brushed back like one of Germany s 
 transcendental sons. I felt like saying, Who are 
 you ? Yet we were intimate in January. I am for 
 getting, I don t even remember what I am forgetting. 
 Those professions of yours are all humbug. You don t 
 care a marigold for Paris. You shrug your shoulders 
 
58 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 lit Boston. What you want is a disciple who finds re- 
 flections in hollyhocks, and takes pleasure in pastures ! 
 You want me to eat your poppies." 
 
 "I want nothing of the kind," quickly protested 
 Rachel. " Vegetate if you like, but don t accuse me 
 of arts that I have not, and would not have. I hate 
 arts." 
 
 " Now you speak like the holder of the watering- 
 pot," cried Halstead. " All women have arts." 
 
 "They don t willfully use them," she answered 
 warmly. 
 
 " That might come from the mouth of the watering- 
 pot itself. I think they do. You, for instance, with 
 yours, might do me good," he added gently. " The 
 countryman you create is better than the civilian that 
 was." 
 
 " I would not pretend to do you good. You are too 
 finished, too, what shall I say ? All the good that 
 could be done you was done long ago. It is n t with 
 you yourself I have to do. It is with what you have 
 seen, with what you have heard." 
 
 " Your argument," said Halstead, " is a little close 
 Do you think you can quite make the distinction, capa 
 ble as you are ? Do you mean to accept the parts and 
 repudiate the whole ? I am a mere man. You must 
 think well or ill of me, myself." 
 
 Rachel did not immediately answer. Then she 
 called her dog. " Here, Duke ! " she said. " Watch 
 this poor gentleman who has lost his mind. I am go 
 ing in the house." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 59 
 
 But Rachel did not remain in the house. She had 
 no fancy for the house, and a few evenings later found 
 her again raising her head among the sprays of the 
 garden. It was going to rain, and she looked about 
 her at the clouds. The air was moist and warm and 
 heavy. There was no dew and not much light. 
 
 The two engineers were upon the side piazza, smok 
 ing, reading, idling, and both from time to time looked 
 toward the lilacs and the peonies. Halstead frowned 
 over his paper, and the angry coal crept fast the length 
 of his cigar. Dayton read on. It seemed to the 
 younger man that before he could descend the piazza 
 steps he must first knock down his chief. Dayton s 
 presence was at times a most unpleasant protest, 
 none the less that he was ignorant of it. But on this 
 occasion he was not ignorant of it, for presently he 
 rose and looked directly at the figure moving about 
 among the intersecting paths. It seemed as if he 
 would say something if he could find words sufficient 
 ly exact. She had on no hat and was swinging her 
 hands in front of her, as she walked, with slow, in 
 audible claps. Even at that distance she was an at 
 tractive object. 
 
 Miss Rachel Guerrin was neither light nor dark. 
 When her nature was entirely in repose, which was not 
 often, her complexion was clear, almost pale ; and in the 
 multitudes of other times it depended entirely upon 
 what her emotions were, their natm-e, their extent. 
 She had a small head well poised upon her shoulders, 
 and the brown hair which grew thick about her fore- 
 
60 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 head had waves peculiar to itself. Her incomparable 
 profile, with the chin well up, suggested a nature in 
 search of the higher and more vigorous virtues ; but 
 her full face belonged to a less exacting and less 
 formed character, and the eager expressions chasing 
 each other across it betrayed those forces within which 
 conflict with our slight intelligence and give life its 
 sharpness. She looked about her with eyes that ap 
 parently wanted to see more than was presented to 
 a casual glance, in full confidence that she must see 
 much if her vision were nicely adjusted to the depths. 
 Perhaps after all her attractiveness was not due so 
 much to her features as to a certain completeness, a 
 succinct individuality and an air of appreciative atten 
 tion which she bestowed upon the world in passing. 
 She dressed well, perhaps a trifle severely, since there 
 was about her no floating, diaphanous drapery, and no 
 random curls or ribbons. Her figure as yet was rather 
 thin, and it was doubtful if it would ever round to the 
 fullness of the woman serene. Halstead thought not. 
 
 Dayton stared a few moments rubbing his chin, then, 
 as if the desired words did not come to him, turned on 
 his heel and started towards the door. 
 
 " You need n t take yourself in," said Halstead look 
 ing* up. " I would go just as soon with you gaping 
 after me." 
 
 " Why don t you go, if you are going ? " retorted 
 Dayton. " I m not your keeper. I hate to feel that 
 you suspect me of spying after you with secret re 
 proach. I m not your keeper. It s no affair of mine- 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. <51 
 
 If she chooses to show you all the ants and fish-worms 
 about the premises by all means let her. No doubt 
 she likes it. So do you. So do I ; but it irritates me 
 to be a third party, an on-looker, whom you suspect of 
 Biieaking opposition. Ten chances to one she is ex 
 pecting you now while you sit there arguing. My dear 
 fellow, I am not braced on the side of old women and 
 strait-jackets. She waits. Maud waits. The red rose 
 cries, the white rose weeps, and the black bat, night, 
 does something else. Why are you here ? Why don t 
 you travel ? I believe in you. My faith could move 
 mountains. Bestir yourself. I beg of you go, if you 
 are going." 
 
 " You think," said Halstead, " that the attentions of 
 a young man of society are best bestowed upon those 
 accustomed to their happy inconsequence. You think 
 that I am turning the hospitality of your friends into 
 a diversion for myself." 
 
 " I don t if you don t," returned Dayton. " You 
 know yourself best." 
 
 " Sometimes I fancy that she is coolly studying me," 
 Halstead rejoined. " You may be sure she gets as 
 much diversion as she gives." 
 
 " I don t doubt that." 
 
 " What is it you doubt, then ? I have a conscience, 
 you are too serious." 
 
 " You are losing time," said Dayton. " Miss Gu<;r- 
 i-in, I think, has found a beetle." And nodding toward 
 the stooping figure in the garden, he turned and went 
 within. 
 
62 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Halstead drew his hat down over his eyes, passed 
 down the steps, and a moment later was bowing before 
 the young woman under discussion. 
 
 About an hour afterward, when their walk had led 
 them down to the river and back again to a seat 
 between two beeches, Halstead, moved perhaps by 
 thoughts which Dayton suggested, aided by contrition 
 for sundry handsome speeches, of more recent date, 
 suddenly broke off his discourse, and began again in a 
 dry, light tone. 
 
 " I don t know," he said, " what I am running on 
 like this for. I don t know why I came out here, 
 where the fire-flies kindle the air. I don t know why, 
 when I get here, my tongue should run as it does, or 
 why you should sit listening there, with that ingenuous 
 air. What are we doing it for, do you know ? And 
 why did you tie that pictorial handkerchief around 
 your head ? " 
 
 " Why ! " said Rachel smiling as one whose only 
 thought was entertainment, " there is nothing you like 
 BO well as talking, don t I listen to suit you." 
 
 " I have taxed you a great deal of late," Halstead 
 went on, in the same light accent, " and you have 
 borne it with great patience, commendable patience. 
 But there comes a time in every acquaintance, you 
 know, when the stream of expression ceases, and the 
 vacuity that is behind it all is allowed to be frankly 
 apparent. It may please you to hear that no man s 
 ideas hold out for more than six months, and that after 
 that he respects the peace of his friend, and begins to 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 63 
 
 babble his say over again to strangers. You are uot 
 going ? " 
 
 " If you can find a period," replied the girl, who 
 had risen. " I don t want to seem rude." 
 
 " It is now some weeks since I met you," said Hal- 
 stead, retaining his seat, and taking no notice of the 
 opportunity afforded for his verbal activity to give 
 place to physical exercise, " and the more you let me 
 talk to you, the sooner you will be through with me. 
 I don t know that you will gain anything by econ 
 omy. Words, you know with me, are what bung-holes 
 are to wine barrels, and when they have served their 
 momentary purpose, the barrel is empty. Each time 
 it is refilled it is with a new vintage. I hope you 
 don t think that they have meaning ! that they are 
 part and parcel of the permanent substance of the 
 man. I have no permanent substance, Miss Rachel 
 Desborough Guerrin, companion of fire-flies, mother of 
 marigolds, and keeper of the dead ! I talk seriously 
 when I am lightest ; and lightly when I am most seri 
 ous, idly at all times." 
 
 "You need not tell me that. You must* not be 
 afraid that I will find undue meaning in you." 
 
 " Now I am afraid," he said. 
 
 " Sir," said Rachel, " you are spoiling my honey 
 suckle." 
 
 " Once," Halstead went on, " I knew a woman who 
 had eyes like you, and who peered about her as you do, 
 as if she would find some deeper meaning than lay 
 upon the surface. She looked at me like that, like 
 
04 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 you, but with eyes less innocent. She was what you 
 want to be, and can t (I assure you that you can t, 
 it isn t in you), and what little meaning there was 
 in me, she found and took away with her. The only 
 needle in the hay-stack, she has sticking in her bosom. 
 You are going then? don t go. See what a night 
 this is. I hear a hawk." 
 
 " I must. It is getting late." 
 
 "You think me very light," he conjectured with 
 sudden compunction. 
 
 " So light," she agreed, after a pause which sought 
 in vain for contradiction, " that the shadows falling 
 now must seem heavy to you," and for a moment 
 she seemed to see through him into the air, scarcely 
 less thin beyond. 
 
 " Come, I like that ! " 
 
 " It is time we were out of them." 
 
 " Would you leave me here, your guest ? How 
 swift the river is ! " 
 
 " We should not have come, perhaps," she said, a 
 little doubtfully, 
 
 " Not timid, Juliet, in this familiar old garden ? 
 Your father s garden ! Your mother showed me the 
 other day a chair, grown fast high up in an apple-tree, 
 which she said was near the ground when you used 
 to sit in it. I should say you knew every twig, and 
 every goblin here, except me. Am I the goblin 
 that sends you to the house ? If I were a bouncer 
 now, like Dayton, you might go." 
 
 " If you were Mr. Dayton I would stay. It is n t 
 really late. I don t care for that." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 65 
 
 " What ! have you been making up with Dayton ? 
 That can t be." 
 
 " Pie does n t talk to hear himself, you know." 
 
 " If anything could make him talk, it would be you. 
 He once grew eloquent about you. But he is dumb, 
 he is dumb. Dayton is a capital fellow. All the se 
 crets of his reticent heart doubtless do him honor. All 
 hi intentions do him honor too. He is very clear 
 about his intentions. Taking him through and through, 
 he is the most respectable man I ever knew." 
 
 " All your friends know that," said Rachel. 
 
 " But he would never be out here," Halstead re 
 sumed. " He shuts himself up and preserves his bal 
 ance. This is a bewildering place. Please sit down 
 again. I have no peace of mind while you stand like 
 that. I want to tell you that I am going to Boston 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I am going to Boston to-morrow." 
 
 " To stay ? " asked the girl, sitting down. 
 
 " For a time. Tell me, in politeness, you are sorry 
 I am going and will be glad when I return." 
 
 " Must you go? " 
 
 " I am a restless fellow." 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " Besides I am sent. You won t say it then ? You 
 are not like me. You are close-mouthed. You are in 
 different." 
 
 " I may be different," she answered. " I am not in 
 different." 
 
 5 
 
66 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I am sorry to leave," said Halstead. 
 
 " I wonder if that is true," said Rachel. 
 
 " You are always wondering if what I say is true ; 
 not offensively, but as if you were groping after a 
 standard more accurate than mine. Well, what do you 
 conclude? " 
 
 " All I ever knew or thought was true has turned to 
 wonder since you came," said Rachel lightly, smoothing 
 with both hands her ruffled hair. " When I quit won" 
 dering I will have a new set of thoughts. The wind is 
 stirring." 
 
 And she held out her hands, palms upward, to in 
 quire for the rain. 
 
 " What are you going to give me before I go ?" per 
 sisted the young man. " Some souvenir would be in 
 order. A ribbon or a hair-pin is neat. We are having, 
 you know, a sort of flirtation, and no flirtation is com 
 plete without at least an exchange of geranium leaves. 
 It is very touching. It fills to repletion the worldly 
 heart. I have known men and women by scores so 
 satisfied with a sprig of geranium that they never 
 craved anything more. If you had such a thing about 
 you, now " 
 
 " Come," cried Rachel. " It is beginning to rain. I 
 felt a drop on my hand." 
 
 " Give me that?" said Halstead with genuine thirst. 
 But Rachel gathered up her skirts and started back 
 along the walk. 
 
 There were lights moving about the door-yard as she 
 reached it, and Dayton, advancing from the region of 
 the stables, held a lantern aloft. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 67 
 
 " Halloa ! " cried Halstead, from behind. " What s 
 op?" 
 
 Dayton stopped, and the lantern illumined Rachel s 
 face with the silk bandana about her head. She 
 looked exceeding bright, restless, spirited. 
 
 " What s up ? " repeated Halstead. 
 
 " The horses got out," answered Dayton, dropping 
 the light. "I have been helping to turn them in. 
 They were tearing up the yard." 
 
 " I thought at first," said Nathan, " that you were 
 trying the Diogenes game.. 
 
 " What is the matter with the house ? " asked Rachel, 
 looking up at the dark front. " No lamps lighted." 
 
 " The ladies were called away. Did n t Halstead 
 tell you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Somebody lay sick with a fever. Perhaps Simon 
 Peter s wife s mother." 
 
 " That poor woman was buried ages ago," Rachel 
 observed. 
 
 " Ah, yes, I remember," he rejoined. " I heard the 
 bells." 
 
 But finely as he felt they were getting on, Halstead 
 almost wished that Rachel would receive his remarks 
 a little less as they were meant ; that she would answer 
 iu a way a little less light and bright ; that she would 
 be a little less unconscious ; and a little less unembar 
 rassed, a& he strolled with her about the garden in the 
 early evening. She did not seem to mind his presence 
 quite as it was to be presumed she would. 
 
VI. 
 
 A DAT or two after Halstead s departure, Dayton 
 received a letter from him, in which, after the prelimi 
 nary business matters, he said : 
 
 " My sister, Mrs. Sterling, with her family and some 
 of her friends, are looking about during this bumble-bee 
 weather for a retreat among the mountains, and hav 
 ing heard me in unguarded moments upon the subject 
 of the Pocumtuck and the scenery adjacent, think they 
 might be pleased in Beaudeck. My dear friend, for 
 give and help me ; together we may avert the inva 
 sion. 
 
 " They say, I believe, that the change would do 
 them good, they all need it. Young women, you 
 know, can evolve from the mystery they miscall their 
 health some physical excuse for any trip whatever, and 
 on the shortest possible notice. Their constitutions 
 are trained to it ; their well-being is and must be 
 synonymous with their pleasure. There is no doubt 
 about it ; go they must ; but, hist ! where ? By all 
 means, I think, to some noxious, sulphurous spring ; 
 to some beach washed by the kindly Atlantic for fash 
 ionable uses ; to some staring, sylvan resort where on 
 wide, white verandas they can enjoy their flounces, 
 their peopled solitude, and a blessed immunity from 
 active thought. Beaudeck you know is a trifle aus- 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 69 
 
 tere. Her streams may be limpid, her skies cerulean, 
 but she has a serious and searching air, and she throws 
 one back upon one s self in a way that would not be 
 tolerated in a watering-place. 
 
 " I have told them there was nc hotel there ; but 
 with perverse amiability they abominate hotels, and 
 beg me to ask you to find quarters for them at some 
 country house. I have told them, too, that they would 
 find no comforts and no amusements, but only to learn 
 that they have always been as averse to comfort and 
 amusement as to hotels. I have even told them that 
 since the days of King Philip s War, the country has 
 never been free from brandishing tomahawks, and that 
 the once frenzied people still put on their hats with a 
 sense of gratitude for crowns to cover. It was no go. 
 They are solidly in favor of the Indian, with all his 
 traditionary privileges. 
 
 <k I give it up. It is your turn now. There will be 
 six or seven in the party, children, nurses, and all, and 
 as they want to return with me, there is no time to 
 lose. Genial friends, of course, in Boston, genial 
 friends anywhere ; but what would they do off there 
 on the border, and how could we entertain them, till 
 frost relieved us ? Invention would fail. It is a tri 
 fling matter, but I am not in the mood. I am selfish. 
 I am narrow, narrow as the valley up yonder, 
 and I have no lodgings to let. 
 
 " My cousin Margaret Duncan is one of them, and 
 by her practical side one could preserve an undis 
 turbed } arallel for any number of summers ; but Miss 
 
70 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Mason is the other, you remember Miss Mason 
 Then Jim Meade and Mr. Sterling would, of course, 
 as in duty bound, occasionally appear. 
 
 "As your talents point in every direction rather 
 than toward finesse, let me suggest that you write im 
 mediately and say how it is, no possible accommoda 
 tions, and so on. I would be obliged to you, and you 
 may, beside, give thanks to yourself." 
 
 "When Dayton read this he straightened himself with 
 instant decision, and in that decision he coincided with 
 his friend. With women, Jared Dayton was exceed 
 ingly reluctant, and when their society was proposed 
 to him, he was apt to raise an averting hand and shake 
 his head. During the time Halstead had known him, 
 he had never known him extend to them other than 
 common civilities ; but what lay back of that time he 
 could not tell, and whether the restrictions that bound 
 him, were a matter of temperament, or the result of 
 dear experience, he could not even guess. Dayton 
 rarely talked of women. lie did not, in truth, even 
 cultivate thoughts of them. When by chance he was 
 thrown in their society, he appeared sufficiently well 
 not to come under the ban of even the most fastidious, 
 but he did not seek occasion to be alone with any one 
 of them. He was slow ; recently he had pronounced 
 himself slow to excess, unnecessarily slow, in 
 fernally slow. He had the manner of a man chiefly 
 intent upon minding his own business. He was as 
 earnest as if nature forbade him to look lightly upon 
 this grinding world, and as much at his ease as if he 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 71 
 
 expected to live in it always, and was making the best 
 of it. lie never rebelled. He never exulted. Appar 
 ently he had concluded that insensibility was the wiser 
 role. When a mere boy, the necessity of making 
 money had forced itself upon him with absoluteness, 
 and he had been endeavoring to make money ever 
 since, with vague and passionate intentions regarding 
 the time subsequent to fortune. But he was thirty-six, 
 and his fortune was not yet made. He had no time 
 for deviation. His eyes were fixed. His hand was 
 on the plow. He loved his profession silently, fer 
 vently. He was one-sided, developed only in the 
 direction of what was least sentimental and emotional. 
 In fact whatever touched his emotions seemed to have 
 ruinous designs upon his happiness, and he had a very 
 clear notion, born of a season in the past, and of cer 
 tain well-defined tendencies of his closeted being, that 
 that way storms lay. 
 
 Occasionally he envied young Halstead those traits 
 which signalized him : his ability to pursue to advan 
 tage several interests at once ; his social adroitness ; 
 the dexterity with which he created the opportunities 
 he wanted ; and that peculiar temper, constitution, or 
 whatever it was, that commanded such ready and warm 
 response. He envied him now the facility of his let 
 ter, and tried to imagine himself answering it with 
 equal ease, and to the desired effect. Either way, to 
 come or not to come, the idea of his personal interpo 
 sition, irritated him. Finally he read it again slowly, 
 and with greater care. " Mason ? Mason ? " he said. 
 That was the name." 
 
72 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 Then he made a brief statement of the contents of 
 the note, and asked, experimentally, if there was any 
 place in the vicinity where they took summer board 
 ers. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Hannah with great promptness, 
 such promptness as was calculated to remove indecis 
 ion ; " year before last a family stayed three months or 
 more at Mrs. Anderson s. That is the nearest place, 
 a mile, or thereby, np the north road. She is a 
 good woman, and she has a large house. I think she 
 would like the help. It would be a kindness. She 
 is a widow. "We know her through the church. Her 
 husband died of the consumption, they all do. She 
 has two boys who will have it too. To live among 
 those who have consumption makes people strange 
 and wistful. If your friends don t care where they 
 go, it would be well for them to go there. It would 
 be doing good. The rich and poor should fit together. 
 You might drive up there now ; the carryall is in 
 front. Perhaps Rachel will take you. Rachel ! " 
 
 " Certainly," said Rachel, wondering how she would 
 get through a drive alone with the august engineer, 
 but glad to be of service to one who asked so few 
 favors of his fellow-men. 
 
 Dayton hesitated, unprepaied to have his nebulous 
 plan thus framed and ready for instant execution. 
 Rachel stood before him with her hat. He bowed, 
 expressed his thanks ; and they started oflf together. 
 
 " Do you want these people to come ? " he asked, as 
 they settled back in their places on the front seat oi 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 73 
 
 the carryall, u because if you don t, we won t have them, 
 that is all. It would be easy. Just say the word. I 
 must tell you that Halstead does not care about it. 
 He said I was to tell them there was no room." 
 
 " But there is room," said Rachel ; " we won t do 
 that." 
 
 " There is no room if you don t want them. It ia 
 your territory." 
 
 " I would be ashamed not to want them," she an 
 swered. " Don t you want them ? " 
 
 " Yes ; on the whole I want them." 
 
 " You know them, then ? " 
 
 " Slightly." 
 
 And like them ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Sterling," he said, " is bright. Her husband 
 and brother are both my friends. Her circle is a 
 pleasant one to live in, if one has plenty of time." 
 
 " And the others ? " 
 
 " Miss Mason I have only seen once or twice." 
 
 " Where did you see her ? " 
 
 " At Mrs. Sterling s." 
 
 " Is she pretty ? " 
 
 " She is tall and pale ; taller than you, and very 
 much paler. She wears odd jewelry and stuffs from 
 India." 
 
 " She is stylish then." 
 
 Probably." 
 
 " But that is not saying that she is pretty." 
 
 " I have heard her called striking." 
 
 " Then she is more than pretty." 
 
74 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " More, and less. She has fine manners. She 
 holds her head high." 
 
 " Young, is she ? " said Rachel, bending down and 
 brushing something from her dress. 
 
 " She may be twenty -four or five, perhaps twenty- 
 four or five hundred." 
 
 " That is n t very close guessing. Which does she 
 seem to be ? " 
 
 " Her lace is young." 
 
 " She can t very well be older than her face." 
 
 " Oh yes, she can. Her smile belongs to a woman 
 of the Roman Empire in its decline. It is very strange 
 and melancholy. It distorts her features." 
 
 " Perhaps her health is poor. I have seen women 
 look like that when they had poor health." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Dayton ; " I never heard it men 
 tioned." 
 
 " Does she seem well ? " 
 
 " She goes a great deal." 
 
 " Goes where ? " 
 
 " To the opera, to the shops, to dinners, to Saratoga. 
 Where is it that young ladies go ? " 
 
 " Why does she want to come here ? " 
 
 " Now, I can t answer. Her motives are deeper 
 than I can get." 
 
 " Who called her striking? " 
 
 " Halstead. She is a friend of his. She is rich. 
 She is alone, as much alone as one who is rich can 
 conveniently be. She has a great deal at her com 
 mand." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 1C 
 
 " And yet you say he does not care to have them 
 come. Perhaps she is lacking somewhere else. She 
 may not be agreeable. She may be tiresome. Per 
 haps she is only striking in her looks." 
 
 And she looked at him with keener inquiry in her 
 face than lay in her sentences. Dayton did not seem 
 to relish it. 
 
 " And do you too," he asked with an assumption of 
 lightness, "lay such stress on the agreeable, the versa 
 tile, the striking? Is there no homely quality that 
 recommends itself to you ? What is your opinion of 
 fidelity ? How would single-mindedness strike you ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose," said Rachel, " that she is like 
 that ? " 
 
 " I don t know," answered Dayton with sudden cool 
 ness. " I don t suppose anything about it. We will 
 give her the benefit of the doubt." 
 
 Rachel neither assented nor dissented, and presently 
 Dayton asked her if she read much, with an abrupt 
 withdrawing from intimate communication, and a safe 
 return to exoteric topics, which frequently marked his 
 conversation. She thought he asked it as friends of 
 her father s had been wont to ask her how old she was, 
 or if she went to school ; and recalled what Halstead 
 had once said about the cockatoos and coal mines. 
 
 When however they had reached the upper valley 
 and had come within sight of Mrs. Anderson s house, 
 Dayton again reverted to the strangers. 
 
 " Suppose," he said, " we drive on past. We need n t 
 trouble ourselves. I assure you they will turn the 
 
76 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 valley upside down. Every day there will be a picnic. 
 They have no pity. They devise the most atrocious 
 pleasures, from which there is no escape. They reach 
 out their slim hands and draw whoever they want into 
 their schemes. I feel as if 1 were assisting in a plot, 
 and I am clumsy at plots. Are you quite sure that 
 you want them ? I leave it to you. Imagine you 
 see them driving along the highway every tune you 
 look up. Imagine them under your elms. They leave 
 the gates open. They stir up breezes. They might 
 stir up a breeze which would take your breath away ! 
 "We can turn back yet ; Mrs. Anderson has no previs 
 ion of our errand. We can take our drive and go 
 home. I should consider the drive in itself a sufficient 
 end and aim. You still have the opportunity to back 
 out." 
 
 " I don t want to back out," said Rachel. " The 
 more you say the more I want them to come." 
 
 " Miss Guerrin," cried Dayton, " you are a brave 
 girl. I am going to give you a laurel blossom." And 
 getting out of the carriage he ascended the steep, side 
 of the mountain that rose above them and brought 
 back a belated sprig of that honorable flower. 
 
 "And you feel no hesitation," he asked as he 
 handed it to her ; " you want them all, the whole 
 powerful posse comitatus ? " 
 
 " All/ she answered, wondering at his change of 
 manner. 
 
 " We will transport the town," he exclaimed. 1 
 <vill build them an hotel myself." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 77 
 
 " Of course," she said thoughtfully, " it is pleasant 
 to have strangers here." 
 
 " Then I am happy in being one," he answered. 
 " How long may one hope to preserve that pleasant 
 but transitory relation ? What a pity that one must 
 so soon degenerate into a friend, even though one fall 
 no further ! " 
 
 " I should say," said Rachel, doubtful of a F pecu 
 lation so intrusive, " that no one could preserve it 
 longer than you." 
 
 " But since you have declared it pleasant," said he, 
 " I should still hesitate to advance. That is offering 
 a premium on distance." 
 
 And that night Dayton wrote to Halstead saying : 
 " I can t be of any use to you in this matter. I have 
 inquired about here in the interest of your friends with 
 effect contrary to your suggestion. They can find 
 very tolerable accommodations at a large and finely 
 located house a mile or more from the village, toward 
 Spaz. If that will do why not have them come ? " 
 
 Even after getting this off his mind he sat up quite 
 late. He was not satisfied. Either way matters were 
 not going to suit him. There was an irritation in the 
 wind. His profession did not absorb him with its old 
 kindness and closeness, and he wished he had not med 
 dled with what did not concern him. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE venerable stage that went to the train on an 
 evening shortly following was crowded for the first 
 time in years, it being, like everything else in the 
 village, many sizes too large for its ordinary uses. 
 It lumbered slowly across the bridge and along the 
 shaded road, while from its windows peered the ani 
 mated heads of blue-veiled strangers ; their long kid 
 gloves slipped in the faded hand-rests, their figures 
 swaying with the motion, their attention divided be 
 tween the scenery and the vivacious discussions con 
 ducted by young Halstead within. They expressed 
 themselves pleased with everything, the hills, the 
 river, the cattle in the fields, the very stones by the 
 roadside, and declared they would forego the sea 
 shore and stay there all summer. They even hummed 
 an air from " Mignon " illustrative of their mood. As 
 the sole occupants of this ancient vehicle (a relic of 
 past prosperity, and a decayed stage route) they al 
 ready felt the confidence of possession, the freedom of 
 adventure, the ease of accustomed travelers, and the 
 spirit of powerful patrons who, by their late example, 
 would lift a lapsed village a century forward. In the 
 midst of this talking and gazing and approving and 
 rolling at ease, the coach suddenly turned through an 
 arched gateway, stopped a moment before a structura 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 79 
 
 made up of steps, of columns, of wings, and a great 
 deal of faded gray paint ; then rolled on again, leaving 
 Dayton upon the steps bowing his adieux to its occu 
 pants, while Halstead with his hat in his hand made 
 a low salute to a bare-headed, graceful girl upou tho 
 piazza. 
 
 " Why, where are we ? " asked Mrs. Sterling, look 
 ing quickly back through the elms. 
 
 " This is where we live," answered Halstead. " The 
 home of the unique, the antique Desboroiighs." 
 
 " I thought at first it was some asylum," observed 
 Miss Duncan. 
 
 " So it is, for disabled engineers," said Halstead. 
 
 " Disabled ! " exclaimed Miss Mason. 
 
 " For those with a halt in their resolution," replied 
 Nathan. 
 
 " And was that Miss Guerrin ? " Mrs. Sterling in 
 quired. 
 
 " The very same, dear sister." 
 
 " Why did n t you tell us ." " 
 
 " Tell you what ? " 
 
 " About her. Who would have expected to see her 
 like that ? " 
 
 Nathan laughed, as if his own judgment had been 
 indirectly confirmed by a competent critic. " You 
 would not have believed me if I had," he said. " You 
 \vould have thought that pastoral associations had 
 got the better of me. I scarcely believe in her myself 
 yet." 
 
 "It isn t necessary that you should," observed his 
 ster. 
 
80 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I expect her to appear some morning prim, angular, 
 and crude," the young man went on. 
 
 " I hope she may, for her own sake," Mrs. Sterling 
 declared, " that is, if you flutter about her much." 
 
 " Is she an intelligent person ? " inquired Miss 
 Duncan, who invariably asked after a person s intelli 
 gence. 
 
 " You must be the judge," said Halstead deferen 
 tially. 
 
 " Then your opinion must be a good one," com 
 mented the lady. " Nobody ever withholds one that 
 is averse." 
 
 " She shall come to call upon you," Nathan asserted. 
 
 There was a little pause, and then Mrs. Sterling took 
 up the conversation. 
 
 " It is astonishing to me about these village girls," 
 she said. " I have noticed it before. They live nar 
 row little lives, and yet, when occasion permits, they 
 step gracefully out, self-possessed, as good as the best, 
 and not even behind in the fashions. I confess I 
 don t understand it. I should think it would take 
 them years to mortify themselves into good manners. 
 I keep expecting them to do something queer. I con 
 fess I have a prejudice against anything queer. It 
 makes me squirm. That is, anything queer in the way 
 of manners. I stayed once at a place in the White 
 Mountains where the daughters of the house taught 
 school in winter, and waited on the boarders in sum 
 mer. One of them was told to pass the rolls, and with 
 the utmost gravity put one down beside my plate as if 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 81 
 
 it bad been a piece of chalk. That is the sort of thing 
 [ mean. You can t always tell what to expect." 
 
 " My dear sister," cried Ualstead with emphasis, " it 
 is you, this time, who are a trifle off. For mercy s 
 Bake, not in this connection ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, not in this connection, of course," assented 
 Mrs. Sterling, " nothing so bad as that ! But once 
 too I made calls with a popular young belle from a 
 country town, and she gave our cards to the lady her 
 self whom we went to call upon. You can t tell. In 
 everything else she was unexceptionable." 
 
 " My dear sister," protested Halstead again, " spare 
 us ! " 
 
 " Of course I ought not to feel so. I confess it is 
 prejudice on my part. I mean to overcome it. I have 
 always said I would overcome it. Nobody likes a 
 fresh young girl better than I do. Miss Guerrin may 
 have the best of manners ; better than ours even. 
 She may never do anything out of the way, you 
 seem to think not. I don t pretend to say ; but you 
 must admit she has no great advantages for observa 
 tion." 
 
 " She shall come to call upon you," repeated the 
 young man. 
 
 " Of course, I will be glad to have her. You are 
 peculiarly situated. I shall treat her as I would a 
 Knickerbocker." 
 
 " Theoretically, I assure you they would make no 
 concessions to the Knickerbockers." 
 
 6 
 
82 AX EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " So bad as that ! " exclaimed Miss Ma&on, looking 
 over the top of her fan, with her pale blue eyes. 
 
 " You are missing something, by the way," said 
 Halstead. "You should be looking out. We are 
 now in the heart of Beaudeck. We are about to 
 leave the mail-bags at the grocery. These small boys 
 under our wheels represent the clergy and the foreign 
 element, but for whom there would be no shinney in 
 the streets and no accidents in the mill-dam. What do 
 you think of the place ? " 
 
 After throwing off the mail-bags, in whose capacious 
 pockets a few lonely letters rattled, the coach swept 
 grandly around, and doubling upon its course for a 
 short distance began its lumbering ascent through the 
 g-orge to the upper valley. The western sunlight 
 struck through the overhanging trees, birds rose in the 
 air, and the brook, whose ravages had made this exit 
 practicable, tumbled and roared and dashed itself into 
 spray against the rocks. It seemed as if a road so in 
 nocent must lead to a retreat as peaceful. 
 
 But that evening when the frogs were in vocifer 
 ous chorus, and the crickets were sawing their tuneful 
 legs, when Halstead had taken his departure, and the 
 ladies had gone up to their square, bare rooms, Louise 
 Mason dropped down upon a stool with her hands 
 clasped before her, and with a gloomy sort of apathy 
 watched the motions of the other ladies as they un 
 packed their trunks, and spread their voluminous 
 dresses upon the bed. 
 
 Come, Louise," said Mrs. Sterling, " why ar n t 
 you unpacking ? " 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 83 
 
 "It seems too ridiculous," said Louise, "all that stuff 
 up here. Whatever possessed us .to hunt up such an 
 owl s nest as this to summer in ? " and rising she 
 began to walk about, with an irritated air and a clouded 
 brow. 
 
 " You will like it better by to-morrow, by day 
 light," said Mrs. Sterling, with cheerful reassurance. 
 
 " I shall go back," cried Louise. " What I don t 
 like to-day suits me still less to-morrow." 
 
 " You are vexed about something, or about nothing," 
 pursued the other. " What has come over you ? I 
 think it is delightful. You will think so too, shortly. 
 Come, unpack." 
 
 " My dear Helen," said Miss Mason, " you are too 
 amiable. You think everything delightful. You said 
 the same thing about our landlady, and about the 
 cream on our strawberries. You keep yourself always 
 ready to be tickled by delight. I believe if a pin 
 scratched you, you would bleed delight. If you have 
 any other fee-ing I don t know where you hide it 
 You are like your brother." 
 
 " Then you mean to compliment me ! I am sure 
 you approve my brother." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are very sure. You are all too sure. 
 I tell you I shall go back." 
 
 " We have engaged board here for most of the sea- 
 sou, you know," said Margaret Duncan. 
 
 " We can pay for it and leave it, I suppose." 
 
 " You were as anxious to come as any of us," sug 
 gasted Mrs Sterling. " Who was it that first advo 
 cuted Beaudeck ? " 
 
84 AN EARNEST IRIFLER. 
 
 " I was that miserable being," assented the girl. 
 " But this is n t Beaudeck. This is the heart of no 
 where. We are farther from Beaudeck now than we 
 were in Boston. We should have brought our horses." 
 
 " I will take out your dresses for you if you say 
 BO," offered Margaret. " They are laid in here like 
 sardines ; who packed them ? " 
 
 " Mother. She always packs." 
 
 " What did you do before you had a mother ? " said 
 Helen Sterling, looking up from the drawer she was 
 arranging. 
 
 "I had to wait on myself," answered Louise, turning 
 back with a short laugh. " My poor little mother ! 
 She did n t want me to try the country. Louise, 
 she said, you will be bitten by gnats. She thinks it 
 most terrible to be bitten by gnats." 
 
 " What lovely clothes ! " said Mrs. Sterling, as 
 Margaret set aside a trunk tray. " When you have 
 nothing else to do, Louise, you can try new effects in 
 costume." 
 
 " I imagine that will be most of the time. What 
 are we to do anyway ? " 
 
 "Do? All sorts of things. Nathan will tell us. 
 tie knows all that is worth doing in any locality." 
 
 " He has his hands full already," answered the girl. 
 Anybody can see that." 
 
 ; It is for you to empty them then." 
 
 I am afraid we have made a mistake," said Louise, 
 going to the window again, and looking off over the 
 swaying tree-tops. " I am afraid we have made a mis 
 take. Oh, these owls 1 " 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 85 
 
 Miss Mason was twenty-six years old. For several 
 of these years she had known Nathan Halstead, during 
 which time her smiles had grown old though her face 
 was still young. He could be very refreshing when 
 he chose, and he had entered her wealthy, inert, and 
 stranded existence, like a salt breeze blowing through 
 a close drawing-room. The burden of inanity with 
 which she was weighted had sensibly lightened under 
 his sallies, and she had felt great shocks of animation 
 when he paid her audacious compliments in the con 
 servatory after supper. They were the only shocks 
 she had ever had, and they in some way had seared 
 her smiles. And Halstead had greatly admired the 
 style of her exotic dresses ; her assured bearing ; the 
 lining of her phaeton ; perhaps the dividends from 
 her investments ; but he straightened himself and 
 looked attentive when it was suggested that she should 
 come to the country. Then his hands stole into his 
 pockets and he strolled away. 
 
vin. 
 
 LET it not be supposed that in the minds of the Des- 
 oorough sisters all was untroubled and serene. They 
 were too conscientious for so much light enjoyment 
 as was going on within their serious precincts, and in 
 reality were sorely puzzled as to Rachel s immediate 
 future. It was not that they would have her live on 
 as they had done ; it was not that they would have her 
 go away ; it was not that they would have her marry ; 
 all these courses had very objectionable, insufficient, 
 and profane features. Had they carefully reared, 
 tended, watered, and brought her to her present beauti 
 ful state of inflorescence, only to find that nothing was 
 good enough for her the rest of the way ? To their 
 over-reflective and scrupulous minds it seemed so, and 
 while trying to conceive and arrange some adequate 
 future for her, they felt with alarm that her future 
 was fast stealing upon her, and that she might even 
 be over before they had decided upon the sort of supe 
 rior celebration her days were to be. And not only 
 were they puzzled about the mature destiny of their 
 rare offspring, but there were also inherent qualities 
 in her character and person which perplexed them still 
 moie, qualities that had not appeared to confuse 
 their own straightforward careers, a superfluity of 
 beauty, a disqualifying imagination, an eagerness for 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 87 
 
 pleasure, a certain independence of understanding, and 
 a ready assimilation with new elements. They felt 
 feeble to deal with her. They had trained her in child 
 hood with great nicety ; they had sent her to school ; 
 they had taken her to Boston ; but they had not 
 meant to produce quite such extreme and irrepressible 
 results. They regretted that of late years, which in 
 cluded the whole of Rachel s life, they had allowed 
 their outside connections to become so few and slight, 
 and wished that she might have companions of her 
 own age, and the pleasures due her young woman 
 hood ; yet when chance brought a fluttering and ele 
 gant party right there to the village, their foreboding 
 maternal hearts found in it as much cause for anxiety 
 as congratulation. They especially shrank when they 
 thought of Mr. Young Halstead, as Miss Hannah 
 
 o o 
 
 called him ; but no sooner would their fears condemn 
 him than, in a desire to do him justice, they would 
 give him every praise. These fears were not wholly 
 disguised. 
 
 " We don t like it that he should be so constantly 
 with Rachel," said Mrs. Guerrin to her husband. 
 " We wish you would speak to him." 
 
 " Speak to him ! And what should I tell him ? " 
 inqu red that gentleman. 
 
 " Tell him, tell him " and there she stopped. 
 
 " Tt will be time enough to speak to him when we 
 cau think of something to say to him," said Mr. Guer 
 rin. 
 
 " Tt will be too late then." 
 
38 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Then I don t see what we are to do." 
 
 " We thought you might warn him." 
 
 " We mean him well and he means us well. You 
 can t warn honest people against honest people without 
 slandering somebody." 
 
 " But is he honest ? " she said, trembling with the 
 possible guiltiness of her suspicion. 
 
 " It is only fair to think him so," he answered, and 
 then she felt condemned, condemned and still un 
 easy. 
 
 That afternoon as she sat in the sitting-room stitch 
 ing, Rachel came in, and leaning over the centre table 
 began eating some white cherries from a green majolica 
 dish. A tall, old clock, which pointed to six, was 
 loudly ticking a slow and solemn protest against all 
 light uses of time, in a way which would not be toler 
 ated for an hour in a French tune-piece, whose style 
 of clock opera invites to everything rapid and gay, and 
 Mrs. Guerrin s mind was ticking in unison with its 
 serious seconds. 
 
 While they were thus engaged some one came up 
 the walk and they both looked quickly out ; but it was 
 not the engineers, whose arrival was momentarily ex 
 pected. It was a messenger who, after a loud tap at 
 the brass knocker, gave notice that the gentlemen who 
 stayed there had gone up to the tunnel and would not 
 be back for several days. 
 
 " What a pity," exclaimed Rachel when he had 
 gone, " and their friends here such i short time too ! " 
 
 " It would be better if they had never come," said 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 89 
 
 Mrs. Guerrin timorously. " We are afraid they are 
 too too worldly." 
 
 " They are not too woildly for me," said Rachel. 
 " I like it. I am worldly too." 
 
 " We don t object so much to the ladies," said Mrs. 
 Guerrin, borne to greater lengths by this sad avowal, 
 " but there is Mr. Halstead ! He may never have done 
 anything wrong ; we don t say he has, but he does n t 
 seem to have any moral constitution. Hannah said 
 herself, that he did n t seem to have any moral consti 
 tution. No moral constitution, and no serious thoughts, 
 Hannah thinks." 
 
 " He has some beautiful ones," ventured the girl. 
 
 " Could it be that you were a little, a little " 
 
 Rachel s face grew as red as her mother s was pale. 
 
 " I like him," she cried. " I never get tired of him. 
 There is nobody like him ; he has seen so much, done 
 BO much. He goes more easily than he stands. I en 
 joy him ! " 
 
 " It is n t safe, it is n t safe ! " said Mrs. Guerrin, 
 trembling. 
 
 " Oh, no, it is n t safe," repeated Rachel gayly. 
 
 The next two days crept along with strangely re 
 tarded motion. The evenings dragged ; the noon-time 
 scarcely stirred. It took an hour for- the clock to strike 
 twelve ; and an hour for each team to pass. When a 
 rooster began to crow he finished day after to-morrow 
 and each sun that came up set the week after next. 
 They were the longest days of Rachel s slow-paced 
 life. On the evening of the second she wandered 
 
90 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 idly around the house, her thoughts coming and going 
 like flocks of high-flying birds which appear out of the 
 dim, southern skies, and, sweeping overhead, are lost 
 again in the northern distance. 
 
 Presently she looked down the still road at tho 
 white cottages with green blinds ; then at the covered 
 bridge spanning the brook ; then at the opening in the 
 mountains leading to the upper valley, and at the car 
 riage slowly descending through the gorge. She re 
 called the bountiful braids of Miss Mason, also the 
 commanding manner of that lady. She thought of 
 asking them all down to the Desborough place, and 
 wondered what she should wear on that occasion, and 
 what sort of a repast she should have. Then she pict 
 ured their flounces under the trees, and Miss Mason 
 walking out to the dining-room, her hand upon the arm 
 of Mr. Halstead and her silk dress trailing Ivhind. 
 Ladies of the elegant society sort had a wonderful at 
 traction for Rachel, as great an attraction as epi 
 grams upon life. She enjoyed their habitual graces ; 
 their full trimmings, their affable manners, and the 
 care they took to make all things appear their best ; 
 but the thought of Miss Mason was like a bird of an 
 other feather among the sky-flyers of her imagination. 
 
 Strolling round the north wing, something upon the 
 side of the house claimed her attention, and leaning 
 against a trellis, she fixed her eyes upon a knot-hole 
 through which a swarm of vagabond bees were trying 
 to domesticate themselves under the weather-boards. 
 While this was going on young TIalstead came driving 
 
AN EAENEST TRIFLER. 91 
 
 rapidly up the road, and, heedless of the approaching 
 carriage, turned in at the gateway. His restless, rapid 
 glance swept the premises, but seeing no one he en 
 tered the front hall and went through the parlor to the 
 wing. He tried to persuade himself that he wanted 
 some estimates, and wondered meanwhile where Rachel 
 Guerrin was. A restless desire, which, however prob 
 able in others, he had not anticipated in himself, had 
 come over him while away ; and, as he rarely omitted 
 that which would make life easier, he had returned in 
 obedience to it. As he went over to his desk with ab 
 sent mind he caught a glimpse of a figure by the trellis, 
 and crossing to the window, like one at whose feet his 
 wish had fallen, seated himself in front of it, leaning 
 upon the sill with his hat in both hands. 
 
 " Good evening," he said. " What chance is this ? " 
 
 " I thought you were down the road," said Rachel, 
 in some confusion caused by her position so near his 
 window. 
 
 " So I am," he answered. 
 
 "You were not to be back till to-morrow." 
 
 " Neither will T." 
 
 " You are at work there ? " 
 
 " Yes. I am also here. When one has to be in two 
 places at once his most habitual self is given the pref 
 erence, is n t it ? Did you ever hear of a man hiring a 
 substitute to take a pleasure trip for him while he over 
 worked himself in peace ? I drove up. If you will 
 permit me I will come out and join you." 
 
 Rachel waited. She waited some moments ; then 
 
92 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 started toward the piazza. She met Halstead upon 
 the steps coming toward her, but he looked annoyed, 
 and said something at random about the hilly roads. 
 He was evidently disconcerted, and the joyous freedom 
 of his manner had given place to a bored constraint. 
 
 In fact, as he left his room the moment before, 
 throwing wide open the door in his haste, he con 
 fronted Dayton upon the threshold, and a certain ob 
 liquity came into his restless, eager glance. 
 
 " I thought," said Dayton, " that you were at the 
 quarry." 
 
 Halsiead recovered himself and answered likewise. 
 " And I thought you were at the tunnel." 
 
 " I found I had to be at the cut to morrow," an 
 swered Dayton impenetrably, " so came along on the 
 train. How did you get in ? " 
 
 " Drove," replied Halstead, and something possessed 
 him to add, " It is the first fruit of your candor. Now 
 that our Boston friends are here we can t desert 
 them." 
 
IX. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after supper Half tead attired himself 
 in garments of recent importation, and started on foot 
 up through the gorge, forgetting in his annoyance the 
 horse and wagon in the stable yard. He did not ask 
 Dayton to go with him, and Dayton did not offer. 
 Neither did he mention his departure to Miss Guer- 
 rin. He walked slowly, and instead of the dashing 
 manner with which he had driven into the village 
 kept his eyes upon the road before him, and his 
 thoughts upon the circumstance that propelled him hi 
 default of an animating will. He called himself a fool, 
 doubly a fool. A fool to have driven eleven miles 
 over a rough mountain road, and a fool to have 
 cheated himself out of his folly lest Dayton should 
 discover it. He laughed in self-derision ; then, on the 
 principle that if a man is a fool and acknowledges it 
 he ceases to be one, considered that he had ceased to 
 be one. And still the idea would recur to him. He 
 was very much out of sorts. 
 
 When he arrived at Mrs. Anderson s he discerned 
 the dresses of his friends out near the borders of the 
 orchard, where he joined them. But in a little while, 
 finding himself in no humor for polite conversation, he 
 wandered off with his sister s children, and when the 
 ladies started back to the house he was lying unseen 
 
94 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 upon the grass, and the boys were building a fort 
 around him with the stones that had once formed a 
 wall between the orchard and meadow. He raised his 
 head to look after their retreating figures with a feeble 
 thought of following them, when Tommy, who was still 
 in petticoats, sat down upon him in obedience to his 
 brother s orders, and this light obstacle confirmed his 
 lack of purpose. 
 
 He listened to the swallows and tree-toads ; he 
 looked at the pines on the mountains. How sweet the 
 hay was ! And a cloud on the horizon had a wonder 
 ful complexion ! Yet in the gray depths of the even 
 ing there was a hopeless perfection, and in the blank- 
 ness of space an equilibrium like death. How patient 
 the hills were; what were they waiting for? How 
 breathless the valley ! What suspension ! What great, 
 what divine indifference ! What negation, what sleep ! 
 It depressed him ; it had in it a species of anguish. If 
 the world were made out of nothing there seemed plenty 
 of material left, around, above, and within him for an 
 other effort, something better yet. When his bones 
 crumbled and he became a permanent part of a hillside, 
 he might waste himself on inanimate things. In the 
 mean time the evening was escaping him. He shook 
 himself. He did not lie easily on the grass. What 
 he cared for was friends, friends strong and active, 
 and beauty of the sort that laughs and caresses and be 
 reaves. There was Rachel Guerrin ; what was she 
 probably doing ? Why should a man stint himself the 
 moment he found something sweet ? 
 
AN EARNEST TEIFLER. 95 
 
 He raised himself up, but his foot demolished part of 
 the fort like a Krupp gun, and it took him some mo 
 ments to repair the breach and pacify the garrison. 
 Then he led a sortie against an invisible enemy, and 
 debouching among the currant bushes, betrayed his 
 compatriots into the hands of their mother. 
 
 He would have gone on his way but at that moment 
 Louise Mason came out. It seemed unavoidable, so 
 he lingered for a moment upon the square and una 
 dorned veranda. 
 
 Louise had on a dress of some dull blue fabric, and 
 over her shoulders was a dull blue shawl, which an 
 uncle had brought her from Ispahan. Dress as she 
 would, however, she looked strange to him in Beau- 
 deck, like a gala-rosette on a work-day, he said, 
 and he missed her usual background of cushions. The 
 rugged surroundings brought out a certain want of 
 nerve in her, and it was always on the end of his 
 tongue to tell her, in handsomely clothed language, to 
 brace up. 
 
 " We are glad to see you back," began Louise, who 
 had failed to carry out her intention of going home. 
 " When did you come ? " 
 
 " An hour or two ago. You see I lost no time," 
 answered Halstead, making a virtue of his unpremedi 
 tated promptness. " You knew we were away then ? 
 I am glad of that." 
 
 " Miss Guerrin told us," said Louise. 
 
 " Did she ? " said Halstead, negatively. 
 
 " We have quite made the acquaintance of your 
 
96 AN EARNEST TEIFLER. 
 
 ^^-x, 
 
 friends," Mrs. Sterling remarked. " Miss Guerrin 
 was here again yesterday." 
 
 "What did she say ? " the young man inquired, still 
 negatively. 
 
 " Nothing brilliant," Mrs. Sterling assured him, 
 with sisterly candor. " Nothing that was n t alto 
 gether young and commonplace." 
 
 " Don t be hard on her," protested Nathan. " She 
 is more generous. She said some pretty things of 
 you." 
 
 " Ah ! she tried that, did she ? And how did you 
 receive it ? " 
 
 " I thanked her, and told her the resemblance was 
 very great." 
 
 " Then she made her point? " 
 
 " No. She did n t agree with me. She said she 
 could n t see any resemblance whatever." 
 
 " When she flatters you, then, she does n t do it 
 through me ? " pursued his sister. 
 
 " She declines to flatter me," asserted Halstead. 
 
 "Or Mr. Dayton, either, it would appear. She 
 agreed with Margaret that he was very stiff. All the 
 burden of his defense rested with me." 
 
 " So he is," Nathan assented. " With her he is 
 stiffer than ever, not so much stiff, perhaps, as re 
 mote. He always speaks to her from a fourth story 
 window. How did she look yesterday?" 
 
 "I am bound to say she looked well. Has she 
 really always lived here, and never seen any society 
 except that of centenarians ? I don t suppose she ever 
 even saw a German ! " 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 97 
 
 " I fear not," answered Halstead with mock pity. 
 
 " We ought to get up one for her benefit," suggested 
 Mrs. Sterling, her propensity for getting up benefits 
 overruling every other consideration. " What a god- 
 eend you must be to her ? What do you do for her 
 entertainment ? " 
 
 " You forget," said Halstead, " that I am not here 
 pleasuring. Dayton is pushing things like mad. He 
 works all day on the road, and sits up half the night 
 over his figures. He has a passion for figures. For 
 my part I never see one that I don t want to knock 
 it down, particularly 5 s." 
 
 " Why did n t he come up here with you ? " asked 
 Louise. 
 
 " I don t know. I did n t ask him, and he did n t 
 volunteer." 
 
 " Perhaps he preferred to stay with Miss Guerrin," 
 observed Mrs. Sterling. 
 
 Halstead paused, looked at her curiously a moment, 
 then laughed a short refutation of so improbable a 
 suggestion. 
 
 Mrs. Sterling passed on into the house, and Halstead 
 still stared at the spot where she had been. Raising 
 his glance it fell upon Louise Mason, in whose dull, 
 pale eyes there was a larger vacuum than usual, and he 
 seemed to feel called upon to stir himself to greater 
 social exertion. He had been moving about on the 
 porch ; now he sat down, picked up her fan, which was 
 also of a dull blue, and proceeded to adjust it to her 
 chatelaine with an air of long but delicate familiarity. 
 7 
 
98 AN EARNEST TR1FLER. - 
 
 "You wear such bewildering things," he said gently, 
 disengaging at the same time her vinaigrette. " What 
 is the use of this ? Any warmth in it ? Will you prob 
 ably faint if I retain it a few moments ? * 
 
 " It is possible," answered Louise. 
 
 "Very well," he said, sniffing the salts up his high 
 bred nostrils. " Please proceed." 
 
 Louise recrossed her feet (her shoes were cut out 
 in slats to show her dull blue stockings) and smiled, 
 a smile shot with crow s feet. Halstead looked at it 
 and wished she would n t. 
 
 " How do you like your quarters ? " he inquired, 
 with secret chafing at the delay. 
 
 " It is pleasant enough," she replied, glancing off 
 down the valley, " pleasant but uneventful." 
 
 " I knew you would find it so," he declared. " I 
 don t suppose you ever before spent a week in which 
 nothing happened. You see what it is ! " 
 
 " It is n t every occurrence these days that has the 
 effect of something happening," she said. " The ordi 
 nary run of events at home was scarcely more effective 
 than their absence here. I can t say I miss them." 
 
 His ear caught something not in her words. " You 
 have a way of emphasizing these days as if they 
 had reference to some more propitious then, or other. 
 Why do you ? " he cried bravely. " Now ! then ! 
 when ! they never resemble each other. You must n t 
 do it. It is n t progressive." 
 
 " I m not progressive, and you know it," she an 
 swered coolly, shaking her long sapphire earrings. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 99 
 
 " Where have you been since I saw you last ? " he 
 asked, dropping the former subject, as if he feared it 
 might grow hot. 
 
 " No place in particular. We have driven about a 
 good deal. It has been warm." 
 
 " I should think it had. For genuine hot weather 
 commend me to the forty-fifth parallel. Down where 
 we have been the thermometer went up to where it 
 says mules die. Up here it is better. What do time- 
 servers do in the country when it is too warm for pic 
 nics ? Can t we think of something new ? What do 
 you say to going down to the point where we are at 
 work ? Don t you think there might be some amuse 
 ment in that ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Louise. " When could we go ? " 
 
 " I leave the day to you." 
 
 " On Saturday ? " 
 
 " Saturday is as good a day as any. They are all 
 the same size." 
 
 Some one within lighted a lamp which streamed 
 across the veranda. Louise got up to move her chair 
 within the shadow, and Halstead took the opportunity 
 to look at his watch. It was nine o clock. He too 
 arose, and making some hasty excuse abruptly took his 
 \eave. 
 
 The moonlight was white upon the narrow road, and 
 he strode along at a rapid pace as if a board of direct 
 ors were waiting for him in special session. When he 
 reached the point above the mill where the road began 
 its steep descent, he peered through the trees at the 
 
100 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 great gray house whither he was bound. The lights 
 were all burning ; so he ran along more rapidly than 
 before. When he reached it the gate closed behind 
 him with a click. Then Dayton appeared in the lighted 
 doorway ; then Rachel. 
 
 Halstead suddenly felt very warm and much excited. 
 He took off his hat and passed the finest of cambric 
 handkerchiefs across his forehead. 
 
 But he saw Rachel no more that night. 
 
X. 
 
 IN the course of the preparations for the tea-drinking 
 Rt the Desborough place, Miss Des borough, the elder, 
 sent Rachel to the wing to inquire of a servant en 
 gaged there as to the whereabouts of a misplaced cream- 
 jug which was of rare and homely shape and covered 
 with beasts of paleozoic pattern. The maid was in an 
 inner room, and Rachel advanced as far as the dressing 
 bureau, where she turned mechanically to give a few 
 touches before the mirror to the loose locks about her 
 shapely head. In so doing her eyes fell from her own 
 reflection to Miss Mason s vinaigrette lying at ease upon 
 the silk pin-cushion, and the deft touches to her waving 
 hair changed to a slight pressure of the palms upon her 
 temples. Through one of the links of its chain there 
 ran a long scarf pin, and near by, like an arrogant 
 sentinel, stood a short, much bloated, and impertinent 
 vial labeled Pommade Hongroise pour fixer les Mous 
 taches. E. Coudray, Parfumeur, a Paris. Such as 
 sociation tells endless stories which are either exceed 
 ingly sad or exceedingly sweet ! It seemed to indicate 
 to Rachel either great tenderness or a very sportive 
 friendship between its owner and treasurer, and to 
 bring back to her mind the apprehensions of the night 
 before which had been foreshadowed by Dayton. 
 
 And yet that evening after the tea-drinking, when 
 
102 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Mr. Guerrin was showing the place to Mrs. Sterling 
 and Halstead to Miss Mason ; when they had gone 
 through the blooming geometry of the garden to the 
 river bank, strolling in groups of two and three ; and 
 when Rachel, stepping behind the others, straightened 
 a spear of wild grass in front of her remarking upon 
 its length, Halstead left Louise, and under pretext of 
 cutting the stalk kneeled down at her feet. 
 
 " Commend me, commend me ! " he said. 
 
 " For what ? " asked Rachel. 
 
 " Don t you see ? For exemplary conduct. For 
 politeness to your guest. If it is lost upon you I may 
 as well, with your permission, walk with you. Don t 
 you remember that I have not seen you for days ? " 
 
 She thought again of the vinaigrette, and wondered 
 if he gave to every one the same impression of eager 
 preference. She lost herself in wondering, her color 
 mounting, and Nathan waiting. Then, " Nothing that 
 you do is lost upon me," she said. "You must go 
 on." 
 
 And later, when they were all seated with summer 
 informality upon the porch, and when Halstead with 
 his guitar was walking up and down upon the pave 
 ment, singing, Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, to 
 the air from Martha, and with the manner of Fra 
 Diavolo singing in the inn, she wondered anew that 
 she could ever have attainted him with suspicion of 
 hollowness. All the world loved him and the great 
 Jehovah smiled upon him. 
 
 After the ladies had driven off Dayton went to his 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 103 
 
 room, where Halstead shortly followed him, carrying 
 a long, green blade in his hand. 
 
 " What is that ? " asked Dayton. 
 
 " Grass." 
 
 " So I inferred from the looks of it." 
 
 " Grass," repeated Halstead, putting it over a pict 
 ure of a faded British General. " Grass as graceful 
 as Miss Guerrin herself. She is a beautiful reed. She 
 strikes you as something singularly pliable, yet you 
 know that somewhere, you can t tell just where, you 
 would find her wholly inflexible. I would like to go 
 to the end of her favor to find where her rigor begins. 
 You can t tell what a woman is like till you know her 
 severities." 
 
 " It strikes me," said Dayton, " that you are follow 
 ing the line of her favor tolerably fast." 
 
 " Bah ! " rejoined Halstead, " she fancies me in a 
 way, if that is what you mean. I am a novelty to her. 
 The best thing of the kind that she has seen. I am 
 her opera, her charity ball, her coupe, her six-button 
 gloves, her train, her white satin slippers, her servant, 
 things she has never had and would like, but not 
 things necessary to her. I fill in her mind the place 
 of those fashionable accessories. I am everything 
 which she has missed, and which therefore she is cu 
 rious about. I touch her inquisitiveness. These in 
 quisitive people have no hearts. I tell you the girl is 
 sold." 
 
 " You omit an item," said Dayton dryly. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
104 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 "You should say you were her opera, her slippers, 
 her servant, her lover, things she has never had but 
 not things necessary to her." 
 
 Halstead hesitated a moment in indecision, then, 
 " So I should," he frankly confessed. 
 
 " What are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 " Do ? Nothing. What can I do ? It can t be, 
 you don t suppose " He stopped as if his idea were 
 inexpressible by ordinary methods ; then stroked the 
 ends of his mustache. " You are the most practical 
 fellow that ever listed," he cried. " No, I have n t lost 
 my wits yet. There is no chance of that. It is impos 
 sible." 
 
 " Why is it ? " persisted Dayton sharply. 
 
 Halstead hesitated again, casting about in his mind 
 for some one reason among the many. " We call our 
 selves poor," he said, at last. 
 
 " You have something from your father, and you 
 have your position. For that matter I am going back 
 to California and you can step into my place here." 
 
 " No more of that ! " said Halstead with heat. " I 
 owe you too much already. Imagine me marrying and 
 sailing up to you with the orange blossoms on my arm, 
 saying, Here we are ! Help please. Two of us, 
 take us up tenderly ! Not if I know myself. When 
 I marry I must see my way to all the comforts and 
 soaie of the refinements of life without dependence 
 on conditions. One should live in luxury with the 
 woman one loves. Thanks to you all the same. This 
 is the first I have heard of your going back to Call- 
 ornia." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Nonsense," returned Dayton rising. " Beside 
 most any one would think he could do the handsome 
 thing on what you have ; it is quite a fortune." 
 
 " My dear friend," said Halstead, his nostrils dilat 
 ing, his expression growing keener, and his thoughts 
 of Rachel fainter, " I am not most any one. I am a 
 small minority. Most any one may do as he sees fit, 
 marry when he likes and as often as he likes ; no 
 doubt he is a very respectable and courageous person. 
 I have no fault to find with him aud no improvement 
 to suggest. I am simply not he. "We all know how 
 your poor domestic devils live, the meagre, wearing 
 fashion of it. We see men every day putting their 
 brides in cottages to wear themselves and their wed 
 ding dresses out. Is that the handsome thing you 
 would have me do ? I shrink before the very idea of 
 a homely household belonging to me. I hate to see 
 a woman poor. I hate even their pitiful economies. 
 And to make one so, and to support her in a stingy 
 way would be blight itself. She would repent it ; 
 they all do ; and that fatigued, uninterested look I so 
 abominate on women s faces would get into her eyes 
 and streak her forehead. I simply could not endure 
 it. You would see a notice in the Advertiser some 
 fine day, Found dead. In a barrel of Venetian red, 
 one Nathan Hulstead, M. E. " He began in his turn 
 to walk about the room, while Dayton with his back to 
 the mantel-piece glowered upon him as if in his uncer 
 tain, fanciful pacing he might at any moment come too 
 near. 
 
1 AH EARNEST TRULER. 
 
 " It makes all the difference in the world." the young 
 man wait an, " whether one faces the possible or th 
 irrevocable, the difference between a continent and 
 prison. The moment I knew I was bonnd I would 
 want to get loose. I can t settle down and make an 
 end of it jet. After thirty, perhaps, one loses oae = 
 hopes and vagaries and accepts without Kindness what 
 only the loss of his wits would induce him to accept 
 in Ids youth. 1 11 wait for that dull period ! It is 
 coming ; I feel it but I have a year or two yet to 
 run." 
 
 "And in the mean time what ? " cried Dayton, with 
 evident self -suppression. " Since when was the blind 
 ing passion so submissive to argument ? " 
 
 "Since I left Paris," answered Halstead with a 
 frown. 
 
 ** That woman never cared for you," said Dayton. 
 referring to some old confidence between them. 
 
 Halstead went over to the window and stood look 
 ing oat for a few moments, then turned and came back. 
 - 1 know what yon are after." he said, " bat joa mis 
 take. Neither does Rachel Guerrin care for me, 
 particularly. Let your mind rest easy." 
 
 " Ask her, and be done with it," Dayton demanded. 
 
 And then ? Suppose she does, what then ? " 
 
 ** If necessary you could wait a year or two " 
 
 " Or three or four or five ? That is another wretched 
 piece of business. Think of being engaged through 
 sixty moons to the beloved of your heart ; holding her 
 en one side till you were tired, then twisting her round 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 107 
 
 to the other, and whispering, When I am rich, love, 
 we will be married. No. brother. Neither have I 
 come to that. What a strait-laced country it is," he 
 added. " You no sooner observe that a young lady is 
 pretty, than some one comes up and asks you what 
 you are going to do about it. I am going to do noth 
 ing about it. I mean her no harm, you may be sure 
 of that ! " 
 
 " No harm ! Good Lord, no harm ! He means her 
 no harm ! " and Dayton s face curled up into such a 
 sinister expression as left no trace of his usual self. 
 His eyes, never large, grew smaller, and his inauspi 
 cious temper contracted his brows and drove the color 
 from his lips. He did not look handsome against the 
 black mantel-piece. 
 
 He took his hat and bolted out into the night air. 
 
 O 
 
 When he returned Halstead still sat moodily where 
 he had left him. He seemed to have passed the time 
 In unsatisfactory contemplation. He looked up at 
 Dayton as he came in, but they separated for the night 
 without wasting further words. 
 
XI. 
 
 IT was several days before Halstead again say? 
 Rachel save in the all-pervading presence of her 
 friends and relatives. He watched her furtively arid 
 was always in her vicinity, but made no effort as for 
 merly to talk with her alone. He frowned frequently 
 and without reason. He avoided Dayton and was un 
 easy everywhere. He avoided Louise Mason as well, 
 and no sooner decided upon one thing than he changed 
 his mind and did another. He seemed suspicious, ir 
 resolute. He talked of going away, and yet he stayed. 
 lie meditated self-sacrifice, but sacrificed nobody. 
 
 Rachel did not know what to make of him, and waited 
 as for the breaking of a fairer day. Meanwhile there 
 came a letter for her from a great-aunt, great, not 
 only as regards propinquity, but as regards her position ; 
 her appointments, and her opinion of herself as well, 
 and she wrote to invite her niece, whom she had not 
 seen for ten years, to spend the rest of the season at 
 her house. And yet the girl said she did not care to 
 go. Rachel, whose highest pleasure it had been to go, 
 ever since she was born ! It was incredible, but was 
 set down at once by her relatives on her mother s side 
 to the strange perversity of the Guerrin mind. The 
 Guerrins, although their name was misspelled in this 
 country, were originally French, and were therefore 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 109 
 
 capable of anything if you are English and your an 
 cestors were ever missionaries to the Pokanokets ! 
 
 " Go ? " said Rachel ; " I would not care to go to 
 paradise just now ! " 
 
 That was certainly French. The Desboroughs had 
 always wanted to go to paradise, and nothing but the 
 divine will detained them. But what was it that could 
 keep even a French girl from paradise ? 
 
 It was on the evening of the day they had gone 
 down the road in fulfillment of the engagement made 
 between Halstead and Miss Mason, that engagement 
 having been postponed to await the arrival of the gen 
 tlemen from Boston. The party, reinforced by Messrs. 
 Sterling and Meade, had gone down on a gravel car 
 sent for that purpose, with Halstead in the cab in the 
 post of engineer, and had spent several hours in con 
 versation, in strolling, and in inspection of the diffi 
 cult engineering feats which it had been their object to 
 see. They were at the station waiting for the evening 
 up-train, which was very late, and while waiting walked 
 up and down the platform ; examined the placards on 
 the walls, and read over and over again the advertise 
 ments of the Fall River Line, without which the scenery 
 of the New England and Middle States would be 
 unadorned. They discussed the rates to Omaha; they 
 balanced themselves on the rails, and in short indulged 
 in the common pastimes incident to the situation and 
 practiced by all intelligent travelers ; while a pair of 
 slanting blue eyes belonging to a little figure in a calico 
 dress surveyed them through a friendly aperture. 
 
110 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " What are you doing here, Margot ? " asked Hal- 
 stead, addressing it when the others were without. 
 
 Nothing," she replied. 
 
 " Then you would better go home," he said. " It i& 
 gatting late." 
 
 At nine o clock the real business of waiting set in, 
 and they seemed in a fair way to pay pretty dearly for 
 their short diversion. Evidently the station was for 
 the use of the workmen only, since not a house noi 
 even a road was in sight. Everywhere rose the dark, 
 overshadowing pines. Below them lay the river. To 
 the right was a high and curving bridge for temporary 
 use, while another half constructed struck obliquely 
 across to the opposite mountain range. The cramped 
 and narrow valley was full of fallen timbers, of huge 
 abutment stones, of derricks, and of disabled cars, some 
 of which were occupied by the families of the laborers. 
 
 Halstead was in a worse mood than ever. In fact 
 his waiting, his self-restraint, and his principles were 
 fast becoming insupportable to him, and while reso 
 lutely administeiing to Miss Mason s entertainment he 
 was consumed by a desire to appease his spirit by talk 
 ing with Rachel Guerrin, who was then leaning against 
 a pile of ropes with Dayton by her side. 
 
 It grew later and later. It was unendurable. When 
 the night, in his opinion, was far spent, and jocund 
 day might at any moment have been expected upon 
 the mountain-tops, it happened that the various little 
 coteries broke up and that Rachel for a moment stood 
 done upon the platform. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. Ill 
 
 Halstead immediately crossed over to her. " Can 
 nothing ruffle you ? " he said, half smiling, half frown 
 ing. " You are too amiable, too easily pleased. 
 You can never be more than happy you know, and 
 it is simple to be filled with it because the night hap 
 pens to be mild and because all these people who 
 ought to be at home are dancing around you. Be 
 discontented like me ! Be rapacious, be irritable ! " 
 
 " What is the matter ? " said Rachel. " What has 
 been the matter ? " 
 
 " Come," said Halstead, " tell me what Dayton has 
 been saying to you to make the time fly." 
 
 " He told me," returned the girl, " that the ropes we 
 leaned upon were from Yucatan, from a town called 
 Merida, was it ? " 
 
 " Zounds ! Was he so sentimental as that ? " 
 
 " He is never sentimental," said Rachel. 
 
 " You think him prosy, do you ? " 
 
 " Well, no, not prosy." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " I don t know. Must one be either sentimental or 
 prosy ? " 
 
 " Matter-of-fact, perhaps." 
 
 " He is certainly matter-of-fact." 
 
 " What else ? " 
 
 " I don t know him very well." 
 
 " Not as well as you do me ? " 
 
 No. " 
 
 " He has been here as long as I." 
 
 " That is nothing," she assured him. 
 
112 AN EARNEST TRIFLEE. """ 
 
 " Perhaps," said Halstead, " you would take mj 
 arm. We might walk a little before morning. I havd 
 been wanting to see you to restore me. Say something, 
 to me, can t you ? Pacify me, make me glad." 
 
 " I ? How can I ? " she asked, beginning to walk 
 with him along the platform. 
 
 From this lonely staging high up on the steep 
 mountain side even the attentive stars looked strange. 
 
 " I am out of patience, out of spirits, out of sorts, 
 out of conceit, out of my head, out of tune, out gen- 
 erally," the young man went on capriciously, as if car 
 rying the thoughts of an old mood into a new and 
 happier temper. 
 
 " I thought that with you those things were always 
 at home," said Rachel. 
 
 " Come, be serious." 
 
 " I don t know when to be serious with you ; you 
 never seem to be." 
 
 " What do you mean by sentimental ? " continued 
 Halstead. " What is it that I am and Dayton is 
 not ? " 
 
 " I did not say that you were that." 
 
 " No, but you think it all the same. In fact you are 
 quite right. What is it to be sentimental ? Is it to be 
 a triffe maudlin in one s ideas." 
 
 " That depends upon how you use it." 
 
 " Well how do you use it ? " 
 
 " Not that way." 
 
 " Is it to be hampered with impotent sensibilities ? 
 Here in America a man should have no more ideas 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 113 
 
 tTian he can promptly make use of in a practical 
 career." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he should. The more the better." 
 
 " They fetter him you see. They make a weakling 
 of him. They interfere with action." 
 
 " They make him interesting," added his companion. 
 
 Halstead paused a moment. Then, " I have an 
 idea," he said, " that Dayton has a fancy for you him 
 self." 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " inquired Rachel. 
 
 " I suspect that he would like to monopolize you. 
 That if you would knock he would let you in. I im 
 agine that even now, while he commits himself about 
 the cables yonder, he is pondering your eyebrows. 
 Jove ! I would n t say what he was n t pondering." 
 
 " You shall not say such a thing," cried the girl, her 
 face growing slowly red. 
 
 " He would like to let himself go," declared Halstead. 
 " He would like to fall in love with you." 
 
 " You have no right " she began ; but she was 
 unable to say further what his infringement was. Her 
 indignation was lost in thoughts fast following, and 
 stopping, she half withdrew her hand from his arm. 
 
 Halstead, raising his own arrested it. " Wait a 
 moment," he said, and going on a few steps farther into 
 the deeper and less populous darkness he stopped be 
 side the pile of ropes, while his thoughts, his prospects, 
 his desires, and all the wandering tendrils of his being 
 coiled about the spot more closely than the cables. 
 " He would like to monopolize you," he persisted, still 
 8 
 
114 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 holding her unwilling fingers. " And he would like to 
 see me in Jericho. This is my opportunity. I should 
 go to Jericho. But I don t do it. It is a case where 
 sentiment prevents action. You wanted an illustra 
 tion." 
 
 " Oh," said Rachel, changing color again, " you 
 were illustrating, were you ? It is too absurd ! " 
 
 " But if it were so ? " persisted the young man. 
 
 " I should think that your going would be more 
 sentimental than staying. What difference would i*, 
 make ? " 
 
 " None, if you say it would make none." 
 
 " Of course, it would make none," she answered, 
 withdrawing her hand. 
 
 " Then I need n t go." 
 
 " Is that what you have been thinking of ? " she 
 asked. " You are too good. I thought," but she 
 did n t say what she thought. She laughed a little in 
 stead. " You are sentimental truly," she added. " Is 
 that all that has made you out of sorts ? " 
 
 " No," said Halstead, looking down at the fog form 
 ing over the river, " I have been more sentimental 
 even than that. I have had a fit of self-disgust, and 
 a longing for something better, that is the height 
 of sentiment, is n t it ? It sounds almost maudlin 
 when you read it in the books. I have a desire for 
 respectability and substance. I would like to define 
 myself by a definite position and belongings like those 
 of other men ; to rate my capacity by what I can do ; 
 to plod along ; to be contented ; to form ties ; to Le 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 115 
 
 practical. I have run around till I have had a surfeit 
 of impressions, till I am covered with them. I am 
 like an old-clothes shop in the East hung with the 
 vivid rags and heroic tatters of all manner of people. 
 I would like to throw them off, whitewash the native 
 structure, and begin again. What would you think of 
 such a project ? " 
 
 " I ? " said Rachel, " I can only say, Ah ! ah ! 
 as people do to what is strange to them." 
 
 " It is you who urge me to it." 
 
 " I urge you to nothing. Your disgust is new. 
 Your longing is new. I doubt if they will ever be 
 old." 
 
 " You are beautiful," said Halstead ; " that urges me ! 
 You rob the common lot of its forbidding common- 
 placeness ; that urges me ! You don t know your ca 
 pacity. I want you to exert it ; to do your utmost, 
 to push me to extremes ; to hurry me head :>ng. 
 I will submit to your influence like a man." 
 
 " However you begin," returned Rachel, flushing 
 again, " the end is the same, some pretty speech, 
 like a strain blown up a hill. I may like them, but 1 
 don t like myself so well for liking them." 
 
 " What is that but urging me ? " exclaimed Halstead 
 u That is very strenuous. You will bring the truth to 
 a point where belief is inevitable." 
 
 " I have no wish to push you to extremes," she went 
 on with vehement denial. " If you want to be practical, 
 be practical ; if you want to begin anew, begin anew 
 but don t assume that I have an influence which I have 
 not, or that I would wish to use it if I had it." 
 
116 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 A dingy lamp placed in a dingy window made a line 
 of lighter shade across the platform where Dayton was 
 promenading with Mrs. Sterling, and Halstead uncon 
 sciously waited till they were near the farthest limit 
 of their route ; then, " You look about you," he said, 
 " with such avidity that one wants to respond to your 
 inquiring glance with all that he knows and is. If I 
 have responded more fervently than pleases you, and 
 added to what I know and am a little that I feel and 
 hope to be, you have only your eye-beam to blame. 
 It offers to look into, one and to take one at one s best. 
 I thought if I showed you all it would be only too 
 little. You seem to be looking for some ideal enter 
 tainment, for some sublimated sentiment, for some 
 thing that should justify the candle, and I would simply 
 contribute myself whole to help you find it. It seems 
 that I can be of no considerable use." 
 
 The inquiring eye-beam was fixed upon him then if 
 never before, upon his eager expression and his 
 facile mouth. " When I think the entertainment has 
 ,x>me," she said with agitation, " and that I am in the 
 midst of it, you smile and tell me there is no such 
 thing." 
 
 " We might find it together." he answered ardently. 
 
 From a distance there came the shrill whistle of a 
 locomotive and the rushing sound of a train. A man 
 came out of the station with a lantern which he swung 
 violently to and fro. Then the head-light threw its 
 clear, full glare upon them and the coils of various 
 sorts about them. It affected Halstead like the brill 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 117 
 
 iant, perspicacious stare of the critical world, and 
 frowning like one who had been surprised in a rhap 
 sody he went forward saying, " Here we are at last ! " 
 
 Meanwhile Louise Mason, murmuring something 
 about the dampness, had gone within where she pres 
 ently became aware that she was not alone. 
 
 The one smoky lamp but faintly illumined the bar 
 ren interior, but the four walls designed to sepulchre 
 such unfortunates as were obliged to do their waiting 
 there offered few facilities for concealment ; and going 
 over toward the door she descried in one corner, be 
 hind the counter and sitting curled up against the win 
 dow, the slim girl who had made them the object of 
 her slanting observation earlier in the evening. 
 
 She was apparently indulging in silent and solitary 
 state some dim idea of intercourse with the gifted com 
 pany in whose midst she had hidden her easily-hidden 
 self. She sat with her head against the wall, but from 
 time to time leaned forward and looked out upon the 
 high society on the platform, and seemed to find rare 
 but melancholy entertainment in the spectacle of their 
 .ight pedestrianism in the heart of the region where 
 she called herself at home. No shuffling of heavy feet, 
 no swinging of over-long arms, no ungainly slouching 
 across the boards, such as she was used to seeing there, 
 but the easy, graceful strolling of the class that prom 
 enades ! She did not seem to mind the presence of 
 Louise or to take the slightest account of herself as a 
 waif in a strange position. 
 
 " Do you belong here ? " asked Louise, accosting 
 her. 
 
V, - 
 118 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " No. I came up to see," answered the girl. 
 
 " To see what ? " 
 
 " You and all." 
 
 " Where did you come from ? " 
 
 " Down there," and she nodded toward the valley. 
 
 " Won t your family miss you ? It is nearly mid 
 night." 
 
 " I have n t any family, only father." ;. 
 
 " Won t he miss you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Did you come over on the bridge ? " 
 
 "Yes m." 
 
 Thus disturbed Margot got down from her seat 
 and stood with her hands behind her back absorbed in 
 the contemplation of Miss Mason s elegance, and as 
 unaware as ever of her own singular person. Her 
 person was probably never much noticed, and she 
 shared in the common opinion of its unworthiness. 
 She was small and thin. Her cheek bones were high. 
 There were freckles over her nose ; and her eyes were 
 drawn down at the corners as if they had been im 
 ported from Tartary generations back. Her hair, 
 which was light and thin, was parted evenly and 
 braided in a tight, circumspect braid, which ended 
 happily in a bit of ribbon almost new. She wore a 
 dark cotton dress and her feet were bare. 
 
 Halstead had looked at her feet one day, when he 
 was standing near the station talking with Hodson, 
 the contractor. Hodson was telling him an anecdote. 
 Hodson told remarkable anecdotes, with a jovial laugh 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 119 
 
 and his thumbs under his arms. In the course of the 
 story Halstead observed, with partial consciousness 
 and inattentive sense, a pair of brown and shapely feet 
 standing near, like the extremities of some half-sized 
 Btatue exhumed from the statue-cumbered soil of 
 Greece ; and when the anecdote was finished and the 
 laugh over, he raised an artistic eye to cover the rest 
 of the relic, but found it protected from observation 
 by a drapery of brown and spotted calico. It was 
 not from Greece, but its pose was admirable. It was 
 watching him. It was strangely self-oblivious. Pres 
 ently it turned away and was lost among the firs. 
 
 She bent some such look now upon Miss Mason s 
 well-moulded figure and complex costume. 
 
 " Are you his folks ? " she presently asked. 
 
 " Whose folks ? " inquired Louise. 
 
 " His, the engineer s ? " 
 
 " Mr. Dayton s ? " 
 
 "No, the other." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Has he always lived among such as you ? " And 
 she surveyed the costume once more. " He showed 
 me how to make them things," she added presently, 
 pointing to a shelf behind the counter on which were 
 ranged some rough figures fashioned in clay. " I 
 make em and he looks at em when he comes up here 
 noons." 
 
 " How long have you been at it ? " asked Louise. 
 
 " Most ever since we came. He spoiled some once 
 and paid me for em ; then he took his hat off, bowed 
 
120 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 and laughed and went away. Those are his. He is 
 very kind." 
 
 " He is always kind," said Louise, " very kind, and 
 if you die of it, it is your own fault." 
 
 " When he goes away does he go where you are ? " 
 
 Louise went over and took her by the hand. " You 
 should go home," she said, very gently for Louise. 
 
 Presently the girl started and slipped out a side 
 door behind the counter, and then the train came puff 
 ing in. 
 
 When it had gone on she came back in front of the 
 station and looked after it until even the sound no 
 longer reached her. Then she started off across the 
 bridge, the fog creeping up about her feet, obscuring 
 the depths below. 
 
xn. 
 
 " NATHAN," said Mrs. Sterling, a few days later, 
 " what are you saying to Rachel Guerrin ? " 
 
 " You can t accuse me of saying much of anything 
 to her within forty-eight hours," replied that young 
 gentleman, with an effort at indifference. "Neither 
 Dayton nor I came up last night." 
 
 " You hover about her in a way that can t be mis 
 taken," continued his sister. " I have seen you do it 
 too often." 
 
 " So do you. So does Dayton. So does every one." 
 
 " I suspect you of cultivating a little tenderness in 
 that quarter," she went on, not noticing his irrelevant 
 suggestion. 
 
 Halstead pulled his hat down over his eyes, perhaps 
 to cover a frown, and held his head higher than ever. 
 " Given Rachel Guerrin, an endless summer, and the 
 little naked god that goes everywhere unbidden, and 
 what else could you expect ? " he inquired. 
 
 " She is too pretty," said Mrs. Sterling, warningly. 
 
 " She is very pretty," assented Nathan, chafing. 
 
 " She is not insensible." 
 
 " To what ? " 
 
 " To you." 
 
 k What are you trying to get at ? " he cried with 
 irritation. 
 
122 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " It can t be, surely you are not serious." 
 
 " No ! " shouted Halstead. 
 
 They went on a few minutes in silence. 
 
 " Why should n t I be ? " he asked indifferently 
 again. " I hate the fashion of coolly weighing such a 
 point." 
 
 " She is too simple, too too agricultural," re 
 sponded Mrs. Sterling with a fine, discriminating smile 
 which expanded her nostrils. 
 
 " She is neither, superlatively," answered the 
 young man. 
 
 " Mother would be horrified," observed his sister, 
 with a look which reminded him of the stare of the 
 locomotive two evenings previous. 
 
 " It would n t be the first time." 
 
 " You refer to my marriage. But she did n t send 
 me to Paris. She did n t expect anything brilliant of 
 me. Your wife must be the flower of creation ; an 
 exceedingly tall and brilliant flower. And she must 
 have money and influence at her back." 
 
 " No matter what she expects." 
 
 " You forget Louise." 
 
 " Excuse me, I don t forget her," answered Halstead 
 coldly. 
 
 This fragment of conversation was on the mount 
 ain back of Mrs. Anderson s house whither the friends 
 of our acquaintance had gone, that mild effort at 
 mountaineering being all that the weather and the 
 limited time of the engineers would permit. 
 
 It was toward the close of a July day, and scarcely 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 123 
 
 a leaf stirred in the woods through which they passed. 
 The circuitous road by which they ascended was one 
 used for getting out timber in winter, was carpeted 
 with the softest green, and shaded by pines and birch 
 es, and led them by a gradual inclination to the wood- 
 choppers camp upon the summit. In fact the mount 
 ain, as it was called, hardly deserved that special 
 distinction, as it was merely the centre of a group of 
 taller fellows that rose above it in all directions, and 
 on top it expanded in a waste of wild and rugged 
 country made picturesque by gigantic rocks and a 
 small, clear lake supplied by hidden springs. 
 
 That evening when Mr. Sterling, with Rachel already 
 in the carriage, had driven to the depot for the engi 
 neers, in pursuance of his wife s scheme for a picnic, 
 Dayton had entered at once, oblivious of his former 
 abhorrence of that pastime ; while Halstead, with his 
 hand on the carriage door, had looked about him as 
 if in search of some supernatural interposition. Find 
 ing none, however, and meeting Rachel s smile, he too 
 entered. But while he counterfeited his usual spirits, 
 and lent himself indiscriminately among his friends on 
 the way up the mountain, he still remained at heart 
 uneasy, irresolute, rapacious. 
 
 " And this is it ? " he exclaimed, appealing to 
 Rachel when they paused upon the shore of the melan 
 choly lake. " This is it ; the place where unfortu 
 nate Beaudeckers come ! How many annually ? It 
 is very convenient. Why did n t you bring us here 
 sooner ? We have lived longer than necessary withiu 
 reach of such advantages." 
 
24 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 " You are still willfully wasting breath," said Mr 
 Sterling. But Mr. Sterling was one of those to whom 
 Nathan s existence was not a necessity. 
 
 " Oh," said Halstead lightly. " I make no leaps 
 If ever there was a temporizer I am one." 
 
 " It is beautiful," said Louise, " quite like Switzer 
 land ! But it is melancholy, is n t it ? Was there 
 ever a suicide here ? " 
 
 " Never," said Eachel, smiling. " Mr. Halstead will 
 be the first." 
 
 " Not he," said Louise. 
 
 A crane upon the farther shore stalked away ; and 
 some wild ducks swimming in the shadows rose in 
 alarm, and, flapping their wings upon the dusky air, 
 went swiftly in search of more desolate pools, their 
 shapes as long and linear as if they flew on a Japanese 
 screen. 
 
 " Come," said Mrs. Sterling, "let us have our supper. 
 There is no tune to lose." The Anderson boys, who 
 carried the commissary stores, were already building a 
 fire and unpacking the baskets ; and she turned to their 
 assistance, followed by several of the party. 
 
 Mr. Meade and Margaret Duncan, however, pur 
 sued the path a short distance along the margin of the 
 lake. Mr. Meade was the gentleman to whom Miss 
 Duncan was engaged, and although he was as homely 
 as if Thomas Nast had made him and presented him to 
 his parents, she highly approved him even to the plain 
 ness of his visage and the gentle slope of his narrow 
 shoulders. He was about forty years of age, and a 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 12.) 
 
 partner in a wholesale establishment for the sale of 
 silks. After telling that a man is from Boston one is 
 heartily sorry to add that he sells silks ; but some one 
 has to sell silks, even in that metropolis, and Mr. 
 Meade was unfortunately selected to follow that calling 
 Doubtless if he had i*ot become engrossed with gios 
 grains at an early age he might have developed into 
 a professor of the South Sea languages, or might have 
 lectured upon ethics at Treinont Temple ; but having 
 fallen when a mere boy from this high, though com 
 mon, destiny into the silk trade, there he remained, 
 and at the end of twenty-five years considered himself 
 financially compensated for his intellectual abasement. 
 There, too, Margaret agreed with him, and kindly con 
 sented to share his fortune while maintaining her own 
 high scholarship. She read Herbert Spencer, but ac 
 knowledged that even a fine mind might be more at 
 home in a lower atmosphere, like that surrounding her 
 worthy lover. 
 
 Halstead retailed these facts to Rachel, detaining her 
 upon the rocks for that purpose. 
 
 " They have been engaged," he added, with amiable 
 ridicule, " for seven years." 
 
 " So long as that ? " said Rachel. 
 
 " "Well, thereabouts." 
 
 " It is n t possible ! " disclaimed the girl. 
 
 "Not possible? Why not? Why should n t two 
 persons who love each other be engaged for seven 
 years, or for seven times seven years ? Don t you 
 think it indicates great sincerity and great warmth ? " 
 
126 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I don t know," said Rachel looking after them. 
 
 " Perhaps you wonder that they did n t break it off 
 long ago." 
 
 " Oh, no, not that." 
 
 " That is the usual way." 
 
 " I don t believe it," she declared, smiling incredu 
 lously. 
 
 " I am afraid," he went on in a light but caressing 
 tone, " that you don t know much about that rich and 
 varied association that admits of many repetitions, of 
 many repairs and breakages ; which is made up of 
 heart-burnings, smiles, pangs, festivities, and a good-by, 
 love, we part never to meet again." 
 
 " I am afraid I don t," assented Rachel, feeling in 
 her heart a delicious freshness of susceptibility. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " pursued Halstead, still in the same gen 
 tle and mocking vein. " At your age you should have 
 had more experience. You should be sharper, more 
 world-hardened. You should powder ; you should have 
 a box or two of sweet-scented letters laid away. You 
 should sigh and tap your fan ; and you should have 
 a few cynicisms to air occasionally." 
 
 " I might attain those perfections," she said lightly ; 
 " they seem easy." 
 
 " Then I would understand you. I would be used 
 to you. I would know what to do," he cried. " As it 
 is I am afraid of you." 
 
 The fire which the boys had made roared and 
 crackled, sending thousands of spruce needles toward 
 the zenith in an ecstasy of flame ; and Joe Anderson 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 127 
 
 was dispatched to the bank to summon the purtiea 
 there to the repast then ready 
 
 " I have n t seen anything to equal this since I left 
 the army," said Mr. Sterling, as they gathered about 
 the table. " It reminds me of some nights in the 
 Cumberlands, the heat-lightning and all. The air 
 is full of it. When we went down " He paused, 
 raised his flexible, quizzing eyebrows, and looked at 
 his wife. 
 
 " Go on," she said, " our friends are lenient, and I 
 am used to it." 
 
 " She don t permit it," he explained, shaking his 
 head. " I know better." 
 
 " Those stories once begun, last a day and a night, 
 you know," returned his wife. " If you will kindly 
 abbreviate." 
 
 " I have abbreviated," he replied. " Where are 
 your sandwiches ? " 
 
 Mr. Sterling was tall, slow-stepping, robust. " He 
 was a lawyer, able and successful, not because he was 
 particularly astute, but because he was large-hearted 
 and jovial, and difficulties seemed to resolve them 
 selves into justice, or into nothingness, in passing 
 through his mind. Socially he aided and abetted his 
 wife ; indeed he aided and abetted everybody. In his 
 presence no uneasy gaps yawned in the conversation ; 
 and if, on the present occasion, Halstead lay in com 
 parative silence, watching the almost impalpable agita 
 tion of the lake, it made much less difference in the 
 general tone than might be expected. 
 
128 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 When the supper was over and the cigars finished, 
 the confused preparations for descent at once began. 
 The fire died away. The heat-lightning played more 
 and more brightly, and the ghosts of departed Narra- 
 gansetts gathered around the encampment. 
 
 The boys started down. Mr. Meade and Margaret 
 Duncan started down. The delicious evening was al 
 most over. The summer lightning flashed across the 
 pool. It was growing dark. It was growing rapidly 
 dark, and clouds were scudding across the sky. 
 
 Rachel stooped to pick up her alpine stock, and 
 when she rose Halstead was standing by her side. 
 He pushed back some faintly-pungent spruce boughs 
 and took a few steps forward. " Where is your hat ? " 
 he asked, halting, and barring the path. 
 
 "In the wood-chopper s hut." 
 
 " In the hut ? " he repeated. 
 
 " We will get it on the way." 
 
 " On the way," he echoed, absently. "^Have you 
 everything else ? " She assured him she had every 
 thing else, but he did not move. He stood looking 
 about him in a dazed sort of fashion, while the sound 
 of voices and retreating footsteps grew fainter and 
 fainter. A wind sprang up somewhere from the treas 
 ury of winds, and the trees upon the shore waved in 
 the solitude. 
 
 " There will be a storm," he observed mechanically, 
 after a time. And then the silence closed about them. 
 The voices and the footsteps were gone. 
 
 " It is coming fast," said the girl in the same ac 
 cents. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 129 
 
 " How it lightens," he exclaimed with a white face. 
 A.nd a flash broke over them. 
 
 ; Rachel," he cried, in the tone he would have used 
 had he sworn he could not live without her. " Do 
 you like to see it lighten ? " 
 
 All about them were the branches of a fallen spruce, 
 and she leaned against one of them as if for support. 
 They were alone upon the mountain. 
 
 Rachel," he whispered, " Rachel ! " And still he 
 did not look at her. He seemed to be gathering pas 
 sion from the vivid light. 
 
 " To whit ! to who ! " screamed a distant owl. 
 
 Rachel s heart-beats were almost audible. They 
 seemed to be again at the station near the coil of ropes, 
 and she began to tremble as at the sequel of that time. 
 The wind died away. The desert came near to listen. 
 It was strangely still. It continued strangely still. 
 
 Halstead began to walk up and down the path as if 
 to bring his thoughts to the relief of his agitation. 
 
 " Rachel ! " he cried again, " this is a grand mount 
 ain. Do you like the lightning ? Does it meander 
 through your veins ? It will be a grand storm, will 
 you like to watch it with me ? " 
 
 Blindly she picked up her stick which had fallen 
 from her hand. 
 
 " Don t go, Rachel," he said, his head held high, his 
 forehead frowning, his white lips smiling. " Let us 
 stay, Rachel." 
 
 She started forward but he threw himself in her 
 way. prone upon the ground, murmuring words unin- 
 9 
 
130 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 telligible to her ears. She did not stay to comfort 
 him. She grew paler, and suddenly darted down the 
 path. 
 
 Presently he shook himself, rose, got her hat, and 
 started down the road, wondering that she should have 
 flown so rapidly. Then he broke into a run, and still 
 he did not overtake her. lie thought of calling her, 
 but the rest of the party, now not far in advance, 
 would hear him, and he would hate that. It would 
 make a beastly racket. In a moment a streak of light 
 ning revealed the hurrying company of his friends, but 
 no Rachel Guerrin, and turning he ran up the moun 
 tain as rapidly as he had run down. It could not be 
 helped, so he began to halloo in very different accents 
 from those he employed among the spruce branches, 
 but the rising wind derided his feeble shouts. He was 
 at his wit s end when he heard an answer coming 
 from down the mountain. He rushed for the ox- 
 path again, and a few minutes later a hand was laid 
 upon him, and Dayton sharply inquired what had be 
 come of Miss Guerrin. 
 
 He sharply replied that that was what he was trying 
 to find out. That she had started down before him, 
 and had he, Dayton, seen anything of her ? 
 
 The party ahead had heard his hallooing. " Some 
 thing may have happened," said Mrs. Sterling ; " do 
 please somebody see about it," and Dajton, pleas 
 ing, was already gone. 
 
 He looked closely at Halstead for a moment when 
 he heard his reply, then turning on his heel, struck 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 131 
 
 into the woods, taking an oblique direction downward, 
 And making his way among the bending trees and along 
 the uncertain ground till he came out upon some cleared 
 sheep lands, dotted with rocks and extending far and 
 wide. It did him good to shout. He had no scruples 
 against a beastly racket. 
 
 In a little while he struck a path which he began to 
 ascend, the summer lightning playing in white sheets 
 about him, and flashing over the blown and desolate 
 pastures ; and shortly at a distance he saw a figure 
 moving. 
 
 " Is that you, Mr. Dayton ? " asked Rachel, as he 
 came up. 
 
 He noted an excitement which was not fear in her 
 manner, and looking past her across the valley he 
 seemed to observe there the same peculiarity in nature 
 which King David recorded long ago in the words : 
 " Why hop ye so, ye high hills ? " or " What ails ye, 
 ye mountains that ye skip like rams ; and ye little hills 
 like lambs ? " 
 
 " Do you know just where we are ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not exactly. I started wrong." 
 
 " It will be safe enough to go down by this path, I 
 take it," he observed practically. " It can t take us 
 far out of our course. Can you follow ? " 
 
 Near the lower border of the pasture there was an 
 oLl and empty sheep-fold and toward this he directed 
 their hurrying steps, but before they reached it the 
 rain began to fall. 
 
 " This is too poor a place for you," he said, " but it 
 is better than the inhospitality outside." 
 
Lo2 AN EARNEST TBIFLER. 
 
 He threw down some corn stalks for her to sit upon, 
 then went back and walked up and down in the rain, 
 like a picket guarding the entrance way. 
 
 Presently Rachel came out and touched him lightly 
 on the arm. " I must insist upon going home," she 
 said. " I am no more afraid of the rain than you. 
 What I object to is keeping dry while the drops driz 
 zle off your hat. Let us go on." 
 
 " Oh, I am comfortable," he answered. " I am di 
 vinely comfortable. I have n t been so comfortable 
 for weeks. My discomforts are not of the weather. 
 I am very tough." 
 
 " So am I, and I am going. * 
 
 "You cannot very well, alone," he said, drawing her 
 back under the roof. Then, muttering something about 
 finding the path, he disappeared. 
 
 When he returned the clouds had broken, the rain 
 had ceased, and the lights of the house were visible not 
 far away. 
 
 They descended the intervening fields, passed through 
 an old sugar-camp, whose troughs stood full of water, 
 struck the road, and had nearly reached Mrs. Ander 
 son s when a man rose from somewhere near the gate. 
 He was not a pleasant object as he came slouching 
 near ; but, recognizing Dayton, he stopped irresolutely 
 and took off his hat. He was an immense fellow in 
 stature, lank, angular, and with a beard like a Norse 
 man. 
 
 " Well, Braut," said Dayton, " what can I do for 
 you?" 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 133 
 
 " I ain t got nothing agin you " said the man sul 
 lenly, putting on his hat again, and looking vaguely 
 and uneasily about him. 
 
 " I know you are in trouble," said Dayton. " What 
 can I do for you ? I heard you left to-day." 
 
 " Yes, sir. I can t stay no longer. I wanted to 
 see them as saw her last. Mebbe the lady, sir, was 
 one of them ? " 
 
 " I ? " said Rachel, thus strangely appealed to. 
 
 " I had a daughter," the man went on, a little wildly, 
 " the same that made the figgers. She war n t much 
 bigger nor they, an when I left she war as cold. She 
 war drownded, in the river there." 
 
 " I heard of it to-day," said Rachel, recalling a ru 
 mor that had floated to the village from the lower sta 
 tion. " I was very sorry for her." 
 
 " I war a youngster," the man rambled on, " when she 
 war born, an I allus took her round with me. I had 
 nowheres to leave her, an she war a quiet little thing, 
 quiet till that fellow got to showin her about them 
 figgers, and then there warn t any more quietness in 
 her. She went in an out, an in an out, an them 
 sparks came in her eyes, an she put a ribbin in her 
 hair. An I keep a thinkin mebbe she did n t drownd 
 quite accidental like. Nobody knows, unless it s some 
 of you. It war in the night, an she d been over the 
 bridge to look at you. I war sleepin heavy as if she 
 could take care of herself like a water-rat an she waj 
 drownding. There warn t no harm in her, an I could 
 n t rightly find that there war harm in him, but when 
 
134 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 he came smiling round she war taken with him. As I 
 might a knowed. An is he here ? " he added, a sulJen 
 fire breaking through his grief. 
 
 " No, he is n t here," answered Dayton. 
 
 " I don t wish him no luck," cried the man, pulling 
 at his sandy beard, and again looking vaguely and un 
 easily about him. 
 
 " Look here, Braut," said Dayton steadily, " I ll 
 answer for him. He would no more do harm to you 
 or yours than I would. If he has done it he does not 
 know it. He would not mean it. He intended to do 
 good. It is his misfortune to be too clever." 
 
 " I don t wish him no luck," repeated the fellow dog 
 gedly. " There ain t no such innocence. He meddled 
 with what war nothiii to him. He d a been in bet 
 ter business to a let her be. I ain t got nothin ag in 
 you, sir, but I don t wish him no luck." 
 
 Dayton drew Rachel toward the gate which he 
 closed behind her ; and then he went back where the 
 fellow still stood shaking his head menacingly and with 
 a vague desire to avenge upon some one the calamity 
 which had befallen him. 
 
 She went mechanically to the house, and when she 
 looked back they had disappeared. 
 
 Presently Halstead came wandering in from the re 
 gions back on the mountains, and her explanations had 
 to be gone over again. He seemed in no degree sur 
 prised to find her already there. 
 
 " I have felt all the time that I was floundering 
 about without the shadow of a chance," he replied 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 135 
 
 unable wholly to suppress his discomfiture. " When 
 Dayton starts off like that he gets what he goes for. I 
 Bavv him do it once before when there was a strike on 
 the road ; and when he came back he brought three 
 hundred men. Did he pick you up on a fork of light 
 ning ? " 
 
 " I don t know how he did it," said Rachel, " but 
 here I am." 
 
 And where is he ? " 
 
 " There was a man at the gate," said Rachel briefly. 
 " He stopped to speak to him." 
 
 " He was a terrible looking fellow," said Mrs. 
 Sterling ; " he was here a few minutes ago asking for 
 you ? " 
 
 " For me 1 " 
 
 " He looked like a tramp. I think he had been 
 drinking. He would n t tell what he wanted. I 
 thought he would never go, but suddenly away he 
 bolted." 
 
 " He said his name was Braut," said Mr. Sterling, 
 " probably one of the road haads." 
 
 " Braut ? " repeated Halstead. " Braut, was it ? 
 He probably wanted help. I hope Dayton will do 
 something for him." , 
 
 " Who is he ? " inquired his sister. 
 
 " One of the hands down at the bridge. It is a very 
 sad case. He stuck his shovel in the ground to-day 
 and left for parts unknown. They lived in one of the 
 freight-cars you saw down there, he and his daughter, 
 who was drowned a day or two ago. They say he took 
 her loss hard." 
 
136 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I saw her," cried Louise, suddenly starting up. 
 
 " You ! When ? " exclaimed Halstead. 
 
 " The night we were down there. Just before we 
 came home." 
 
 Halstead instinctively raised his head as if he had 
 been unjustly accused. " Is that so ? " he said. " What 
 was she doing ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 What did sbo say ? " 
 
 " She showed me some images she had made," said 
 Louise, concisely. 
 
 " Her bucket of clay is drying up," said Halstead 
 calmly, as one who would freely tell all he knew. 
 " She was the kind of a waif you read about but never 
 see in this country, an artistic waif, artistic, plas 
 tic, tragic. I saw her when I first went down there 
 dabbling in a clay bank with a plaster Holy Mother 
 in her hand. Think of a poor, plain, and arid little 
 being such as she with vague Teachings out toward art 
 as if she would climb by it ! And she did n t even 
 know its name ! Art ? she said. What is art ? I 
 could n t tell her, but I gave her some suggestions 
 about her models. I am sorry for her father. They 
 eay he takes her loss hard. I hope Dayton will do 
 something for him. I believe I 11 go and find them." 
 
 For him the subject of Margot was closed. He had 
 nothing to reproach himself with. He had been very 
 scrupulous. 
 
 As he started out, Rachel ran after him. " Don t 
 go," she said excitedly ; " please don t go. You can 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 137 
 
 do no good. It will only make it worse. He was n t 
 looking for you for any good " 
 
 Nathan straightened himself and looked down upon 
 her. 
 
 " Now, I must go," he said. " Do you think me a 
 coward, or what do you think me ? " 
 
 She gazed after him a moment as he went down the 
 path, with his confident erectness, and his irreproach 
 able rectitude, then turning, went back into the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Sterling, who was bustling about to restore the 
 comfort of their shattered party, bethought herself of 
 Eachel s wet feet and drabbled skirts. " You must go 
 to my room right away, my dear, and dry them," she 
 said, " while I have another fire made down here. I 
 never allow anybody about me to take cold. I never 
 have a cold myself. It is because I avoid draughts 
 and dampness. And your shoes are thin, too. You 
 wear very pretty shoes, my dear. My room is on the 
 right. Louise and Margaret are both there. Louise 
 just went up." 
 
 Rachel, nothing loath, went up-stairs, but Louise and 
 Margaret were not there. There was no one there, 
 and instead of going to the freshly kindled fire she sat 
 down on a stool near the window and buried her fa^e 
 in her hands. She felt crushed, humiliated, she scarcely 
 knew why ; and there was a cessation in her desire 
 for worldly experience. She seemed benumbed. Sho 
 could not cry. She could not think. 
 
 She took no note of time, but presently her hands 
 were quietly removed and Louise stood before her, tall 
 
138 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 aud fair, but with something fierce in the place of her 
 former languor. 
 
 " And you, too ! " she said, with a sort of light scorn. 
 " Oh, we all listen, and we all bury our faces in our 
 hands like that. You are only one. I do it, that little 
 Braut ghost did it, and now you. You are only one. 
 We are of all classes and conditions. And your hands 
 don t cover any more happiness than ours. He is com 
 plicated, you know, complicated. He has no sim 
 plicity of heart, no singleness of mind. He wants and 
 he does not want. He holds loosely. He woos idly. 
 But I hope you don t think there is any evil in him ? 
 He is fine, refined, superfine. Nothing would induce 
 him to be other than a gentleman. You need never 
 fear that. You are not hiding your face because you, 
 for one moment, suspect him, but because you yourself 
 are disappointed, shabbily, miserably disappointed." 
 
 " Yes," said Rachel, allowing her passive hands to 
 be held by the older woman, " I believe I am disap 
 pointed." 
 
 "I knew you would be when we left you on the 
 mountain," pursued Louise. " All your pleasant ways 
 for weeks have led to the supreme, the critical moment ; 
 and when, to-night, you reached it, it was still and dry. 
 He may love you in his way, but he will never ask you 
 to marry him. It is n t in him. He is n t made of 
 that simple stuff. If you are wise you will take your 
 bands down and never put them up again on Nathan 
 Halstead s account. The raptures of that fine young 
 man are as fluent as his phrases. Come, what did he 
 do ? What did he say to you ? " 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 139 
 
 " I don t know," she answered helplessly ; then she 
 caught something of the light scorn of her companion 
 and added, " He said something touching to my shoe 
 buttons." 
 
 " Oh, there are hopes of you," cried Louise, hall 
 wrapping herself in the scant chintz curtains and Jean- 
 ing her head against the casement. "You are not 
 taking it so seriously as I supposed ; not so seriously 
 as I did. Did you wonder why I came here ? You 
 know now. You may as well know. I don t tell you 
 because I expect you to make any concessions to me. 
 I expect you to do your best for yourself, but your 
 best won t be good enough. It won t interfere with 
 me. I don t expect him to love me, but, my child, I 
 have hundreds of thousands of dollars. He thinks 
 now that he does not care for money, but I don t 
 believe it. I keep mine before him and it has its ef 
 fect. I can see that it has its effect. He is prudent, 
 prudent, prudent. His prudence is deepest of all. He 
 is a rich man now. He acts and feels like a rich 
 man ; and the fact that the money belongs to me gives 
 him none the less sublime a sense of unobtrusive 
 wealth. Do you think all this hideous ? Perhaps it ia. 
 I don t know why I tell you, but you seemed so se 
 cure ; as if no one had been before you and no one 
 would come after. I have been before you and I will 
 come after you. He has but one rose-bush for us all, 
 and he lets us sit by it in happy summer rotation, 
 while he treats us like a priest and talks to us like a 
 lover ; but when it comes to marriage, it won t depend 
 
140 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 upon the lengths of our eyelashes or the outlines of 
 our chins. You are pretty. It has been terrible to 
 me to see how pretty you were, but for all that you 
 can be unhappy. If I did not love him I would hate 
 him, but I love him and I can t change. I have only 
 one idea. I never had but one. Most of my life I 
 had n t any. If you have one I advise you to get rid 
 of it. This is no place for fixed ideas. They grow 
 tedious as mine is tedious. Heavens how tedious it 
 is. I myself seem tedious. Everything is tedious, te 
 dious, when one waits." 
 
 Louise leaned out the window as if she would find 
 relief in the cooling rain, and for the moment seemed 
 to have forgotten in her own vehemence the more mod 
 erate infelicities of the younger girl. 
 
 " Does he know it? " asked the latter with solicitude. 
 
 " Know it ! " said Louise. " He could repeat it 
 word for word. He has it set to music. I have heard 
 him humming it." 
 
 " What are you trying to do ? " cried Rachel. " To 
 put him in a shape that no one would look at ? How 
 do you know that all you have been saying is true ? Do 
 you suppose he means nothing that he says, and that 
 he makes up the manners and the very tones of feel 
 ing ? We overreach our mark and accuse him of what 
 nobody could do. We might at least have the grace 
 to wait. We call ourselves his friends, yet hear us ! 
 Hear his friends ! " 
 
 " I am sure he means what he says, to your shoe- 
 buttons," answered Louise. " Perhaps he swore by 
 them. He may have said, By thy buttons I love thee." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 141 
 
 Rachel had no response. She looked for a moment 
 out the window. There were two figures coming up 
 the walk. " It seems to me," she said, " that those 
 who abhor him might praise him more." 
 
 " And did you think him perfect ? " asked Louise n 
 pity of such inexperience. 
 
 I thought him charming," said Rachel. "I am 
 not sure 1 thought him anything else." 
 
 He is nothing else, but that is too considerable. 
 What else ? Your needs must be very great. If he 
 were but half as charming only one of us need sicken 
 for him." 
 
 " Do I look sick ? " inquired the younger girl lifting 
 her face. 
 
 Louise rose and turned up the light. " You look 
 bright, over-bright about the eyes," she said. "Your 
 symptoms are very bad." 
 
 " They will lead to nothing, like signs in dry 
 weather," returned Rachel. She rose and smoothed 
 her hair as if to descend ; but the disorder of the even 
 ing was not to be at once subdued. 
 
 " And your wet feet ! " said Louise ! They had for 
 gotten all about her feet except as the salient at 
 which Halstead had thrown himself down. 
 
 "It makes no difference," she replied ; "we must go 
 home." And she began once more to repair her toilet. 
 
 Louise wrapped a blue shawl about her and stood 
 back a step. " You don t look just right yet," she said, 
 " not as if we had been talking about preventives for 
 oolds. Can t you put on a little dullness? " And bend- 
 
142 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 ing over she kissed her, adding, "That is for dull 
 ness ! " 
 
 At the door Rachel stopped and turned. " I can t 
 help feeling," she said, "that you will have use for 
 your fortune." 
 
 " But when ! but when ! " returned Louise. " Please 
 say that I won t be down again to-night. Say I am 
 not well, say anything you choose except the truth." 
 
 Halstead and Dayton were both in the parlor, and 
 both of them wet and silent. The neat and chilly fire- 
 board had been taken out, and some pine sticks burned 
 cheerfully upon the hearth ; but, though everything had 
 been done for their delectation, it seemed impossible to 
 restore the broken harmony of the evening, at least as 
 far as concerned these gentlemen. When Rachel came 
 in with her wraps on they both immediately got their 
 hats. 
 
 " Come and let us look at you, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Sterling. " Where is Louise ? " 
 
 " She is not feeling well," Rachel answered. 
 
 " Are you quite sure that you are ? " inquired that 
 lady looking at her critically. 
 
 " I am always feeling well," she declared. 
 
 " It is raining a little again," said Margaret. " I 
 wonder where the umbrellas are ! You will want one 
 to go to the carriage." 
 
 " Umbrellas, dear Margaret, are always a source of 
 Bonder," remarked Nathan from the mantel-piece. 
 
XIII. 
 
 IT was about this time that there was a meeting in 
 Boston of the directors and bondholders of this great 
 railway, which was so largely to enhance the pros 
 perity of New England, when Nathan Halstead, who 
 waited upon them to submit some reports, rather dis 
 tinguished himself. The office in which the meeting 
 was held was a crimson and oak apartment, on a scale 
 of magnificence everywhere demanded by the truly 
 railroad mind ; and there were present about a score 
 of the very large and very small men, who by some 
 strange correlation seem best fitted to conduct the 
 very large railroad schemes made public, and the very 
 fine railroad schemes kept private. There was the 
 tall and portly gentleman who seemed to have grown 
 big with his own extraordinary projects, whose idea of 
 true greatness involved the handling of millions upon 
 millions, whose family lived upon a Parisian boulevard 
 and who frequently went across himself ; and there 
 was the small, lean banker, grown thin with shrewd 
 ness, who frequently coughed behind a first mortgage 
 trust deed, and of whom there was not much left but 
 assets. There was the dignitary who had influence 
 with senators, who carried members of the House in 
 his wallet, and who of late years had found it difficult 
 to cross his legs ; and there was the sha p and meagre 
 rail-road king who was always urging that abstruse 
 
144 AN EARNEST TBIFLER. 
 
 operation, to which is given the salubrious name of 
 watering. They were all men of substance and of high, 
 high standards, particularly as regards the great sub 
 jects of personalty and realty, and as such Halstead 
 regarded them witli deep respect, respect enhanced 
 by the confidence reposed in his own discretion. 
 
 He did not think that he himself was destined ever 
 to become that golden object, a moneyed man. " I 
 have no grasp," he said. " I have no grasp," and 
 for the moment his regret was tempered by this snug 
 discovery of what he lacked, but it pleased him to 
 see how money was made in splendid sums ; how trans 
 mitted, and how retained in quantities that told upon 
 the stock exchange. He liked to sit in a crimson 
 chair among railway grandees, and look down upon 
 the noisy street with its throng of citizens, each hurry 
 ing to reach some one of the thousand doors through 
 which the flying hours escape, half-attentive to what 
 went on within the room, half to what went on with 
 out, and half to his own reflections (he had more 
 halves than most men, had Nathan Halstead), but it 
 chanced on this occasion that his own affairs were by 
 far the most engrossing. 
 
 The night was warm, the business dry. His mind 
 had entirely gone, both from the scenes without and 
 within ; his study had assumed the hue called browr, 
 and his attention was fixed upon the conflict now al 
 most chronic in the arena of his bosom, when one of 
 the rotund gentlemen called upon him in a familiar 
 way to send some telegrams on behalf of the company 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 145 
 
 He rose with a promptness, rather physical than men 
 tal, crossed the crimson floor, stepped into the hall, 
 closed the oaken door behind him, turned the key, and 
 dropping it into his unconscious pocket descended to 
 the street. 
 
 He felt he must see Rachel Guerrin again, but 
 for what ? His voluminous purposes were narrowing 
 ominously. He scarcely dared go back to the mount 
 ains. He must go back. He longed to store her un 
 furnished life with gay experiences, her roomy heart 
 with intense affections. He thought it a pity, an intol 
 erable pity that her radiance should be fanned and con 
 sumed by idle, country breezes only, such as drank up 
 springs, rotted cabbages, and wafted dandelions into 
 glory. He wondered as he walked along how she would 
 appear in Boston. He thought he would like by chance 
 to see her on a flagstone pavement, shading her tulip 
 freshness under an umbrageous parasol ; and he would 
 like to touch his hat to her, making meanwhile his 
 mental comments as he did upon other women whom he 
 passed. It might be that his judgment was a little blind, 
 and that however beautiful and even tasteful she might 
 seem among her native hills, the invidious lights of 
 Boston might disclose some fatal lapse of form. Of 
 all the women he had ever known he thought her the 
 most difficult to treat with satisfaction to himself. 
 
 The way was long, affording him much time for med 
 itation. He could imagine nothing more enchanting 
 than to start with her on a tour of initiation, making 
 her open wide her ignorant eyes at some of the more 
 10 
 
146 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 refined among the spectacles to which young men refer 
 when they speak of seeing life. He felt morally cer 
 tain that she was no more cold than she was dull, and 
 yet she had never seemed to kindle on his account ex 
 cept when he had become flame to reach her. He was 
 willing to become flame for that purpose, a harmless 
 light-blue flame, such as flickers over spirits on rare 
 occasions, but was he willing to become fire-unquench 
 able, such as consciously or unconsciously she seemed 
 to insist upon ? And putting his hands in his pockets 
 as he strode along, he drew out a strange object which 
 he did not remember to have seen before, and for whose 
 secretion he could not account. It recalled him sud 
 denly. He never carried keys. It could not be it 
 was ! And rushing back past interminable blocks of 
 houses, and through streets never so devoid of convey 
 ances, he found his caged lions pacing about their hand 
 some den, having ineffectually moved to adjourn some 
 time before. 
 
 Halstead s apologies were profuse ; and though they 
 consisted of little more than a bow and the Washing- 
 tonian confession, " Gentlemen, I did it," they seemed, 
 as all his apologies did, sufficient. 
 
 " There is some woman at the bottom of it, Hal- 
 stead," exclaimed one of them, the same whose 
 family preferred the Boulevard Haussmann to Beacon 
 Street. " What young man keeps his wits in the world 
 where they are ! " 
 
 And this incident was all his friends in Beaudeck 
 ever heard of him during his unaccountably prolonged 
 absence. 
 
XIV. 
 
 IT was a beautiful, hopeful Sunday morning, and 
 even the grasshoppers were keeping it holy. The river 
 flowed with a light serene ; the weeds by the roadside 
 stood reverently erect ; clouds of yellow butterflies 
 hovered here and there, and a cat prowled softly about 
 the premises with true Sunday sloth and receptivity. 
 Dayton, who, for the first time was spending the day 
 alone in the village, and who, perhaps, had some fond 
 previsions with regard to it, sat at his window as if he 
 too were stricken with the smiling, shining, hopeful 
 stillness. He looked down the road past the bridge at 
 the neat little rows of- sister houses, and up the road 
 past the mill, on whose steps some broadclothed boys 
 were swinging their Sabbath-breaking legs. Every one 
 in Beaudeck who believed in the God of Israel wore 
 broadcloth on Sunday. The town had a pensive air. 
 It seemed to have its hands above its eyes and to be 
 looking out upon the wide-spread summer-weather by 
 way of occupation. 
 
 Dayton was glad to be alone. He thought it strange 
 lie should be alone, but since he was alone he gently 
 stroked the ends of his mustache, as if to keep a po 
 tential smile beneath it from growing unduly broad. 
 Presently, as his eyes rested on the highest point of 
 the north road, he saw a team winding over the hill, 
 
148 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 followed by another, and another, and another ; and as 
 if in answer to his half-formed question, the ladies of 
 the household went down the walk and up the shady 
 street holding the skirts of their black silks in one 
 hand, their parasols in the other, and hugging their gilt 
 hymn-books against their bodies. Then the idea of 
 church dawned upon him. 
 
 Dayton rarely went to church. Within the past 
 year he had been but twice : once in San Francisco, 
 when he had gone to hear a popular preacher, and had 
 seemed to sit somewhere outside in a silence of his 
 own, watching through dusty spaces the troubled face 
 of the multiform sinner; and once in New York, when 
 he had strolled to Old Trinity, and had seemed to sit 
 somewhere outside in the silence with the strange lights 
 of a variegated angel falling athwart him from an 
 expensive window, and had watched a great divine 
 standing in a high place like an allegorical figure of 
 Plenty, shedding plenty of wisdom upon the bowed 
 heads of his wealthy congregation. But after both of 
 these occasions he had felt a strange need of spiritual 
 refreshment. In some respects he acknowledged him 
 self a very benighted fellow ; yet when the sun-shades 
 disappeared, a longing took possession of him, and 
 taking his hat he started in the same direction. 
 
 The church was very white and had very green 
 blinds, and as he entered, not without fear of intrusion, 
 the outside of the building seemed to turn inward too, 
 so nearly did its ulterior correspond to its external as 
 pect in whiteness and greenness. He took a seat far 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER- 149 
 
 back, and during the singing of the second psalm, the 
 congregation rose and suddenly turned, surprising him 
 in his observations ; but realizing, after some perturba 
 tion, that it was, perhaps, a custom of the people, and 
 not an expression of general amazement at his pres 
 ence, he too turned, and gave himself up to reluctant 
 contemplation of the cabinet organ. Gradually as the 
 services advanced his first impressions softened. The 
 best bonnets appeared to be sincere and fitting church 
 offerings instead of mistaken exhibits of fashion ; and 
 on closer acquaintance he rather liked the primitive 
 windows and a mural ornament that resembled a gi 
 gantic mantel-piece. He looked at the fly-leaf of his 
 hymn-book, where he learned that it was to Mary 
 Adams from her devoted friend Joseph Bluebaker, at a 
 somewhat distant date ; and some childish hieroglyph 
 ics and moon-faced sketches just below made him hope 
 that Joseph had not given it to Mary in vain. 
 
 The Desborough pew was in the middle of the 
 church, and Rachel in the far end of it, the open-eyed 
 centre, as it were, of this old time flower of Calvinism, 
 was to him the sole sweet prospect of a future. He 
 tried to persuade himself that he had not read aright 
 the signs that bristled around him. Why, if prosper 
 ous in his love affairs, should Halstead be away ? It 
 was barely possible that he was not prosperous. 
 
 Pleasant country sounds came in at the windows. 
 A warning voice slowly rose and fell beneath tho 
 vast mantel-piece ; and Dayton again sat somewhere 
 9utside in a silence of his own, stroking the ends of 
 
150 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 his mustache, as if to keep the smile beneath it from 
 coming prematurely. He walked home with Miss 
 Hannah, and delighted her with some kindly though 
 hazardous remarks about the sermon. The church was 
 her peculiar possession. Did she not settle its dissen 
 sions and its bills, and preside at some of its services ? 
 And beside the missionary societies to follow the re 
 treating Indian, had she not instituted a temperance 
 movement that spread far and wide ? To be sure, this 
 field of usefulness was not large, as cider-mills were 
 *he only things in disrepute ; but good work had been 
 lone among them, and several of the oldest and most 
 reprobate presses had been turned to better uses. 
 
 It was her favorite topic, and she touched upon it 
 on the way. " We cannot see now," she said, " that 
 we make much progress, but we keep working. It is 
 slow, like the formation of rock in the beds of rivers, 
 very slow. But we don t give up. We are not 
 discouraged." Even the geological periods were but 
 spans to Miss Hannah s patience. 
 
 All this time Dayton cherished the idea of spending 
 an hour or two with Rachel while Halstead was still 
 safely beyond the southeastern horizon ; but he found 
 the day drawing to a close without having realized his 
 hope. 
 
 It was evening when Mr. Guerrin with hospitable 
 intent asked him to walk down to the lower end of the 
 village and look at some cattle he owned there, a 
 proposition which he did not accept with alacrity. 
 
 " How far is it ? " he asked for want of something 
 better. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 151 
 
 " About a mile." 
 
 " A mile ! " and in looking about him his eyes fell 
 upon Rachel on the front piazza. " I was wanting," 
 he said with hesitation, " to talk to your daughter." 
 But taking his hat he started down the steps toward 
 the gate as if he would forego that desire. He seemed 
 to be turning a further confidence over in his mind. 
 " I would like," he added, when they were out of hear 
 ing of the house, " to marry your daughter." 
 
 Mr. Guerrin stopped short. " Eh ? " he said. " Not 
 Rachel ? " 
 
 " That is what I would like," said Dayton, relent 
 lessly. 
 
 Mr. Guerrin fitted the ends of his fingers together 
 looking vaguely about him. " Soho ! " he softly ex 
 claimed. He had had a gloomy prescience of some 
 such moment as this, but it had never occurred to him 
 that the blow might come from such a quarter. 
 
 " I thought you ought to know what sort of a man 
 it was you were harboring under your roof," continued 
 Dayton. " I have designs." 
 
 " I half ejected it from Halstead," said Mr. 
 Guerrin, moving on, " but I never thought of it from 
 you." 
 
 Dayton seemed to wish to take the edge off this 
 reproach. " I could take good care of her, sir," hr 
 said. 
 
 " It is n t that, it is n t that ! " said the elder, who 
 felt that fathers should be left in undisturbed posses 
 sion of their daughters, at least in Massachusetts. 
 
152 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " She does n t know anything about it," said Dayton, 
 to be honest. Perhaps she would not look at me, as 
 a husband." The word applied to himself seemed to 
 please him. " I would make her a good husband, sir, : * 
 he said, with smiling ardor. I would have more re 
 spect for myself if there were some one dependent 
 upon me." 
 
 They had reached the gate, and Dayton stopped 
 with his hand on the arch, as if that were the ter 
 minus of his walk. " I would like to have her know 
 about it soon," he resumed. " A man ought to give 
 a woman time to think seriously of him and not wait 
 for a grand climax in which to make his appeal and 
 get his answer in a breath." 
 
 " Why man," cried Mr. Guerrin, as if he suddenly 
 saw a clear and unexpected solution of his difficulty, 
 " Rachel is going away. She has made all her plans. 
 You are too late. She is n t thinking of marriage," 
 and the observation plainly gave him satisfaction. 
 " I have no objection to you, but she is n t thinking 
 of marriage." 
 
 " Going away ! " ejaculated Dayton. 
 
 " Yes, to her great-aunt s. Another Desborough 
 that was." 
 
 " How long to be gone." 
 
 " The rest of the summer. You see the letter came 
 some tune ago, but she only decided yesterday or the 
 day before, and now she can t get away soon enough 
 I am glad to have you here. I hope you 11 stay, but 
 she is going." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 153 
 
 Rachel still walked slowly up and down the long 
 piazza, her arms folded behind her back, her chin up. 
 She seemed to have a great many thoughts. But in 
 stead of joining her, Dayton went back to the wing. 
 " Going away ! " he reiterated, and dissolution seemed 
 already to set in. Everything except the column he 
 leaned against seemed to be receding out of his reach, 
 and for perhaps the first time in his life he felt the fu 
 tility of effort. 
 
 Dayton was tall, broad shouldered, full chested, and 
 with the look of a man who never dwelt upon himself, 
 and had no apparent intentions with regard to his ap 
 pearance. He dressed well, yet was never heard to 
 mention the subject of clothes. He had fair manners, 
 yet never commented upon the habits of the vulgar. 
 He spoke tolerable English, yet no deviations gave 
 him pain. Even his morals seemed to escape compari 
 son in his mind with the nefarious practices of his fel 
 low-men. He seemed to have a certain tacit sense of 
 the ineptitude of error ; and a practical perception of 
 the fitness of the correct for him, and his fitness for 
 the correct stood him instead of myriads of tastes and 
 principles. He took no credit to himself for being 
 whatever he was, except what concerned his reputation 
 as an engineer, and perhaps his early and decided bias 
 for superior work had been a large grace in the life of 
 a man in whom the animal nature had plainly not been 
 eliminated that the intellectual might prosper. 
 
 His hair was short, dark, dry, and thin. His skin 
 was brown, and not without a suggestion of leather ; 
 
154 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 and his mouth was over large. His usual expression 
 was that of a worker of problems, but when he smiled 
 the problems blew away. He was not smiling now, 
 and Rachel remarked his present effort at solution, 
 which was apparently connected with the mountain 
 range before him ; then she turned and went into the 
 house. 
 
 Presently Dayton knocked upon the window and 
 asked if he might come in. 
 
 " It seems you are going away," he said, as he crossed 
 the threshold and advanced into the room. 
 
 " Who told you ? " she asked. 
 
 " Why did n t you tell me yourself ? " 
 
 " It is no great news," said Rachel. 
 
 " Yes, it is. It is astounding," he insisted. 
 
 Rachel smiled, and agreed with him that perhaps it 
 was. " We don t travel much," she said. 
 
 " Is n t it rather sudden." 
 
 " Any departure is sudden for us. I feel as if I 
 were breaking something." 
 
 " So do I," said Dayton. 
 
 " Won t you sit down ? " she asked, observing that 
 he was still standing without any apparent purpose. 
 
 But Dayton had a less formal intention. " I would 
 rather not," he answered ; " let us go." 
 
 " Go where ? " 
 
 " Wherever you like. There are no destinations 
 about here. We might for once go out without one. 
 Did you have enough of a walk outside ? You some 
 times stroll." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 155 
 
 " I did not know," said Rachel, " that you ever did 
 anything so aimless." 
 
 She went with him out upon the piazza., and with 
 her elbows in her hands began to walk up and down 
 again in much the same fashion as before, looking out 
 between the columns with half averted face. 
 
 " That won t do," said Dayton, resenting his slight 
 connection with her promenade. " I expect you to 
 take my arm. I want to talk to you. You have yet 
 to say good-by to me. How are you going to do it ? " 
 
 " I am not going to do it," said Rachel. " I don t 
 believe in it. It is a sorrowful, foolish word. "We shed 
 our salty tears over it when we are really glad to go." 
 
 " I won t object to the. tears," observed Dayton. 
 
 " But I would," she answered smiling ; and he felt 
 himself drawn by her smile from the seriousness of the 
 future to the fascination of the hour. 
 
 " If we are going to walk out here," she went on, 
 " you ought to smoke. You always smoke when you 
 walk. It would seem more natural." 
 
 Dayton stopped, took out a cigar and lighted it. 
 " This," he said, " is a brand which I import myself. 
 There is a masterful notion in this country that what 
 one imports one s self is better than anything accessi 
 ble to the public. I have a friend who imports the 
 most execrable wines at an enormous price, and an 
 other who smuggles pictures. We are all alike ; we 
 would distinguish ourselves by the compliment of a 
 special importation. My specialty is cigars. This one, 
 you will find, burns slowly, it takes from three to 
 tive hours." 
 
156 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Rachel laughed ; and this time she took his arm. 
 
 " Explain it to me," he presently begged in an easier 
 tone than he would have thought possible a few min 
 utes before. " Explain it to me. What takes you 
 away just now ? Have n t we made it as pleasant for 
 you as you have made it for us ? " 
 
 "You have made it very pleasant," she assented 
 with slight constraint. 
 
 " You will have a whole life-time in which to get 
 away. You can go in 83 or in 91. Great-aunts are 
 patient. They can wait." 
 
 " Mine is n t of that sort. She can t wait." 
 
 " Is she so desperately fond of you ? " 
 
 " She would n t know me if she saw me." 
 
 They reached the end of the piazza, and turned to 
 retrace their steps. " Perhaps she anticipates a great 
 deal from your visit," conjectured Dayton. He seemed 
 to be speaking of some remote event which failed just 
 then to impress him with the force of fact. 
 
 " On the contrary, I am afraid the thought of it makes 
 her nervous." And Rachel turned her face again to 
 ward the gate-ways. 
 
 " Is your aunt a nervous person ? " he inquired mi 
 cutely. 
 
 " They tell me she is very nervous." 
 
 They walked on a few minutes more in silence. " I 
 thought," said Rachel, "that you wanted to talk to me." 
 
 Dayton roused himself. " So I did," he cried. " So 
 [ do. I am in a constant state of wanting to talk to 
 yon. I am haunted by an idea that I have a great 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 157 
 
 deal to say to you. I am no talker, you know. I 
 listen to these fluent people in amazement, and wonder 
 where it all comes from and what starts it. It is 
 a great thing to have vagrant ideas always blowing 
 across your mind in an easy, breezy fashion." 
 
 " Not exactly great," the girl dissented. 
 
 " As fo; me," resumed Dayton, " I have no senti 
 ments except those that are alive with some agitation. 
 I occasionally get a little glibness when something 
 stirs the pools, but I can t dip in at any cool moment 
 and produce a nice observation. I don t perceive ex 
 cept under the influence of feeling. I am either slug 
 gish, or I know no bounds. For the life of me I can t 
 talk about the moon. I have very rarely known there 
 was a moon." 
 
 " I have heard enough about the moon," she de 
 clared. 
 
 " What have n t you heard about ? If there is any 
 thing in my line " 
 
 " You were born hi Rio Janeiro ; you might begin 
 there," said the girl. 
 
 " Who told you that ? " 
 
 " Mr. Halstead. He told me too that you did re 
 markable things to the rivers in California, making 
 them run up hill, or something like that. And there 
 was a wonderful bridge over a stream that ran nothing 
 but quicksand, miles of quicksand. Oh, he gave me 
 some great ideas ! " 
 
 " He did, did he ? But the highly colored ideas he 
 gives one of others are always accompanied by most 
 agreeable impressions of himself." 
 
158 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " He can t tell anything otherwise," she replied. 
 
 " I would rather furnish you the baldest facts," said 
 Dayton. 
 
 Does your family still live in South America ? " 
 she inquired. 
 
 " My family ? I have n t any," and he laughed a 
 little. " All I remember of the time when I belonged 
 to a family is going down-stairs one night with my 
 mother to call a Portuguese woman, and rousing all the 
 dogs and the negroes that slept in the entrance way. 
 I assure you, though, we were very nice people, if that 
 is what you would like to know." 
 
 " Yes," said Rachel. " I like to know that." 
 
 " Oh, you need n t be afraid that we were common. 
 I suspect that my mother was almost elegant." 
 
 " I should not wonder," said Rachel thoughtfully. 
 
 She had begun to look before them along the line 
 of the piazza. 
 
 "While we lived as a family," he said, "we lived 
 well. We had the refinements. But it did not last. 
 My father was a ship captain, running between New 
 York and Rio, but he died when I was a youngster, 
 and my mother soon followed him. She always fol 
 lowed him when he was going to stay in port for any 
 length of time. She was very fond of him." 
 
 " What became of you ? " 
 
 " I was sent to my grandfather s in a New Hamp 
 shire town." 
 
 " Did you live there ? " 
 
 "No longer than I could help," said Dayton. "I 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 159 
 
 ran away." Rachel had turned quite around, and to be 
 thus ardently questioned seemed most auspicious. He 
 examined his cigar. It had gone quite out. 
 
 " And then what ? " pursued the girl. 
 
 " I went to Boston." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " You don t want me to tell you the rest, do yon ? 
 The romance dies out when I eome to the front. It 
 grows prosy to the last degree. Ask me something 
 later. I don t know how well you could stand the first 
 few years of my career." 
 
 " Try me." 
 
 " I prefer not to try you in any way. I am timid." 
 
 Rachel seemed to think him humorous. " You must 
 have been poor, then," she said. 
 
 " I would rather like to give the lad I was then a 
 lift," assented Dayton. " During the war I was in an 
 engineer regiment. Since then I have been in Califor 
 nia, and here, there, and most anywhere on the fron 
 tier line of a railroad. Had n t we better quit this ? If 
 is too egotistical." 
 
 " Had you friends in Boston ? " she persisted. 
 
 " Only those I made. I have always had friends 
 among men. It has been among men that I have 
 lived. I have n t known many families, not many 
 ivomen. I have knocked about a great deal in the 
 western country where there were none to speak ofi 
 I believe I have had rather a rough time of it, without 
 knowing it till now." 
 
 " I went up last night to say good-by to Mrs. Ster- 
 
160 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 ang," said Rachel, as if her mind found some easy 
 connection between the topics, probably considering 
 Mrs. Sterling the one woman of his acquaintance. 
 
 " Good-by ? " repeated Dayton. 
 
 " I go to-morrow, you know. Did n t you see my 
 trunks ? " 
 
 She seemed to expect some sympathetic good wishes 
 for her journey, but Dayton stopped and looked down 
 upon her with his problematic air. " Is that settled?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Settled ? Yes, of course." 
 
 Dayton took hold of a bench before him making it 
 creak. " Settled ! " he said, and he seemed to wish to 
 shake in like manner the decision that was closed 
 against him. While he considered it Rachel took a 
 short turn by herself, looking out among the elms 
 again. 
 
 " Do you know," she began impersonally, " I think 
 you have had a fine sort of life." 
 
 " Are you trying to congratulate me ? " asked Day 
 ton. " Come ; as a life how does it strike you ? Look 
 ing at it impartially, what do you think of it, of its 
 symmetry, its completeness, its exquisite finish ? of 
 its conception, its execution? Nothing mechanical 
 about it. No lop-sidedness, no crudity. Oh, it is truly 
 fine! a destiny, don t you think, that a man might 
 be proud to have carved for himself ? And I have n t 
 been more than forty years about it, either. It has the 
 beauty, I should say, of a trestle-work. It looks as 
 if it had been made by an inspired money-seeker with 
 an ax. You set me up. You make me feel vain." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 161 
 
 Rachel flushed a little. He seemed to be deriding 
 her excessive simplicity. " It seemed line to me," she 
 said, with modest sincerity. 
 
 " It occurs to me at last," continued Dayton, " that 
 among other huge things I have made a huge mistake. 
 It is the hugest of all. I thought once that if a man 
 could build bridges, he could bridge anything, do 
 anything. We bridge only brooks, and it only leads to 
 the bridging of more brooks. It has no earthly con 
 nection with achievement in finer directions. I thought 
 if I could build my bridge and cross it, I would be a 
 powerful fellow. You don t mean to tell me that I am 
 a powerful fellow, Miss Guerrin. You can t exactly say 
 that I have much influence with you, for instance. I 
 wish now that I had spent a good part of my time 
 weaving webs. You can t weave webs with grappling 
 irons. I am a failure. Mine has been a heavy, crude 
 performance, one-sided, ridiculous, ending in noth 
 ing." 
 
 " Is success, then, so disastrous ? " asked Rachel, as 
 if the facts compelled her to look lightly upon his 
 phenomenal and satirical despair. " If you give up, 
 the rest of us need never begin." 
 
 " Oh, I shall not give up. I know nothing else 
 than to keep on. I shall go back to my bridges, and 
 you will go on to your aunts. That is the arrange 
 ment, is n t it? We both, I think, have the gift of con 
 tinuance. Who is this aunt that you are so enamored 
 with? And where does she live? Suppose we sit 
 down and talk about her. You love your aunts ad 
 11 
 
162 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 I love my bridges. My heart is full of bridges with 
 roaring cataracts under them. Sit down and I will tell 
 you about them. And you shall tell me about your 
 aunts, particularly the one with the nervous affection. 
 I think that I perhaps have the same malady." 
 
 " Not you ! " said Rachel. She was still smiling 
 vaguely. " Not you ! " she said. 
 
 " I can t tell," said Dayton, " till I hear the diag 
 nosis. She can t wait, that is one thing." 
 
 He was often puzzling to her. She met his intent 
 gaze a moment, her own becoming briefly as intent. 
 " I know you less and less," she finally said. 
 
 " Whose fault is that ? " he asked. 
 
 " Your s, when you talk like that," she answered, 
 beginning her faltering smile again. 
 
 " You should be so kind as to tell me what my pros 
 pects are ? " 
 
 " Prospects ! I don t know much about prospects. 
 I have done no prospecting to speak of." 
 
 " So long as a man is in pursuit of a livelihood," con 
 tinued Dayton, " the result may be somewhere in pro 
 portion to his endeavors, but when he demands a senti 
 ment, he gets it or not, as it happens. Affinities and 
 subtleties beyond him come in about that time, and aid 
 him or thwart him, as the case may be. That is where 
 our tracks run up trees. My track has run up a tree." 
 
 " There is a mistake somewhere," said Rachel; " there 
 is a mistake somewhere ! " 
 
 " Where ? " exclaimed Dayton. 
 
 There was that about him that Rachel had never 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 163 
 
 seen before ; a fervor, a recklessness, a willingness 
 to harbor in his hitherto independent and solitary be 
 ing whatever of warmth or familiarity might be al 
 lotted to him ; a desire to command it even, though 
 he might thereby lay himself open to disappointment 
 and rebuff. He seemed to include her, and her only, 
 in his new freak of passionate hospitality. 
 
 The door of the hall stood open. She thought of 
 going in. She thought of what Halstead had said. 
 
 " Know me better : know me well ; good might 
 come of it," he cried. " How is it that men find their 
 way into the regard of women ? However it is, that is 
 what I want. I would like to be in the ring that binds 
 people together. Can t you make room for me some 
 where near you ? " 
 
 " You don t know " Eachel began. 
 
 " Yes, I do," he answered, interrupting her. " I know 
 all about it. That is the trouble with me. I know it 
 is n t I whom you have been considering. I am not 
 seeking your confidence. I would rather not have it 
 just now ; it might dispirit me. All I ask of you is 
 to take some account of my pretensions when you are 
 making up your plans. I want you to think well of 
 me, and to remember that on all possible occasions I 
 lay claims to your attention. I want to help you en 
 joy your life." 
 
 " I can t think of it," said Rachel, with deep excite 
 ment. " I can t think of it." She felt, indeed, a cer 
 tain sense of self-disparagement in listening to words 
 of such similar import at such short intervals from 
 both these strange gentlemen. 
 
164 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " But you will," said Dayton, with persistent hope 
 fulness. " If you were altogether happy you would not 
 be going away. I don t ask you to begin now. I only 
 want to impress your opportunities upon you. When 
 you come back we will begin anew. Was n t it in 
 your programme that I should be here when you came 
 back?" 
 
 " No," she answered, with hesitation. 
 
 " No matter," he rejoined. " You can put it in now. 
 Wherever I am I shall turn up here again." He had 
 taken her hand, she did not know just when, and was 
 looking fervidly down upon her. 
 
 From somewhere in the back of the house Miss 
 Hannah was heard advancing, putting down windows 
 and fastening bolts as she came ; and Rachel, releasing 
 herself, shadowed along the piazza. 
 
XV. 
 
 WHEN Rachel got off the train at the city of fl 
 
 an old gentleman with uncertain manner looked her 
 over in eager inspection, then veiled his inquiring 
 glance behind the usual guise of stranger?, waited till 
 the passengers had all alighted ; passed and repassed 
 her with slow steps, leaning on his cane, till finally, 
 meeting her face to face, he came forward with out 
 stretched hand. 
 
 " Well, well ! " he said, " I believe it is," and he 
 laughed slightly as if it were a joke on somebody. 
 " Your aunt," he presently explained, " is waiting out 
 side. She sent me in to find you. She told me 
 well, no matter what she told me ! " and he laughed 
 again. 
 
 " This, Sabra," he said, stopping before a landau in 
 which sat a thin oldish lady with very precise manners, 
 "this is the little villager whom you were expecting. 
 You will be relieved to see her. And this, my dear," 
 turning to Rachel, " is your great-aunt." And depos 
 iting her satchels on the seat, he looked from one to 
 the other as if he had prepared some witty surprise. 
 
 " I don t see, Robert," returned the lady, " what 
 you find to be amused at. My husband," she added 
 apologetically, " is amused at everything. And he will 
 call me Sabra. I am glad, my dear, that they gave 
 
166 AN EAENEST TRIFLER. 
 
 you a bettor name, though Rachel, to be sure, is not 
 quite fashionable now. T am glad to see you, and Mr. 
 Cotter, I know, will be pleased. He is very fond of 
 young people. I would be, too, but my health, you 
 know, is not the best. I am troubled a great deal with 
 asthma. Ar n t you going to ride up, Robert ? " 
 
 " No," replied Mr. Cotter. " I will hunt up her 
 her bandboxes. .1 will be there by the time you get 
 the dust off." And closing the door he went away, 
 smiling still. 
 
 " You have n t been in the city before," began the 
 lady, as they started up the street. " Drive slowly, 
 Matthew. I understand you have always lived in the 
 country. Beaudeck is a very shut-up place. I spent 
 my own girlhood there, strange as it may seem. I 
 hope it will do you good to get away. You ought to 
 see more. Our streets are not very lively now. A 
 great many of our best people are away, though some 
 prefer to go south winters and stay at home in the hot 
 season. I did n t suppose you would care, not being 
 used to it. I thought we might have a quiet time 
 among ourselves. I told Mr. Cotter you would n t 
 care for society, but, come to see you, you look as if 
 you might. You are one of the straight-nosed Des- 
 boroughs, after all. I did n t know but you might be 
 something of a Guerrin. You have your father s ex 
 pression, though something about the eyes, or is it 
 the mouth ? Matthew, more slowly. Mr. Cotter will 
 be glad to have you with us, I am sure. He is a very 
 peculiar man. I have no children of my own, you 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 167 
 
 know. They died when they were very small, and it 
 can t be helped now. I think Mr. Cotter feels it is my 
 duty to supply the house in some way with young peo 
 ple. We have everything else, but he is n t satisfied. 
 He would have the house stretched open from morning 
 till night, even on the Sabbath, I am afraid, if he had 
 his way. I try not to let him have his way in all 
 things. He has his way a great deal. It was he pro 
 posed to send for you. He gave up his practice much 
 too soon, though he is older than he seems. We both 
 are. When he had his business he did n t seem to 
 care so much for other things Matthew, Matthew ! 
 Are you afraid of horses, my dear ? I never like to 
 jolt across these tracks. I wonder that the people 
 tolerate street-cars. They are the ruin of the streets. 
 I have heard they took a great deal of pains with 
 you, sending you away to school and so on, but that 
 would n t have given you your complexion or your 
 nose. Probably it helped about your dresses. You 
 certainly look very nice. I have some friends, my 
 dear, that I would like to introduce you to. I could 
 almost wish now that it was a gayer season. I would 
 like to have them see what I was like at your age. 
 After all, there are a good many left, some of the 
 best. The Hannas are still here. But they are always 
 here. They hate travel. We will have our friends 
 oome and see you. Mr. Cotter, I think, will like it 
 too. It would keep him at home more. I can t tell 
 you how many times a day he goes down street ; and 
 he always walks. He won t even have his newspapers 
 
168 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 brought to the house. He goes out and buys them. 
 Every time a paper comes, he goes out and buys it. 
 If there were many more papers he would never be at 
 home. It is n t that he reads them all. Half of them 
 he stuffs in his pockets. It is a great waste. I believe 
 he does it on account of the newsboys. It is the same 
 way with the barbers and the shoe-blacks. He will 
 want you to go out with him a great deal. Do you 
 walk ? I never walk. Mr. Cotter says I would be 
 better if I would go out, but I have gone out and was 
 no better. He has the rheumatism himself, but he 
 won t admit it. Rheumatism does n t show unless it is 
 very bad. He has it worse than he pretends. Any 
 body can tell the asthma. I hope you will like our 
 city. It is n t large, but some of our stores are very 
 fine. There is a great deal of wealth here. I will 
 take you to the stores myself. We have n t many 
 young people. I don t think there are as many young 
 people as there used to be ; but I know a few, and 
 they know others. I suppose I might take the time to 
 go out more, but servants are always careless unless 
 watched." 
 
 It was with this familiar sort of allocution that Mrs. 
 Cotter beguiled the time between the depot and her 
 house, and to which her niece now and then responded 
 as opportunity was afforded her. They were admitted 
 by a sable servant, and Rachel was left for a moment 
 in the closed and darkened drawing rooms, in which 
 the felt too formal even to look about her. They 
 were in wonderful order, and it would have been a 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 169 
 
 bold person who could even take a chair without 
 murmuring something to the effect that necessity knew 
 no law. It seemed as if their occupants were dead, 
 and everything was lovely. Presently she was shown 
 up-stairs to a large front room by a maid, who hastily 
 explained that as a change had been made in her 
 apartment, things might not be quite as neat as they 
 might be ; though Rachel, in looking about her, could 
 see nothing further to be desired. She thought it the 
 finest room she had ever been in. It had a chan 
 delier over the dressing-case, and a lace coverlet on 
 the bed, with neither of which luxuries she was fa 
 miliar. 
 
 " I forgot to ask," began Mrs. Cotter, later, softly 
 bustling around as they came out of the dining-room, 
 " about your mother and her sisters, my nieces, or 
 rather my half nieces or step-nieces. It is a pity for 
 families to separate so. I wish now that I had known 
 you all along. I might have advised them about your 
 education. I suppose you know Latin ? I learned 
 some Latin myself at the hill school, but it has n t 
 been of much use to me. There isn t much Latin 
 floating about in conversation. I don t see the use of 
 learning things you have to cover up. Sit here, my 
 dear. I always said that accomplishments were as 
 good as anything for girls. Robert, will you open that 
 other window ? " 
 
 Mr. Cotter opened the othei window, and spread 
 part the curtains with an expression of humorous 
 obedience. They were long windows, opening on 
 
170 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 very small balconies. As he did so, something down 
 the street caught his eye, and going out he stepped 
 down to the gate. 
 
 " There he goes again," said Mrs. Cotter, " and 
 without his hat." Something seemed also to catch her 
 eya. and she bent far forward over her lap. "I do 
 hope," she went on, as if communing with herself. 
 " that he will wait and speak to him. It would be as 
 good a time as any to tell him." 
 
 Rachel, sitting in front of one of the windows, also 
 looked out. 
 
 Across the street was a large, dark house in an im 
 mense yard surrounded by a high fence. The gate 
 was open, and a gentleman was walking down the 
 roadway picking his teeth. Mr. Cotter, at his own 
 gate, was waiting the approach of a breathless boy 
 who had newspapers under his arm, when the dark 
 gentleman who had come from the opposite house 
 sauntered along and stopped to exchange sentences 
 with him. He then returned to the drawing-room car 
 rying a damp evening sheet. 
 
 " Did you ask him in ? " inquired his wife, when he 
 reappeared at the door. 
 
 " Ask whom in ? " 
 
 " Jerome, of course." 
 
 No." 
 
 " Nor even tell him to call ? " 
 
 " No," again admitted the delinquent. 
 
 " "Well, that shows ! " said Mrs. Cotter, reproach 
 fully. " But he saw you, my dear. That is what he 
 stopped for," and she nodded her head at Rachel. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 171 
 
 " He was greatly affected at seeing the windows 
 open," returned her husband, as if poking some one in 
 the ribs. 
 
 He looked down his paper ; then went out again, 
 shortly returning as before. " I told Matthew to bring 
 back tbe horses," he announced. " I am going to the 
 club. They have some pictures to show for the benefit 
 of I forget now what. I would like to take the 
 young lady with me." 
 
 " Robert ! " protested Mrs. Cotter. " She s too 
 tired." 
 
 " Oh, no, I am not tired," said Rachel. 
 
 " It s no place to show her first." 
 
 " Put a veil on, then," pursued that gentleman. 
 " You can unveil her to-morrow at church with all tho 
 more effect. We 11 have it in the papers." 
 
 Rachel had risen with smiling readiness, and Mrs. 
 Cotter slowly rose also. " If you will go," she said, 
 after some fluttering hesitation, " I ought to go too. 
 It may not stuff me up much, and perhaps the evening 
 would be a little long." 
 
 " Good ! " said Mr. Cotter, as if wonders would never 
 cease. 
 
 As they crossed the pavement to the carriage the 
 same dark gentleman came strolling back, and Mrs. 
 Cotter stopped to speak to him. As she left him she 
 uodded several times. " And bring your mother with 
 you," she said, nodding again from the carriage. " Why 
 don t you inquire who that is ? " she asked of Rachel, 
 as they drove away. 
 
172 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I don t know," replied the girl. " Who is it ? " 
 
 " You are, let me see, you must be over twenty 
 How old, Robert, should you think Mr Hanna was ? " 
 
 " I don t see that it makes much difference how old 
 he is," returned her husband. " He is forty odd. 
 Probably the young lady is not much interested in the 
 ages of old men ? " 
 
 " He is not a favorite of Mr. Cotter s," explained 
 the lady. "I don t know why. He is an estimable 
 young man. He is a warden in the church, and he 
 has always been very good to his mother. We are 
 neighbors. She and I have always been very friendly. 
 She is not a "pleasant person, but what she says has 
 great weight. Jerome looks after her property for her 
 He is a good son." 
 
 " Has he no other business ? " asked Rachel, making 
 conversation. 
 
 " He tends some to other people s," said Mr. Cotter 
 amiably. 
 
 No man in the small metropolis where he lived was 
 better known than Robert Cotter. (He was always 
 spoken of as Robert Cotter.) He was nothing if not 
 a citizen ; and though his usefulness lay chiefly in the 
 past, consisting now in reputation, in his connection 
 with subscription lists, and in the imposing presence 
 which he frequently lent to public assemblies, he was 
 regarded by the people with a kindly and reasonable 
 piide. He liked well-worn flagstones, whittled pea- 
 uut stands, crowded passage-ways, green groceries tres- 
 oassing or, the pavement, and streets blocked with 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 173 
 
 traffic. He liked working-men s meetings, historical 
 societies, cobblers associations, drum-corps, scientific 
 assemblies, polls, station-houses, lecture rooms, barber 
 shops, all sorts of urban and suburban sights and 
 sounds ; and it was only as it filled the stomachs of the 
 towns that he took an interest in the country. It 
 was told of him that sauntering one morning along 
 the busy main street, he was accosted by a friend, who 
 inquired after his welfare. " I am perfectly happy," 
 returned Mr. Cotter, " perfectly happy ; I have n t 
 even a thought." His form was erect, his face 
 smooth-shaven, his hair white, and he habitually wore 
 a swallow-tailed coat and a white tie. A picture 
 of him was frescoed upon the walls of the court 
 house, and he frequently paid it his respects, as if to 
 by-gone talent and virile strength. He had married 
 early, and had discovered almost simultaneously that 
 he was strangely alien to feminine perfections. " Per 
 fection cannot change," he said ; " lean." He changed 
 very much, but from some peculiar association he had 
 not been in Beaudeck for a quarter of a century. He 
 married in Beaudeck. And in the years since then 
 the wife of his youthful bosom had come to bear 
 about the same relation to that bosom that a damson 
 plum bears to Co vent Garden. 
 
 It was said that he had been intemperate, though no 
 body seemed to know exactly when. 
 
 The twinkling eyes that had taken such varied 
 scenes upon their restless retinas were somewhat dim. 
 The sonorous voice that had made the flesh creep 
 
174 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 along the backs of juries was somewhat husky. Hia 
 step was slow, and when he spoke he generally stopped 
 as if it were growing difficult to carry on both proc 
 esses at once. And the hand which held his news 
 paper was unsteady, though the markets were still 
 quoted as firm. " Where are all the young people, the 
 gay people ? " he asked, one day. And this was the 
 origin of the letter to Rachel. 
 
 Mrs. Cotter had regular features, a dark complex 
 ion, black eyes, and a nose rather apt to be red from 
 October till May. She came out of her room every 
 morning in a pair of soft slippers, with a soft worsted 
 shawl about her shoulders ; poured the coffee without 
 a drop upon the cloth; told her dreams and her ill 
 nesses in a soft flannel voice in her well moments, 
 otherwise in rather wheezing tones ; gave her orders 
 to her servants ; footed up her accounts (Robert Cot 
 ter always laughed at these accounts), and then occu 
 pied herself in bringing some detail of her house to 
 that point of severe nicety which is only possible in 
 the absence of children and external interests. 
 
 She had looked forward with considerable anxiety 
 to Rachel s visit, fearing she might be mortified by 
 the crudities of a young creature from the hills, and 
 shrinking from the idea of an awkward relative, since 
 kinship with a common person illustrates unpleasantly 
 the accident of one s own elegance. She might con 
 scientiously have faced an ill-dressed niece, but she 
 would have suffered much from it at night, and would 
 have explained to every one how it happened. She 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 175 
 
 was fond of explaining how things happened, and could 
 always trace misfortune to personal imprudence, 
 everything except asthma, which was sent direct from 
 Heaven. There was very little in the world which she 
 could not explain, and in colds, bankruptcies, misfits, 
 and all sorts of wretchedness she was very apt. Mr. 
 Cotter, on the other hand, found much that was in 
 scrutable heie below, and ignoiantly believed that 
 many persons, even poor sick persons, were quite 
 blameless. Furthermore he never told his wife when 
 he felt a twinge of rheumatism, or when he met with 
 any loss. 
 
 The experiment, however, with the young creature 
 from the hills, who proved a charming and beauti 
 ful creature, was eminently satisfactory ; and finding 
 Rachel a credit to her, a neat and unexpected com 
 pliment to the family, Mrs. Cotter sought to do the 
 proper thing by her in every respect. Not only were 
 the piano and shutters left open, the furniture covers 
 permanently removed, and an injurious draft allowed 
 in the halls, but she soon introduced her to her finest 
 and most terrible friends, without reluctance or reser 
 vation, and was surprised to find how many young 
 persons, particularly young gentlemen, there were con 
 nected with the families of her acquaintance. Liveried 
 footmen brought cards to the door, and elaborate toi 
 lets tripped up the steps ; while short, broad backs, 
 and tall, straight backs crooked at evening over the 
 low iron gate hunting the unfamiliar latch. This 
 pleased the greatest of aunts, who laid aside some of 
 
176 AN EARNEST TR1FLER. 
 
 her soft woolens, grew better in health, and quietly 
 pursued a project not unconnected with a neighboring 
 estate incumbered with a bachelor. It was very ex 
 citing. It seemed many years to Mrs. Cotter since 
 virgins married bachelors. 
 
 To Rachel Guerrin herself the first day or two of 
 her visit seemed as flavorless as real life when on 
 lays down a vivid romance. She had come. She 
 would stay. She wished to plunge with all her heart 
 into her new diversions, but she did not find herself as 
 interested as she had expected to be in a discursive 
 view over this larger and more populous field. The 
 city was full of strangers, the extent of whose strange 
 ness she had not yet measured, but which she believed 
 to be very deep ; yet the process of lessening that 
 strangeness was not absorbing, and when alone her 
 thoughts centered upon what was already familiar to 
 her. 
 
 When she had been there some days she stepped out 
 the front door one afternoon upon the flight of stone 
 steps which was savagely guarded by lions ; satisfied 
 herself that the third button of her glove was securely 
 fastened ; looked down at the fine horses and the glit 
 tering spokes of the equipage in waiting ; also at the 
 smiling party there assembled for an excursion, and re 
 alized that she was part of the gay, philandering world 
 to which Nathan Halstead had always belonged, and 
 of which she too had wished to be a member. She 
 knew that wherever she went friends waited to attend 
 her, and when she stopped a small court gathered 
 
AN EARNEST TEIFLER 177 
 
 round her. She knew, too, that when she went down 
 a room full of people heads fell off, heads cropped 
 close like gladiators. And she took no notice. It 
 was owing to her Greek nose. 
 
 " Rachel," said Mrs. Cotter one day, " you should 
 begin to think of being married. There are gentle 
 men here not too young, who ought to satisfy a girl 
 much more ambitious than you, and if you are wise 
 you will look about you." 
 
 " But I am not wise," answered Rachel. 
 
 " I will be wise for you," offered her aunt. 
 
 " Oh, please don t," said the girl in alarm. 
 
 It was that very evening that young Garrotson, 
 whose locks were cropped very close indeed, paused at 
 the door as he was about to take his leave, and putting 
 his hands to his head (perhaps to sustain an emptiness 
 there), said to her, " I am infatuated. I love you." 
 He had heretofore had an extremely dull summer. 
 
 " I am very sorry," said Rachel, sincerely, but a trifle 
 disdainfully, as she raised her profile against the cur 
 tains. She wondered if this were illustrative of Mrs. 
 Cotter s wisdom. 
 
 When the door closed behind him she fell into a rev 
 erie. After a time the disdain disappeared. Even 
 her brightness was obscured. Her face grew softer, 
 and she sat with her hands in her lap in a dreaming 
 attitude. She sat a long time, and it is not impossible 
 that her desire for the varied social life had changed 
 to a dream of the fuller and intenser heart-life to which 
 the young and the rustic look vaguely forward. 
 
178 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 It was in a letter to Margaret Duncan that Rachel 
 set down some of her impressions of this time. Mar 
 garet had in fact taken that sort of fancy to her which 
 very plain and practical women will sometimes take to 
 (hose who are beautiful and whom they suspect of being 
 unsettled at heart. She wished in some way to help her 
 shift through with her beauty and sensibility into the 
 superior condition of homeliness and matter-of-fact- 
 ness, and meanwhile wove about her that romance 
 which nature forbade her to weave round herself. 
 
 In answer to a letter Rachel told her she was glad 
 to hear from her ; was glad to be missed ; and was 
 sorry to have dropped so suddenly out of their sum 
 mer. " What am I doing, do you ask ? " she went on. 
 " Realizing my dreams, thank you. It is a severe 
 ordeal. I have met more people than I can name or 
 recall at sight, and I shift from one engagement to an 
 other as fast as I can get ready. At first I thought the 
 visiting, of which we do a great deal, quite tame, but 
 now I think it the reverse of tame. By we, I mean 
 my aunt and me. She always goes with me, and likes, 
 I think, to revive her social accomplishments. Formali 
 ties please her greatly, and when I want to be alto 
 gether agreeable I call her madam. Perhaps most 
 women beam upon those who call them madam, do 
 they ? She regrets the fallow years I spe t among the 
 hills, my walks, my rides, my everything else that I 
 mistook for enjoyment ; and commiserates me that I 
 had never had any engraved cards nothing with 
 Tuesdays or any other day of the week on it. But 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 179 
 
 this, and some of my other glaring deficiencies, have 
 long since been made up, and she is so kind as to want 
 to dispose of the brief remainder of my wasted days in 
 her own way. She is even more kind to me than I 
 would be to myself, and takes care of me as if I were 
 something very fragile. 
 
 " We keep quite an open house, and a good many 
 visitors invited and uninvited come every day. Some 
 of them are Mrs. Cotter s friends ; some of them their 
 delightful daughters, and some a club of young men, 
 calling themselves by a big name, and doing every 
 thing in the most uniform and fire-department manner. 
 There is a gentleman here, not of the club, who says he 
 has met Mrs. Sterling ; a Mr. Hanna, Jerome Hanna, 
 I believe, is his name. He lives near, and seems long 
 to have been in Mrs. Cotter s favor. He does a great 
 deal to please her, including taking me to ride on a fine 
 horse that he calls a genuine Hambletonian, whatever 
 that is. Not to know the merits of a genuine Hamble 
 tonian implies great ignorance, I infer. He was here 
 to dinner again yesterday, and afterward in the library 
 he asked me if I knew the origin of the term Welsh- 
 rabbit. I hurried and said No, what was it ? but just 
 then some others came in, and I did not get to hear. 
 We are invited to-morrow to his mother s, perhaps 
 be may tell me there. 
 
 ; All this, of course, is an old story to you, but to 
 me, please remember, it is quite, quite new. It reminds 
 me of former occasions when, alone years ago in the 
 garden at home, I played the great lady with aunt Han- 
 
180 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 uah s parasol above me and trumpet flowers drawn on 
 my fingers for gloves. I was Anna Cora Mowatt then, 
 and I visited Joan of Arc, who lived on a flower-pot 
 under the asparagus bushes. I don t know who I am 
 now, and I meet no one who resembles Joan. I like 
 it, yet every once in a while I find myself wanting 
 to recreate in the extensive silence about my home. 
 Here one has no time co think, and I am not accli 
 mated to so much gayety. 
 
 " Among other things my aunt is soon to give me a 
 party, which will fill both the house and the yard, I 
 must tell you about the yard. There is very little of 
 it in front, and that little is filled with balconies and 
 railings and vases ; but back of the house there is a 
 large court, full of fragrance and shade, and the whole 
 is surrounded by a brick wall ten feet high, like a con 
 vent of old. Whenever I have any leisure I retire to 
 my convent with my uncle, who is a fine, genial gen 
 tleman. He has been a fine, genial gentleman for 
 seventy-five years. 
 
 " Soon after the party we are going to the Isles of 
 Shoals, where Mr. and Mrs. Cotter go every year, and 
 after that I am going home. Sometimes I think I 
 must go before. I heard a priest say once that women 
 always want to be where they are not." 
 
 It happened that Halstead heard this letter discussed 
 at Mrs. Anderson s, where he sat one evening meditat 
 ing upon his past record and the summer scene be 
 fore him. In the course of it he remembered that he, 
 too, had once known a young fellow residing in that 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 181 
 
 city, and pausing a moment in intent retrospection he 
 recalled his name. It was M. D. Short, according to 
 his signature, and Miss Demeanor Short, according to 
 the vernacular of his club, in which a certain rattling 
 adventure on the part of that gentleman had once 
 made some noise. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE neighbor mentioned in the foregoing came to 
 dinner frequently, and indeed his relations with Mrs. 
 Cotter s family seemed to be such as would admit his 
 presence there at almost any hour of the day or even 
 ing. He seemed to Rachel a sort of social cactus, and 
 she wondered that her aunt should take pleasure in 
 cultivating in a friendly way such a brown-stone-hot 
 house product. He lived alone with his mother, who 
 cherished him as the cactus of her bosom, and they 
 occupied a gloomy penitentiary across the way, which 
 was surrounded by a tall iron fence and an osage- 
 orange hedge to keep out the gaze of the impudent 
 populace. 
 
 The estate as yet was the mother s, and she regarded 
 her son as she did her lands, as property not to be dis 
 sipated, or to pass out of the family without her con 
 sent, but as he was forty and still uninvested, she once 
 conferred with Mrs. Cotter about it. 
 
 From time to time during the past twenty years 
 Jerome had emerged from his greatness and gloom to 
 pursue for a season the acquaintance of some young 
 woman who caught his fancy, but even that as a rule 
 did not last long. " No woman," he once declared, 
 u can really entertain a man for an hour, by her 
 conversation," and men he sometimes spoke of as con- 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 183 
 
 ceited beggars. Upon the whole he went through life 
 lonely and suspicious, like a man with a lantern, a 
 lantern that illumined a small circle about him, but 
 left the outer darkness peopled with shapes all more 
 or less dubious. He did not approve mankind. He 
 had never had any business beyond the care of the 
 family property, but, though content with mediocrity 
 from day to day, he was, and always had been, a great 
 man in the future. Among other things, he meditated 
 a voyage of discovery up the Nile, an article on Ca 
 tholicism in the " North American Review," and a lect 
 ure on finance at Cooper Institute, and he was abo 1 -.; 
 to begin, when one day he saw Rachel pass the lions 
 opposite, and go into the house. He waited, but she 
 did not reappear, and he shortly made an excuse to 
 cross the street. After that he fell into a habit of 
 going over there. He rode horseback with her, sent 
 her magnificent flowers from the greenhouse and bas 
 kets of fruit from his orchards, in all of which she saw 
 a high and mighty form of neighborliness from the 
 chief friend of the family. It had much to do with 
 her popularity, since the young lady whom Jerome 
 Hanna distinguished became at once an object of in 
 terest and solicitation, and had not Mrs. Hanna, who 
 so rarely gave dinners, given a dinner for her ? 
 
 But it was toward the night of Mrs. Cotter s party 
 that his gifted mind came to a focus on one of the 
 minor points bearing upon a great career, and he de 
 termined to distinguish that evening from the mass 
 of evenings, as he distinguished the fair Miss Guerrin 
 
184 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 from the mass of women. The old house was com 
 pletely rejuvenated on that occasion, and all its dark 
 solemnity hustled out-of-doors, even beyond the high 
 wall encircling the brilliantly lighted court. Rachel, 
 radiant with an irrepressible bloom, stood near her 
 aunt, talking to some of the last arrived, while Jerome 
 watched her from a position near the piano, waiting 
 for the moment to come when, her duties over, he 
 could take her among the dancers, or", better yet, among 
 the Chinese lanterns in the garden, under whose exotic 
 auspices he would bring to light the burden of his soul. 
 It seemed to him that the guests would never assem 
 ble, and that they were greatly in excess of the num 
 ber necessary to celebrate his intentions. To pass the 
 tedious time he addressed an acquaintance here and 
 there, or, relapsing within himself, strolled through 
 the thronged and decorated rooms as if they were an 
 unbroken solitude ; always returning beneath Mrs, 
 Cotter s smiles to his position near the piano, on the 
 top of which instrument he beat a light tattoo. As he 
 stood there looking at Rachel he was more certain 
 than ever that she suited him: slender, yet not too 
 slender ; easy, yet not too easy ; vivacious, yet not too 
 vivacious ; with something in her sentences like intel 
 ligence, a woman s intelligence, of course, not cold, 
 uot bold, at that very moment there was a flush 
 spreading over her face. And then a slight confusion 
 occurred among Hanna s ideas. 
 
 A stranger entering late in the company of young 
 Short extended to her an immaculate white glove, and 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLKR. 185 
 
 a voice, to which her color had never been wholly in 
 sensible, said, " Good evening, Miss Guerrin." Her 
 eyes scarcely rose above the white cravat, certainly 
 not above the light mustache, and then she introduced 
 him to Mr. and Mrs. Cotter, and that lady frowned. 
 Halstead was his name, and she said he was from 
 Beaudeck, all of which seemed to make upon young 
 Short a profound impression. 
 
 Nathan took in at a glance the costume of the fair 
 girl before him, her bare, white arms, her ardent face, 
 and the pale roses that lolled upon her bosom. She 
 was a country girl no longer, and confronting her at 
 his full height, way up among the lights of the chan 
 delier he seemed to be, he felt his eye, his clear mind s 
 eye, losing sight of everything within the rotundity of 
 heaven except the woman with whom he was in love. 
 He was slightly pale, and there was a new mobility 
 about his mouth, but excitement of that sort was to 
 him only an intenser self-possession, and the critical 
 observation bent upon him from the piano could see 
 only a trim, well-dressed man, wonderfully at home in 
 such a situation for an inhabitant of Beaudeck. 
 
 "We have heard of you often, Mr. Halstead," said 
 Mrs. Cotter, with a thin and too intentional smile. 
 
 " Have you ? That is always pleasant," answered 
 Nathan. 
 
 " Not always," she responded. 
 
 " The young man means," said Mr. Cotter, " that it 
 is always pleasant to hear of him, in which I think he 
 cannot be mistaken." 
 
186 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " It is always a favor at any rate to discover a mean 
 ing in a young man s weak remarks," said Halstead, 
 turning his indescribably genial face toward his host. 
 
 Then other guests arriving they stepped aside till 
 Mrs. Cotter, touching Halstead on the arm with her 
 fan, asked him if he would not be introduced to some 
 of her friends. 
 
 " I would be most happy," said that diplomatic fel 
 low, and Rachel being left thus free, Mr. Hanna im 
 mediately came forward. 
 
 " You have a friend here," he said, as he offered his 
 arm to lead her through the long drawing-rooms. 
 
 " I have several," replied Rachel briefly. 
 
 " But one from Beaudeck," said Jerome. 
 
 " He is from Boston, from everywhere," said 
 Rachel. 
 
 " He does not live in Beaudeck then ? " 
 
 " He has been for a short time in our family." 
 
 " Is the arrangement ah permanent ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, transient. None of his arrange 
 ments are permanent. There are a great many people 
 here," she went on, looking around her, " and my aunt 
 told me I was to be agreeable to everybody. You 
 must tell me where to begin." 
 
 " You are to begin with me," he assured her ; " did n t 
 she tell you that ? There is my mother," he added, 
 k you might begin with her and finish with me. It is 
 a triumph to please my mother. She is the most pen 
 etrating of women. She finds you out like an east 
 wind." He laughed a little. Rachel did not think he 
 had a pleasant laugh. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 187 
 
 They paused before a mass of red and white carna 
 tions which some florist had thought proper to arrange 
 in the form of a huge spheroid, and Hanna made a 
 pretence of smelling it. "The flowers," he said, " are 
 very fine." 
 
 As they turned a tall and imposing woman, with a 
 round, white and deeply lined face, rose from a sofa 
 near by and made a slight beckoning motion, inviting 
 their approach. 
 
 " I have been wanting to see you, my dear," she 
 said, as Eachel came up. " You will excuse an old 
 woman s scrutiny with her flattery. You are looking 
 well. Jerome should be delighted." 
 
 " I am, mother," he replied impressively. 
 
 Rachel speculated upon the slim connection that 
 could exist between her appearance and any addi 
 tional delight which might locate itself in the mind of 
 Jerome Hanna, but before she shaped her idea Mrs. 
 Hanna went on, fumbling meanwhile with a cascade of 
 ancient lace that descended from her throat. " Mrs. 
 Cotter," she said, " tells me that this is your first 
 party." 
 
 " I have been to one or two at the Falls," said the 
 young debutante. 
 
 " The Falls ? " repeated Mrs. Hanna. 
 
 " Baker s Falls," Rachel explained. 
 
 For a moment there was a cessation of the lady a 
 fumbling ; then it began again. " I don t think," she 
 said, " that I ever heard of Baker s Falls." 
 
 " It is n t a very large place," said Rachel, smiling 
 at the crudity of her former social ventures. 
 
I8b AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Probably the parties were not very large." 
 
 " Not very," assented the girl. 
 
 " I was quite sure Mrs. Cotter told me this was your 
 first," Mrs. Hanna affirmed. " I am sure because I 
 was glad to hear it. It seems to me, now," she went 
 on, " that an entire absence of experience is better 
 than any for a young lady to begin with, at least, 
 better than any she would be apt to get in this coun 
 try. I used to think that there was nothing like a few 
 years in France, but the last young lady we knew 
 one who was educated a short distance out of Paris 
 committed an enormous breach when she came back 
 here. All rules fail. I have had a good many rules 
 but they have all failed. It is very difficult. I am 
 sure you must " 
 
 "You forget, mother," said Jerome, looking at his 
 gloves, " the lack of experience on which you are con 
 gratulating Miss Guerrin." 
 
 "Her appearance makes me forget it," said Mrs. 
 Hanna blandly, still fumbling at her lace. " Might 
 we not sit down a moment ? " and she looked behind 
 her at the sofa she had vacated. The extreme edge 
 of it was occupied by a stout young woman in a very 
 tight dress who immediately rose and slipped away. 
 
 But very shortly Rachel, making some excuse, left 
 ihem, crossed a portion of the room, and went up to 
 her uncle who was standing by the mantel-piece. 
 
 " I have come over here to get warm," she said, with 
 an open smile. 
 
 " To get warm? " he repeated, looking instinctively 
 ut the closed grate. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 189 
 
 " I have been with Mr. Raima and his mother," she 
 added. " Every body leaves me alone when I am 
 with them. I wish they would n t." 
 
 " Oh, that is it, is it ? " he said with a laugh. " Well, 
 come, we will go. We will go and look for Mrs. Cot 
 ter and your friend." 
 
 " I don t want to go there, either," she replied. 
 
 " Not there ? where then ? " he asked ; but by that 
 time several younger men had collected round her bar 
 ring her progress, and Halstead again went by, still OR 
 the profitable tour which was to acquaint him with the 
 acquaintances of the Cotter family. 
 
 Halstead, who had suffered all manner of restless 
 ness after Rachel s departure, contended severely with 
 himself before following her, making up his mind 
 finally that such a course was wholly inadmissible and 
 out of the path of reason ; but, fifteen minutes before 
 the train left, looked at his watch, and finding to his 
 great alarm that it was so late hastily packed his valise, 
 and with a nervous chill lest tardiness should defeat 
 him, started hurriedly to seek a further respite from 
 the torment of absence which had so racked him. 
 " There is no other way," he said, which was the for- 
 rr,ula he always used when temptation was too strong 
 for him. 
 
 The first thing he did, after his arrival, was to loot 
 up young Short, an object most readily accomplished 
 by lingering upon the steps of the principal hotel of 
 that not over-grown city ; and among the first things 
 that young Short said to him, after mentally reviewing 
 
190 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 his distinguished history, and casting a critical eye 
 over his trim, alert, and well-dressed figure, was that 
 there was to be a grand fandango there that evening, 
 and if he would go he would rejoice to introduce him. 
 " I will make a lion of you ! " he cried, " a lion fresb 
 from the jungles ! " And after consulting the time 
 tables Halstead had kindly consented. 
 
 And now he was there, what ? The outer angle of 
 stair-case was piled high with exotics, and from some 
 where in that region came a flood of waltzes ; long trains 
 and pretty feet delicately shod swept over the floor, and 
 handsome men were in full pursuit of beautiful women 
 in evening dress. All that was familiar enough to 
 his experience. He waltzed occasionally with pretty 
 damsels he had never seen before, it was generally 
 a bore to waltz with strange damsels, however pretty, 
 and his bland partners smiled upon him. He had 
 always been smiled upon. Yet it is safe to say that no 
 one there labored more deeply under the inexplicable 
 but fervent intoxication of the scene than he. He wore 
 the manners of composure over the pulse of a young 
 roisterer, and carried a twofold consciousness, one fold 
 of which attended to the minutia of ball-room etiquette 
 and the other to the details of Rachel Guerrin s move 
 ments. While he moved slowly and talked calmly, 
 great currents of thought and feeling surged within, and 
 he vaguely wondered at the mystic serenity that sur 
 rounded his intensely palpitating life. He seemed to 
 be in a strange atmosphere, laden with imponderable 
 things that quieted his body and excited his brain, 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 191 
 
 music, fragrance, passion; and he felt himself all afloat 
 save for one remaining cable, his sense of what was 
 due from man to woman in the way of social ball-room 
 conventions, a cable that would hold until such time 
 as Rachel might be disengaged and he saw a chance to 
 join her. And after that what ? After that might 
 come what would. He was a trifle reckless. He was 
 to conduct himself with care to her side ; she was to 
 take his arm ; and his responsibility in this cold and 
 circumspect life was to end when the weak vessel that 
 contained him drew so near that she might lay her hand 
 upon him. 
 
 Meanwhile he drifted about with a young lady in 
 a glory of orange faille and point applique, who was 
 strongly commended to him by his friend Short. Short 
 called her Isabel, and introduced her as Miss Flood, a 
 detail to which Halstead felt strangely indifferent. It 
 seemed to him almost superfluous to name her, since 
 she would serve his turn as well without a name. Be 
 side, he knew her ; he had always known her, or some 
 one so like her that discrimination was unnecessary. 
 She was bright ; she was incisive ; she had had years 
 of balls. She was so gayly self-assured that she could 
 spare her wits from home to play among her neigh 
 bors, and she treated him with immeasurable frankness 
 to anecdotes illustrative of human maladroitness. She 
 picked up her train without the least fussiness with 
 reference to her petticoats, and recovered the ends of 
 her yellow braids with equal unreserve ; while at sup 
 per, where she ate a great deal, she Ireated her appetite 
 
192 AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 
 
 with the same freedom she bestowed upon the amiable 
 foibles of her friends. It was during supper that she 
 first distinctly attracted Nathan s notice as a clear and 
 definite individual. They were sitting at one of many 
 little tables upon a wide porch extending across the rear 
 of the house. At one end of the porch was a conserva 
 tory where a fountain played, some palm-trees grieved, 
 and some poor relations of the banana family found ref 
 uge, and at the other end steps descended to the lighted 
 court ; while within the long windows of the parlor 
 there was the continuous whirl of the dancers. They 
 were near one of the windows, and, as the oriole-colored 
 Isabel devoured her peaches, Halstead permitted his 
 glance to wander over the floating population in the 
 rooms. 
 
 " Who is the gentleman," he said, " with the porten 
 tous eyebrows ? " 
 
 "Talking to Miss Guerrin?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He ! why that is Mr. Hanna. You have surely 
 heard of the great Hannas ! here two hours and asking 
 who Jerome Hanna is ! He is devoted to the young 
 lady with Mrs. Cotter s approval." 
 
 " Who, and what, is he ? What must a man be to be 
 so approved ? " 
 
 " He belongs to an old family, a family of mummies, 
 embalmed. They were sitting in their niches here 
 when the town was discovered, and by some pre-his- 
 toric right owned all the land. He is rich, cultivated, 
 it would be a pity to think that one so rich was n t 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 193 
 
 cultivated, and can do what he pleases ; which is 
 nothing as yet. We are holding our breaths and wait 
 ing for him to begin." 
 
 " Aurora ! " exclaimed Halstead. 
 
 " You may well say Aurora ! " assented Miss Flood. 
 
 " What is left to desire ? " 
 
 " A wife, I believe. It is thought fit that he should 
 have a wife, aad they have bee*n selecting her this 
 many a day. Mrs. Cotter, you see, has it in her power 
 to make her niece very desirable over and above her 
 personal attractions. It may make a match ; he pro 
 poses to some one every other summer, and this is the 
 propitious season." 
 
 " What becomes of his propositions then ? " 
 
 " They fall with the leaf. He reconsiders them, or 
 his mother objects. He has a perpetually objecting 
 mother. This time, however, it stands a chance of 
 being final. Mrs. Cotter and Mrs. Hanna conspire ; 
 you and I conspire ; all who are here conspire ; that 
 is what this party is for. The gentlemen are here to 
 show him off to advantage, and the ladies that she may 
 shine by comparison. It will all be settled between 
 them before the evening is over, with our assistance. 
 Will you call a waiter, please ? I will have some 
 grapes, Delawares, - I always prefer the Dela- 
 vrares." 
 
 This little dialogue struck Halstead somewhat heav 
 ily, so that once or twice within the ten minutes fol 
 lowing he lost himself in vagueness and rallied only 
 with an effort. And later, when a large gentleman, per- 
 

 194 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 ceptibly over-heated, claimed the hand of Miss Flood, 
 he strolled down into the court to collect himself under 
 the influence of the cooler air. He went on through 
 a long arbor covered with grape-vines, and past rows 
 of neatly trimmed raspberries that grew along the 
 the wall, till he came to the lower end of the inclosure. 
 Here, a little aside from the path and under a low- 
 drooping tree, was a seat toward which he directed his 
 steps ; but with the fatality attending those of whom 
 stories are told found some one there before him. 
 
 " I thought this bench was unoccupied," he ex 
 plained. 
 
 It was Jerome Hanna who rose, and each saw with 
 chagrin his own image in the face of the other. " Be 
 seated," said the darker image politely. " It is cooler 
 out here." 
 
 " Your cigar is out," said the other, as if he had 
 been seeking a place to smoke. " Allow me to offer 
 another." 
 
 " Thanks, I don t smoke. I came here for comfort. 
 It is what one does n t often find at parties or they 
 would be more endurable. No man should counte 
 nance them after he is twenty." 
 
 " I take it we came with full knowledge of what 
 awaited us, bringing our years with us," Halstead ob 
 served. 
 
 " It is a concession that we make to women," said 
 Hanna. " It is n t till the woman question is settled 
 with him that a man can show what stuff he is made 
 of." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 195 
 
 " The sooner he settles it then the better," carelessly 
 asserted image number two. 
 
 Number one agreed with him. "You are a stranger 
 here," he added abruptly. " A friend of the young 
 lady who visits the house. So she told me." 
 
 " In whose honor we recreate at midnight under 
 Mr. Cotter s fig-tree. I don t know but, all things con 
 sidered, we might honor her in a more appropriate 
 fashion." 
 
 " There are half a dozen round her now, never 
 fear." 
 
 " The best man," declared Nathan, " will be a favor 
 ite of fortune." 
 
 Jerome rose with a short laugh. " Are you going 
 in ? " he inquired. 
 
 " Presently," Halstead replied, seating himself for 
 the first time ; but when Hanna had disappeared he 
 too went in. He felt himself a strong man, who could 
 smile, if he chose, at the pretensions of an arrogant 
 rival, but who, if he would smile, must first show his 
 strength. 
 
 When, after a circuit of the rooms, a circuit which 
 always remained in his mind a blank, he discovered 
 Rachel, she had gone into the supper-room witt 
 Hanna, and he was obliged to wait again. He next 
 saw them near the entrance to the conservatory, 
 where a couple in passing had stopped to speak to 
 them, and advancing he joined the group. Jerome 
 turned with the unreadiness of manner which results 
 when one is recalled from personal affairs to socJil 
 
196 AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 
 
 blandishments, and in the first pause Halstead offered 
 Rachel his arm, murmuring something about a walta 
 then in progress. 
 
 "It has been intolerable in the village since you 
 left," he said, leading her away. " I had to follow you 
 to find a place that was not intolerable." 
 
 " You are very kind," she answered, fanning herself. 
 
 " Are you glad to see me ? that is the question. 
 You have not said so." 
 
 " I am too astonished even to be polite yet." 
 
 " I don t know why you should be." 
 
 Rachel did not answer, and coming to the end of the 
 porch Halstead desired her to go down. 
 
 " Surely we have had enough of gardens," she said. 
 " We did not come from Beaudeck to stroll in a gar 
 den. There is another sort of garden on the carpets 
 inside. We might go in and walk on the Axminster 
 nosegays." She seemed to wish to treat him lightly 
 and simply as at first, but he knew and she knew that 
 when the simplicity was real they strolled in the gar 
 den as a matter of course. 
 
 Halstead did not smile, and made no motion to turn 
 back. " You are not sincere," he said. " That sounds 
 as if you had made great progress. No woman of the 
 world could turn a refusal more neatly than that." 
 And any one to look at him might have thought he 
 was talking about the Chinese lanterns. He gave no 
 cause for gossip among the passers. 
 
 " I have made bold to come and see you," he said 
 " Perhaps I have made too bold ? " 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 197 
 
 " I was not expecting you," she declared. 
 
 " Will you be at home soon ? " 
 
 " In a few weeks." 
 
 "So long as that!" 
 
 He was much in earnest. She was beginning to 
 doubt ; to doubt his lightness this time, and it filled 
 her with vague alarm. 
 
 He descended a step or two. " Did you mean," he 
 began, " to break off our acquaintance when you came 
 away, or what did you mean ? Did you think a day s 
 journey would put an impassable distance between us, 
 or what did you think ? I have not seen you since I 
 lost you on the mountain. It seems to me that in sin 
 cerity, and in the respect we accord our friends, you 
 owe me a little less abruptness. Is it not possible that 
 you have done me some injustice ? " 
 
 He held out one honest hand to lead her down, 
 pointing with the other to the court below. What had 
 he to say to her, so late ? Gay groups of gayly dressed 
 people fluttered about through the inclosure ; the 
 music careered through the shrubbery ; and he stood 
 waiting, pointing with eloquent gesture. 
 
 " Come," he said, as one whose urgency precluded 
 paltry excuse ; and Rachel descended among the 
 throng. 
 
 You ought to show me over your convent," he 
 iaid And then to Rachel s relief they began talking 
 of it lightly as if it were a convent. 
 
 " And you are to stay here yet for weeks ? " he 
 presently asked. " When you return the summer 
 
198 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 will be gone. I will be gone. Everything will be 
 changed." 
 
 " That sounds like my reason for coming," she re 
 plied. 
 
 " Did you mean it ? Did you wish it to be so ? " he 
 cried. " Do you think it ever really fair to abandon 
 in a twinkling those who are attached to us? You 
 should have told me you were going. You should 
 have left some message. Did you suppose I would 
 consent to an end like that ? I have come. I love 
 you. What do you do with those who love you ? " 
 
 " Is it for to-night ? " said Rachel, " or, for to-night 
 and to-morrow too ? " And again, although apprehen 
 sion seized her, she seemed to wish to defeat his ear 
 nestness by her smile. 
 
 If she did she was wholly unsuccessful. They had 
 reached the end of the walk. Halstead stopped, re 
 leasing and facing her, and the wary eentiments which 
 for years had held him let go their grip. " I love 
 you," he said. " I cannot do without you. Marry 
 me, Rachel." 
 
 Her gathering apprehensions pressed closely upon 
 her, and she covered her face with her hands. She, 
 then, was the one at fault. Hers the unready, recalci 
 trant heart ! Hers the inactive conscience ! Hers the 
 obliquity, She had herself done that of which shf 
 had been accusing him. 
 
 " I love you," he went on ferven.ly. " I nave 
 come. I am here knocking at the sacred common 
 door and eager to get in. It is the prison of prisons. 
 Marry me, Rachel." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 199 
 
 The girl let fall her hands and looked at him breath 
 lessly. " Did you come to tell me this ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, lying, without a qualm and 
 without a sign. " I came to tell you." He smiled 
 faintly down upon her flushed and ardent face. " I 
 tell you," he said, " because you are dear to me, and 
 my days and nights are full of you, because there is 
 a fatality among men to love women, it came to us 
 long ago and will pursue us forever. There is no es 
 caping it. It is strongest of all, and our plans, our 
 ideas, and all that puny category burn up in it like 
 wisps in a bonfire. Tell me that you love me ; tell 
 me that you will marry me, and then " 
 
 He moved nearer her and his eyes shone down upon 
 her like stars in hot weather. 
 
 Her look was still searching him. Somehow it 
 seemed to her that he talked a great deal. Then, " I 
 had quit thinking of you," she said. 
 
 " Your opportunity is over," he cried. " You must 
 begin and think of me again." 
 
 " I don t know what to think," she replied. Indeed, 
 there seemed to be inextricable confusion within. 
 
 Halstead narrowed his eyelids, wondering at the 
 coldness he did not expect, but looking at the lolling, 
 throbbing roses on her bosom. " There is no longer 
 occasion for you to analyze me," he said. " You know 
 me well. Think of me warmly. Let me kiss you and 
 think of that, or better still, cease to think, and love 
 me." 
 
 Other voices were coming near and she seemed to be 
 listening to them rather than to him. 
 
200 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " To-morrow all may be different again," she finally 
 said. 
 
 "You are afraid," returned Halstead, still confi 
 dently, though feeling a creeping, physical disappoint 
 ment, as she drew away from him. " This is only the 
 beginning. To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow 
 you will see the reality of it. They have not in 
 volved you m any other scheme down here, have 
 they ? " 
 
 " I do not know that they have tried." 
 
 " Don t you ? Well, they have. "What is it you 
 doubt ? Which of us, you or me, Rachel ? " He 
 would have taken her hands, but she put them again 
 to her face for a moment ; then waived them in adieu, 
 and ran into the house by a back entrance. 
 
 The young man did not smile. " She is afraid," he 
 assured himself. 
 
 For the next hour Halstead lingered in Rachel s 
 near vicinity, and though he neither addressed or ap 
 parently observed her, he made her keenly, vividly 
 conscious of those currents of strife and passion which 
 flow through such seemingly complacent assemblies. 
 She seemed to have put her thoughts aside for future 
 consideration. But of Hanna she would have none. 
 
 The last carriage drove away with its limp load and 
 its sleepy coachman. The bass viols were wrapped in 
 their green baize cerements ; the violins laid in their 
 caskets ; and the fat, red-faced musicians, disorganized 
 and dispirited, shuffled mournfully away, as if the last 
 sad r.tes had been performed, and they could turn once 
 moro to cheerfulness and peace. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 201 
 
 " It has been a great success," said Mrs. Cotter, " a 
 great success ! " 
 
 And Rachel, going to her room, mechanically re 
 peated, " A great success." 
 
 She went to her window and leaned out to get the 
 night air. She was n t very familiar with the air of 
 three o clock in the morning. It was deadly quiet. 
 The very breezes seemed asleep. Presently the 
 watchman passed, striking the curbing here and there 
 with his mace ; and close upon his heels followed a 
 second and a much more vigilant walker, who stopped 
 in the shadow and looked up at the window where 
 Rachel leaned, still in her silken party attire. She 
 rose, took off her gloves, catching sight of herself hi 
 the glass under the soft chandeliers ; then put out the 
 lights and threw herself in a deep easy chair ; her face 
 in her hands, her dress trailing over the rugs. 
 
 Everything in that gray dawn seemed strange and 
 doubtful and complicated. 
 
 Presently a little twittering began to stir in the 
 throats of many birds. The light began to tinge the 
 clouds. The yellow tuneful flood spread over the sky 
 and fell into the street. And in the new day all the 
 incidents of the evening seemed made of the warp and 
 woof of a fete rather than the warp and woof of se 
 rious life. 
 
 The sun grew warm, the singing wild ; and Rachel, 
 still at the window, forgot the unreal entanglements 
 which had made the night both terrible and festal, and 
 fell peacefully asleep, the sunshine floating over her 
 
202 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 bright-hued dress, over the roses in her hair and on 
 her bosom. 
 
 Halstead had fully intended to return the next 
 morning, but the time for the train came and went, 
 leaving him still in his room. The streaks of morn 
 ing sunlight that lay across the floor when he first 
 awoke slowly receded under his distrait gaze, and it 
 was high noon before he roused himself sufficiently to 
 recall the hour, to rise, dress, and saunter down to 
 breakfast. 
 
 In the hall he met young Short, who accosted him 
 in lively, jovial tones. But Halstead put his hands to 
 his ears in mock protest, and motioned him away. 
 " Softly ! " he said. " Let me down easy. I am just 
 up and the daylight tastes like warm water. Where 
 was it you took me last night ? " 
 
 " The very waiters shall talk poetry to you," said 
 Short, " if you will come in and dine with me." 
 
 But Nathan declined, and had recourse again to the 
 time-tables ; after which he sought his solitary cup of 
 coffee. 
 
 In the afternoon, however, he saw Rachel drive past 
 the hotel in a landau, and immediately the necessity of 
 seeing her again was forced upon him. He idled 
 about waiting for the carriage to reappear, but, disap 
 pointed in that, waited till the fine line of a new moon 
 floated in the west, and then betook himself in her di 
 rection. A sable servant admitted him, and he was at 
 once struck by the different aspect everywhere pre 
 sented. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 203 
 
 Every vestige of the festive decorations had disap 
 peared, and it was difficult to believe they had ever 
 been. Mrs. Cotter was there conferring with a plaint 
 ive widow in black, and bowed to him, as he after 
 ward expressed it, from the top of the Himalayas. 
 Rachel was shaking hands with a gentleman and lady 
 whom he did not remember to have seen before, but 
 with whom he had recently talked during an entire 
 quadrille ; and a youth was talking with Miss Flood 
 by the window. The latter rose at his approach with 
 such cordiality as might have led a conceited man to 
 suppose she was there in the hope of seeing him, and 
 he at once joined them, taking a share in the conver 
 sation but keeping himself informed by some secret 
 process of Rachel s every attitude. " And to think," 
 he reflected, " that till recently she was watching the 
 cattle on the hills grow into money." He meditated 
 upon her successful transfer to the social medium, and 
 thought he would like to have her always adorning 
 just such fine and truly stately parlors, full of com 
 pany and light. Where the fine and truly stately par 
 lors were to come from no longer troubled him. He 
 had the sublime and lover-like faith, that where his 
 sweetheart was there the parlors would be. 
 
 It soon became plain that he would not be able to 
 see her alone, so, even before the necessity of the time 
 tables demanded, he rose to take his leave. He was 
 much more tranquil than he had been the evening be 
 fore. The edge was taken off his eagerness. Indeed, 
 he preferred to look upon his success as ultimate rather 
 
2!)4 AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 
 
 than imminent, and for some fastidious reasons relished 
 the idea that she did not drop into his hands with too 
 willing precipitation. 
 
 " I must go," he managed to say to her. " I am 
 about to leave Beaudeck, but will go there to see you 
 as soon as I may when I learn you are there. I hope 
 you will believe me in earnest. I shall continue to 
 hope for you." 
 
 It afterward struck her as strange that a man should 
 assure the woman he asked to marry him that he was 
 in earnest. In earnest ! What else could he be ? 
 
xvn. 
 
 ONE evening, a few days later, when the callers had 
 gone, Mrs. Cotter came softly back into the parlor. 
 She dressed with great care at this time, and had a 
 Boftly-bustling, interested manner, as if something were 
 going on. 
 
 " Rachel," she began, not, however, as if the matter 
 were of much importance, " I have asked Mr. Hanna 
 to go with us." 
 
 " To go with us where ? " inquired her niece. 
 
 " To the Shoals," replied Mrs. Cotter, straightening 
 the furniture for the night. " He said he would, with 
 thanks. He seemed quite willing. I think he ex 
 pected it." 
 
 " My dear aunt," said Rachel, presently, with some 
 confusion, " I do not think that I can go." 
 
 " Not go ! " 
 
 " I think I must go home." 
 
 The lady hesitated a moment. Then, " My child, 
 you are crazy," she said, with benevolent toleration. 
 Or perhaps you are only tired. Go to bed. We 
 tvill think of it to-morrow." There was something in 
 Rachel s voice she did not like. 
 
 The next morning, however, she returned promptly 
 to the subject. 
 
 " I don t understand," she said, more confidently 
 
206 AN EARNEST TEIFLER. 
 
 than she felt, " what the trouble is. It is n t that you 
 do not want the gentleman to go, is it ? " 
 
 " He can go or not," rejoined Rachel, in the same 
 tone she had used the night before. " You are very 
 kind, but I think I must go back." 
 
 " Of course he would n t go if you did n t ; but you 
 must see yourself that you might carry matters a little 
 too far. You can t rely too much on him. He has to 
 be treated well. With him one girl is about as good 
 as another, he has seen so many ; and if you are rather 
 prettier than common you must n t put him too much 
 out of the way. He might not go to Beaudeck." 
 
 " I hope he never will," said Rachel. 
 
 Mrs. Cotter, who was repairing a minute defect in a 
 napkin, paused a moment at this inscrutable assertion, 
 and then went on again, softly and quickly, as if she 
 would forestall in her niece any precipitancy of resolve. 
 * My dear child," she began, " what is the matter ? 
 You should be a little moderate, a little cautious. I 
 don t want to pry into your affairs before you came 
 here, but I was in hopes you had never had any that 
 would interfere with your prospects. I have inquired 
 about Mr. TTalstead, too. It seems that he saw a great 
 deal of a Madam Somebody in Paris. He spent a 
 great deal of money there, they say, more than he 
 could well afford. There are a great many men like 
 him in the cities, though not perhaps with all his ad 
 vantages. They are not usually marrying men unless 
 you take them very young or very old, and he is nei 
 ther very young nor very old." 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 207 
 
 " He is not in Beaudeck," said Rachel positively. 
 " He has gone away." 
 
 " I am sure," resumed the lady, as if after a slight 
 and mistaken digression, " that you have had every 
 thing your own way. At the Shoals you might be still 
 more popular. I must say, though, that your manner is 
 rather distant at times. Mr. Hanna said himself that 
 your manner was not quite encouraging, though you 
 cannot always tell from a girl s manner, he realizes 
 that. There is a great deal said against coquettes. I 
 have said a great deal against them myself. But with 
 out saying anything, everybody knows that it is a 
 great deal worse to have no offers." 
 
 " It is too ridiculous," said Rachel. "When it comes 
 to that I hate it." 
 
 " Oh, they don t mean anything by it half the time. 
 They don t really expect it to come to anything. I 
 am afraid you are expecting something deep. You 
 may have read too much. You must take men as they 
 are. They are none too good ; but nine chances out 
 of ten the best man is the one who can make you the 
 most comfortable. There is n t a better house in the 
 city than Mr. Hanna s, and it is safe to say there is n t 
 a better man. If you had been differently raised you 
 would see it so ; Jerome, I think, is serious." 
 
 " I don t want to have anything to do with him," 
 the girl insisted. " I never will." 
 
 " There is young Garrotson," suggested Mrs. Cotter, 
 experimentally." He is rather dissipated, but his 
 father is a very fine man." 
 
208 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I don t think he wishes me to marry his father.** 
 
 " He admires you very much," said the lady sooth 
 ingly. 
 
 " I believe it makes me a little sick," said Rachel. 
 
 " What makes you sick ? " 
 
 But she did not seem to find it easy to define at once 
 whence her sickness rose. " It will be a blow to 
 Jerome," continued her aunt. " He is n t used to it. 
 The very best girls we have accept him." 
 
 " And then what ? " 
 
 " If it is n t one thing it is another. His mother is 
 hard to please." 
 
 Rachel made no comments on this astonishing fre 
 quency of events she was accustomed to regard as ex 
 ceptional, and from her silence Mrs. Cotter took hope. 
 " We might, at least, go to the Shoals and have him 
 follow us," she said ; " then if you should refuse him 
 people would at least know it. As it is they may 
 think he is at his usual tricks. Next to accepting him 
 nothing could start you better than to be known to 
 have refused him." 
 
 " It seems to me," said Rachel, " that when I love 
 any one I shall know it. I don t want to be pretend 
 ing or trying." 
 
 " You don t love Mr. Halstead then ! I was afraid, 
 I did n t know, I could n t help seeing that you 
 wrote to him a day or two ago ; and you have n t been 
 in your usual spirits." 
 
 The young girl s face colored up in the usual man 
 ner, perhaps resenting such forcing of her confidence. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 209 
 
 But Mrs. Cotter did not so interpret it. She looked 
 at her closely, her own face undergoing a change of 
 expression, and then went on with her minute repair 
 ing. " I did not get you soon enough," she said regret 
 fully. " It will be a severe lesson more severe than 
 it ought to be for the first. And it will take a great 
 deal of your time. You should have told me you were 
 engaged to him." 
 
 " I am not engaged to him," said Rachel, violently. 
 
 And again Mrs. Cotter glanced up. " My poor 
 child," she repeated, " I did not get you soon enough." 
 
 " I don t want to marry him any more than I want 
 to marry Mr. Hanna," affirmed her niece. 
 
 This was very puzzling. The lady had never known 
 just such a case. She had always had a feeling that 
 her protege was a trifle difficult to understand, to ad 
 vise, and to lead, but she had not realized till now what 
 she had undertaken. She was as a leader who had not 
 yet found the leading-strings, and who could only sport 
 a little timidly about the pretty erratic creature she 
 would control. " You are not in love with the vil 
 lage minister, or anything like that ? " she finally in 
 quired. 
 
 " No," said Rachel, growing more laconic and more 
 fiorid. 
 
 "You are a queer girl," exclaimed Mrs. Cotter, in 
 whose mind queerness covered a great deal of ground. 
 " Perhaps you have refused him," she went on making 
 one more venture. " And he may have made yon feel 
 unpleasantly. Of course he would make something of 
 14 
 
210 AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 
 
 a fuss. My dear lamb, you could not hurt either of 
 them much. Their hearts would recover long before 
 your conscience. In some things you are very inapt" 
 
 As she spoke the door opened, and Mr. Cotter en 
 tered, his boots freshly blacked, his face newly shaven, 
 and the morning papers under his arm. Rachel went 
 over to him, her face brightening, but he instantly 
 perceiv id by a glance at his wife that something was 
 amiss. 
 
 When the trouble was explained to him, he hemmed, 
 smiled, and rolled his papers into their ultimate com 
 pass. " Quite right, quite right," he said. " The girl 
 knows what she is about. Let her suit herself. I 
 would rather like, myself, to see her take Hanna down 
 a peg, but if she is too good for it we can t insist. I 
 believe in letting her do what she likes. She won t be 
 apt to do much better by doing what somebody else 
 likes." 
 
 And on the occasion of a subsequent visit the irre 
 sistible Jerome Hanna found to his intense surprise 
 that he was no more. He had tested his powers one 
 season too many, and found a foolish young woman 
 to whom his wealth, his prestige, his brains, and his 
 melancholy person were as nothing ; so he retired once 
 more into seclusion, and, with the point of a neatly 
 f-harpened pencil, traced out the route to Karnak, thence 
 onward to the fresh waters of the Victoria Nyanza. 
 If he could lose himself in Africa he might yet be 
 a happy man, a free man, a man without a mother, 
 without pretensions to sustain, without obligations to 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 211 
 
 genius, and in this forecasting of the future he was 
 almost glad that Rachel was so blind. He made up his 
 mind to start in December. In the mean time he would 
 write some political papers. Women were never in 
 sensible to fame. 
 
XVIIL 
 
 AT the last small station before reaching Beaudeck 
 Rachel looked eagerly out from the car window. The 
 bridge was there and the net-work of ropes, but there 
 was no one about, whom she knew : and neither was 
 there any one at the depot when she arrived at home. 
 The train was late and she was not expected. She 
 almost wished that she had written. 
 
 As the stage stopped in front of the house she fan 
 cied there was some one watching her from the window 
 of the wing, but she did not look again to assure her 
 self, and ran quickly up the steps. Even within she 
 asked few questions of the ladies who welcomed their 
 beautiful offspring, but kissed them demonstratively 
 and ate her supper with smiling cheerfulness. She 
 inquired where her father was, but her father was not 
 at home. Except to the eye of faith there was no one 
 at home save the three ladies. 
 
 It was late, and Miss Hannah had already remarked 
 upon the dissipation of the hour, when Rachel crossed 
 the dark hall, and standing in the open door looked 
 out upon the mountains. The branches of the elms 
 swayed gently to and fro, and some whirling bats made 
 their swift excursions round the upper columns. The 
 half moon was shining. A light was also shining in 
 the wing, and Rachel, her lips half - parted, leaned 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 213 
 
 against one of the pillars, breathing the soft, illumined 
 air. 
 
 There was a step across the porch, and starting, hes 
 itating, she slipped back through the passage to the 
 parlor, but had scarcely reached it when Dayton en 
 tered. 
 
 She did not advance to meet him, but stood rooted io 
 the floor while he crossed the intervening distance. He 
 looked like a man who suppressed more joy than he 
 showed, and saying something about her return took 
 her hand. Her fingers were quite cold. 
 
 " I saw you come," he said. " You had an ominous 
 twist to your veil." 
 
 " Ominous ? " she replied, finding her voice. 
 
 " Stylish, or dainty, or something," he explained, 
 still holding hei hand, " as if you had gone over to 
 the fashionable world whence no woman ever willingly 
 returns." 
 
 " I am very fashionable now," she declared. 
 
 But there was a flutter about her that stirred his 
 heart to see. He was not to be discouraged. " What 
 brings you home just now?" he asked. " You are ahead 
 of your time We had prepared our patience for an 
 other two weeks. We were to wear along, you know, 
 till sometime next month. Did the Isles of Shoals Q 
 
 o 
 
 down ? I believe I heard that they were swamped." 
 
 " I did not go to the Isles of Shoals," said Rachel. 
 She seemed to think that, in view of the fact, she might 
 be accorded the privilege of reserving her reasons. 
 But Dayton had no generosity. 
 

 214 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " Why not ? " he inquired. " Did you grow incon 
 stant to your aunt ? Or did you feel a little sickness 
 for your mountains ? I have heard that people, the 
 Swiss, for instance, pined when away from their homes. 
 Do you suppose, Miss Guerrin, that any absence could 
 make you pine ? " 
 
 Rachel opened her fan, a new and large one, with 
 bulrushes on a pink ground, and held it open against 
 her breast. 
 
 " I ran out of money," she said, with reluctant in 
 vention. 
 
 Dayton rather doubted the validity of this excuse, 
 but disappointed in that direction began immediately 
 in another. " I was afraid," he remarked, " that you 
 would not come till we had gone. Some of us have 
 gone already, did you know ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Rachel, " I knew. Where did they 
 go?" 
 
 He tried to recall the small matter of their exact 
 locality, looking at the face which appeared above the 
 bulrushes. " Miss Duncan," he finally remembered, 
 " has gone home. Halstead went West." 
 
 " West ! " 
 
 " Yes. He thinks of going West to stay. He dis 
 solved with me. He has grown ambitious. I could n t 
 keep him any longer." 
 
 Rachel s thoughts seemed to go West too, distress 
 ingly ; and to bring them nearer home he looked about 
 for seats. " Tell me about your visit," he said ab 
 ruptly, taking one near her. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 215 
 
 " Well, what about it ? " she asked, leaning forward, 
 *ud resting the hand that held the fan across a table. 
 
 " I don t care to know that you drove to-day, dined 
 in state yesterday, and danced the night before, you 
 are not a slip on which such programmes are printed, 
 like most pleasure-seekers ; I want to know the effects 
 you have brought away with you." 
 
 " It was like riding an elephant," she said, with a 
 smile which was preeminently un-Desborough-like. 
 
 " Good ! " he exclaimed. " I am glad it was as an 
 elephant you liked it." 
 
 " I am afraid you expect me to say that I found 
 society hollow. But I did n t. I never found any 
 thing yet which was hollow." 
 
 " What was it full of ? " he inquired. " Tell me 
 about its virtues and its peccadillos. I have had some 
 experience in its vices." 
 
 " I have been gone five years," she declared. 
 " Do you find me much changed ? Am I wrinkled ? 
 Am I very gray ? " and he smoothed his hair behind. 
 " You are somewhat gray," she said, looking at his 
 head, but not meeting his eyes. 
 
 " But I am still a young man," he asserted. " My 
 eyes are young. My ear-drums are young; and I 
 have the immoderation which belongs to youth." 
 
 Rachel took no notice of the intemperance of his 
 manner, and her eyes, which shone over the top of the 
 bulrushes, steadily sought the figures of the ancient 
 wall-paper. " I should not have thought," she said, 
 turning the conversation back a little, " that you had 
 had much experience in its vices." 
 
216 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Dayton assured her he had had a share of that com 
 mon misfortune, and she wished to know where his so 
 cial experience had been. He told her in San Fran 
 cisco. 
 
 " Were you dissipated ? " she inquired. " Have you 
 great powers of alternation ? " 
 
 " I have no great powers," he disclaimed. 
 
 " Did you float about ? " she went on ; " and were 
 you engaged to a great many girls off and on, 
 charmed for an afternoon and heart-broken for a couple 
 of minutes ? Were you what they call complicated, 
 good and bad, serious and not at all serious, in beauti 
 ful patchwork ? " 
 
 Her remark seemed to bear upon something which 
 had come under her own observation rather than upon 
 him, and he did not answer. He looked at her in 
 stead with devouring eyes. 
 
 " 1 should think," she said, " that if you were bad, 
 you would be very much so, and if you were good, you 
 could not very well be otherwise." 
 
 " Well, which is it ? " said Dayton, who was not 
 much given to considering his moral status, " heads 
 or tails ? " 
 
 " At any rate," continued Rachel, " there would be 
 some depth to it." 
 
 " A man does not want to be too good," observed 
 Dayton ; " it is not poetic." 
 
 " No, not poetic. You are not exactly poetic," de 
 clared the girl. " Nobody has ever made you rhyme." 
 
 " Are you going to ? " he asked. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 217 
 
 u Am I ? " she repeated, suddenly rising. 
 
 Dayton followed her to the door where she seemed 
 desirous of looking out upon the night, and descending 
 a step brought his face upon a level which interfered 
 with her observation. He seemed to be a very large 
 man as he stood there obscuring the moonlight. 
 
 " We are to be friends," he said hoarsely. " You 
 have not forgotten that ? " 
 
 " We could n t very well be anything else," said 
 Rachel logically. 
 
 " We are to be what you will," he cried, " what 
 you will." 
 
 And then he left the night unobscured. 
 
 Later, as he walked restlessly about, he saw the light 
 from Rachel s window falling upon the grass, and went 
 out under the elms near where it fell. About his neck 
 he had twisted a handkerchief which she had left in 
 the hall, and stretching himself full length upon an 
 old settee he smiled up at the stars. 
 
 The dream was upon him. 
 
XIX. 
 
 THE following week ran its apid course. 
 
 Every evening Dayton saw Rachel more or less 
 alone, with no one to warn him, no one to check him, 
 no one to interfere with him, and nothing whatever in 
 his hopeful way. Mr. Guerrin, when at home, was some 
 times silently beseeching under his assiduity, but Day 
 ton looked joyfully upon it as a favorable omen, and 
 even had the hardihood, once, to remind him of their 
 earlier conversation. " You know what I am about," 
 he said, " and you cannot blame me if after all I should 
 succeed. It is possible that in time I may succeed." 
 
 Halstead had gone. That was the chief, the glaring 
 fact. He had gone to the iron regions "West, and many 
 men who went to the iron regions West never again 
 disturbed the serenity of the East. "Whatever his affin 
 ity for Rachel had been it had resolved into separation, 
 and Dayton was satisfied to rest upon it. His day had 
 come and he would make use of it, irresistibly if possi 
 ble, to secure his happiness, sure that in the end he 
 could secure hers. 
 
 The securing of that happiness, however, even with 
 out intervention, seemed as difficult as it was delicate ; 
 and while, for purposes of genial comradeship, Rachel 
 seemed ready to bestow her society upon him, he always 
 found himself derided, cheated, swindled in some way 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 219 
 
 out of his passionate, imperative moods. He never 
 knew how it was done, or why the designs that were 
 in him failed to find expression, but blessed even while 
 baffled the time wore on, and he submitted with a sort 
 of tragic intensity to the influences that delighted and 
 tormented him. She had a way of suddenly summon 
 ing a third party into their walks, and a way of treat 
 ing him as an auxiliary to her more absorbing occupa 
 tions. She was never so busy, and never had so much 
 company from the village. She permitted him to fol 
 low when she went with the Dan Drueys to the orchard 
 where the yellow apples came softly thumping about 
 them on the sod. She let him go with her to do her 
 errands, getting out of the carryall every fifteen rods. 
 But she let nothing interfere with her important duties. 
 She sewed with zeal. When there was nothing else 
 she fanned herself with passion. She came and went 
 unexpectedly, and left him when he thought they had 
 hours before them. Indeed he could never keep her 
 with him very long at a time. She made little excur 
 sions with him out from the porch in the starlight, but 
 these excursions seemed as short and fleeting as the ex 
 cursions made by the bats. 
 
 Once, when he had vainly endeavored to Inre her out 
 of the sitting-room, where she was persistently playing, 
 he went back to the wing and waited till he saw her go 
 out with a book to the farther end of the portico, where 
 there were some easy chairs and rugs spread over the 
 flag-stones. Then he went through the parlor, and 
 coming upon her corner seated himself without speak 
 ing. 
 
220 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Rachel read on for a page or so, but presently half 
 closed her book as if induced to do so from considera 
 tions outside her will. 
 
 " It can t be helped," said Dayton, gravely, seeming 
 aware of her motion without taking his eyes from the 
 landscape. " I have no compunctions. I would not 
 hesitate at such a little thing as persecution. I impose 
 myself upon you without a scruple. You are at a 
 great disadvantage in having such good manners. If 
 you were a shrewish, rude woman, now, I could not 
 browbeat you in this way. Perhaps I would n t wish 
 to. But being slight and refined, I don t stop at any 
 thing. I can t afford, you know, to neglect any tricks, 
 even the most nefarious. Do you know I have been 
 here four months ? " 
 
 Rachel submitted to be thus browbeaten without 
 great resentment, but perhaps she did not wish to con 
 cede to him all the advantage that he claimed. " There 
 are many ways," she said, " by which a woman, even 
 the most polite and fragile, may excuse herself." 
 
 He took her book as she spoke and opened it where 
 her finger had been. " You were on page one hundred 
 and fifteen," he said, laying it down on the other side 
 of him. " Do you know I have already been here four 
 months ? " 
 
 "Four months, have you?" she replied, resorting 
 for occupation to her fan. " Four months, after all, is 
 & very short time." 
 
 * Short for what ? " asked Dayton bluntly. " Great 
 events may happen in much less time. A man dies in 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 221 
 
 a mcment. I have heard that in a twinkling he maj 
 fall heir to eternal blessedness." 
 
 " It seems to me," she said, " that time is very long 
 There are oceans of it." 
 
 " And it seems tc me," he rejoined, " that there is 
 very little left. "Were you never in any haste ? Was 
 there never anything for which it taxed all your powers 
 to wait ? I half believe you dread a change, a rupture, 
 a scene." 
 
 " Indeed," ?he answered, flushing warmly and gen 
 eralizing coolly, " I think that for most things which 
 happen we would do well to wait." 
 
 He took from her hands the fan with which he had 
 shared her attention, giving an air of inadvertence to 
 his touch upon her fingers. " Do you think very much 
 of this trifle ? " he asked, bending forward. 
 
 " No," she answered, simply enough ; " I bought 
 some prettier ones when I was away." 
 
 " Then, perhaps," he said, " you will give it to me." 
 And putting his thumb in the middle of the sticks he 
 snapped them in two. " It is wonderful," he went on 
 over the fragments, " the amount of industry that can 
 be put into the handling of a fan ! Is it such a nice 
 operation that all one s heart should go into it? It 
 seems to me that one might run a much more elaborate 
 machine with less solicitude." 
 
 And he looked at her as, if seeking for toleration oi 
 his violence. " You should at least leave me the pleas 
 ure of fanning myself," she presently observed. 
 
 " At least ! " he repeated, with deprecating cynicism- 
 
222 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 "It wears a beautiful dress. Its color comes and 
 goes, and it fans itself for pleasure with a pink fan. 
 What life, what a range of feeling it has ! " 
 
 But Rachel was not by such means to be betrayed 
 into warmer sensibilities. She would rather see him 
 angry than to see him fervent. She was, indeed, some 
 thing more than half afraid of the vehemence which 
 he but half concealed under his gentleness, and she 
 knew how feeble were the checks that she could im 
 pose upon it. He never lost a step he gained, and he 
 gained a little every day. " One is sometimes reduced 
 to great straits, you know, sir," she replied, growing 
 white in spite of herself. " You forget that I came out 
 here to read. You are unreasonable." 
 
 " Yes," he assented, " I am unreasonable. If I were 
 reasonable I would be happy to sit here three or four 
 feet away from you while you read and kept yourself 
 cool. But I am not reasonable." 
 
 She rose, and he thought for a moment that she was 
 going away, but she only crossed over to the nearest 
 pillar, and coming back resumed her place. It was 
 plain that she was willing to linger with him in the 
 deep twilight, and looking at her brilliant face he felt 
 assured that however she might refuse to listen to his 
 ambitious passion, it did not so far offend her that she 
 could not find life exquisite in its close proximity. He 
 felt sure she understood him, sure he understood her : 
 and, after all, what wonder was it that a fresh, young 
 girl should resist the stranger who at best must crush 
 her freshness against his heart. He would perhaps 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 223 
 
 have constrained himself to endure much longer the 
 poignant delight of her nearness and distance, permit 
 ting her to grow used to him and imposing upon her 
 a slower familiarity ; but the season of his opportunity 
 was shortening ominously. 
 
 " Do you know," he said shortly, as if in explana 
 tion of his importunity, " that my work here is almost 
 finished ? " 
 
 It had in fact been done three days. 
 
 "Where are you going then?" inquired Rachel, 
 with quicker interest than she had yet shown. 
 
 " I cannot say. It hangs by a thread. I think some 
 of continuing on the line, and some of going to the 
 Sandwich Islands." 
 
 " The Sandwich Islands ! " exclaimed the girl. 
 
 " Well, call it South Africa, then," he suggested. 
 " In the mean time it is not surprising, is it, that I 
 should depend upon you to ameliorate my last days in 
 Christendom ? What else could you expect of even a 
 reasonable man who was closeted with you hi so small 
 a town as this ? There is n t much to entice one out 
 into the village, you know." 
 
 " It does not look very inviting from here," remarked 
 Rachel, looking up the road. 
 
 " It is as deserted as a private race-track or a tem 
 perance billiard saloon," said Dayton, following hor 
 glance. 
 
 " What do you know of private race-tracks and tem 
 perance billiard saloons ? " she asked. 
 
 " Upon my soul, nothing," he disclaimed, as if any 
 
1 
 
 224 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 Connection with those peculiar institutions were par 
 ticularly compromising. 
 
 " I suppose your acquaintance is with the other 
 sort." 
 
 " It strikes me now," said Dayton, " that I have 
 heretofore called some very gross and dull amusements 
 pleasure. The real article, it seems, has a peppering 
 of anguish in it." " 
 
 " What will you do in the Sandwich Islands ? " she 
 inquired. 
 
 " Heaven only knows," he answered. " I may 
 never go. My mind does n t work clearly on that pos 
 sibility. Go ? I do not mean to go. I have an idea 
 of a home with the stars shining on it all night like 
 this." 
 
 Rachel did not dare to look at him. " But if you 
 should ? " she persisted, pulling at a rose-tree. 
 
 " I am not going," he declared. He moved nearer. 
 He had a violent consciousness of her nearness, and of 
 her lips, which had been smiling and now were trem 
 bling. 
 
 " I believe I must go in," said the girl, rising and 
 looking over her shoulders as women do when they 
 suspect a ghostly chill of striking them. 
 
 " You must have a shawl," he cried. " Let me bring 
 you one ? " 
 
 " No," said Rachel. " I will get it." 
 
 You will not come back." 
 
 " Not to-night, I think," she answered gently. 
 
 Dayton glowered at the elm-trees, detaining her 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 225 
 
 then loosened his hold upon her hand. " I never spent 
 such days as these," he presently said more gently. 
 " If they ever end it will be with a terrible shock. I 
 am not used to it. I am believing in you deeply, de- 
 liciously. You could deceive me like a charm. Don t 
 dare be polite to me without a purpose. I beg of you 
 don t smile this way unless you mean it. What you 
 say must be true forever, and if you look at me you 
 must swear to it. It is as much as my life is worth for 
 you to let your color come and go for nothing. And 
 if you are happy you must have an immense resource 
 of wretchedness behind it in case the happiness fails. 
 Y"ou are smiling now. You are fairly happy. Lord ! 
 how I count upon such simple things as that ! " 
 
 " I know it, sir," she answered simply and fer 
 vently. 
 
 And remaining behind among the bats and columns 
 where she left him, he smiled in a warm and broad and 
 in-spite-of-all fashion, blessing himself with that expect 
 ant happiness which is so greatly in excess of happi 
 ness itself. The wintriness. and rigors had gone out 
 of him. He was like a hard-working man, abandoned 
 to the grace of noon. He watched the tender light 
 caress the hills ; he listened to the sentimental cries of 
 the whippoorwills ; he considered the solitary set in 
 families, and believed that he, too, might yet become 
 a part of the jovial, lusty world. 
 
 The next evening, after Rachel had walked once or 
 twice up and down the path with only her Gordon set 
 ter, she went to the side portico and knocked at the 
 
 15 
 
226 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 door. " Are you not coming ? " she asked, as Dayton 
 opened it. " It is a beautiful evening." 
 
 " Yes, I am coming ! " he cried. But he had meant 
 not to go. He had been afraid of taking too much 
 for granted. And at the first pause that beautiful girl 
 had knocked at his door ! That knock was certainly 
 honest. And her eyes were altogether honest. She 
 wanted him. 
 
 They had not gone far, however, when they met a 
 carriage containing Mrs. Sterling and Louise Mason 
 coming up the drive, and, with some growling on Day 
 ton s part to which Rachel would not assent, they 
 turned back. 
 
 " Mrs. Sterling," she said, as they followed the car 
 riage back to the house, " is a charming woman." 
 
 " Is she ? " returned Dayton, reluctantly. " I am 
 not sure that I know a charming woman when I see 
 one." 
 
 " Then I might as well not be charming ! " ex 
 claimed the girl with a laugh. But she never looked 
 at him when she made a remark like that. 
 
 When Mrs. Sterling returned home somewhat late 
 that night, Joseph Anderson handed her a letter. She 
 read it carefully, then read it again and folded it with 
 contracted brows. 
 
 " Louise," she said, " Nathan will be back to-mor 
 
 row 
 
 Louiso dropped into a chair by the window. " Well, 
 let him come," she replied. 
 
 " And why here ? Why here from some point in 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 227 
 
 Missouri ! He could see us nearly as soon at home, if 
 that is what he wants." 
 
 " Perhaps that is not it," suggested Louise. 
 
 " He may imagine that we are going to stay some 
 time longer," pursued Mrs. Sterling. " He does not 
 know that we intend to leave the day after to-morrow. 
 Do you think we can get off as soon as that ? I don t 
 want to stay any longer, and I don t think Nathan 
 especially needs the country air. Too much country 
 air dulls one s wits. I 11 telegraph him the first thing 
 to-morrow that we will meet him in Boston, and then 
 he can come or not, as he chooses." 
 
 " He generally does as he chooses," rejoined Miss 
 Mason, with her desolated smile. 
 
 "I should have telegraphed to-night," pursued Mrs. 
 Sterling. " What an unconscionable time we stayed 
 down there ! Rachel Guerrin seems very innocent. 
 She is not at all innocent. She is smarter than any of 
 us. I would have great respect for her if I were not 
 afraid of her." 
 
 Early the next morning Mrs. Sterling drove briskly 
 through the town to the depot, in whose recesses the 
 iclegraph office was secreted. The place was closed, 
 ind there was no one to be seen except a philosophical 
 supernumerary who sat in the sun near the water-tank, 
 and whose office was apparently to keep the secrets of 
 the road and prevent the station and tank from being 
 stolen by suspicious-looking individuals, like the one 
 who now presented herself before him. 
 
 " Where is the telegraph operator ? " she inquired. 
 
228 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " He ain t here," replied the man, resuming his study 
 of the river, as if the subject contained no further in 
 terest for him. 
 
 "Where can I find him?" 
 
 " Home," explained the fellow, still on the defensive. 
 He had evident contempt for the feverish impatience 
 that resorted to the telegraph when there were such 
 worlds of time for more rational communication. 
 
 But Mrs. Sterling was not discouraged. " Where 
 does he live ? " she persisted. 
 
 " Yonder," he replied, nodding toward the north 
 pole. 
 
 And finally learning that the homestead in question 
 was a few farms away in the northeast distance, she 
 started hurriedly in that direction, and toiled up to a 
 cottage on the summit of a distant hill, where she 
 again asked for the operator. 
 
 " He is out in the fields," said the woman. " But if 
 you want to send a dispatch, you can write it here, and 
 he 11 see to it when he comes up to dinner." And she 
 deposited some paper and a bottle of blue mould on 
 the kitchen table, like a person who knew that business 
 was business. 
 
 Amazed at the deliberateness that waited upon elec 
 tricity in that region, Mrs. Sterling explained that it 
 was a matter requiring the greatest haste, and finally 
 sxicceeded in dispatching a boy across the fields for his 
 delinquent parent. 
 
 Yet when the train came in that night, Ilalstead 
 alighted, his hat drawn over his eyes, his head as erect 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 229 
 
 as tlie sky-scraper of a clipper ship, and, getting into 
 the stage, caused himself to be driven past the Des- 
 borough place and up the north road. 
 
 " Nathan," began his sister, when she saw him alone 
 for a moment after supper, " did you get my telegram 
 this morning? " 
 
 " Your telegram ? " he said indifferently. 
 
 " We are going back to-morrow. I thought you 
 might not care to come for so short a time." 
 
 " My dear friend," he returned, after reviewing her 
 critically for a moment, " nothing would have pre 
 vented my coming. You mistake the pretext for the 
 reason. I had a profound desire to come." 
 
 " Louise " she ventured 
 
 " Had nothing to do with it," he interrupted, extin 
 guishing the faint hope. 
 
 " You have come a long way." 
 
 " Do you call this long ? You don t know the 
 lengths I am prepared to go." 
 
 "It is not difficult, then, to guess the goal for which 
 ?ou have set out." 
 
 Halstead shrugged his shoulders in a way to indicate 
 his keen perception of the strange extremity to which 
 he was driven. " It might be well," he said deliber 
 ately, as if picking the words from the tree of knowl 
 edge, " if I had never come here ; yet having come, I 
 must go through the chain of consequences. I have 
 tried to resist it. I ran away from it every other day 
 all summer, but nevertheless I followed her to the city, 
 and here I am following her back. She is too beau- 
 
230 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 tiful for me. I don t marry because I want to, you 
 know. I marry because I am in love." 
 
 " You will regret it," warned his sister, with de 
 spair. Indeed, the family of this gay young man re 
 garded his vocation in life as similar to that of the 
 idyllic youths on the cover of " Harper s Magazine," 
 and that he should assume heavier responsibilities than 
 scattering blooms and bubbles over a grateful universe 
 seemed an act of self-destruction almost criminal. 
 
 " Of what use to us, in these matters, is our little 
 inch of foresight ? " he exclaimed, with one of his 
 thousand smiles. 
 
 There had been a storm that afternoon, which had 
 left the air full of moisture, with airy coteries of clouds 
 floating in all directions. Clouds rose from the river 
 and from the soggy pastures ; they rolled over the gar 
 dens and lingered in the lilac bushes ; they drifted 
 along the eaves and crept into the upper windows ; 
 they brushed the hills and reconnoitered the water 
 courses, till it looked as if the country had surrendered 
 to a mackerel sky. One of these airy puffs had drift 
 ed into the porch at Mrs. Anderson s, and, passing 
 through it, Halstead looked first at the sky and then at 
 the muddy road. 
 
 " I ana going to drive down presently," said Mrs. 
 Sterling, " and if you are going I might take you, I 
 suppose." 
 
 But even presently seemed too long to his eager im 
 patience, and he set out on his walk. 
 
 When he reached the Desborough place, Miss Han- 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 231 
 
 nah told him he would find Rachel in the parlor, and 
 he entered without further formality. She was there 
 alone, and the lamps were not yet lighted. 
 
 " You are not surprised ? " he said, as the young 
 girl rose. " I told you in the city that I would come 
 as sure as fate. I am quite as sure, since I would 
 play the part of fate to you, what could make a 
 man so sure as that ! Dear Rachel, my beautiful Ra 
 chel ! " he cried. " You are the same ; the same, are 
 you, to me ? " And again his eyes shone down upon 
 her like stars in hot weather. 
 
 "Did you get my letter?" she asked. Her very 
 lips were white. She looked for once like a Desbor- 
 ough. 
 
 Dayton was standing behind her in the dusky door 
 way leading from his apartments, as if he were en 
 trapped in the gloom. Volition had deserted him on 
 the threshold. His brows were knit ; arid a spiritual 
 darkness seemed to pervade him. 
 
 Halstead forbid himself a moment, in obedience to 
 something in Rachel s face, and then his quick eye fell 
 vipon his friend, fell unwillingly, apprehensively. 
 
 " Ah, Dayton," he said, advancing, you are a lucky 
 man. I did not know you were still here. It ought 
 to be the best built bit of road in New England." 
 
 Dayton did not take the proffered hand. In fact, he 
 did not see it. He went over to the window, where he 
 stopped again, and looked at Rachel, as if he begged 
 of her some explanatory sign which should turn his 
 ardent chattering into a vapid joke. 
 
232 AN EARNEST TKIFLER. 
 
 But Rachel was entirely grave, preoccupied, even, 
 and her eyes and ears were for Halstead only. "When 
 did you come ? " she asked. 
 
 " To-night. You don t suppose I have been ir the 
 neighborhood long. I am not to stay long, either, 
 which is more to the point." 
 
 "Your sister, perhaps, was not expecting you/ 
 Dayton managed to say. 
 
 " She thinks that when one goes West he must fol 
 low the sun till he reappears to eastward," chattered 
 the clever fellow. " She does n t know how easy it is 
 to double on one s tracks. I went out to look around, 
 as they say out there. I looked around, to some 
 purpose too, I assure you, and here I am. How is 
 the road, Dayton ? " 
 
 " Done," replied Dayton briefly. " Done." And 
 crossing the room he went out into the hall, and thence 
 into the street. 
 
 He had not gone far, however, when Mrs. Sterling 
 drove up to the curb-stone. She beckoned to him with 
 her fan, as she sent her driver with some message into 
 a low frame house, which was set far back in a yard. 
 There were geese in the yard, and they came strutting 
 and hissing out to the fence, thrusting their necks be 
 tween the palings, and filing out the gate to repulse 
 the intruders. Mrs. Sterling put her head out of the 
 carriage window and desired him to enter, which he 
 declined. She seemed to have a great deal to say, 
 and it mingled in some way in his mind with the hiss 
 ing of the geese that were about his legs. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 233 
 
 " It is about as bad as it cati be," she said, with her 
 pleasant, lively loquacity. " I thought it had all blown 
 over ; but not a bit of it. We have deceived ourselves. 
 They are going to be married. He is very sly. He 
 went to the city to see her, and now she brings him 
 back here. It will be a love match. It does n t make 
 any difference whether we go to Boston, or stay here 
 till October, though of course he would stay if we 
 did. And he ought to be at his business. He says 
 she is too beautiful for him. That is n t all of it, per 
 haps. She is n t artful, but she certainly is n t artless. 
 She has the sense of her own fascinations. She is 
 cleverer than any of us. I should think you would 
 have known when you came here how it would be, 
 not that I blame you, of course. But it is so terribly 
 different from what we expected for him. That is 
 what took him West, you see. We thought it queer 
 at the time. They will live in one of those benighted 
 Western towns, where they don t care what a man s 
 advantages have been ; all they care for is what he 
 i an do. Something may happen, but I am afraid it 
 won t. Perhaps he means to take her back. He is 
 very much in love. I suppose you left him there ? " 
 
 A man came out of the gate bearing a huge white 
 bundle through which appeared innumerable fluted 
 ruflles, and Mrs. Sterling disposed of it on the seat 
 beside her. " I am sorry," she said, nodding again to 
 Dayton from the window, " that we are going so soon, 
 but I suppose you are about to leave, too." 
 
 Dayton saw it all then ; and the geese which fol- 
 
234 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 lowed him saw it all. The hopes he had cherished in 
 patience, in felicity, and in secret turned and pointed 
 fcheii long, fine fingers at him ; and he strode down 
 the street like a wretch who laughs, and at whom all 
 sane things laugh. He wished to creep away, to hide 
 himself and his derangement of grief. 
 
 On his return, near midnight, he passed a rapid 
 walker, whom he recognized but who did not recognize 
 him ; then, as he went up the path toward the side 
 piazza, he saw the lamp still burning in the parlor, and 
 a shadow moving about in the half light, a shadow 
 .which he knew. He went to his room and crossed it, 
 as if he would once more admit himself into the pres 
 ence of love and midnight, but just inside the door he 
 stopped, the expression of self-derision curling his lips 
 anew. What, after all, could he say to her ? What 
 could he say to her in the light from which Nathan 
 Halstead had just slipped ? What had he to say to the 
 sweetheart of his friend ? He had no dexterity, no 
 complaisance. He hated complaint. He hated peti 
 tions. He hated the hopeless turmoil in his own breast 
 and the smiling responses awarded it by the exquisite 
 Rachel Guerrin. The passionate discouragement which 
 he had given him had been sincere, and the pretty 
 countenance which she had sometimes shown his ardor 
 had been but a part of the sweet craft inseparable from 
 the nature of a beautiful woman. Perhaps she would 
 agair woo him with her innocent and dainty deceit if 
 he should enter. She was still so near, still so sweet. 
 He had visions of her approaches, her gestures. He 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 235 
 
 heard the rustle of her dress, and felt the breath of 
 the air as she swept past him. Then he laughed again, 
 and packed his valise. 
 
 The next morning, as he was going out, Rachel de 
 scended the stairs. She was very late, and she came 
 slowly. He waited for her by the heavy walnut newel, 
 and then offered her his hand. " I know no way to 
 take leave of you," he said. " The common adieux 
 won t set me adrift." 
 
 There was something lurking in his face that changed 
 the brightness of the morning into a sullen, surcharged 
 blackness, and she stood dismayed, as he turned ab 
 ruptly and went down the path toward the gate. 
 
 (t Why did n t you say good-by to him ? " inquired 
 Miss Hannah, passing briskly through the hall. " He 
 is not coming back." 
 
 " Not coming back ? " cried Rachel, incredulously. 
 
 Presently she ran down through the garden, and 
 watched with unbelief the train that carried him away 
 wind along the river-bank. It was a shining Septem 
 ber day, and the ivy and sumac were red upon the 
 grave-yard wall. She leaned over it among the brill 
 iant, expiring leaves, and the hush about her grew 
 deep, the solitude dense. 
 
 Mrs. Sterling, upon the train, was calling attention 
 to her brother s indisposition. " He came in very late, 
 last night," she said, with amiable raillery. 
 
 " I got caught in the evergreens," he responded, 
 with his intrepid smile. 
 
XX. 
 
 IN October Dayton started for California. It seemed 
 to him that if he could put the Rocky Mountains be 
 tween him and the scene of his ineffectual passion he 
 might begin to multiply the years with some hope 
 of forgetfulness. New England was too small. He 
 could at any time stretch himself and touch the hem 
 of Rachel Guerrin s dress, a touch in which there 
 would be no healing. The cities were full of faint re 
 semblances to her, and at every point there was a pos 
 sible intersection of their paths. He found himself 
 thinking of her as he strode past the flower-stands. 
 He found himself looking for her among the pedes 
 trians who hurried along the sidewalks, and among 
 the pretty frequenters of shops. He was too near. 
 There was danger that he might meet her, and it was 
 possible that he might not. He speculated upon the 
 idea of meeting her, and wondered in what dumb 
 fashion he would stand it to see her again come near 
 and again sweep past him. Once when he thought he 
 saw her he looked again, but it was only a shabby 
 little girl casting an eager, long-fringed glance over 
 some engravings in a window ; and once, impelled by 
 an irresistible likeness, he followed a tall, slight figure 
 into a palace car. It was after that he determined to 
 go back to California. 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 237 
 
 Not long before he left, Mrs. Sterling saw him upon 
 the street in Boston, and driving up to the pavement 
 offered to take him in her victoria to whatever point 
 he was bound. 
 
 " I am on my way to San Francisco," he said, lifting 
 his hat. 
 
 " Very well, get in," she responded, making room 
 for him by a new disposition of her flounces. " I am 
 going in that direction." 
 
 He took the place beside her, and they rolled west 
 ward down the avenue. " Going to San Francisco ! " 
 she exclaimed, smiling at him under her pretty par 
 asol. " I am sorry to hear it. We can t afford to 
 lose you. We have n t much to lose in the way of 
 your society, to be sure, but we feel that you help 
 give a solid support to the light, social superstructure. 
 And then I am expecting Rachel Guerrin. I thought 
 that if you did neglect me, and you have, you 
 know, unpardonably, you would summon some prin 
 ciple and call upon her. Where have you buried 
 yourself? Your habits are the most incorrigible I ever 
 knew. They are worse than bad ones. A reprobate 
 can reform, but a good man never. I have been try 
 ing for years to mitigate your seclusion, and the mo 
 ment I have some positive obligations on my side you 
 escape to the Pacific slope ! I give you up." 
 
 " I have given myself up," he said ; " I am going on 
 the twenty -seventh." 
 
 " She may be here before that ! " the lady returned. 
 I have written to her to come right away Na- 
 
238 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 than is n t here now," she added, smiling. " But then 
 if that affair ever should come to anything, as I sup 
 pose it must, I should like to have shown her every 
 attention. At any rate, it can do no harm. We will 
 give you a farewell dinner." 
 
 " Don t think me uncivilized," he answered, " but I 
 will be very busy. You must n t count on me." 
 
 And after that he was in a fever to be off. Even 
 when seated in the car in the compartment assigned 
 him, it seemed to him that the train would never pull 
 out, and from the window his eyes roved over the pas 
 sengers coming and going, in the hope and fear of rest 
 ing for a moment upon the figure of the woman who 
 could command his resolution. 
 
 He was in the great West, where some bleak winds 
 were blowing, before he felt that he had truly started, 
 leaving the summer far behind him. 
 
 His fever then abated. His haste gave place to a 
 strange, dull leisure. It was a great country, and it 
 made no difference where he went or when he got there, 
 if he ever got there. He thought of Rio Janeiro and of 
 New Orleans with greater longing than of San Francisco, 
 and his mind, which had been running in a deep and 
 narrow sluice, suddenly broke in a shallow inundation 
 all over the Western plains. Time seemed endless, 
 and economy of it as absurd as it was useless. When 
 he found himself in California, what then ! His legs 
 were cramped with long sitting, and as the train stopped 
 to one of the far Western cities he rose, took his va 
 lise, and sauntered out without a purpose into the noisy 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 239 
 
 depot. The wind was still bleak. The gas-lighta 
 burned dimly, while waiting for the later darkness. 
 The streets looked unfamiliar. It was the unfamil 
 iar he wanted ; and hailing a cab he desired to be 
 driven to a hotel which he named. 
 
 He registered his name, was assigned a room, ate 
 his supper, and strolled back to the rotunda recon 
 noitring in his indifference for a mode of spending the 
 evening. He was not good at picking and choosing 
 among entertainments. Too often there was a large 
 deficit between social amusement and his unamused 
 spirit, a deficit which measures the degree one is 
 bored. He bought an evening paper from habit, and 
 not because he wanted it, and was about to withdraw 
 from the office when a brisk young man entered, and 
 singling him from among the many loungers crossed 
 the checkered marble with a ringing step. 
 
 Dayton surveyed him at arm s-length, feeling that 
 in stopping short of the Sierras he had allowed himself 
 too short a radius. The two had not met for weeks, 
 und in this sudden encounter there seemed to be the 
 shock of forces still conflicting. Their old and gen 
 uine friendship had collapsed like a balloon, and they 
 shook hands as strangers ; one a tall, plain, and unpre 
 tentious man, and the other a trim, alert young fellow, 
 jv ith one tooth broken and two vertical lines between 
 Ids eyes. 
 
 " I saw you get off the train," said Halstead. " I 
 was looking for you. I am here to meet you. I have 
 been expecting you for weeks. You have been in the 
 air. Have you had your supper ? 
 
240 AN EARNEST. TRIFLER. 
 
 " Those who know you best should n t be surprised 
 to see you anywhere," said Dayton shortly. " You 
 look well and prosperous. Where are you from ? " 
 
 " From the furnaces south. I am building one. My 
 sister writes me you are on your way to California." 
 
 Yes." 
 
 There was a short, speculative pause on Halstead s 
 part. Then, " What are you going to do to-night ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "I have made only a slender provision," replied 
 Dayton, holding up his paper, and glancing with an in 
 voluntary contraction of the brows at the head-lines. 
 
 " Nothing in it," said Nathan, " unless you read the 
 crimes and casualties. Nobody wants to live out here ; 
 or if they do, they don t want anybody else to. There 
 is an opera," he added, after another speculative pause. 
 " Aida, arranged for the successors of the purple 
 Pharaohs. Suppose we go." 
 
 Dayton cared about as much for the opera as he 
 did for the Pharaohs, but his ears were waiting in sus 
 pense for communications from this readily communi 
 cating young man. 
 
 " Very well," he assented. " But we must make 
 haste." 
 
 A few minutes later they were seated in the parquet, 
 from which they immediately addressed their attention 
 to the stage, with an appearance of absorbing interest 
 which struck Halstead as grotesque in its gravity, 
 a gravity, however, which his sense of the grotesque 
 failed to relieve. The dress of the princess, which was 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 241 
 
 of a peculiarly scant and oriental order, secured his 
 admiration for a few moments, and as one by one 
 the unhappy warblers fell with heavy thuds upon the 
 boards he was momentarily drawn from his reflections ; 
 but upon the whole the brilliant portrayal of love and 
 defeat failed to beguile him from the realities it coun 
 terfeited. When the noble imitation princess writhed 
 around the dark pilasters of the royal imitation palace, 
 wringing her hands in imitation anguish, he involunta 
 rily turned to his companion ; but Dayton might as well 
 have been sitting on the side portico, looking profession 
 ally at the Beaudeck mountains, for all his face be 
 trayed ; so repressing the comments which were upon 
 his tongue, he turned again to the lively painted spec 
 tacle. 
 
 After the opera was over they returned to the hotel, 
 and went into the reading-room, which was empty. It 
 was growing late, and still they did not separate. The 
 purpose which had brought them together seemed not 
 yet to have completed its design. 
 
 " Dayton," said Halstead, abruptly, leaning over one 
 of the tables, " how about Beaudeck ? Have you ever 
 been back ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Not since the morning we left there together ? " 
 
 o o 
 
 " No. 
 
 " Nor I. I have had it on my mind to say some 
 thing to you about that matter," he proceeded. " I 
 could n t let you get away without it. That is what 
 I am here for. I can t afford to feel shabby and dis- 
 ifi 
 
242 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 creditable before you, and I owe you a bit of delicate 
 frankness. I should have told you then and there. I 
 knew it, but I sneaked away with honors, perhaps, that 
 did not belong to me. I thought you would find it out 
 for yourselves, but I am afraid you have n t. My 
 sister, I know, labors under a delusion. As for you, 
 you suspect me either of being a trifling character or 
 a great success. I don t know which." 
 
 Dayton looked black. He could scarcely endure 
 this incisive young man among his wounds, and he was 
 slow to take in his meaning. " I suspect you of both," 
 he said ; " first one, and then the other. Let us make 
 short work of this." 
 
 " It was a dead failure," the young man proclaimed. 
 " There is no diversion in making love to such beauty 
 as hers. You might as well go up to a torch. I don t 
 pretend to say that I was above lightly abusing their 
 hospitality at first, but in the end I was as serious as 
 as you. I know it, and so do you. There were two of 
 us, and only a chance for one, and I would n t get out 
 of your way, even when I knew you were in earnest 
 and I was n t. I had the start of you, but I lost some 
 where on the road. I never knew just where. Per 
 haps " 
 
 "Perhaps what?" said Dayton, interrupting the 
 fine analysis which was lasting all night. " Per 
 haps this ! Perhaps that ! Perhaps a thousand 
 things! Do you suppose I would ask a wife at the 
 hands of even a brilliant fellow like you ? That I would 
 ivin her by such propitious means as your getting oat 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLEB. 243 
 
 of my way ? You have done me no wrong. Perhaps 
 she is going to marry you, and perhaps she is not, 
 that is the point." 
 
 " She is not," declared Halstead. 
 
 " Not ? " repeated Dayton. 
 
 " It was a dead failure," Halstead went on, as if t6 
 finish more elaborately while the mood was on him. 
 " I tried, and could not make it. I followed her when 
 she went away, and asked her to marry me before 
 I knew it ; then followed her back to Beaudeck, and 
 asked her again, knowing it that time. Jove ! the 
 effect of failure is out of all proportion to the effect 
 of success, if a fellow had It. I would have grown 
 used to success in half the time I have spent groaning 
 over the nothingness of this result. It seems she wrote 
 me a letter, which I did not get till later, a half-pen 
 itent letter it was," he added, with a singular laugh. 
 " But when I went back the last time, she would n t 
 even compromise with me for a longer trial. It was 
 better I should have asked her. I think that after 
 all she was glad to know I wished it. It rather put 
 me right with her ; and I believe she thought her re 
 fusal would only put her right with me. Perhaps you 
 had something to do with it. I suspect, without rea 
 son, mind you, that you had. Yet here you go to San 
 Francisco. What takes you there ? " 
 
 Dayton stared at him a,-* at a sentimental acrobat. 
 " Nothing takes me anywhere," he stammered, the 
 light breaking in upon him. 
 
 " You, of all men," cried Nathan, with eloquent 
 
244 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 mockery, " to be crossing the Continent by express, 
 to swing your valise, and cry Westward, ho ! A pas 
 sionate pilgrim ! A fugitive from fortune, from felic 
 ity ! Go back to Boston. Rachel Guerrin is there. 
 Go back and make yourself glad. I wish I had your 
 chance. You have been fooled by your modesty, by 
 that fine reserve of yours. Even you can be a fool. 
 If any one deserves his heart s desire, it is you. Go 
 back and get it. You to migrate ! You to be going 
 West ! " And, rising hastily, he crossed the room, ges 
 ticulating as he went. 
 
 " Halstead ! Halstead ! " Dayton shouted after him. 
 He wanted to embrace him. But the young man had 
 gone. 
 
 Dayton sank back in his chair, and with that cere 
 bral trick which mingles the slightest conceits with 
 the deepest emotions, recalled the cry of an auctioneer 
 which he had heard that evening in passing : " Going ! 
 going ! Easy as the wind blows, easy as the water 
 flows. He who says nothing wins nothing." Pres 
 ently his face relaxed, and took on the same expression 
 it had worn in the short and tender season of his hope 
 fulness. Then the fire came into it, and going to the 
 office he inquired when the first train left for the East. 
 
 On the early evening of the day he arrived in Bos 
 ton, he was admitted into Mrs. Sterling s library. 
 That lady was toasting a pair of very pretty slippers 
 before the fire, while a blonde student, with a timid 
 manner and a bouquet in his button-hole, seemed to be 
 serving as an incentive to a conversation between her 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 245 
 
 and Eachel. At first he thought the young girl changed 
 and somewhat colorless, but a moment later wondered 
 that he could ever have thought her pale. She wore a 
 long black dress very high about the throat, and her 
 hair was twisted in the fashion in which she had ar 
 ranged it in the mountains. Yet the surroundings were 
 new. There was an indefinable difference, and she 
 seemed further from him than at any time since he 
 left the reading-room of the Western hotel. What 
 wild idea was that of tender familiarity toward her? 
 The very precision of her dark costume forbade him. 
 
 When the stir of his unexpected arrival was over, 
 they began talking of California, whither he was still 
 supposed to be going shortly. They talked about the 
 winds, the droughts, the rich imagination of Nordhoff ; 
 about the Chinese, the tea-trade ; about the Sutro tun 
 nel ; about the climate of Santa Barbara, till the 
 timid scholar, who from time to time had urged himself 
 into saying something, rose and bowed himself away. 
 
 When the door closed behind him, Mrs. Sterling 
 again placed upon the fender slippers of the size and 
 style which require the constant application of heat, 
 and began in an expository way to set forth some of 
 the peculiarities of the learned man who had just gone, 
 and whom she spoke of as Archie Pennefeather. 
 
 She told Dayton she meant yet to give him his fare 
 well dinner, and getting a pencil and bit of paper wrote 
 on it the names of several persons whom she would 
 like to invite on that occasion, asking his approval of 
 each one with gracious deference. She told him, too. 
 
246 AN EARNEST 7RIFLER. 
 
 how glad her husband would be to see him, and insisted 
 that he should remain till his return. 
 
 Presently, however, she began to wonder at a call 
 which, for him, was so unprecedented in length ; and 
 judging it best, she heard a sound that called her, tem- 
 poiarily, to another room. 
 
 Rachel went to the window and looked out for Mr. 
 Sterling ; but that, of necessity, was a respite which 
 could not last long. When she came back the room 
 seemed strangely small, and Dayton confronted her 
 with the old imperative fervor. 
 
 " I heard you were here," he said. " I have come 
 in search of you." 
 
 " I am not hard to find at any time," she replied. 
 
 " But you may be easy to lose. I thought I had 
 lost you. Will I lose you if I prove a little too glad 
 to see you ? How glad shall I dare to be ? " 
 
 " Oh, quite glad," she said, negatively still. 
 
 " As glad as this ? " he asked, taking her hands. He 
 meant, if possible, never to let them go, but he needed 
 to explain it to her. He wanted to tell her that he 
 had made a grim mistake, which had torn him from 
 the mountains, and sent him far on his way toward 
 the Pacific. That if she would ever make room for 
 him near her she must do it then. That he loved 
 her. That if it were possible she would ever marry 
 him, she must give him a hint of it to live upon. But 
 the words for this immensity of conversation seemed 
 scattered through a lost language, and he only stared 
 at her with his imperative fervor. The lights burned 
 
AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 247 
 
 faiutly. She was very near him. He raised her hands 
 to his shoulders. His imperative passion compelled 
 him, and he put his arms around her. 
 
 Three days later Nathan Halstead presented himself 
 at his sister s door. 
 
 " You were hardly expecting me, I suppose," he said 
 to her. " I have been traveling for days, for weeks, 
 for months. There is a friend of mine whom I never 
 see that he does n t tell me how far he has traveled 
 within a given time. Two thousand miles in the 
 mouth of June, he will say ; or, I ve been East 
 twenty-nine times since a year ago the tenth of No 
 vember. I smell railroad smoke whenever I see him. 
 But I excuse him. I wonder now that I ever fancied 
 him a bore." 
 
 " Come into the library," said Mrs. Sterling, to whom 
 this last surprise promised a solution of the phenome 
 non preceding. " Which would you prefer, a lounge 
 or a lunch ? " 
 
 " I have lunched, thank you," he replied, as he fol 
 lowed her into the cosier room, which was fitted for 
 greater confidences. But instead of taking the lounge, 
 he stood with his back to the fire, his eyes wandering 
 through the open doors. " What is going on ? " he 
 asked. " What is your latest item ? Where is Rachel 
 Guerrin ? " 
 
 " Rachel ? She has gone." 
 
 " Gone ! " 
 
 " Yes, home. She left this morning. Did you 
 expect to see her ? " 
 
248 AN EARNEST TRIFLER. 
 
 " I wanted to take another look at her. It is what 
 I came for. And Dayton," he added, " has he been 
 here ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 There was an interval during which a perceptible 
 shrinkage took place in Halstead s expansive being. 
 " Well, go on," he said. " What success did he have ? 
 Toll me all the horrible particulars." 
 
 " They are engaged," said Mrs. Sterling. But her 
 listener received this abrupt disclosure as if prepared 
 to hear it. 
 
 " Where were they ? " he inquired ; " and when was 
 it, noon or midnight ? Was she as beautiful as ever ? 
 You never thought, did you, to warn him against the 
 regrets which might overtake him ? How often did he 
 see her ? " 
 
 "Twice, night before last and last night." 
 
 Halstead drew his brows more closely together. 
 " And a revolver," he said presently, "is no longer 
 the proper thing. Neither is a bed of charcoal. We 
 are taught in these milder days that time is full oi 
 redress, and that susceptibility is our genius. I have 
 etill much time. I have still great susceptibility." 
 And he laughed, as if in his insight into his suscep 
 tible nature he found something pitiable and humor 
 ous. But in spite of his shrug and his smile, there 
 was something in his voice and in his eyes indicative 
 of real disappointment and regret, and, seeing it, his 
 Bister asked no questions. 
 
 Presently he took from his pocket two letters, one 
 
AN EARNEST TEIFLER. 249 
 
 from Rachel Guerrin, and one, still sealed, from Paris, 
 directed in a lady s hand. He dropped them both into 
 the grate. " What is there," he asked, " to occupy a 
 man who has an evening on his hands ? Is there any 
 place to which you care to go ? What is at the thea 
 tres ? " 
 
 " There is Louise," suggested Mrs. Sterling. 
 
 " My dear sister, I can t do it," he said, replying 
 rather to her significance than to her suggestion for 
 the evening. 
 
 " She was terribly disappointed over you." 
 
 " We are all disappointed," Halstead observed, be 
 ginning again to generalize brilliantly. " The differ 
 ence is, that some of us rally and some of us don t. 
 The part of wisdom is to rally. I feel destined," he 
 added, " to be a little, light old man."