SB 
 
 
THE AMBER GODS 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRIET ELIZABETH PRESQOTT 
 
 BOSTON 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS 
 
 1863 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
R. S. S. 
 
 I CONSECRATE 
 
 TO YOU 
 IN WHOM MY FUTURE LIES 
 
 THESE MEMORIALS 
 
 OF A PAST THAT YOU HAVE SO ENDEARED. 
 
 H. E. P. 
 
c 
 
 ONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE AMBER GODS . '. . . . . . . i 
 
 IN A CELLAR ...... ..' . 67 
 
 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS . .'-. "' , ; , , . . 119 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCE , . . . . - . . . . . . 153 
 
 DESERT SANDS . . . . . . . . 173 
 
 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. . .. ... . . 217 
 
 THE SOUTH BREAKER . ..... . . 367 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 STORT FIRST. 
 FLOWER o' THE PEACH. 
 
 E 'VE some splendid old point-lace in our fam 
 ily, yellow and fragrant, loose-meshed. It 
 isn't every one has point at all ; and of those 
 who have, it isn't every one can afford to 
 wear it. I can. Why ? O, because it 's in character. 
 Besides, I admire point any way, it 's so becoming. 
 And then, you see, this amber ! Now what is in finer 
 unison, this old point-lace, all tags and tangle and fibrous 
 and bewildering, and this amber, to which Heaven knows 
 how many centuries, maybe, with all their changes, 
 brought perpetual particles of increase ? I like yellow 
 things, you see. 
 
 To begin at the beginning. My name, you 're aware, 
 is Giorgione Willoughby. Queer name for a girl ! Yes ; 
 but before papa sowed his wild-oats, he was one afternoon 
 in Fiesole, looking over Florence nestled below, when 
 some whim took him to go into a church there, a quiet 
 place, full of twilight and one great picture, nobody 
 within but a girl and her little slave, the one watching 
 her mistress, the other saying dreadfully devout prayers 
 on an amber rosary, and of course she didn't see him, or 
 
4 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 did n't appear to. After he got there, he wondered what 
 on earth he came for, it was so dark and poky, and he 
 began to feel uncomfortably, when all of a sudden a 
 great ray of sunset dashed through the window, and 
 drowned the place in the splendor of the illumined paint 
 ing. Papa adores rich colors ; and he might have been 
 satiated here, except that such things make you want 
 more. It was a Venus ; no, though, it could n't have 
 been a Venus in a church, could it ? Well, then, a Mag 
 dalen, I guess, or a Madonna, or something. I fancy the 
 man painted for himself, and christened for others. So, 
 when I was born, some years afterward, papa, gratefully 
 remembering this dazzling little vignette of his youth, was 
 absurd enough to christen me Giorgione. That 's how I 
 came by my identity ; but the folks all call me Tone, a 
 baby name. 
 
 I 'm a blonde, you know, none of your silver-washed 
 things. I would n't give ajico for a girl with flaxen hair ; 
 she might as well be a wax doll, and have her eyes moved 
 by a wire ; besides, they 've no souls. I imagine they 
 were remnants at our creation, and somehow scrambled 
 together, and managed to get up a little life among them 
 selves; but it's good for nothing, and everybody sees 
 through the pretence. They're glass chips, and brittle 
 shavings, slender pinkish scrids, no name for them ; 
 but just you say blonde, soft and slow and rolling, it 
 brings up a brilliant, golden vitality, all manner of white 
 and torrid magnificences, and you see me ! I 've watched 
 little bugs gold rose-chafers lie steeping in the sun, 
 till every atom of them must have been searched with the 
 warm radiance, and have felt that, when they reached 
 that point, I was just like them, golden all through, not 
 dyed, but created. Sunbeams like to follow me, I think. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 5 
 
 Now, when I stand in one before this glass, infiltrated 
 with the rich tinge, don't I look like the spirit of it just 
 stepped out for inspection ? I seem to myself like the 
 complete incarnation of light, full, bounteous, overflowing, 
 and I wonder at and adore anything so beautiful; and 
 the reflection grows finer and deeper while I gaze, till I 
 dare not do so any longer. So, without more words, 
 I 'm a golden blonde. You see me now : not too tall, 
 five feet four ; not slight, or I could n't have such perfect 
 roundings, such flexible moulding. Here 's nothing of the 
 spiny Diana and Pallas, but Clytie or Isis speaks in such 
 delicious curves. It don't look like flesh and blood, does 
 it ? Can you possibly imagine it will ever change ? Oh ! 
 Now see the face, not small, either; lips with no 
 particular outline, but melting, and seeming as if they 
 would stain yours, should you touch them. No matter 
 about the rest, except the eyes. Do you meet such eyes 
 often ? You would n't open yours so, if you did. Note 
 their color now, before the ray goes. Yellow hazel ? 
 Not a bit of it ! Some folks say topaz, but they 're fools. 
 Nor sherry. There's a dark sardine base, but over it 
 real seas of light, clear light ; there is n't any positive 
 color ; and once when I was angry, I caught a glimpse 
 of them in a mirror, and they were quite white, perfectly 
 colorless, only luminous. I looked like a fiend, and, you 
 may be sure, recovered my temper directly, easiest 
 thing in the world, when youVe motive enough. You 
 see the pupil is small, and that gives more expansion and 
 force to the irids ; but sometimes in an evening, when 
 I 'm too gay, and a true damask settles in the cheek, the 
 pupil grows larger and crowds out the light, and under 
 these thick brown lashes, these yellow-hazel eyes of 
 yours, they are dusky and purple and deep with flashes, 
 
6 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 like pansies lit by fire-flies, and then common folks call 
 them black. Be sure, I've never got such eyes for 
 nothing, any more than this hair. That is Lucrezia Bor- 
 gian, spun gold, and ought to take the world in its toils. 
 I always wear these thick, riotous curls round my temples 
 and face; but the great braids behind O, I'll uncoil 
 them, before my toilet is over. 
 
 Probably you felt all this before, but did n't know the 
 secret of it. Now, the traits being brought out, you per 
 ceive nothing wanting ; the thing is perfect, and you 've 
 a reason for it. Of course, with such an organization, 
 I 'm not nervous. Nervous ! I should as soon fancy a 
 dish of cream nervous. I am too rich for anything of the 
 kind, permeated utterly with a rare golden calm. Girls 
 always suggest little similitudes to me : there 's that bru 
 nette beauty, don't you taste mulled wine when you see 
 her ? and thinking of yourself, did you ever feel green 
 tea ? and find me in a crust of wild honey, the expressed 
 essence of woods and flowers, with its sweet satiety ? 
 no, that's too cloying. I'm a deal more like Mendels 
 sohn's music, what I know of it, for I can't distinguish 
 tunes, you wouldn't suspect it, but full harmonies 
 delight me as they do a wild beast ; and so I 'm like a 
 certain adagio in B flat, that papa likes. 
 
 There, now ! you 're perfectly shocked to hear me go 
 on so about myself; but you oughtn't to be. It isn't 
 lawful for any one else, because praise is intrusion ; but 
 if the rose please to open her heart to the moth, what 
 then? You know, too, I didn't make myself; it's no 
 virtue to be so fair. Louise could n't speak so of herself: 
 first place, because it would n't be true ; next place, she 
 could n't, if it were ; and lastly, she made her beauty by 
 growing a soul in her eyes, I suppose, what you call 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 7 
 
 good. I 'm not good, of course ; I would n't give a fig to 
 be good. So it 's not vanity. It 's on a far grander scale ; 
 a splendid selfishness, authorized, too ; and papa and 
 mamma brought me up to worship beauty, and there 's 
 the fifth commandment, you know. 
 
 Dear me ! you think I 'm never coming to the point. 
 "Well, here's this rosary; hand me the perfume-case 
 first, please. Don't you love heavy fragrances, faint with 
 sweetness, ravishing juices of odor, heliotropes, violets, 
 water-lilies, powerful attars and extracts that snatch 
 your soul off your lips ? Could n't you live on rich 
 scents, if they tried to starve you ? I could, or die on 
 them : I don't know which would be best. There ! 
 there 's the amber rosary ! You need n't speak ; look 
 at it! 
 
 Bah! is that all youVe got to say? Why, observe 
 the thing ; turn it over ; hold it up to the window ; count 
 the beads, long, oval, like some seaweed bulbs, each an 
 amulet. See the tint ; it 's very old ; like clots of sun 
 shine, are n't they ? Now bring it near ; see the carv 
 ing, here corrugated, there faceted, now sculptured into 
 hideous, tiny, heathen gods. You didn't notice that 
 before ! How difficult it must have been, when amber is 
 so friable ! Here 's one with a chessboard on his back, 
 and all his kings and queens and pawns slung round him. 
 Here 's another with a torch, a flaming torch, its fire pour 
 ing out inverted. They are grotesque enough ; but 
 this, this is matchless : such a miniature woman, one hand 
 grasping the round rock behind, while she looks down 
 into some gulf, perhaps, beneath, and will let herself fall. 
 O, you should see her with a magnifying-glass ! You 
 want to .think of calm, satisfying death, a mere exhala 
 tion, a voluntary slipping into another element ? There it 
 
8 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 is for you. They are all gods and goddesses. They are 
 all here but one ; I Ve lost one, the knot of all, the love 
 of the thing. Well ! was n't it queer for a Catholic girl 
 to have at prayer ? Don't you wonder where she got it ? 
 Ah ! but don't you wonder where I got it ? I '11 tell you. 
 
 Papa came in, one day, and with great mystery com 
 menced unrolling, and unrolling, and throwing tissue pa 
 pers on the floor, and scraps of colored wool ; and Lu and 
 I ran to him, Lu stooping on her knees to look up, I 
 bending over his hands to look down. It was so myste 
 rious ! I began to suspect it was diamonds for me, but 
 knew I never could wear them, and was dreadfully afraid 
 that I was going to be tempted, when slowly, bead by 
 bead, came out this amber necklace. Lu fairly screamed ; 
 as for me, I just drew breath after breath, without a word. 
 Of course they were for me ; I reached my hands for 
 them. 
 
 Oh, wait ! " said papa. " Tone or Lu ? " 
 
 " Now how absurd, papa ! " I exclaimed. " Such things 
 for Lu ! " 
 
 " Why not ? " asked Lu, rather faintly, for she knew 
 I always carried my point. 
 
 " The idea of you in amber, Lu ! It 's too foreign ; no 
 sympathy between you ! " 
 
 " Stop, stop ! " said papa. " You sha'n't crowd little Lu 
 out of them. What do you want them for, Lu ? " 
 
 " To wear," quavered Lu, " like the balls the Roman 
 ladies carried for coolness." 
 
 " Well, then, you ought to have them. What do you 
 want them for, Tone ? " 
 
 " Oh, if Lu 's going to have them, I don't want them." 
 
 " But give a reason, child." 
 
 " Why, to wear, too, to look at, to have and to 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 9 
 
 hold, for better, for worse, to say my prayers on," for a 
 bright idea struck me, " to say my prayers on, like the 
 Florence rosary." I knew that would finish the thing. 
 
 " Like the Florence rosary ? " said papa, in a sleepy 
 voice. " Why, this is the Florence rosary." 
 
 Of course, when we knew that, we were both more 
 crazy to obtain it. 
 
 " Oh, sir," just fluttered Lu, " where did you get it ? " 
 
 " I got it ; the question is, Who 's to have it ? " 
 
 "I must and will, potential and imperative," I ex 
 claimed, quite on fire. " The nonsense of the thing ! 
 Girls with lucid eyes, like shadowy shallows in quick 
 brooks, can wear crystallizations. As for me, I can wear 
 only concretions and growths;, emeralds and all their 
 cousins would be shockingly inharmonious on me ; but 
 you know, Lu, how I use Indian spices, and scarlet and 
 white berries, and flowers, and little hearts and notions of 
 beautiful copal that Rose carved for you, and I can 
 wear sandal-wood and ebony and pearls, and now this 
 amber. But you, Lu, you can wear every kind of pre 
 cious stone, and you may have Aunt Willoughby's rubies 
 that she promised me ; they are all in tone with you ; 
 but I must have this." 
 
 " I don't think you 're right," said Louise, rather so 
 berly. "You strip yourself of great advantages. But 
 about the rubies, I don't want anything so flaming, so 
 you may keep them ; and I don't care at all about this. 
 I think, sir, on the whole, they belong to Yone for her 
 name." 
 
 " So they do," said papa. " But not to be bought off! 
 That 's my little Luf" 
 
 And somehow Lu, who had been holding the rosary, 
 was sitting on papa's knee, as he half knelt on the floor, 
 
10 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 and the rosary was in my hand. And then he produced 
 a little kid box, and there lay, inside, a star with a thread 
 of gold for the forehead, circlets for wrist and throat, two 
 drops, and a ring. such beauties ! You 've never seen 
 them. 
 
 " The other one shall have these. Are n't you sorry, 
 Tone ? " he said. 
 
 " Oh no indeed ! I 'd much rather have mine, though 
 these are splendid. What are they ? " 
 
 " Aqua-marina," sighed Lu, in an agony of admiration. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! how did you know ? " 
 
 Lu blushed, I saw, but I was too much absorbed with 
 the jewels to remark it. 
 
 " Oh, they are just like that ring on your hand ! You 
 don't want two rings alike," I said. " Where did you get 
 that ring, Lu ? " 
 
 But Lu had no senses for anything beyond the casket. 
 
 If you know aqua-marina, you know something that's 
 before every other stone in the world. Why, it is as clear 
 as light, white, limpid, dawn light ; sparkles slightly and 
 seldom ; looks like pure drops of water, sea-water, scooped 
 up and falling down again ; just a thought of its parent 
 beryl-green hovers round the edges ; and it grows more 
 lucent and sweet to the centre, and there you lose your 
 self in some dream of vast seas, a glory of unimagined 
 oceans ; and you say that it was crystallized to any slow 
 flute-like tune, each speck of it floating into file with a 
 musical grace, and carrying its sound with it. There ! 
 it's very fanciful, but I'm always feeling the tune in 
 aqua-marina, and trying to find it, but I should n't 
 know it was a tune, if I did, I suppose. How magnificent 
 it would be, if every atom of creation sprang up and said 
 its one word of abracadabra, the secret of its existence, 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 11 
 
 and fell silent again. O dear! you'd die, you know; 
 but what a pow-wow ! Then, too, in aqua-marina proper, 
 the setting is kept out of sight, and you have the unal 
 loyed stone with its sea-rims and its clearness and steady 
 sweetness. It was n't the thing for Louise to wear ; it 
 belongs rather to highly nervous, excitable persons ; and 
 Lu is as calm as I, only so different ! There is some 
 thing more pure and simple about it than about anything 
 else ; others may flash and twinkle, but this just glows 
 with an unvarying power, is planetary and strong. It 
 wears the moods of the sea, too : once in a while a warm 
 amethystine mist suffuses it like a blush ; sometimes a 
 white morning fog breathes over it : you long to get into 
 the heart of it. That 's the charm of gems, after all ! 
 You feel that they are fashioned through dissimilar pro 
 cesses from yourself, that there 's a mystery about them, 
 mastering which would be like mastering a new life, like 
 having the freedom of other stars. I give them more 
 personality than I would a great white spirit. 1 like 
 amber that way, because I know how it was made, drink 
 ing the primeval weather, resinously beading each grain 
 of its rare wood, and dripping with a plash to filter 
 through and around the fallen cones below. In some 
 former state I must have been a fly embalmed in amber. 
 
 " O Lu ! " I said, " this amber 's just the thing for me, 
 such a great noon creature ! And as for you, you shall 
 wear mamma's Mechlin and that aqua-marina ; and you '11 
 look like a mer-queen just issuing from the wine-dark 
 deeps and glittering with shining water-spheres." 
 
 I never let Lu wear the point at all ; she 'd be ridicu 
 lous in it, so flimsy and open and unreserved ; that's 
 for me ; Mechlin, with its whiter, closer, chaster web, suits 
 her to a T. 
 
12 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 I must tell you, first, how this rosary came about. You 
 know we 've a million of ancestors, and one of them, my 
 great-grandfather, was a sea-captain, and actually did 
 bring home cargoes of slaves ! But once he fetched to his 
 wife a little islander, an Asian imp, six years old, and 
 wilder than the wind. She spoke no word of English, 
 and was full of short shouts and screeches, like a thing 
 of the woods. My great-grandmother could n't do a bit 
 with her ; she turned the house topsy-turvy, cut the noses 
 out of the old portraits, and chewed the jewels out of the 
 settings, killed the little home animals, spoiled the din 
 ners, pranced in the garden with Madam Willoughby's 
 farthingale, and royal stiff brocades rustling yards behind, 
 
 this atom of a shrimp, or balanced herself with her 
 heels in the air over the curb of the well, scraped up the 
 dead leaves under one corner of the house and fired them, 
 
 a favorite occupation, and if you left her stirring a 
 mess in the kitchen, you met her, perhaps, perched in the 
 china-closet and mumbling all manner of demoniacal 
 prayers, twisting and writhing and screaming over a 
 string of amber gods that she had brought with her and 
 always wore. When winter came and the first snow, she 
 was furious, perfectly mad. One might as well have had 
 a ball of fire in the house, or chain-lightning ; every nice 
 old custom had been invaded, the ancient quiet broken 
 into a Bedlam of outlandish sounds, and as Captain Wil- 
 loughby was returning, his wife packed the sprite off with 
 him, to cut, rip, and tear in New Holland, if she liked, 
 but not in New England, and rejoiced herself that she 
 would find that little brown skin cuddled up in her best 
 down beds and among her lavendered sheets no more. 
 She had learned but two words all that time, Wil- 
 loughby, and the name of the town. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 13 
 
 You may conjecture what heavenly peace came in 
 when the Asian went out, but there is no one to tell what 
 havoc was wrought on board ship ; in fact, if there could 
 have been such a thing as a witch, I should believe that 
 imp sunk them, for a stray Levantine brig picked her 
 still agile as a monkey from a wreck off the Cape de 
 Verdes and carried her into Leghorn, where she took 
 will you mind, if I say ? leg-bail, and escaped from 
 durance. What happened on her wanderings I 'm sure is 
 of no consequence, till one night she turned up outside a 
 Fiesolan villa, scorched with malaria fevers and shaken 
 to pieces with tertian and quartan and all the rest of the 
 agues. So, after having shaken almost to death, she de 
 cided upon getting well ; all the effervescence was gone ; 
 she chose to remain with her beads in that family, a mys 
 terious tame servant, faithful, jealous, indefatigable. But 
 she never grew; at ninety she was of the height of a 
 yard-stick, and nothing could have been finer than to 
 have a dwarf in those old palaces, you know. 
 
 In my great-grandmother's home, however, the tradition 
 of the Asian sprite with her string of amber gods was 
 handed down like a legend, and, no one knowing what 
 had been, they framed many a wild picture of the Thing 
 enchanting all her spirits from their beads about her, and 
 calling and singing and whistling up the winds with them 
 till storm rolled round the ship, and fierce fog and foam 
 and drowning fell upon her capturers. But they all 
 believed, that, snatched from the wreck into islands of 
 Eastern archipelagoes, the vindictive child and her quieted 
 gods might yet be found. Of course my father knew this, 
 and when that night in the church he saw the girl saying 
 such devout prayers on an amber rosary, with a demure 
 black slave so tiny and so old behind her, it flashed back 
 
14 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 on him, and he would have spoken, if, just then, the ray 
 had not revealed the great painting, so that he forgot all 
 about it, and when at last he turned, they were gone. 
 But my father had come back to America, had sat down 
 quietly in his elder brother's house, among the hills where 
 I am to live, and was thought to be a sedate young man 
 and a good match, till a freak took him that he must go 
 back and find that girl in Italy. How to do it, with no 
 clew but an amber rosary ? But do it he did, station 
 ing himself against a pillar in that identical church and 
 watching the worshippers, and not having long to wait 
 before in she came, with little Asian behind. Papa is n't 
 in the least romantic ; he is one of those great fertilizing 
 temperaments, golden hair and beard, and hazel eyes, if 
 ,you will. He 's a splendid old fellow ! It 's absurd to 
 delight in one's father, so bread-and-buttery, but I 
 can't help it. He 's far stronger than I ; none of the 
 little weak Italian traits that streak me, like water in 
 thick, sirupy wine. No, he isn't in the least roman 
 tic, but he says he was fated to this step, and could no 
 more have resisted than his heart could have refused to 
 beat. When he spoke to the devotee, little Asian made 
 sundry belligerent demonstrations ; but he confronted her 
 with the two words she had learned here, Willoughby 
 and the town's name. The dwarf became livid, seemed 
 always after haunted by a dreadful fear of him, pursued 
 him with a rancorous hate, but could not hinder his mar 
 riage. The Willoughbys are a cruel race. Her only 
 revenge was to take away the amber beads, which had 
 long before been blessed by the Pope for her young mis 
 tress, refusing herself to accompany my mother, and de 
 claring that neither should her charms ever cross the 
 water, that all their blessing would be changed to 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 15 
 
 banning, and that bane would burn the bearer, should the 
 salt-sea spray again dash round them. But when, in pro 
 cess of Nature, the Asian died, having become classic 
 through her longevity, taking length of days for length of 
 stature, then the rosary belonged to mamma's sister, 
 who by and by sent it, with a parcel of other things, to 
 papa for me. So I should have had it at all events, you 
 see ; papa is such a tease ! The other things were 
 mamma's wedding-veil, that point there, which once was 
 her mother's, and some pearls. 
 
 I was born upon the sea, in a calm, far out of sight of 
 land, under sweltering suns ; so, you know, I 'm a cosmop 
 olite, and have a right to all my fantasies. Not that they 
 are fantasies, at all ; on the contrary, they are parts of 
 my nature, and I could n't be what I am without them, or 
 have one and not have all. Some girls go picking and 
 scraping odds and ends of ideas together, and by the time 
 they are thirty get quite a bundle of whims and crotchets 
 on their backs ; but they are all at sixes and sevens, un 
 even and knotty like fagots, and won't lie compactly, don't 
 belong to them, and anybody might surprise them out of 
 them. But for me, you see, mine are harmonious ; in my 
 veins; I was born with them. Not that I was always 
 what I am now. Oh, bless your heart ! plums and nectar 
 ines and luscious things that ripen and develop all their 
 rare juices, were green once, and so was I. Awkward, 
 tumble-about, near-sighted, till I was twenty, a real raw- 
 head-and-bloody-bones to all society ; then mamma, who 
 was never well in our diving-bell atmosphere, was or 
 dered to the West Indies, and papa said it was what I 
 needed, and I went, too, and oh, how sea-sick ! Were 
 you ever ? You forget all about who you are, and have a 
 vague notion of being Universal Disease. I have heard 
 
16 THE AMBEE GODS. 
 
 of a kind of myopy that is biliousness, and when I reached 
 the islands my sight was as clear as my skin ; all that trop 
 ical luxuriance snatched me to itself at once, recognized 
 me for kith and kin ; and mamma died, and I lived. We 
 had accidents between wind and water, enough to have 
 made me considerate for others, Lu said ; but I don't see 
 that I'm any less careful not to have my bones spilt in 
 the flood than ever I was. Slang ? No, poetry. But 
 if your nature had such a wild, free tendency as mine, and 
 then were boxed up with proprieties and civilities from 
 year's end to year's end, maybe you, too, would escape 
 now and then in a bit of slang. 
 
 We always had a little boy to play with. Lu and I, or 
 rather Lu, because, though he never took any dislike 
 to me, he was absurdly indifferent, while he followed Lu 
 about with a painful devotion. I did n't care, did n't know ; 
 and as I grew up and grew awkwarder, I was the plague 
 of their little lives. If Lu had been my sister instead of 
 my orphan cousin, as mamma was perpetually holding up 
 to me, I should have bothered them twenty times more ; 
 but when I got larger and began to be really distasteful 
 to his fine artistic perception, mamma had the sense to 
 keep me out of his way ; and he was busy at his lessons, 
 and did n't come so much. But Lu just fitted him then, 
 from the time he daubed little adoring blotches of her face 
 on every barn-door and paling, till when his scrap-book 
 was full of her in all fancies and conceits, and he was old 
 enough to go away and study Art. Then he came home 
 occasionally, and always saw us ; but I generally contrived, 
 on such occasions, to do some frightful thing that shocked 
 every nerve he had, and he avoided me instinctively, as he 
 would an electric torpedo ; but do you believe ? I 
 never had an idea of such a fact till, when sailing from 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 17 
 
 the South, so changed, I remembered things, and felt in 
 tuitively how it must have been. Shortly after I went 
 away, he visited Europe. I had been at home a year, 
 and now we heard he had returned ; so for two years he 
 had n't seen me. He had written a great deal to Lu, 
 brotherly letters they were, he is so peculiar, deter 
 mining not to give her the least intimation of what he 
 felt, if he did feel anything, till he was able to say all. 
 And now he had earned for himself a certain fame, a 
 promise of greater; his works sold; and if he pleased, he 
 could marry. I merely presume this might have been 
 his thought ; he never told me. A certain fame ! But 
 that 's nothing to what he will have. How can he paint 
 gray, faint, half-alive things now ? He must abound in 
 color, be rich, exhaustless: wild sea-sketches, sun 
 rise, sunset, mountain mists rolling in turbid crimson 
 masses, breaking in a milky spray of vapor round lofty 
 peaks, and letting out lonely glimpses of a melancholy 
 moon, South American splendors, pomps of fruit and 
 blossom, all this affluence of his future life must flash 
 from his pencils now. Not that he will paint again di 
 rectly. Do you suppose it possible that I should be given 
 him merely for a phase of wealth and light and color, and 
 then taken, taken, in some dreadful way, to teach him 
 the necessary and inevitable result of such extravagant 
 luxuriance? It makes me shiver. 
 
 It was that very noon when papa brought in the 
 amber, that he came for the first time since his return 
 from Europe. He hadn't met Lu before. I ran, be 
 cause I was in my morning wrapper. Don't you see it 
 there, that cream-colored, undyed silk, with the dear 
 palms and ferns swimming all over it ? And half my hair 
 was just fluD into a little black net that Lu had made 
 
18 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 me ; we both had run down as we were when we heard 
 papa. I scampered ; but he saw only Lu, and grasped her 
 hands. Then, of course, I stopped on the baluster to 
 look. They didn't say anything, only seemed to be 
 reading up for the two years in each other's eyes ; but 
 Lu dropped her kid box, and as he stooped to pick it up, 
 he held it, and then took out the ring, looked at her and 
 smiled, and put it on his finger. The one she had 
 always worn was no more a mystery. He has such 
 little hands! they don't seem made for anything but 
 slender crayons and water-colors, as if oils would weigh 
 them down with the pigment; but there is a nervy 
 strength about them that could almost bend an ash. 
 
 Papa's breezy voice blew through the room next 
 minute, welcoming him ; and then he told Lu to put up 
 her jewels, and order luncheon, at which, of course, the 
 other wanted to see the jewels nearer; and I couldn't 
 stand that, but slipped down and walked right in, lifting 
 my amber, and saying, " Oh, but this is what you must 
 look at!" 
 
 He turned, somewhat slowly, with such a lovely indif 
 ference, and let his eyes idly drop on me. He did n't 
 look at the amber at all ; he did n't look at me ; I seemed 
 to fill his gaze without any action from him, for he stood 
 quiet and passive; my voice, too, seemed to wrap him 
 in a dream, only an instant though; then I had 
 reached him. 
 
 " You Ve not forgotten Tone," said papa, " who went 
 persimmon and came apricot?" 
 
 " I Ve not forgotten Tone," answered he, as if half 
 asleep. " But who is this ? " 
 
 "Who is this?" echoed papa. "Wl:y, this is my 
 great West Indian magnolia, my Cleoj atra in light 
 colors, my " 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 19 
 
 " Hush, you silly man ! " 
 
 " This is she," putting his hands on my shoulders, 
 " Miss Giorgione Willoughby." 
 
 By this time he had found his manners. 
 
 " Miss Giorgione Willoughby," he said, with a cool 
 bow, " I never knew you." 
 
 " Very well, sir," I retorted. " Now you and my 
 father have settled the question, know my amber ! " and 
 lifting it again, it got caught in that curl. 
 
 I have good right to love my hair. What was there to 
 do, when it snarled in deeper every minute, but for him 
 to help me ? and then, at the friction of our hands, the 
 beads gave out slightly their pungent smell that breathes 
 all through the Arabian Nights, you know ; and the per 
 fumed curls were brushing softly over his fingers, and I a 
 little vexed and flushed as the blind blew back and let in 
 the sunshine and a roistering wind ; why, it was all a 
 pretty scene, to be felt then and remembered afterward. 
 Lu, I believe, saw at that instant how it would be, and 
 moved away to do as papa had asked ; but no thought of 
 it came to me. 
 
 " Well, if you can't clear the tangle," I said, " you can 
 see the beads." 
 
 But while with delight he examined their curious fret 
 ting, he yet saw me. 
 
 I am used to admiration now, certainly ; it is my food ; 
 without it I should die of inanition ; but do you suppose I 
 care any more for those who give it to me than a Chinese 
 idol does for whoever swings incense before it ? Are you 
 devoted to your butcher and milkman ? We desire only 
 the unpossessed or unattainable, " something afar from the 
 sphere of our sorrow." But, though unconsciously, I may 
 have been piqued by this manner of his. It was new ; 
 
20 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 not a word, not a glance ; I believed it was carelessness, 
 and resolved merely for the sake of conquering, I fan 
 cied, too to change all that. By and by the beads 
 dropped out of the curl, as if they had been possessed of 
 mischief and had held there of themselves. He caught 
 them. 
 
 " Here, Circe," he said. 
 
 That was the time I was so angry ; for, at the second, 
 he meant all it comprehended. He saw, I suppose, for 
 he added at once, 
 
 " Or what was the name of the Witch of Atlas, 
 
 * The magic circle of whose voice and eyes 
 All savage natures did imparadise ' ? " 
 
 I wonder what made me think him mocking me. Fre 
 quently since then he has called me by that word. 
 
 " I don't know much about geography," I said. " Be 
 sides, these did n't come from there. Little Asian the 
 imp of my name, you remember owned them." 
 
 " Ah ? " with the utmost apathy ; and turning to my 
 father, "I saw the painting that enslaved you, sir," he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said papa, gleefully. "And then why 
 did n't you make me a copy ? " 
 
 " Why ? " Here he glanced round the room, as if he 
 were n't thinking at all of the matter in hand. " The col 
 oring is more than one can describe, though faded. But 
 I don't think you would like it so much now. Moreover, 
 sir, I cannot make copies." 
 
 I stepped towards them, quite forgetful of my pride. 
 " Can't ? " I exclaimed. " Oh, how splendid ! Because 
 then no other man comes between you and Nature ; your 
 ideal hangs before you, and special glimpses open and 
 shut on you, glimpses which copyists never obtain." 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 21 
 
 " I don't think you are right," he said, coldly, his hands 
 loosely crossed behind him, leaning on the corner of the 
 mantel, and looking unconcernedly out of the window. 
 
 Was n't it provoking ? I remembered myself, and re 
 membered, too, that I never had made a real exertion to 
 procure anything, and it was n't worth while to begin then ; 
 besides not being my forte, things must come to me. 
 Just then Lu re-entered, and one of the servants brought 
 a tray, and we had lunch. Then our visitor rose to go. 
 
 " No, no," said papa. " Stay the day out with the girls. 
 It 's May-day, and there are to be fireworks on the other 
 bank to-night." 
 
 " Fireworks for May-day ? " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure. Wait and see." 
 
 " It would be so pleasant ! " pleaded Lu. 
 
 " And a band, I forgot to mention. I have an engage 
 ment myself, so you '11 excuse me ; but the girls will do 
 the honors, and I shall meet you at dinner." 
 
 So it was arranged. Papa went out. I curled up on 
 a lounge, for Lu would n't have liked to be left, if I 
 had liked to leave her, and soon, when he sat down 
 by her quite across the room, I half shut my eyes and 
 pretended to sleep. He began to turn over her work- 
 basket, taking up her thimble, snipping at the thread 
 with her scissors : I see now he was n't thinking about 
 it, and was trying to recover what he considered a proper 
 state of feeling, but I fancied he was very gentle and 
 tender, though I couldn't hear what they said, and I 
 never took the trouble to listen in my life. In about 
 five minutes I was tired of this playing 'possum, and 
 took my observations. 
 
 What is your idea of a Louise ? Mine is, dark 
 eyes, dark hair, decided features, pale, brown pale, with 
 
22 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 a mole on the left cheek, and that 's Louise. Nothing 
 striking, but pure and clear, and growing always better. 
 
 For him, he 's not one of those cliff-like men against 
 whom you are blown as a feather. I don't fancy that 
 kind ; I can stand of myself, rule myself. He is n't small, 
 though ; no, he 's tall enough, but all his frame is deli 
 cate, held to earth by nothing but the cords of a strong 
 will, very little body, very much soul. He, too, is 
 pale, and has dark eyes, with violet darks in them. You 
 don't call him beautiful in the least, but you don't know 
 him. I call him beauty itself, and I know him thor 
 oughly. A stranger might have thought, when I spoke 
 of those copals Rose carved, that Rose was some girl. 
 But though he has a feminine sensibility, like Correggio 
 or Schubert, nobody could call him womanish. " Les 
 races se feminisent." Don't you remember Matthew 
 Roydon's Astrophill? 
 
 " A sweet, attractive kind of grace, 
 A full assTirance given by looks, 
 Continual comfort in a face." 
 
 I always think of that flame in an alabaster vase, when 
 I see him; "one sweet grace fed still with one sweet 
 mind " ; a countenance of another sphere : that 's Vaughan 
 Rose. It provokes me that I can't paint him myself, 
 without other folk's words ; but you see there 's no natural 
 image of him in me, and so I can't throw it strongly on 
 any canvas. As for his manners, you 've seen them ; 
 now tell me, was there ever anything so winning when 
 he pleases, and always a most gracious courtesy in his 
 air, even when saying an insufferably uncivil thing ? He 
 has an art, a science, of putting the unpleasant out of his 
 sight, ignoring or looking over it, which sometimes gives 
 him an absent way ; and that is because he so delights in 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 23 
 
 beauty; he seems to have woven a mist over his face 
 then, and to be shut in on his own inner loveliness ; and 
 many a woman thinks he is perfectly devoted, when, 
 very like, he is swinging over some lonely Spanish 
 sierra beneath the stars, or buried in noonday Brazilian 
 forests, half stifled with the fancied breath of every gor 
 geous blossom of the zone. Till this time, it had been 
 the perfection of form rather than tint that had enthralled 
 him ; he had come .home with severe ideas, too severe ; 
 he needed me, you see. 
 
 But while looking at him and Lu, on that day, I 
 didn't perceive half of this, only felt annoyed at their 
 behavior, and let them feel that I was noticing them. 
 There's nothing worse than that; it's a very upas- 
 breath ; it puts on the brakes ; and of course a chill and 
 a restraint overcame them till Mr. Dudley was an 
 nounced. 
 
 "Dear! dear!" I exclaimed, getting upon my feet, 
 "What ever shall we do, Lu? I'm not dressed for 
 him." And while I stood, Mr. Dudley came in. 
 
 Mr. Dudley didn't seem to mind whether I was 
 dressed in cobweb or sheet-iron ; for he directed his 
 looks and conversation so much to Lu, that Rose came 
 and sat on a stool before me and began to talk. 
 
 " Miss Willoughby " 
 
 " Yone, please." 
 
 " But you are not Yone." 
 
 " Well, just as you choose. You were going to say ? " 
 
 "Merely to ask how you lived the Islands." 
 
 " Oh, well enough." 
 
 " No more ? " he said. " They would n't have broken 
 your spell so, if that had been all. Do you know, I ac 
 tually believe in enchantments now ? " 
 
24 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 I was indignant, but amused in spite of myself. 
 
 " Well," he continued, " why don't you say it ? How 
 impertinent am I? You won't? Why don't you laugh, 
 then?" 
 
 " Dear me ! " I replied. " You are so much on the 
 1 subtle-souled-psychologist ' line, that there 's no need of. 
 my speaking at all." 
 
 " I can carry on all the dialogue ? Then let me say how 
 you liked the Islands." > ". 
 
 " I shall do no such thing. J liked the West Indies 
 because there is life there ; because the air is a firmament 
 of balm, and you grow in it like a flower in the sun ; be 
 cause the fierce heat and panting winds wake and kindle 
 all latent color and fertilize every germ of delight that 
 might sleep here forever. That 's why I liked them ; and 
 you knew it just as well before as now." 
 
 " Yes ; but I wanted to see if you knew it. So you 
 think there is life there in that dead Atlantis." 
 
 " Life of the elements, rain, hail, fire, and snow." 
 
 " Snow thrice bolted by the northern blast, I fancy, by 
 which time it becomes rather misty. Exaggerated snow." 
 
 " Everything there is an exaggeration. Coming here 
 from England is like stepping out of a fog into an almost 
 exhausted receiver ; but you 've no idea what light is, till 
 you 've been in those inland hills. You think a blue sky 
 the perfection of bliss ? When you see a white sky, a 
 dome of colorless crystal, with purple swells of mountain 
 heaving round you, and a wilderness in golden greens 
 royally languid below, whil 3 stretches of a scarlet blaze, 
 enough to ruin a weak constitution, flaunt from the rank 
 vines that lace every thicket, and the whole world, and 
 you with it, seems breaking to blossom, why, then you 
 know what light is and can do. The very wind there by 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 25 
 
 day is bright, now faint, now stinging, and makes a low 
 wiry music through the loose sprays as if they were tense 
 harpstrings. Nothing startles ; all is like a grand compo 
 sition utterly wrought out. What a blessing it is that the 
 blacks have been imported there, their swarthiness is in 
 such consonance ! " 
 
 " No ; the native race was in better consonance. You 
 are so enthusiastic, it is pity you ever came away." 
 
 " Not at all. I did n't know anything about it till I 
 came back." 
 
 "But a mere animal or vegetable life is not much. 
 What was ever done in the tropics?" 
 
 " Almost all the world's history, was n't it ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ; only the first, most trifling, and barba 
 rian movements." 
 
 " At all events, you are full of blessedness in those 
 climates, and that is the end and aim of all action ; and if 
 Nature will do it for you, there is no need of your inter 
 ference. It is much better to be than to do ; one is 
 strife, the other is possession." 
 
 " You mean being as the complete attainment ? There 
 is only one Being, then. All the rest of us are " 
 
 " O dear me ! that sounds like metaphysics ! Don't ! " 
 
 " So you see, you are not full of blessedness there." 
 
 " You ought to have been born in Abelard's time, 
 you 've such a disputatious spirit. That 's I don't know 
 how many times you have contradicted me to-day." 
 
 "Pardon." 
 
 " I wonder if you are so easy with all women." 
 
 " I don't know many." 
 
 " I shall watch to see if you contradict Lu this way." 
 
 " I don't need. How absorbed she is ! Mr. Dudley is 
 interesting'?" 
 2 
 
26 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 " I don't know. No. But then, Lu is a good girl, 
 and he 's her minister, a Delphic oracle. She thinks 
 the sun and moon set somewhere round Mr. Dudley. 
 Oh ! I mean to show him my amber ! " 
 
 And I tossed it into Lu's lap, saying, 
 
 " Show it to Mr. Dudley, Lu, and ask him if it is n't 
 divine ! " 
 
 Of course, he was shocked, and would n't go into ecsta 
 sies at all ; tripped on the adjective. 
 
 " There are gods enough in it to be divine," said Rose, 
 taking it from Lu's hand and bringing it back to me. 
 "All those very Gnostic deities who assisted at Creation. 
 You are not afraid that the imprisoned things work their 
 spells upon you ? The oracle declares it suits your cousin 
 best," he added, in a lower tone. 
 
 " All the oaf knows ! " I responded. " I wish you 'd 
 admire it, Mr. Dudley. Mr. Rose don't like amber, 
 handles it like nettles." 
 
 " No," said Rose, " I don't like amber." 
 
 " He prefers aqua-marina," I continued. " Lu, pro 
 duce yours ! " For she had not heard him. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Dudley, spacing his syllables and rub 
 bing his finger over his lip while he gazed, " every one 
 must prefer aqua-marina." 
 
 " Nonsense ! It 's no better than glass. I 'd as soon 
 wear a set of window-panes. There 's no expression in 
 it. It is n't alive, like real gems." 
 
 Mr. Dudley stared. Rose laughed. 
 
 " What a vindication of amber ! " he said. 
 
 He was standing now, leaning against the mantel, just 
 as he was before lunch. Lu looked at him and smiled. 
 
 " Yone is exultant, because we both wanted the beads," 
 she said. " I like amber as much as she." 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 27 
 
 " Nothing near so much, Lu ! " 
 
 " Why did n't you have them, then ? " asked Rose, 
 quickly. 
 
 " Oh, they belonged to Tone ; and uncle gave me these, 
 which I like better. Amber is warm, and smells of the 
 earth ; but this is cool and dewy, and " 
 
 " Smells of heaven ? " asked I, significantly. 
 
 Mr. Dudley began to fidget, for he saw no chance of 
 finishing his exposition. 
 
 " As I was saying, Miss Louisa," he began, in a different 
 key. 
 
 I took my beads and wound them round my wrist. 
 " You have n't as much eye for color as a poppy-bee," 
 I exclaimed, in a corresponding key, and looking up at 
 Rose. 
 
 " Unjust. I was thinking then how entirely they suited 
 you." 
 
 " Thank you. Vastly complimentary from one who 
 'don't like amber'!" 
 
 Nevertheless, you think so." 
 
 " Yes and no. Why don't you like it ? " 
 
 " You must n't ask me for my reasons. It is not merely 
 disagreeable, but hateful." 
 
 " And you 've been beside me like a Christian all this 
 time, and I had it ! " 
 
 " The perfume is acrid ; I associate it with the lower 
 jaw of St. Basil the Great, styled a present of immense 
 value, you remember, being hard, heavy, shining -like 
 gold, the teeth yet in it, and with a smell more delightful 
 than amber," making a mock shudder at the word. 
 
 " Oh, it is prejudice, then." 
 
 " Not in the least. It is antipathy. Besides, the thing 
 is unnatural j there is no existent cause for it. A bit 
 
28 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 that turns up on certain sands, here at home, for aught 
 I know, as often as anywhere." 
 
 " Which means Nazareth. We must teach you, sir, 
 that there are some things at home as rare as those 
 abroad." 
 
 " I am taught," he said, very low, and without look 
 ing up. 
 
 " Just tell me what is amber ? " 
 
 " Fossil gum." 
 
 " Can you say those words and not like it ? Don't it 
 bring to you a magnificent picture of the pristine world, 
 great seas and other skies, a world of accentuated 
 crises, that sloughed off age after age, and rose fresher 
 from each plunge ? Don't you see, or long to see, that 
 mysterious magic tree out of whose pores oozed this fine 
 solidified sunshine ? What leaf did it have ? what blos 
 som ? what great wind shivered its branches ? Was it a 
 giant on a lonely coast, or thick low growth blistered in 
 ravines and dells ? That 's the witchery of amber, 
 that it has no cause, that all the world grew to produce 
 it, maybe, died and gave no other sign, that its 
 tree, which must have been beautiful, dropped all its 
 fruits, and how bursting with juice must they have 
 been " 
 
 " Unfortunately, coniferous." 
 
 61 Be quiet. Stripped itself of all its lush luxuriance, 
 and left for a vestige only this little fester of its gashes." 
 
 " No, again," he once more interrupted. " I have seen 
 remnants of the wood and bark in a museum." 
 
 "Or has it hidden and compressed all its secret 
 here ? " I continued, obliviously. " What if in some piece 
 of amber an accidental seed were sealed ; we found, and 
 planted, and brought back the lost aeons ? What a glori- 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 29 
 
 ous world that must have been where even the gum was 
 so precious!" 
 
 "In a picture, yes. Necessary for this. But, my 
 dear Miss Willoughby, you convince me that the Amber 
 Witch founded your family," he said, having listened 
 with an amused face. "Loveliest amber that ever the 
 sorrowing sea-birds have wept," he hummed. " There I 
 is n't that kind of stuff enough to make a man detest it ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you are quite as bad in another way." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " Just because, when we hold it in our hands, we hold 
 also that furious epoch where rioted all monsters and 
 poisons, where death fecundated and life destroyed, 
 where . superabundance demanded such existences, no 
 souls, but fiercest animal fire; just for that I hate it" 
 
 " Why, then, is it fitted for me ? " 
 
 He laughed again, but replied: "The hues harmo 
 nize ; the substances ; you both are accidents ; it suits 
 your beauty." 
 
 So, then, it seemed I had beauty, after all. 
 
 " You mean that it harmonizes with me, because I am 
 a symbol of its period. If there had been women, then, 
 they would have been like me, a great creature with 
 out a soul, a " 
 
 " Pray, don't finish the sentence. I can imagine that 
 there is something rich and voluptuous and sating about 
 amber, its color, and its lustre, and its scent; but for 
 others, not for me. Yes, you have beauty, after all," 
 turning suddenly, and withering me with his eye, 
 "beauty, after all, as you didn't say just now. Why 
 don't you put some of it into . Mr. Willoughby is in 
 the garden. I must go before he comes in, or he '11 
 
30 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 make me stay. There are some to whom you can't 
 say, No." 
 
 He stopped a minute, and now, without looking, 
 indeed, he looked everywhere but at me, while we 
 talked, made a bow as if just seating me from a waltz, 
 and, with his eyes and his smile on Louise all the way 
 down the room, went out. Did you ever know such 
 insolence ? 
 
 Papa made Mr. Dudley stay and dine, and of course we 
 were almost bored to death, when in came Rose again, 
 stealing behind Lu's chair, and showering her in the twi 
 light with a rain of May-flowers. 
 
 " Now you '11 have to gather them again," he said. 
 
 " Oh, how exquisite ! how delicious ! how I thank you ! " 
 she exclaimed, without disturbing one, however. 
 
 "You won't touch them again? Then I must," he 
 added. 
 
 "No, no, Mr. Rose!" I cried. "I'll pick them up, 
 and take toll." 
 
 " Don't touch them ! " said Lu, " they 're so sweet ! " 
 
 " Yes," he murmured lower, " they share with you. I 
 always said so, you remember." 
 
 " O yes ! and every May-day but the last you have 
 brought them to me." 
 
 " Have you the trailing-arbutus there ? " asked Mr. 
 Dudley. 
 
 " No," returned Rose. 
 
 " I thought I detected strawberries," submitted the other, 
 "a pleasant odor which recalls childhood to memory." 
 
 For some noses all sweet scents are lumped in one big 
 strawberry ; clovers, or hyacinths, or every laden air indif 
 ferently, they still sniff strawberries. Commonplace ! 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 31 
 
 "It's a sign of high birth to track strawberry-beds 
 where no fruit is, Mr. Dudley," said I. 
 
 " Very true, Miss "Willoughby. I was born pretty high 
 up in the Green Mountains." 
 
 " And so keep your memory green ? " 
 
 " Strawberries in June," said Rose, good-naturedly. 
 "But fruit out of season is trouble out of reason, the 
 Dream-Book says. It's May now, and these are its 
 blossoms." 
 
 " Everybody makes such a fuss about ground-laurel ! " 
 said I. "I don't see why, I'm sure. They're never 
 perfect. The leaf is hideous, a stupid duenna ! You 
 get great green leaves, and the flowers all white ; you get 
 deep rosy flowers, and the leaves are all brown and bit 
 ten. They 're neither one thing nor another. They 're 
 just like heliotropes, no bloom at all, only scent. I Ve 
 torn up myriads, to the ten stamens in their feathered 
 case, to find where that smell comes from, that is per 
 fectly delicious, and I never Could. They are a cheat." 
 
 " Have you finished your tirade ? " asked Rose, indif 
 ferently. 
 
 " I don't believe you mean so," murmured Lu. " They 
 have a color of their own, almost human, infantine ; and 
 when you mass them, the tone is more soft and mellow 
 than a flute. Everybody loves May-flowers." 
 
 "Just about. I despise flutes. I like bassoons." 
 
 " They are prophets of apple-blossoms." 
 
 " Which brings them at once into the culinary." 
 
 " They are not very showy," said Mr. Dudley ; " but 
 when we remember the Fathers " 
 
 " There 's nothing like them," said Rose, gently, as he 
 knelt by Lu, slowly putting them into order ; " nothing 
 but pure, clear things ; they 're the fruit of snow-flakes, the 
 
32 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 firstlings of the year. When one thinks how sweetly 
 they come from their warm coverts and look into this 
 cold, breezy sky so unshrinkingly, and from what a soil 
 they gather such a wealth of simple beauty, one feels 
 ashamed." 
 
 " Climax worthy of the useless things ! " said I. 
 
 " The moment in which first we are thoroughly 
 ashamed, Miss Willoughby, is the sovereign one of our 
 life. Useless things ? They are worth king and bishop. 
 Every year, weariness and depression melt away when 
 atop of the seasons' crucible boil these little bubbles. 
 Is n't everybody better for lavishing love ? And no one 
 merely likes these ; whoever cares at all, loves entirely. 
 We always take and give resemblances or sympathies 
 from any close connection, and so these are in their way 
 a type of their lovers. What virtue is in them to distil 
 the shadow of the great pines, that wave layer after layer 
 with a grave rhythm over them, into this delicate tint, I 
 wonder. They have so decided an individuality, dif 
 ferent there from hot-house belles ; fashion strips us of 
 our characteristics " 
 
 " You need n't turn to me for illustration of exotics," 
 said I. 
 
 He threw me a cluster, half-hidden in its green towers, 
 and went on, laying one by one and bringing out little 
 effects. 
 
 " The sweetest modesty clings to them, which Alphonse 
 Karr denies to the violet, so that they are almost out of 
 place in a drawing-room ; one ought to give them there 
 the shelter of their large, kind leaves." 
 
 " Hemlock 's the only wear," said Louise. 
 
 "Or last year's scarlet blackberry triads. Vines to 
 gether," he suggested. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 33 
 
 " But sometimes they forget their nun-like habit," she 
 added, " put on a frolicsome mood, and clamber out and 
 flush all the deep ruts of the carriage-road in Follymill 
 Woods, you remember." 
 
 " Penance next year," said I. 
 
 " No, no ; you are not to bring your old world into 
 my new," objected Eose ; " they 're fair little Puritans, 
 who do no penance. Perhaps they ran out so to greet 
 the winter-worn mariners of Plymouth, and have beeu 
 pursued by the love of their descendants ever since, 
 they getting charier. Just remember how they grow. 
 Why, you 'd never suspect a flower there, till, happening 
 to turn up a leaf, you 're in the midst of harvest. You 
 may tramp acres in vain, and within a stone's throw 
 they've been awaiting you. There's something very 
 charming, too, about them in this, that when the buds 
 are set, and at last a single blossom starts the trail, you 
 plucking at one end of the vine, your heart's delight 
 may touch the other a hundred miles away. Spring's 
 telegraph. So they bind our coast with this network 
 of flower and root." 
 
 " By no means," I asserted. " They grow in spots." 
 
 " Pshaw ! I won't believe it. They 're everywhere 
 just the same, only underground preparing their little 
 witnesses, whom they send out where most needed. 
 You don't suppose they find much joy in the fellow 
 ship of brown pine pins and sad gray mosses, do you ? 
 Some folks say they don't grow away from the shore; 
 but I 've found them, I 'm sorry to say, up in New Hamp 
 shire." 
 
 " Why sorry ? " asked Lu. 
 
 " Oh, I like it best that they need our sea. They 're 
 eminently choice for this hour, too, when you scarcely 
 2* c 
 
34 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 gather their tint, that tint, as if moonlight should 
 wish to become a flower, but their fragrance is an 
 atmosphere all about you. How genuinely spicy it is ! 
 It's the very quintessence of those regions all whose 
 sweetness exudes in sun-saturated balsams, the very 
 breath of pine woods and salt sea winds. How could 
 it live away from the sea ? " 
 
 " Why, sir," said Mr. Dudley, " you speak as if it were 
 a creature ! " 
 
 " A hard woody stem, a green robust leaf, a delicate 
 odorous flower, Mr. Dudley, what is it all but an expres 
 sion of New England character ? " 
 
 "Doxology!" said I. 
 
 " Now, Miss Louise, as you have made me atone for 
 my freedom, the task being done, let me present them 
 in form." 
 
 " I 'm sure she need n't praise them," said I. 
 
 She did n't. 
 
 " I declared people make a great fuss over them," I 
 continued. "And you prove it. You put me in mind 
 of a sound to be heard where one gets them, a strange 
 sound, like low, distant thunder, and it 's nothing but the 
 drum of a little partridge ! a great song out of nothing. 
 Bless me! what's that?" 
 
 " Oh, the fireworks ! " said Lu. And we all thronged 
 to the windows. 
 
 " It 's very good of your uncle to have them," said Rose. 
 " What a crowd from the town ! Think of the pyrotechnics 
 among comets and aerolites some fellows may have ! It 's 
 quite right, too, to make our festivals with light ; it 's 
 the highest and last of all things ; we never can carry our 
 imaginations beyond light " 
 
 "Our imaginations ought to carry us," said Lu. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 35 
 
 u Come," I said, " you can play what pranks you please 
 with the little May ; but light is my province, my absorp 
 tion ; let it alone." 
 
 It grew quite dark, interrupted. now and then by the 
 glare of rockets ; but at last a stream of central fire went 
 out in a slow rain of countless violets, reflected with pale 
 blue flashes in the river below, and then the gloom was 
 unbroken. I saw them, in that long dim gleam, standing 
 together at a window. Louise, her figure almost swaying 
 as if to some inaudible music, but her face turned to him 
 with such a steady quiet. Ah me! what a tremulous 
 joy, what passion, and what search, lit those eyes ! But 
 you know that passion means suffering, and, tracing it in 
 the original through its roots, you come to pathos, and 
 still farther, to lamentation, I 've heard. But he was not 
 looking down at her, only out and away, paler than ever 
 in the blue light, sad and resolved. I ordered candles. 
 
 " Sing to me, Louise," said Rose, at length. " It is two 
 years since I heard you." 
 
 " Sing ' What 's a' the steer, kimmer,' " I said. But in 
 stead, she gave the little ballad, a And bring my love again, 
 for he lies among the Moors." 
 
 Rose went and leaned over the piano-forte while she 
 sang, bending, and commanding her eyes. He seemed to 
 wish to put himself where he was before he ever left her, 
 to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring her before 
 him as utterly developed as she might be, not only to 
 afford her, but to force upon her, every chance to master 
 him. He seemed to wish to love, I thought. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, as she ceased. " Did you choose 
 it purposely, Louise ? " 
 
 Lu sang very nicely, and, though I dare say she would 
 rather not then, when Mr. Dudley asked for the " Vale of 
 
36 THE AMBER GODS: 
 
 Avoca," and the " Margin of Zurich's Fair Waters," she 
 gave them just as kindly. Altogether, quite a damp pro 
 gramme. Then papa came in, bright and blithe, whirled 
 me round in a pas de deux, and we all very gay and hila 
 rious slipped into the second of May. 
 
 Dear me ! how time goes ! I must hurry. After that, 
 /did n't see so much of Rose ; but he met Lu everywhere, 
 came in when I was out, and, if I returned, he went, per 
 fectly regardless of my existence, it seemed. They rode, 
 too, all round the country ; and she sat to him, though he 
 never filled out the sketch. For weeks he was devoted ; 
 but I fancied, when I saw them, that there lingered in his 
 manner the same thing as on the first evening while she 
 sang to him. Lu was so gay and sweet and happy that I 
 hardly knew her ; she was always very gentle, but such a 
 decided body, that 's the Willoughby, her mother. Yet 
 during these weeks Rose had not spoken, not formally ; 
 delicate and friendly kindness was all Lu could have 
 found, had she sought. One night, I remember, he came 
 in and wanted us to go out and row with him on the river. 
 Lu would n't go without me. 
 
 " Will you come ? " said he, coolly, as if I were merely 
 necessary as a thwart or thole-pin might have been, turn 
 ing and letting his eyes fall on me an instant, then snatch 
 ing them off with a sparkle and flush, and such a lordly 
 carelessness of manner otherwise. 
 
 " Certainly not," I replied. 
 
 So they remained, and Lu began to open a bundle of 
 Border Ballads, which he had brought her. The very 
 first one was " Whistle an' I '11 come to you, my lad." I 
 laughed. She glanced up quickly, then held it in her 
 hands a moment, repeated the name, and asked if he 
 liked it. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 37 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said. " There could n't be a Scotch song 
 without that rhythm better than melody, which, after all, 
 is Beethoven's secret." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Louise. " But I shall not sing 
 this." 
 
 " Oh, do ! " he said, turning with surprise. " You don't 
 know what an aerial, whistling little thing it is ! " 
 
 No." 
 
 " Why, Louise ! There is nobody could sing it but 
 you." 
 
 " Of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her 
 hair shall be of what color it please God," quoted I, and 
 in came Mr. Dudley, as he usually did when not wanted ; 
 though I've no reason to find fault with him, notwith 
 standing his blank treatment of me. He never took any 
 notice, because he was in love with Lu. Rose never took 
 any notice of me, either. But with a difference ! 
 
 Lu was singularly condescending to Mr. Dudley that 
 evening ; and Rose, sitting aside, looked so very much 
 disturbed whether pleasantly or otherwise did n't occur 
 to me that I could n't help enjoying his discomfiture, 
 and watching him through it. 
 
 Now, though I told you I wasn't nervous, I never 
 should know I had this luxurious calm, if there were 
 nothing to measure it by ; and once in a great while a 
 perfect whirlpool seizes me, my blood is all in tur 
 moil, I bubble with silent laughter, or cry with all my 
 heart. I had been in such a strange state a good while ; 
 and now, as I surveyed Rose, it gradually grew fiercer, 
 till I actually sprang to my feet, and exclaimed, " There ! 
 it is insupportable ! I 've been in the magnetic storm long 
 enough ! it is time something took it from me ! " and ran 
 out-doors. 
 
38 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 Rose sauntered after, by and by, as if unwillingly drawn 
 by a loadstone, and found the heavens wrapped in a rosy 
 flame of Northern Lights. He looked as though he 
 belonged to them, so pale and elf-like was his face then, 
 like one bewitched. 
 
 " Papa's fireworks fade before mine," I said. " Now 
 we can live in the woods, as Lu has been wishing ; for a 
 dry southerly wind follows this, with a blue smoke filming 
 all the distant fields. Won't it be delicious ? " 
 
 " Or rain," he replied ; " I think it will rain to-mor 
 row, warm, full rains." And he seemed as if such a 
 chance would dissolve him entirely. 
 
 As for me, those shifting, silent sheets of splendor ab 
 stracted all that was alien, and left me in my normal state. 
 
 " There they come ! " I said, as Lu and Mr. Dudley, 
 and some others who had entered in my absence, gnats 
 dancing in the beam, stepped down towards us. " How 
 charming for us all to sit out here ! " 
 
 " How annoying, you mean," he replied, simply for 
 contradiction. 
 
 " It has n't been warm enough before," I added. 
 
 " And Louise may take cold now," he said, as if wish 
 ing to exhibit his care for her. " Whom is she speaking 
 with ? Blarsaye ? And who comes after ? " 
 
 " Parti. A delightful person, been abroad, too. 
 You and he can have a crack about Louvres and Vati- 
 cans now, and leave Lu and Mr. Dudley to me." 
 
 Rose suddenly inspected me and then Parti, as if he 
 preferred the crack to be with cudgels ; but in a second 
 the little blaze vanished, and he only stripped a weigelia 
 branch of every blossom. 
 
 I wonder what made Lu behave so that night ; she 
 scarcely spoke to Rose, appeared entirely unconcerned 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 39 
 
 while he hovered round her like an officious sprite, was 
 all grace to the others and sweetness to Mr. Dudley. 
 And Rose, oblivious of snubs, paraded his devotion, 
 seemed determined to show his love for Lu, as if any 
 one cared a straw, and took the pains to be positively 
 rude to me. He was possessed of an odd restlessness ; a 
 little defiance bristled his movements, an air of contrari 
 ness ; and whenever he became quiet, he seemed again 
 like one enchanted and folded up in a dfeam, to break 
 whose spell he was about to abandon efforts. He told 
 me Life had destroyed my enchantment ; I wonder 
 what will destroy his. Lu refused to sit in the garden- 
 chair he offered, just suffered the wreath of pink bells 
 he gave her to hang in her hand, and by and by fall, 
 and when the north grew ruddier and swept the zenith 
 with lances of light, and when it faded, and a dim cloud 
 hazed all the stars, preserved the same equanimity, 
 kept on the evil tenor of her way, and bade every one 
 an impartial farewell at separating. She is preciously 
 well-bred. 
 
 We had n't remained in the garden all that time, 
 though, but, strolling through the gate and over the 
 field, had reached a small grove that fringes the gully 
 worn by Wild Fall and crossed by the railway. As we 
 emerged from that, talking gayly, and our voices almost 
 drowned by the dash of the little waterfall and the echo 
 from the opposite rock, I sprang across the curving 
 track, thinking them behind, and at the same instant a 
 thunderous roar burst all about, a torrent of hot' air 
 whizzed and eddied over me, I fell dizzied and stunned, 
 and the night express-train shot by like a burning arrow. 
 Of course I was dreadfully hurt by my fall and fright, 
 I feel the shock now, the blow, the stroke, but they 
 
40 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 all stood on the little mound, from which I had sprung, 
 like so many petrifactions : Hose, just as he had caught 
 Louise back on firmer ground when she was about to 
 follow me, his arm wound swiftly round her waist, yet 
 his head thrust forward eagerly, his pale face and glow 
 ing eyes bent, not on her, but me. Still he never stirred, 
 and poor Mr. Dudley first came to my assistance. We 
 all drew breath at our escape, and, a little slowly, on my 
 account, turned homeward. 
 
 "You are not bruised, Miss Willoughby?" asked 
 Blarsaye, wakened. 
 
 " Dear Tone ! " Lu said, leaving Mr. Dudley's arm, 
 " you 're so very pale ! It 's not pain, is it ? " 
 
 "I am not conscious of any. Why should I be in 
 jured, any more than you ? " 
 
 " Do you know," said Rose, sotto voce, turning and 
 bending merely his head to me, " I thought I heard you 
 scream, and that you were dead." 
 
 "And what then?" 
 
 " Nothing, but that you were lying dead and torn, and 
 I should see you," he said, and said as if he liked to 
 say it, experiencing a kind of savage delight at his 
 ability to say it. 
 
 " A pity to have disappointed you ! " I answered. 
 
 " I saw it coming before you leaped," he added, as a 
 malignant finality, and drawing nearer. "You were 
 both on the brink. I called, but probably neither you 
 nor Lu heard me. So I snatched her back." 
 
 Now I had been next him then. 
 
 " Jove's balance," I said, taking Parti's arm. 
 
 He turned instantly to Lu, and kept by her during 
 the remainder of the walk, Mr. Dudley being at the 
 other side. I was puzzled a little by Lu, as I have 
 
THE AMBEK GODS. 41 
 
 been a good many times since ; I thought she liked Rose 
 so much. Papa met us in the field, and there the affair 
 must be detailed to him, and then he would have us cele 
 brate our safety in Champagne. 
 
 " Good by, Louise," said Rose, beside her at the gate, 
 and offering his hand, somewhat later. "I'm going 
 away to-morrow, if it 's fine." 
 
 " Going ? " with involuntary surprise. 
 
 " To camp out in Maine." 
 
 " Oh, I hope you will enjoy it." 
 
 " Would you stay long, Louise ? " 
 
 "If the sketching-grounds are good." 
 
 "When I come back, you'll sing my songs? Shake 
 hands." 
 
 She just laid a cold touch on his. 
 
 " Louise, are you offended with me ? " 
 
 She looked up with so much simplicity. "Offended, 
 Rose, with you ? " 
 
 " Not offended, but frozen," I could have said. Lu is 
 like that little sensitive-plant, shrinking into herself with 
 stiff unconsciousness at a certain touch. But I don't 
 think he noticed the sad tone in her voice, as she said 
 good night ; I did n't, till, the others being gone, I saw 
 her turn after his disappearing figure, with a look that 
 would have been despairing, but for its supplication. 
 
 The only thing Lu ever said to me about this was, 
 
 " Don't you think Rose a little altered, Tone, since he 
 came home ? " 
 
 Altered ? " 
 
 " I have noticed it ever since you showed him your 
 beads, that day." 
 
 " Oh ! it 's the amber," I said. " They are amulets, and 
 have bound him in a thrall. You must wear them, and 
 dissolve the charm. He 's in a dream." 
 
42 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 " What is it to be in a dream ? " she asked. 
 " To lose thought of past or future." 
 She repeated my words, " Yes, he 's in a dream," 
 she said musingly. 
 
 Rose did n't come near us for a fortnight ; but he had 
 not camped at all, as he said. It was the first stone 
 thrown into Lu's life, and I never saw any one keep the 
 ripples under so ; but her suspicions were aroused. Fi 
 nally he came in again, all as before, and I thought things 
 might have been different, if in that fortnight Mr. Dudley 
 had not been so assiduous: ; and now, to the latter's hap 
 piness, there were several ragged children and infirm old 
 women in whom, Lu having taken them in charge, he 
 chose to be especially interested. Lu always was house 
 keeper, both because it had fallen to her while mamma 
 and I were away, and because she had an administrative 
 faculty equal to General Jackson's ; and Rose, who had 
 frequently gone about with her, inspecting jellies and cor 
 dials and adding up her accounts, now unexpectedly 
 found Mr. Dudley so near his former place that he dis 
 dained to resume it himself; not entirely, because the 
 man of course could n't be as familiar as an old playmate ; 
 but just enough to put Rose aside. He never would 
 compete with any one ; and Lu did not know how to 
 repulse the other. 
 
 If the amulets had ravished Rose from himself, they 
 did it at a distance, for I had not worn them since that 
 day. You need n't look. Thales imagined amber had a 
 spirit ; and Pliny says it is a counter-charm for sorceries. 
 There are a great many mysterious things in the world. 
 Are n't there any hidden relations between us and certain 
 substances ? Will you tell me something impossible ? 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 43 
 
 But he came and went about Louise, and she sung his 
 songs, and all was going finely again, when we gave our 
 midsummer party. 
 
 Everybody was there, of course, and we had enraptur 
 ing music. Louise wore no matter something of twi 
 light purple, and begged for the amber, since it was too 
 much for my toilette, a double India muslin, whose 
 snowy sheen scintillated with festoons of gorgeous green 
 beetles' wings flaming like fiery emeralds. A family 
 dress, my dear, and worn by my aunt before me, only 
 that individual must have been frightened out of her wits 
 by it. A cruel, savage dress, very like, but ineffably 
 gorgeous. So I wore her aqua-marina, though the other 
 would have been better ; and when I sailed in, with all 
 the airy folds in a hoar-frost mistiness fluttering round me 
 and the glitter of Lu's jewels, 
 
 " Why ! " said Rose, " you look like the moon in a halo." 
 
 But Lu disliked a hostess out-dressing her guests. 
 
 It was dull enough till quite late, and then I stepped 
 out with Mr. Parti, and walked up and down a garden- 
 path. Others were outside as well, and the last time I 
 passed a little arbor I caught a yellow gleam of amber. 
 Lu, of course. Who was with her ? A gentleman, bend 
 ing low to catch her words, holding her hand in an irre 
 sistible pressure. Not Rose, for he was flitting in beyond. 
 Mr. Dudley. And I saw then that Lu's kindness was too 
 great to allow her to repel him angrily ; her gentle con 
 science let her wound no one. Had Rose seen the panto 
 mime ? Without doubt. He had been seeking her, and 
 he found her, he thought, in Mr. Dudley's arms. After 
 a while we went in, and, finding all smooth enough, I 
 slipped through the balcony-window and hung over the 
 balustrade, glad to be alone a moment. The wind, blow- 
 
44 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 ing in, carried the gay sounds away from me, even the 
 music came richly muffled through the heavy curtains, 
 and I wished to breathe balm and calm. The moon, 
 round and full, was just rising, making the gloom below 
 more sweet. A full moon is poison to some ; they shut 
 it out at every crevice, and do not suffer a ray to cross 
 them ; it has a chemical or magnetic effect ; it sickens 
 them. But I am never more free and royal than when 
 the subtile celerity of its magic .combinations, whatever 
 they are, is at work. Never had I known the mere joy 
 of being, so intimately as to-night. The river slept soft 
 and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the 
 air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles 
 that climbed around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole 
 and swathed me ; long wafts of faint harmony gently 
 thrilled me. Dewy and dark and uncertain was all be 
 yond. I, possessed with a joyousness so deep through its 
 contented languor as to counterfeit serenity, forgot all my 
 wealth of nature, my pomp of beauty, abandoned myself 
 to the hour. 
 
 A strain of melancholy dance-music pierced the air and 
 fell. I half turned my head, and my eyes met Rose. He 
 had been there before me, perhaps. His face white and 
 shining in the light, shining with a strange sweet smile 
 of relief, of satisfaction, of delight, his lips quivering with 
 unspoken words, his eyes dusky with depth after depth 
 of passion. How long did my eyes swim on his ? I can 
 not tell. He never stirred ; still leaned there against the 
 pillar, still looked down on me like a marble god. The 
 sudden tears dazzled my gaze, fell down my hot cheek, 
 and still I knelt fascinated by that smile. In that moment 
 I felt that he was more beautiful than the night, than 
 the music, than I. Then I knew that all this time, all 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 45 
 
 summer, all past summers, all my life long, I had loved 
 him. 
 
 Some one was waiting to make his adieux ; I heard my 
 father seeking me ; I parted the curtains and went in. 
 One after one those tedious people left, the lights grew 
 dim, and still he stayed without. I ran to the window, 
 and, lifting the curtain, I bent forward, crying, 
 
 " Mr. Rose ! do you spend the night on the balcony ? " 
 
 Then he moved, stepped down, murmured something 
 to my father, bowed loftily to Louise, passed me without 
 a sign, and went out. In a moment, Lu's voice, a quick 
 sharp exclamation, touched him ; he turned, came back. 
 She, wondering at him, had stood toying with the amber, 
 and at last crushing the miracle of the whole, a bell-wort 
 wrought most delicately with all the dusty pollen grained 
 upon its anthers, crushing it between her fingers, break 
 ing the thread, and scattering the beads upon the carpet. 
 He stooped with her to gather' them again, he took from 
 her hand and restored to her afterward the shattered frag 
 ments of the bell-wort, he helped her disentangle the 
 aromatic string from her falling braids, for I kept 
 apart, he breathed the penetrating incense of each sep 
 arate amulet, and I saw that from that hour, when every 
 atom of his sensation was tense and vibrating, she would 
 be associated with the loathed amber in his undefined con 
 sciousness, would be surrounded with an atmosphere of 
 its perfume, that Lu was truly sealed from him in it, 
 sealed "into herself. Then again, saying no word, he went 
 out. 
 
 Louise stood like one lost, took aimlessly a few 
 steps, retraced them, approached a table, touched 
 something, left it. 
 
 " I am so sorry about your beads ! " she said, apologeti- 
 
46 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 cally, when she looked up and saw me astonished, 
 putting the broken pieces into my hand. 
 
 " Goodness ! Is that what you are fluttering about so 
 for ? " 
 
 " They can't be mended," she continued, " but I will 
 thread them again." 
 
 " I don't care about them, I 'm sick of amber," I an 
 swered consolingly. " You may have them, if you will." 
 
 " No. I must pay too great a price for them," she re 
 plied. 
 
 " Nonsense ! when they break again, I '11 pay you 
 back," I said, without in the least knowing what she 
 meant. " I did n't suppose you were too proud for a 
 < thank you ' ! " 
 
 She came and put both her arms round my neck, laid 
 her cheek beside mine a minute, kissed me, and went 
 up stairs. Lu always rather worshipped me. 
 
 Dressing my hair that night, Carmine, my maid, begged 
 for the remnants of the bell-wort to " make a scent-bag 
 with, Miss." 
 
 Next day, no Rose ; it rained. But at night he came 
 and took possession of the room, with a strange, airy 
 gayety never seen in him before. It was so chilly, that I 
 had heaped the wood-boughs, used in the yesterday's 
 decorations, on the hearth, and lighted a fragrant crack 
 ling flame that danced up wildly at my touch, for I 
 have the faculty of fire. I sat at one side, Lu at the ' 
 other, papa was holding a skein of silk for her to wind, 
 the amber beads were twinkling in the firelight, and 
 when she slipped them slowly on the thread, bead after 
 bead warmed through and through by the real blaze, they 
 crowded the room afresh with their pungent spiciness. 
 Papa had called Rose to take his place at the other end 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 47 
 
 of the silk, and had gone out ; and when Lu finished, 
 she fastened the ends, cut the thread, Rose likening her 
 to Atropos, and put them back into her basket. Still 
 playing with the scissors, following down the lines of her 
 hand, a little snap was heard. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Louise, " I have broken my ring ! " 
 
 " Can't it be repaired ? " I asked. 
 
 " No," she returned briefly, but pleasantly, and threw 
 the pieces into the fire. 
 
 " The hand must not be ringless," said Rose ; and 
 slipping off the ring of hers that he wore, he dropped it 
 on the amber, then got up and threw an armful of fresh 
 boughs upon the blaze. 
 
 So that was all done. Then Rose was gayer than 
 before. He is one of those people to whom you must 
 allow moods, when their sun shines, dance, and when 
 their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of 
 the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uni 
 formly ; and so sensitive is he, that, when connected with 
 you by any intimate rapport, even if but momentary, he 
 almost divines your thoughts. He is full of perpetual 
 surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was 
 Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that 
 evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass- 
 bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow 
 wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his 
 peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the fire, 
 and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper 
 in profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and 
 unlike Mr. Dudley. I pointed one out to Lu, and if he 
 had needed confirmation, her changing color gave it He 
 only glanced at her askance, and then broke into the mer 
 riest description of his life in Rome, of which he declared 
 
48 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 he had not spoken to us yet, talking fast and laughing as 
 gleefully as a child, and illustrating people and localities 
 with scissors and paper as he went on, a couple of careless 
 snips putting a whole scene before us. 
 
 The floor was well strewn with such chips, fountains, 
 statues, baths, and all the persons of his little drama, 
 when papa came in. He held an open letter, and, sitting 
 down, read it over again. Rose fell into silence, clipping 
 the scissors daintily in and out the white sheet through 
 twinkling intricacies. As the design dropped out, I 
 caught it, a long wreath of honeysuckle-blossoms. Ah, 
 I knew where the honeysuckles grew ! Lu was hum 
 ming a little tune. Rose joined, and hummed the last 
 bars, then bade us good-night. 
 
 " Yone," said papa, " your Aunt Willoughby is very 
 ill, will not recover. She is my elder brother's widow ; 
 you are her heir. You must go and stay with her." 
 
 Now it was very likely that just at this time I was 
 going away to nurse Aunt Willoughby ! Moreover, ill 
 ness is my very antipodes, its nearness is invasion, 
 we are utterly antipathetic, it disgusts and repels me. 
 What sympathy can there be between my florid health, 
 my rank redundant life, and any wasting disease of 
 death ? What more hostile than focal concentration and 
 obscure decomposition ? You see, we cannot breathe the 
 same atmosphere. I banish the thought of such a thing 
 from my feeling, from my memory. So I said, 
 
 "It's impossible. I'm not going an inch to Aunt Wil- 
 loughby's. Why, papa, it 's more than a hundred miles, 
 and in this weather ! " 
 
 " Oh, the wind has changed." 
 
 " Then it will be too warm for such a journey." 
 
 " A new idea, Yone ! Too warm for the mountains ? " 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 49 
 
 " Yes, papa. I 'm not going a step." 
 
 Why, Tone, you astonish me ! Your sick aunt ! " 
 
 "That's the very thing. If she were well, I might, 
 perhaps. Sick ! What can I do for her ? I never go into 
 a sick-room. I hate it. I don't know how to do a thing 
 there. Don't say another word, papa. I can't go." 
 
 " It is out of the question to let it pass so, my dear. 
 Here you are nursing all the invalids in town, yet " 
 
 " Indeed, I 'm not, papa. I don't know and don't care 
 whether they 're dead or alive." 
 
 "Well, then, it's Lu." 
 
 " Oh, yes, she 's hospital agent for half the country." 
 
 " Then it is time that you also got a little experience." 
 
 " Don't, papa ! I don't want it. I never saw anybody 
 die, and I never mean to." 
 
 " Can't I do as well, uncle ? " asked Lu. 
 
 " You, darling ? Yes ; but it is n't your duty." 
 
 " I thought, perhaps," she said, " you would rather Yone 
 went." 
 
 " So I would." 
 
 " Dear papa, don't vex me ! Ask anything else ! " 
 
 " It is so unpleasant to Yone," Lu murmured, " that 
 maybe I had better go. And if you 've no objection, sir, 
 I '11 take the early train to-morrow." 
 
 Was n't she an angel ? 
 
 Lu was away a month. Rose came in, expressing his 
 surprise. ~ I said, " Othello's occupation 's gone ? " 
 
 " And left him room for pleasure now," he retorted. 
 
 " Which means seclusion from the world, in the society 
 of lakes and chromes." 
 
 " Miss Willoughby," said he, turning and looking di 
 rectly past me, " may I paint you ? " 
 
50 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 "Me? Oh, you can't." 
 
 No ; but may I try ? " 
 
 " I cannot go to you." 
 
 " I will come to you." 
 
 " Do you suppose it will be like ? " 
 
 " Not at all, of course. It is to be, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, I 've no more right than any other piece of Na 
 ture to refuse an artist a study in color." 
 
 He faced about, half pouting, as if he would go out, 
 then returned and fixed the time. 
 
 So he painted. He generally put me into a broad beam 
 that slanted from the top of the veiled window, and day 
 after day he worked. Ah, what glorious days they were ! 
 how gay! how full of life! I almost feared to let him 
 image me on canvas, do you know ? I had a fancy it 
 would lay my soul so bare to his inspection. What se 
 crets might be searched, what depths fathomed, at such 
 times, if men knew ! I feared lest he should see me as I 
 am, in those great masses of warm light lying before him, 
 as I feared he saw when he said amber harmonized with 
 me, all being things not polarized, not organized, with 
 out centre, so to speak. But it escaped him, and he 
 wrought on. Did he succeed ? Bless you ! he might as 
 well have painted the sun ; and who could do that ? No ; 
 but shades and combinations that he had hardly touched 
 or known, before, he had to lavish now ; He learned 
 more than some years might have taught him ; he, who 
 worshipped beauty, saw how thoroughly I possessed it ; 
 he has told me that through me he learned the sacredness 
 of color. " Since he loves beauty so, why does he not love 
 me ? " I asked myself; and perhaps the feverish hope and 
 suspense only lit up that beauty and fed it with fresh fires. 
 Ah, the July days ! Did you ever wander over barren, 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 51 
 
 parched stubble-fields, and suddenly front a knot of red 
 Turk's-cap lilies, flaring as if they had drawn all the heat 
 and brilliance from the land into their tissues ? Such 
 were they. And if I were to grow old and gray, they 
 would light down all my life, and I could be willing to lead 
 a dull, grave age, looking back and remembering them, 
 warming myself forever in their constant youth. If I had 
 nothing to hope, they would become my whole existence^. 
 Think, then, what it will be to have all days like those ! 
 
 He never satisfied himself, as he might have done, had 
 he known me better, and he never shall know me ! 
 and used to look at me for the secret of his failure, till I 
 laughed ; then the look grew wistful, grew enamored. 
 By and by we left the pictures. We went into the 
 woods, warm dry woods ; we stayed there from morning 
 till night. In the burning noons, we hung suspended 
 between two heavens, in our boat on glassy forest-pools, 
 where now and then a shoal of white lilies rose and 
 crowded out the under-sky. Sunsets burst like bubbles 
 over us. When the hidden thrushes were breaking one's 
 heart with music, and the sweet fern sent up a tropical 
 fragrance beneath our crushing steps, we came home to 
 rooms full of guests and my father's genial warmth. 
 What a month it was! 
 
 One day papa went up into New Hampshire ; Aunt 
 Willoughby was dead ; and one day Lu came home. 
 
 She was very pale and thin. Her eyes were hollow 
 and purple. 
 
 "There is some mistake, Lu," I said. "It is you 
 who are dead, instead of Aunt Willoughby." 
 
 " Do I look so wretchedly ? " she asked, glancing at 
 the mirror. 
 
 " Dreadfully ! Is it all watching and grief? " 
 
52 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 " Watching and grief," said Lu. 
 
 How melancholy her smile was! She would have 
 crazed me in a little while, if I had minded her. 
 
 "Did you care so much for fretful, crabbed Aunt 
 Willoughby?" 
 
 " She was very kind to me," Lu replied. 
 
 There was an odd air with her that day. She did n't 
 go at once and get off her travelling-dress, but trifled 
 about in a kind of expectancy, a little fever going and 
 coming in her cheeks, and turning at any noise. 
 
 Will you believe it ? though I knew Lu had refused 
 to marry him, who met her at the half-way junction, 
 saw about her luggage, and drove home with her, but 
 Mr. Dudley, and was with us, a half-hour afterward, 
 when Rose came in ? Lu did n't turn at his step, but 
 the little fever in her face prevented his seeing her as I 
 had done. He shook hands with her and asked after her 
 health, and shook hands with Mr. Dudley (who hadn't 
 been near us during her absence), and seemed to wish 
 she should feel that he recognized without pain a con 
 nection between herself and that personage. But when 
 he came back to me, I was perplexed again at that 
 bewitched look in his face, as if Lu's presence made 
 him feel that he was in a dream, I the enchantress of 
 that dream. It did not last long, though. And soon 
 she saw Mr. Dudley out, and went up-stairs. 
 
 When Lu came down to the table, she had my beads 
 in her hand again. 
 
 "I went into your room and got them, dear Tone," 
 she said, "because I have found something to replace 
 the broken bell- wort," and she showed us a little amber 
 bee, black and golden. " Not so lovely as the bell- 
 wort," she resumed, "and I must pierce it for the thread; 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 53 
 
 but it will fill the number. Was I not fortunate to 
 find it?" 
 
 But when at a flame she heated a long slender needle 
 to pierce it, the little winged wonder shivered between 
 her fingers, and under the hot steel filled the room with 
 the honeyed smell of its dusted substance. 
 
 " Never mind," said I again. " It 's a shame, though, 
 it was so much prettier than the bell-wort ! We might 
 have known it was too brittle. It 's just as well, Lu." 
 
 The room smelt like a chancel at vespers. Rose 
 sauntered to the window, and so down the garden, and 
 then home. 
 
 " Yes. It cannot be helped," she said, with a smile. 
 " But I really counted upon seeing it on the string. 
 I 'm not lucky at amber. You know little Asian said it 
 would -bring bane to the bearer." 
 
 " Dear ! dear ! I had quite forgotten ! " I exclaimed. 
 " O Lu, keep it, or give it away, or something ! I don't 
 want it any longer." 
 
 " You 're very vehement," she said, laughing now. " I 
 am not afraid of your gods. Shall I wear them ? " 
 
 So the r,est of the summer Lu twined them round 
 her throat, amulets of sorcery, orbs of separation ; but 
 one night she brought them back to me. That was last 
 night. There they lie. 
 
 The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I 
 was on the lounge in the alcove parlor, my hair half 
 streaming out of Lu's net ; but he did n't mind. The light 
 was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came 
 and sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall 
 table with its dish of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while 
 I looked down the drawing-room. He had brought a 
 book, and by and by opened at the part commencing, 
 
54 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 " Do not die, Phene." He read it through, all that 
 perfect, perfect scene. From the moment when he said, 
 
 " I overlean 
 
 This length of hair and lustrous front they turn 
 Like an entire flower upward," 
 
 his voice low, sustained, clear, till he reached the line, 
 
 " Look at the woman here with the new soul," 
 till he turned the leaf and murmured, 
 
 " Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
 Be art, and, further, to evoke a soul 
 From form, be nothing? This new soul is mine ! " 
 
 till then, he never glanced up. Now, with a proud grace, 
 he raised his head, not to look at me, but across me, 
 at the lilies, to satiate himself with their odorous snowi- 
 ness. When he again pronounced words, his voice was 
 husky and vibrant; but what music dwelt in it and 
 seemed to prolong rather than break the silver silence, 
 as he echoed, 
 
 " Some unsuspected isle in the far seas " ! 
 
 How many read, to descend to a prosaic life !. how few to 
 meet one as rich and full beside them ! The tone grew 
 ever lower ; he looked up slowly, fastening his glance on 
 mine. 
 
 " And you are ever by me while I gaze, 
 Are in my arms as now as now as now ! " 
 
 he said. He swayed forward with those wild questioning 
 eyes, his breath blew over my cheek ; I was drawn, 
 I bent; the full passion of his soul broke to being, 
 wrapped me with a blinding light, a glowing kiss on lin 
 gering lips, a clasp strong and tender as heaven. All 
 my hair fell down like a shining cloud and veiled us, the 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 55 
 
 great rolling folds in wave after wave of crisp splendor. 
 I drew back from that long, silent kiss, I gathered up 
 each gold thread of the straying tresses, blushing, defiant. 
 He also, he drew back. But I knew all then. I had no 
 need to wait longer; I had achieved. Rose loved me. 
 Rose had loved me from that first day. You scarcely 
 hear what I say, I talk so low and fast ? Well, no mat 
 ter, dear, you would n't care. For a moment that gaze 
 continued, then the lids fell, the face grew utterly white. 
 He rose, flung the book, crushed and torn, upon the floor, 
 went out, speaking no word to me, nor greeting Louise 
 in the next room. Could he have seen her? No. I, 
 only, had that. For, as I drew from his arm, a meteoric 
 crimson, shooting across the pale face bent over work 
 there, flashed upon me, and then a few great tears, like 
 sudden thunder-drops, falling slowly and wetting the 
 heavy fingers. The long mirror opposite her reflected 
 the interior of the alcove parlor. No, he could not 
 have seen, he must have felt her. 
 
 I wonder whether I should have cared, if I had never 
 met him any more, happy in this new consciousness. 
 But in the afternoon he returned, bright and eager. 
 
 " Are you so very busy, dear Tone," he said, without 
 noticing Lu, " that you cannot drive with me to-day ? " 
 
 Busy ! In five minutes I whirled down the avenue 
 beside him. I had not been Yone to him before. How 
 quiet we were ! he driving* on, bent forward, seeing out 
 and away ; I leaning back, my eyes closed, and, whenever 
 a remembrance of that instant at noon thrilled me, a sting 
 ing blush staining my cheek. I, who had believed myself 
 incapable of love, till that night on the balcony, felt its 
 floods welling from my spirit, who had believed myself 
 so completely cold, was warm to my heart's core. Again 
 
56 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 that breath fanned me, those lips touched mine, lightly, 
 quickly. 
 
 " Tone, my Yone ! " he said. " Is it true ? No dream 
 within dream ? Do you love me ? " 
 
 Wistful, longing, tender eyes. 
 
 " Do I love you ? I would die for you ! " 
 
 Ah, me ! If the July days were such, how perfect were 
 the August and September nights ! their young moon's 
 lingering twilight, their full broad bays of silver, their in- 
 terlunar season! The winds were warm about us, the 
 whole earth seemed the wealthier for our love. We 
 almost lived upon the river, he and I alone, floating 
 seaward, swimming slowly up with late tides, reaching 
 home drenched with dew, parting in passionate silence. 
 Once he said to me, 
 
 " Is it because it is so much larger, more strange and 
 beautiful, than any other love could be, that I feel guilty, 
 Yone, feel as if I sinned in loving you so, my great 
 white flower ? " 
 
 I ought to tell you how splendid papa was, never seemed 
 to consider that Rose had only his art, said I had enough 
 from Aunt Willoughby for both, we should live up there 
 among the mountains, and set off at once to make arrange 
 ments. Lu has a wonderful tact, too, seeing at once 
 where her path lay. She is always so well oriented ! 
 How full of peace and bliss these two months have been ! 
 Last night Lu came in here. She brought back my am 
 ber gods, saying she had not intended to keep them, and 
 yet loitering. 
 
 " Yone," she said at last, " I want you to tell me if you 
 love him." " 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 57 
 
 Now, as if that were any affair of hers ! I looked what 
 I thought. 
 
 " Don't be angry," she pleaded. " You and I have 
 been sisters, have we not ? and always shall be. I love 
 you very much, dear, more than you may believe ; I 
 only want to know if you will make him happy." 
 
 " That 's according," said I, with a yawn. 
 
 She still stood before me. Her eyes said, " I have a 
 right, I have a right to know." 
 
 "You want me to say how much I love Vaughan 
 Rose ? " I asked, finally. " Well, listen, Lu, so much, 
 that, when he forgets me, and he will, Lu, one day, 
 I shall die." 
 
 " Prevent his forgetting you, Yone ! " she returned. 
 " Make your soul white and clear, like his." 
 
 " No ! no ! " I answered. " He loves me as I am. I 
 will never change." 
 
 Then somehow tears began to come. I did n't want to 
 cry ; I had to crowd them baisk behind my fingers and 
 shut lids. 
 
 " Oh, Lu ! " I said, " I cannot think what it would be to 
 live, and he not a part of me ! not for either of as to be 
 in the world without the other ! " 
 
 Then Lu's tears fell with mine, as she drew her fingers 
 over my hair. She said she was happy, too ; and to-day 
 has been down and gathered every one, so that, when you 
 see her, her white array will be wreathed with purple 
 heart's-ease. But I did n't tell Lu quite the truth, you 
 must know. I don't think I should die, except to my 
 former self, if Rose ceased to love me. I should change. 
 Oh, I should hate him ! Hate is as intense as love. 
 
 Bless me ! What time can it be ? There are papa and 
 Rose walking in the garden. I turned out my maid to 
 
58 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 find chance for all this talk ; I must ring for her. There, 
 there 's my hair ! silken coil after coil, full of broken 
 lights, rippling below the knees, fine and fragrant. Who 
 could have such hair but I ? I am the last of the Wil- 
 loughbys, a decayed race, and from such strong decay 
 what blossom less gorgeous should spring ? 
 
 October now. All the world swings at the top of its 
 beauty ; and those hills where we shall live, what robes 
 of color fold them ! Tawny filemot gilding the valleys, 
 each seam and rut a scroll or arabesque, and all the year 
 pouring out her heart's blood to flush the maples, the 
 great empurpled granites warm with the sunshine they 
 have drunk all summer ! So I am to be married to-day, 
 at noon. I like it best so ; it is my hour. There is my 
 veil, that regal Venice point. Fling it round you. No, 
 you would look like a ghost in one, Lu like a corpse. 
 Dear me ! That 's the second time I 've rung for Carmine. 
 I dare say the hussy is trying on my gown. You think 
 it strange I don't delay ? Why, child, why tempt Provi 
 dence ? Once mine, always mine. He might wake up. 
 No, no, I could n't have meant that ! It is not possible 
 that I have merely led him into a region of richer dyes, 
 lapped him in this vision of color, kindlecThis heart to such 
 a flame, that it may light him towards further effort. Can 
 you believe that he will slip from me and return to one in 
 better harmony with him ? Is any one ? Will he ever 
 find himself with that love lost, this love exhausted, only 
 his art left him ? Never ! / am his crown. See me ! 
 how singularly, gloriously beautiful ! For him only ! all 
 for him ! I love him ! I cannot, I will not lose him ! I 
 defy all ! My heart's proud pulse assures me ! I defy 
 Fate ! Hush One, two, twelve o'clock. Car 
 mine ! 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 59 
 
 LAST. 
 ASTRA CASTRA, NUMEN LUMEN. 
 
 'TiiE click of her needles and the soft singing of the 
 night-lamp are the only sounds breaking the stillness, the 
 awful stillness, of this room. How the wind blows with 
 out ! it must be whirling white gusty drifts through the 
 split hills. If I were as free ! Whistling round the gray 
 gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint hoarse moans 
 down the chimneys ! A wild, sad gale ! There is a lull, a 
 long breathless lull, before it soughs up again. Oh, it is 
 like a pain ! Pain ! Why do I think the word ? Must 
 I suffer any more ? Am I crazed with opiates ? or am I 
 dying ? They are in that drawer, laudanum, morphine, 
 hyoscyamus, and all the drowsy sirups, little drops, but 
 soaring like a fog and wrapping the whole world in a dull 
 ache with no salient sting to catch a groan on. They are 
 so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room ; why 
 not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark 
 room ; I at one end, she at the other ; the curtains drawn 
 away from me that I may breathe. Ah, I have been 
 stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old 
 dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall, look 
 all from their frames at me, the last term of the race, the 
 vanishing summit of their design. A fierce weapon thrust 
 into the world for evil has that race been, from the great 
 gray Willoughby, threatening with his iron eyes there, to 
 me, the sharp apex of its suffering. A fierce, glittering 
 blade ! Why I alone singled for this curse ? Rank blos 
 som, rank decay, they answer, but falsely. I lie here, 
 through no fault of mine, blasted by disease, the dread 
 
60 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 with no relief. A hundred ancestors look from my walls 
 and see in me the centre of their lives, of all their little 
 splendor, of their sins and follies ; what slept in them 
 wakes in me. Oh, let me sleep too ! 
 
 How long could I live and lose nothing ? I saw my 
 face in the hand-glass this morning, more lovely than 
 health fashioned it ; transparent skin, bounding blood 
 with its fire burning behind the eye, on cheek, on lip, 
 a beauty that every pang has aggravated, heightened, 
 sharpened, to a superb intensity, flushing, rapid, unearth 
 ly, a brilliancy to be dreamed of. Like a great autumn 
 leaf I fall, for I am dying, dying ! Yes, death finds me 
 more beautiful than life made me ; but have I lost nothing ? 
 Great Heaven, I have lost all ! 
 
 A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday. 
 I have forgotten to mark time ; but if it was, I am thirty- 
 two years old. I remember birthdays of a child, lov 
 ing, cordial days. No one remembers to-day. Why 
 should they ? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two, 
 that is young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for 
 death ! not his fit spoil ! Is there no one to save me ? 
 no help ? can I not escape ? Ah, what a vain eager 
 ness ! what an idle hope ! Fall back again, heart ! Es 
 cape ? I do not desire to. Come, come, kind rest ! I 
 am tired. 
 
 That cap-string has loosened now, and all- this golden 
 cataract of hair has rushed out over the piled pillows. It 
 oppresses and terrifies me. If I could speak, it seems to 
 me that I would ask Louise to come and bind it up. 
 Won't she turn and see ? . . . 
 
 Have I been asleep ? What is this in my hands ? The 
 amber gods ? Oh, yes ! I asked to see them again ; I like 
 their smell, I think. It is ten years I have had them. 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 61 
 
 They enchant ; but the charm will not last ; nothing will. 
 I rubbed a little yellow smoke out of them, a cloud that 
 hung between him and the world, so that he saw only 
 me, at least What am I dreaming of ? All man 
 ner of illusions haunt me. Who said anything about ten 
 years ? I have been married ten years. Happy, then, 
 ten years ? Oh, no ! One day he woke. How close the 
 room is ! I want some air. Why don't they do some 
 thing 
 
 Once, in the pride of a fool, I fear having made some 
 confidence, some recital of my joy to ears that never had 
 any. Did I say I would not lose him ? Did I say I could 
 live just on the memory of that summer ? I lash myself 
 that I must remember it ! that I ever loved him ! When 
 he stirred, when the mist left him, when he found a mere 
 passion had blinded him, when he spread his easel, when 
 he abandoned love, was I wretched ? I, too, abandoned 
 love ! more, I hated ! All who hate are wretched. 
 But he was bound to me ! Yes, he might move restlessly, 
 it only clanked his chains. Did he wound me ? I was 
 cruel. He never spoke. He became artist, ceased to 
 be man, was more indifferent than the cloud. He could 
 paint me then, and, revealed and bare, all our histories 
 written in me, he hung me up beside my ancestors. 
 There I hang. Come from thy frame, thou substance, 
 and let this troubled phantom go! Come! for he gave 
 my life to thee. In thee he shut and sealed it all, and left 
 me as the empty husk. Did she that other join us 
 then ? No ! I sent for her. I meant to teach him that he 
 was yet a man, to open before him a gulf of anguish ; 
 but I slipped down it. Then I dogged them ; they never 
 spoke alone ; I intercepted the eye's language ; I with 
 ered their wintry smiles to frowns ; I stifled their sighs ; 
 
62 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 I checked their breath, their motion. Idle words passed 
 our lips ; we three lived in a real world of silence, ago 
 nized mutes. She went. Summer by summer my father 
 brought her to us. Always memory was kindled afresh, 
 always sorrow kept smouldering. Once she came ; I lay 
 here ; she has not left me since. He, he also comes ; 
 he has soothed pain with that loveless eye, carried me in 
 untender arms, watched calmly beside my delirious nights. 
 He who loved beauty has learned disgust. Why should 
 I care ? I, from the slave of bald form, enlarged him to 
 the master of gorgeous color ; his blaze is my ashes. He 
 studies me. I owe him nothing. . . . 
 
 Is it near morning ? Have I dozed again ? Night is 
 long. The great hall-clock is striking, throb after throb 
 on the darkness. I remember, when I was a child, 
 watching its lengthened pendulum swing as if time were 
 its own and it measured the thread slowly, loath to part, 
 
 remember streaking its great ebony case with a little 
 finger, misting it with a warm breath. Throb after throb, 
 
 is it going to peal forever ? Stop, solemn clangor ! 
 hearts stop. Midnight. 
 
 The nurses have gone down; she sits there alone. 
 Her bent side-face is full of pity. Now and then her 
 head turns ; the great brown eyes lift heavily, and lie on 
 me, heavily, as if the sight of me pained her. Ah, 
 in me perishes her youth ! death enters her world ! Be 
 sides, she loves me. I do not want her love, I would 
 fling it off; but I am faint, I am impotent, I am so 
 cold 1 Not that she lives, and I die, not that she has 
 peace, and I tumult, not for her voice's music, not for 
 her eye's lustre, not for any charm of her womanly 
 presence, neither for her clear, fair soul, nor that 
 when the storm and winter pass and I am stiff and frozen, 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 63 
 
 she smiles in the sun and leads new life, not for all this 
 I hate her ; but because my going gives her what I lost, 
 because, I stepped aside, the light falls on her, 
 because from my despair springs her happiness. Poor 
 fool ! let her be happy, if she can ! Her mother was 
 a Willoughby! And what is a flower that blows on a 
 grave? . . . 
 
 Why do I remember so distinctly one night alone of 
 all my life, one night, when we dance in the low room 
 of a seaside cottage, dance to Lu's singing ? He leads 
 me to her when the dance Is through, brushing with his 
 head the festooned nets that swing from the rafters, and 
 in at the open casement is blown a butterfly, a dead but 
 terfly, from off the sea. She holds it compassionately, till 
 I pin it on my dress, the wings, twin magnificences, 
 freckled and barred and powdered with gold, fluttering at 
 my breath. Some one speaks with me ; she strays to the 
 window, he follows, and they are silent. He looks far 
 away over the gray; loneliness stretching beyond. At 
 length he murmurs : " A brief madness makes my long 
 misery. Louise, if the earth were dazzled aside from her 
 constant pole-star to worship some bewildering comet, 
 would she be more forlorn than I?" 
 
 " Dear Rose ! your art remains," I hear her say. 
 
 He bends lower, that his breath may scorch her brow. 
 " Was I wrong ? Am I right ? " he whispers, hurriedly. 
 " You loved me once ; you love me now, Louise, if I 
 were free?" 
 
 " But you are not free." 
 
 She does not recoil, yet her very atmosphere repels 
 him, while looking up with those woful eyes blanching her 
 cheek by their gathering darkness. "And, Rose " 
 she sighs, then ceases abruptly, while a quiver of sudden 
 
64 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 scorn writhes spurningly down eyelid and nostril and 
 pains the whole face. 
 
 He erects himself, then reaches his hand for the rose 
 in her belt, glances at me, the dead thing in my bosom 
 rising and falling with my turbulent heart, holds the 
 rose to his lips, leaves her. How keen are my ears ! 
 how flushed my cheek ! how eager and fierce my eyes ! 
 He approaches ; I snatch the rose and tear its petals in 
 an angry shower, and then a dim east-wind pours in and 
 scatters my dream like flakes of foam. All dreams go ; 
 youth and hope desert me* the dark claims me. O 
 room, surrender me ! sickness and sorrow, loose your 
 weary hold! 
 
 It maddens me to know that the sun will shine again, 
 the tender grass grow green, the veery sing, the crocus 
 come. She will walk in the light and re-gather youth, 
 and I moulder, a forgotten heap. Oh, why not all things 
 crash to ruin with me ? 
 
 Pain, pain, pain ! Where is my father ? Why is he 
 away, when they know I die ? He used to hold me 
 once ; he ought to hear me when I call. He would rest 
 me, and stroke the grief aside, he is so strong. Where 
 is he? 
 
 These amulets stumbling round again ? Amber, amber 
 gods, you did mischief in your day ! If I clutched you 
 hard, as Lu did once, all your spells would be broken. 
 It is colder than it was. I think I will go to sleep. 
 
 What was that ? How loud and resonant ! It stuns 
 me. It is too sonorous. Does sound flash ? Ah ! the 
 hour. Another ? How long the silver toll swims on the 
 silent air ! It is one o'clock, a passing bell, a knell. 
 If I were at home by the river, the tide would be turning 
 down, down, and out to the broad, broad sea. Is it worth 
 while to have lived ? 
 
THE AMBER GODS. 65 
 
 Have I spoken ? She looks at me, rises, and touches 
 that bell-rope that always brings him. How softly he 
 opens the door ! Waiting, perhaps. Well. Ten years 
 have not altered him much. The face is brighter, finer, 
 shines with the eternal youth of genius. They pause 
 a moment ; I suppose they are coming to me ; but their 
 eyes are on each other. 
 
 Why must the long, silent look with which he met 
 her the day I got my amber strike back on me now so 
 vindictively? I remember three looks: that, and this, 
 and one other, one fervid noon, a look that drank my 
 soul, that culminated my existence. Oh, I remember! 
 I lost it a little while ago. I have it now. You are 
 coming ? Can't you hear me ? See ! these costly liqueurs, 
 these precious perfumes beside me here, if I can reach 
 them, I will drench the coverlet in them; it shall be 
 white and sweet as a little child's. I wish they were the 
 great rich lilies of that day ; it is too late for the baby 
 May-flowers. You do not like amber? There the 
 thread breaks again ! the little cruel gods go tumbling 
 down the floor! Come, lay my head on your breast! 
 kiss my life off my lips ! I .am your Yone ! I forgot a 
 little while, but I love you, Rose ! Rose ! 
 
 Why ! I thought arms held me. How clear the space 
 is ! The wind from outdoors, rising again, must have 
 rushed in. There is the quarter striking. How free I 
 am ! No one here ? No swarm of souls about me ? 
 Oh, those two faces looked from a great mist, a moment 
 since; I scarcely see them now. 'Drop, mask! I will 
 not pick you up ! Out, out into the gale ! back to my 
 elements ! 
 
 So I passed out of the room, down the staircase. 
 
66 THE AMBER GODS. 
 
 The servants below did not see me, but the hounds 
 crouched and whined. I paused before the great ebony 
 clock ; again the fountain broke, and it chimed the half- 
 hour; it was half past one; another quarter, and the 
 next time its ponderous silver hammers woke the house, 
 it would be two. Half past one ? Why, then, did not 
 the hands move? Why cling fixed on a point five 
 minutes before the first quarter struck? To and fro, 
 soundless and purposeless, swung the long pendulum. 
 And, ah I what was this thing I had become? I had 
 done with time. Not for me the hands moved on their 
 recurrent circle any more. 
 
 I must have died at ten minutes past one. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 
 
 i. 
 
 T was the day of Madame de St. Cyr's din 
 ner, an event I never missed ; for, the mistress 
 of a mansion in the Faubourg St. Germain, 
 there still lingered about her the exquisite 
 grace and good-breeding peculiar to the old regime., that 
 insensibly communicates itself to the guests till they 
 move in an atmosphere of ease that constitutes the 
 charm of home. One was always sure of meeting desi 
 rable and well-assorted people here, and a contre-temps 
 was impossible. Moreover, the house was not at the 
 command of all; and Madame de St. Cyr, with the 
 daring strength which, when found in a woman at all, 
 should, to be endurable, be combined with a sweet but 
 firm restraint, rode rough-shod over the parvenus of the 
 Empire, and was resolute enough to insulate herself 
 even among the old noblesse, who, as all the world 
 knows, insulate themselves from the rest of France. 
 There were rare qualities in this woman, and were I to 
 have selected one who with an even hand should carry a 
 snuffy candle through a magazine of powder, my choice 
 would have devolved upon her; and she would have 
 done it. 
 
70 IN A CELLAE. 
 
 I often looked, and not unsuccessfully, to discern what 
 heritage her daughter had in these little affairs. Indeed, 
 to one like myself, Delphine presented the worthier 
 study. She wanted the airy charm of manner, the 
 suavity and tenderness of her mother, a deficiency 
 easily to be pardoned in one of such delicate and ex 
 traordinary beauty. And perhaps her face was the truest 
 index of her mind; not that it ever transparently dis 
 played a genuine emotion, Delphine was too well bred 
 for that, but the outline of her features had a keen 
 regular precision, as if cut in a gem. Her exquisite 
 color seldom varied, her eyes were like blue steel, she 
 was statue-like and stony. But had one paused there, 
 pronouncing her hard and impassive, he had committed 
 an error. She had no great capability for passion, but 
 she was not to be deceived; one metallic flash of her 
 eye would cut like a sword through the whole mesh of 
 entanglements with which you had surrounded her ; and ' 
 frequently, when alone *with her, you perceived cool 
 recesses in her nature, sparkling and pleasant, which 
 jealously guarded themselves from a nearer approach. 
 She was infinitely spirituelle ; compared to her, Madame 
 herself was heavy. 
 
 At the first, I had seen that Delphine must be the wife 
 of a diplomate. Wliat diplomate ? For a time asking 
 myself the question seriously, I decided in the negative, 
 which did not, however, prevent Delphine from fulfilling 
 her destiny, since there were others. She was, after all, 
 like a draught of rich old wine, all fire and sweetness. 
 These things were not generally seen in her; I was 
 more favored than many; and I looked at her with 
 pitiless perspicacious eyes. Nevertheless, I had not the 
 least advantage ; it was, in fact, between us, diamond 
 
IN A CELLAR. 71 
 
 cut diamond, which, oddly enough, brings me back to 
 my story. 
 
 Some years previously, I had been sent on a special 
 mission to the government at Paris, and having finally 
 executed it, I resigned the post, and resolved to make my 
 residence there, since it is the only place on earth where 
 one can live. Every morning I half expect to see the 
 country, beyond the city, white with an encampment of 
 the nations, who, having peacefully flocked there over 
 night, wait till the Rue St. Honore shall run out and 
 greet them. It surprises me, sometimes, that those pre 
 tending to civilization are content to remain at a distance. 
 What experience have they of life, not to mention gay- 
 ety and pleasure, but of the great purpose of life, socie 
 ty ? Man evidently is gregarious ; Fourier's fables are 
 founded on fact ; we are nothing without our opposites, 
 our fellows, our lights and shadows, colors, relations, com 
 binations, our point d'appui, and our angle of sight. An 
 isolated man is immensurable ; he is also unpicturesque, 
 unnatural, untrue. He is no longer the lord of Nature, 
 animal and vegetable, but Nature is the lord of him ; 
 the trees, skies, flowers, predominate, and he is in as bad 
 taste as green and blue, or as an oyster in a vase of roses. 
 The race swings naturally to clusters. It being admitted, 
 then, that society is our normal state, where is it to be ob 
 tained in such perfection as at Paris? Show me the 
 urbanity, the generosity in trifles, better than sacrifice, 
 the incuriousness and freedom, the grace, and wit, and 
 honor, that will equal such as I find here. Morality, 
 we were not speaking of it, the intrusion is unnecessa 
 ry ; must that word with Anglo-Saxon pertinacity dog us 
 round the world ? A hollow mask, which Vice now and 
 then lifts for a breath of air, I grant you this state may be 
 
72 IN A CELLAE. 
 
 called ; but since I find the vice elsewhere, countenance 
 my preference for the accompanying mask. But even 
 this is vanishing; such drawing-rooms as Mme. de St. 
 Cyr's are less and less frequent. Yet, though the de 
 lightful spell of the last century daily dissipates itself, 
 and we are not now what we were twenty years ago, still 
 Paris is, and will be to the end of time, for a cosmopolitan, 
 the pivot on which the world revolves. 
 
 It was, then, as I have said, the day of Mme. de St. 
 Cyr's dinner. Punctually at the hour, I presented my 
 self, for I have always esteemed it the least courtesy 
 which a guest can render, that he should not cool his 
 hostess's dinner. 
 
 The usual choice company waited. There was the 
 Marquis of G., the ambassador from home ; Col. Leigh, 
 an attache of that embassy ; the Spanish and Belgian 
 ministers ; all of whom, with myself, completed a diplo 
 matic circle. There were also wits and artists, but no 
 ladies whose beauty exceeded that of the St. Cyrs. With 
 nearly all of this assemblage I held certain relations, so 
 that I was immediately at ease. G. was the only one 
 whom, perhaps, I would rather not have met, although 
 we were the best of friends. They awaited but one, the 
 Baron Stahl. Meanwhile Delphine stood coolly taking 
 the measurement of the Marquis of G., while her mother 
 entertained one and another guest with a low-toned flat 
 tery, gentle interest, or lively narration, as the case might 
 demand. 
 
 In a country where a coup d'etat was as easily given 
 as a box on the ear, we all attentively watched for the 
 arrival of one who had been sent from a neighboring 
 empire to negotiate a loan for the tottering throne 
 of this. Nor was expectation kept long on guard. In 
 
IN A CELLAR. 73 
 
 a moment, "His Excellency, the Baron Stahl!" was 
 announced. 
 
 The exaggeration of his low bow to Mme. de St. Cyr, 
 the gleam askance of his black eye, the absurd simplicity 
 of his dress, did not particularly please me. A low fore 
 head, straight black brows, a beardless cheek with a fine 
 color which gave him a fictitiously youthful appearance, 
 were the most striking traits of his face ; his person was 
 not to be found fault with ; but he boldly evinced his ad 
 miration for Delphine, and with a wicked eye. 
 
 As we were introduced, he assured me, in pure English, 
 that he had pleasure in making the acquaintance of a gen 
 tleman whose services were so distinguished. 
 
 I, in turn, assured him of my pleasure in meeting a 
 gentleman who appreciated them. 
 
 I had arrived at the house of Mme. de St. Cyr with a 
 load on my mind, which for four weeks had weighed 
 there ; but before I thus spoke, it was lifted and gone. 
 I had seen the Baron Stahl before, although not previ 
 ously aware of it; and now, as he bowed, talked my 
 native tongue so smoothly, drew a glove over the hand 
 some hand upon whose first finger shone the only incon 
 gruity of his attire, a broad gold ring, holding a gaudy 
 red stone, as he stood smiling and expectant before me, 
 a sudden chain of events flashed through my mind, an in 
 stantaneous heat, like lightning, welded them into logic. 
 A great problem was resolved. For a second, the breath 
 seemed snatched from my lips ; the next, a lighter, freer 
 man never trod in diplomatic shoes. 
 
 I really beg your pardon, but perhaps from long 
 usage, it has become impossible for me to tell a straight 
 story. It is absolutely necessary to inform you of events 
 already transpired. 
 
74 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 In the first place, then, I, at this time, possessed a valet, 
 the pink of valets, an Englishman, and not the less 
 valuable to me in a foreign capital, that, notwithstanding 
 his long residence, he was utterly unable to speak one 
 word of French intelligibly. Reading and writing it 
 readily, his thick tongue could master scarcely a syl 
 lable. The adroitness and perfection with which he 
 performed the duties of his place were unsurpassable. 
 To a certain extent I was obliged to admit him into 
 my confidence ; I was not at all in his. In dexterity 
 and despatch he equalled the advertisements. He never 
 condescended to don my cast-off apparel, but, disposing 
 of it, always arrayed himself in plain but gentlemanly 
 garments. These do not complete the list of Hay's capa 
 bilities. He speculated. Respectable tenements in Lon 
 don called him landlord ; in the funds certain sums lay 
 subject to his order; to a profitable farm in Hants he 
 contemplated future retirement ; and passing upon the 
 Bourse, I have received a grave bow, and have left him 
 in conversation with an eminent capitalist respecting con 
 sols, drafts, exchange, and other erudite mysteries, where 
 I yet find myself in the ABC. Thus not only was my 
 valet a free-born Briton, but a landed proprietor. If the 
 Rothschilds blacked your boots or shaved your chin, your 
 emotions might be akin to mine. When this man, who 
 had an interest in the India traders, brought the hot 
 water into my dressing-room, of a morning, the Antipo 
 des were tributary to me. To what extent might any 
 little irascibility of mine drive a depression in the mar 
 ket ! and I knew, as he brushed my hat, whether stocks 
 rose or fell. In one respect, I was essentially like our 
 Saxon ancestors, my servant was a villain. If I had 
 been merely a civilian, in any purely private capacity, 
 
IN A CELLAR. 75 
 
 having leisure to attend to personal concerns in the midst 
 of the delicate specialties intrusted to me from the cabinet 
 at home, the possession of so inestimable a valet might 
 have bullied me beyond endurance. As it was, I found 
 it rather agreeable than otherwise. He was tacitly my 
 secretary of finance. 
 
 Several years ago, a diamond of wonderful size and 
 beauty, having wandered from the East, fell into certain 
 imperial coffers among our Continental neighbors ; and at 
 the same time some extraordinary intelligence, essential 
 to the existence, so to speak, of that government, reached 
 a person there who fixed as its price this diamond. After 
 a while he obtained it, but, judging that prudence lay in 
 departure, took it to England, where it was purchased for 
 
 an enormous sum by the Duke of as he will remain 
 
 an unknown quantity, let us say X. There are probably 
 not a dozen such diamonds in the world, certainly not 
 three in England. It rejoiced in such flowery appella 
 tives as the Sea of Splendor, the Moon of Milk ; and, of 
 course, those who had but parted with it under protest, as 
 it were, determined to obtain it again at all hazards ; 
 they were never famous for scrupulosity. The Duke of 
 X. was aware of this, and, for a time, the gem had lain 
 idle, its glory muffled in a casket ; but finally, on some 
 grand occasion, a few months prior to the period of which 
 I have spoken above, it was determined to set it in the 
 Duchess's coronet. Accordingly, one day, it was given 
 by her son, the Marquis of G., into the hands of their 
 solicitor, who should deliver it to her Grace's jeweller. 
 It lay in a small shagreen case, and before the Marquis 
 left, the solicitor placed the case in a flat leathern box, 
 where lay a chain of most singular workmanship, the 
 clasp of which was deranged. This chain was very 
 
76 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 broad, of a style known as the brick-work, but every 
 brick was a tiny gem, set in a delicate filagree linked 
 with the next, and the whole rainbowed lustrousness 
 moving at your will, like the scales of some gorgeous 
 Egyptian serpent ; the solicitor was to take this also to 
 the jeweller. Having laid the box in his private desk, 
 Ulster, his confidential clerk, locked it, while he bowed 
 the Marquis down. Returning immediately, the solicitor 
 took the flat box and drove to the jeweller's. He found 
 the latter so crowded with customers, it being the fash 
 ionable hour, as to be unable to attend to him ; he, 
 however, took the solicitor into his inner room, a dark 
 fire-proof place, and there quickly deposited the box 
 within a safe, which stood inside another, like a Japanese 
 puzzle, and the solicitor, seeing the doors double-locked 
 and secured, departed ; the other promising to attend to 
 the matter on the morrow. 
 
 Early the next morning, the jeweller entered his dark 
 room, and proceeded to unlock the safe. This being con 
 cluded, and the inner one also thrown open, he found the 
 box in a last and entirely, as he had always believed, se 
 cret compartment. Anxious to see this wonder, this Eye 
 of Morning, and Heart of Day, he eagerly loosened the 
 band and unclosed the box. It was empty. There was 
 no chain there; the diamond was missing. The sweat 
 streamed from his forehead, his clothes were saturated, 
 he believed himself the victim of a delusion. Calling an 
 assistant, every article and nook in the dark room was 
 examined. At last, in an extremity of despair, he sent 
 for the solicitor, who arrived in a breath. The jeweller's 
 alarm hardly equalled that of the other. In his sudden 
 dismay, he at first forgot the circumstances and dates 
 relating to the affair; afterward was doubtful. The 
 
IN A CELLAR. 77 
 
 Marquis of G. was summoned, the police called in, the 
 jeweller given into custody. Every breath the solicitor 
 continued to draw only built up his ruin. He swallowed 
 laudanum, but, by making it an overdose, frustrated his 
 own design. He was assured, on his recovery, that no 
 suspicion attached to him. The jeweller now asseverated 
 that the diamond had never been given to him ; but 
 though the jeweller had committed perjury, this was, 
 nevertheless, strictly true. Of course, whoever had the 
 stone would not attempt to dispose of it at present, and, 
 though communications were opened with the general 
 European police, there was very little to work upon. 
 But by means of this last step the former possessors 
 became aware of its loss, and I make no doubt had their 
 agents abroad immediately. 
 
 Meanwhile, the case hung here, complicated and tan 
 talizing, when one morning I woke in London. No 
 sooner had G. heard of my arrival than he called, and, 
 relating the affair, requested my assistance. I confess 
 myself to have been interested, foolishly so, I thought 
 afterward ; but we all have our weaknesses, and diamonds 
 were mine. In company with the Marquis, I waited upon 
 the solicitor, who entered into the few details minutely, 
 calling frequently upon Ulster, a young, fresh-looking 
 man, for corroboration. We then drove to the jeweller's 
 new quarters, took him, under charge of the officers, to 
 his place of business, where he nervously showed me 
 every point that could bear upon the subject, and ended 
 by exclaiming, that he was ruined, and all for a stone he 
 had never seen. I sat quietly for a few moments. It 
 stood, then, thus : G. had given the thing to the so 
 licitor, seen it put into the box, seen the box put into the 
 desk ; but while the confidential clerk, Ulster, locked the 
 
78 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 desk, the solicitor waited on the Marquis to the door, 
 returning, took the box, without opening it again, to the 
 jeweller, who,* in the hurry, shut it up in his safe, also 
 without opening it. The case was perfectly clear. These 
 mysterious things are always so simple ! You know now, 
 as well as I, who took the diamond. 
 
 I did not choose to volunteer, but assented, on being 
 desired. The police and I were old friends ; they had so 
 often assisted me, that I was not afraid to pay them in 
 kind, and accordingly agreed to take charge of the case, 
 still retaining their aid, should I require it. The jeweller 
 was now restored to his occupation, although still sub 
 jected to a rigid surveillance, and I instituted inquiries 
 into the recent movements of the young man Ulster. The 
 case seemed to me to have been very blindly conducted. 
 But, though all that was brought to light concerning him 
 in London was perfectly fair and aboveboard, it was dis 
 covered that, not long since, he had visited Paris, on the 
 solicitor's business, of course, but gaining thereby an op 
 portunity to transact any little affairs of his own. This 
 was fortunate ; for if any one could do anything in Paris, 
 it was myself. 
 
 It is not often that I act as a detective. But one 
 homogeneous to every situation could hardly play a 
 pleasanter part for once. I have thought that our great 
 masters in theory and practice, Machiavel and Talley 
 rand, were hardly more, on a large scale. 
 
 I was about to return to Paris, but resolved to call 
 previously on the solicitor again. He welcomed me 
 warmly, although my suspicions had not been imparted 
 to him, and, with a more .cheerful heart than had lately 
 been habitual to him, entered into an animated conversa 
 tion respecting the great case of Biter v. Bit, then absorb- 
 
IN A CELLAR. 79 
 
 ing so much of the public attention, frequently addressing 
 Ulster, whose remarks were always pertinent, brief, and 
 clear. As I sat actively discussing the topic, feeling no 
 more interest in it than in the end of that cigar I just cut 
 off, and noting exactly every look and motion of the 
 unfortunate youth, I recollect the curious sentiment that 
 filled me regarding him. What injury had he done me, 
 that I should pursue him with punishment ? Me ? I am, 
 and every individual is, integral with the commonwealth. 
 It was the commonwealth he had injured. Yet, even 
 then, why was I the one to administer justice ? Why not 
 continue with my coffee in the morning, my kings and 
 cabinets and national chess at noon, my opera at night, 
 and let the poor devil go ? Why, but that justice is 
 brought home to every member of society, that naked 
 duty requires no shirking of such responsibility, that, 
 had I failed here, the crime might, with reason, lie at my 
 door and multiply, the criminal increase himself? 
 
 Very possibly you will not unite with me ; but these 
 little catechisms are, once in a while, indispensable, to 
 vindicate one's course to one's self. 
 
 This Ulster was a handsome youth ; the rogues have 
 generally all the good looks. There was nothing else 
 remarkable about him but his quickness ; he was perpet 
 ually on the alert ; by constant activity, the rust was 
 never allowed to collect on his faculties ; his sharpness 
 was distressing, he appeared subject to a tense strain. 
 Now his quill scratched over the paper unconcernedly, 
 while he could join as easily in his master's conversation : 
 nothing seemed to preoccupy him, or he held a mind open 
 at every point. It is pitiful to remember him that morn 
 ing, sitting quiet, unconscious, and free, utterly in the 
 hands of that mighty Inquisition, the Metropolitan Police, 
 
80 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 with its countless arms, its cells and myrmidons in the 
 remotest corners of the Continent, at the mercy of so 
 merciless a monster, and momently closer involved, like 
 some poor prey round which a spider spins its bewildering 
 web. It was also curious to observe the sudden suspicion 
 that darkened his face at some innocent remark, the 
 quick shrinking and intrenched retirement, the manifest 
 sting and rancor, as I touched his wound with a swift 
 flash of my slander weapon and sheathed it again, and, 
 after the thrust, the espionage, and the relief at believing 
 it accidental. He had many threads to gather up and 
 hold; little electric warnings along them must have 
 been constantly shocking him. He did that part well 
 enough ; it was a mistake, to begin with ; he needed 
 prudence. At that time I owed this Ulster nothing ; 
 now, however, I owe him a grudge, for some of the most 
 harassing hours of my life were occasioned me by him. 
 But I shall not cherish enmity on that account. With so 
 promising a beginning, he will graduate and take his 
 degree from the loftiest altitude in his line. Hemp is a 
 narcotic ; let it bring me forgetfulness. 
 
 In Paris I found it not difficult to trace such a person, 
 since he was both foreign and unaccustomed. It was as 
 certained that he had posted several letters. A person 
 of his description had been seen to drop a letter, the su 
 perscription of which had been read by one who picked it 
 up for him. This superscription was the address of the 
 very person who was likely to be the agent of the former 
 possessors of the diamond, and had attracted attention 
 After all, you know the Secret Force, it was not so 
 impossible to imagine what this letter contained, despite 
 of its cipher. Such a person also had been met among 
 the Jews, and at certain shops whose reputation was not 
 
IN A CELLAR. 81 
 
 of the clearest. He had called once or twice on Mme. de 
 St. Cyr, on business relative to a vineyard adjoining her 
 chateau in the Gironde, which she had sold to a wine 
 merchant of England. I found a zest in the affair, as I 
 pursued it. 
 
 We were now fairly at sea, but before long I found we 
 were likely to remain there ; in fact, nothing of conse 
 quence eventuated. I began to regret having taken the 
 affair from the hands in which I had found it, and one 
 day, it being a gala or some insatiable saint's day, I was 
 riding, perplexed with that and other matters, and paying 
 small attention to the passing crowd. I was vexed and 
 mortified, and had fully decided to throw up the whole, 
 on such hairs do things hang, when, suddenly turning a 
 corner, my bridle-reins became entangled in the snaffle of 
 another rider. I loosened them abstractedly, and not till 
 it was necessary to bow to my strange antagonist, on part 
 ing, did I glance up. The person before me was evidently 
 not accustomed to play the dandy ; he wore his clothes ill, 
 sat his horse worse, and was uneasy in the saddle. The 
 unmistakable air of the gamin was apparent beneath the 
 superficies of the gentleman. Conspicuous on his cos 
 tume, and wound like an order of merit upon his breast, 
 glittered a chain, the chain, each tiny brick-like gem 
 spiked with a hundred sparks, and building a fabric of 
 sturdy probabilities with the celerity of the genii in con 
 structing Aladdin's palace. There, a cable to haul up 
 the treasure, was the chain ; where was the diamond ? 
 . I need not tell you how I followed this young friend, with 
 what assiduity I kept him in sight, up and down, all day 
 long, till, weary at last of his fine sport, as I certainly was 
 of mine, he left his steed in stall and fared on his way 
 a-foot. Still pursuing, now I threaded quay and square, 
 4* B- 
 
82 IN A CELLAK. 
 
 street and alley, till he disappeared in a small shop, in 
 one of those dark crowded lanes leading eastward from 
 the Pont Neuf, in the city. It was the sign of a marchand 
 des armures, and having provided myself with those per- 
 euasive arguments, a sergent-de-ville and a gendarme, I 
 entered. 
 
 A place more characteristic it would be impossible to 
 find. Here were piled bows of every material, ash, and 
 horn, and tougher fibres, with slackened strings, and 
 among them peered a rusty clarion and battle-axe, while 
 the quivers that should have accompanied lay in a distant 
 corner, their arrows serving to pin long, dusty, torn ban 
 ners to the wall. Opposite the entrance, an archer in 
 bronze hung on tiptoe, and levelled a steel bow, whose 
 piercing fieche seemed sparkling with impatience to spring 
 from his finger and flesh itself in the heart of the intruder. 
 The hauberk and halberd, lance and casque, arquebuse 
 and sword, were suspended in friendly congeries ; and 
 fragments of costly stuff swept from ceiling to floor, 
 crushed and soiled by the heaps of rusty firelocks, cut 
 lasses, and gauntlets thrown upon them. In one place, 
 a little antique bust was half hid in the folds of some 
 pennon, still dyed with battle-stains ; in another, scattered 
 treasures of Dresden and Sevres brought the drawing- 
 room into the campaign ; and all around bivouacked rifles, 
 whose polished barrels glittered full of death, pistols, va 
 riously mounted, for an insurgent at the barricades, or for 
 a lost millionnaire at the gaming-table, foils, with but 
 toned bluntness, and rapiers whose even edges were 
 viewless as if filed into air. Destruction lay everywhere, 
 at the command of the owner of this place, and, had he 
 possessed a particle of vivacity, it would have been haz 
 ardous to bow beneath his doorway. It did not, I niut 
 
IN A CELLAK. 83 
 
 say, look like a place where I should find a diamond. As 
 the owner came forward, I determined on my plan of 
 action. 
 
 " You have, sir," I said, handing him a bit of paper, on 
 which were scrawled some numbers, u a diamond in your 
 possession, of such and so many carats, size, and value, 
 belonging to the Duke of X., and left with you by an 
 Englishman, Mr. Arthur Ulster. You will deliver it to 
 me, if you please." 
 
 " Monsieur ! " exclaimed the man, lifting his hands, and 
 surveying me with the widest eyes I ever saw. " A dia 
 mond ! In my possession ! So immense a thing ! It is 
 impossible. I have not even seen one of the kind. It is 
 a mistake. Jacques Noailles, the vender of jewels engros, 
 second door below, must be the man. One should per 
 ceive that my business is with arms, not diamonds. I 
 have it not ; it would ruin me." 
 
 Here he paused for a reply, but, meeting none, re 
 sumed. " M. Arthur Ulster ! I have heard of no such 
 person. I never spoke with an Englishman. Bah ! I 
 detest them ! I have no dealings with them. I repeat, I 
 have not your jewel. Do you wish anything more of 
 me?" 
 
 His vehemence only convinced me of the truth of my 
 suspicions. 
 
 " These heroics are out of place," I answered. " I de 
 mand the article in question." 
 
 " Monsieur doubts me ? " he asked, with a rueful face, 
 " questions rny word, which is incontrovertible ? " Here 
 he clapped his hand upon a couteau-de-chasse lying near, 
 but, appearing to think better of it, drew himself up, and, 
 with a shower of nods flung at me, added, " I deny your 
 accusation ! " I had not accused him. 
 
84 IN A CELLAK. 
 
 " You are at too much pains to convict yourself. I 
 charge you with nothing," I said. " But this diamond 
 must be surrendered." 
 
 " Monsieur is mad ! " he exclaimed, " mad ! he dreams ! 
 Do I look like one who possesses such a trophy ? Does 
 my shop resemble a mine ? Look about ! See ! All 
 that is here would not bring a hundredth part of its 
 price. I beseech Monsieur to believe me ; he has mis 
 taken the number, or has been misinformed." 
 
 " We waste words. I know this diamond is here, as 
 well as a costly chain " 
 
 " On my soul, on my life, on my honor," he cried, 
 clasping his hands and turning up his eyes, "there is 
 here nothing of the kind. I do not deal in gems. A 
 little silk, a few weapons, a curiosity, a nicknack, com 
 prise my stock. I have not the diamond. I do not 
 know the thing. I am poor. I am honest. Suspicion 
 destroys me ! " 
 
 " As you will find, should I be longer troubled by your 
 denials." 
 
 He was inflexible, and, having exhausted every artifice 
 of innocence, wiped the tears from his eyes, oh, these 
 French ! life is their theatre, and remained quiet. It 
 was getting dark. There was no gas in the place ; but 
 in the pause a distant street-lamp swung its light dimly 
 round. 
 
 " Unless one desires to purchase, allow me to say that 
 it is my hour for closing," he remarked, blandly, rubbing 
 his black-bearded chin. 
 
 " My time is valuable," I returned. " It is late and 
 dark. When your shop-boy lights up " 
 
 " Pardon, we do not light." 
 
 " Permit me, then, to perform that office for you. In 
 
IN A CELLAR. 85 
 
 this blaze you may perceive my companions, whom you 
 have not appeared to recognize." 
 
 So saying, I scratched a match upon the floor, and, as 
 the sergent'de-ville and the gendarme advanced, threw the 
 light of the blue spirt of sulphurous flame upon them. In 
 ft moment more the match went out, and we remained in 
 the demi-twilight of the distant lantern. The marchand 
 des armures stood petrified and aghast Had he seen the 
 imps of Satan in that instant, it could have had no greater 
 effect. 
 
 " You have seen them ? " I asked. " I regret to incon 
 venience you ; but unless this diamond is produced at 
 once, my friends will put their seal on your goods, your 
 property will be confiscated, yourself in a dungeon. In 
 other words, I allow you five minutes ; at the close of that 
 time you will have chosen between restitution and ruin." 
 
 He remained apparently lost in thought. He was ^ 
 big, stout man, and with one blow of his powerful fist 
 could easily have settled me. It was the last thing in his 
 mind. At length he lifted his head, " Rosalie ! " he 
 called. 
 
 At the word, a light foot pattered along a stone floor 
 within, and in a moment a little woman stood in an arch 
 raised by two steps from our own level. Carrying a 
 candle, she descended and tripped toward him. She was 
 not pretty, but sprightly and keen, as the perpetual attri 
 tion of life must needs make her, and wore the everlasting 
 grisette costume, which displays the neatest of ankles, and 
 whose cap is more becoming than wreaths of garden mil 
 linery. I am too minute, I see, but it is second nature. 
 The two commenced a vigorous whispering amid sundry 
 gestures and glances. Suddenly the woman turned, and, 
 laying the prettiest of little hands on my sleeve, said, with 
 a winning smile, 
 
86 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " Is it a crime of lese-majeste ? " 
 
 This was a new idea, but might be useful. 
 
 " Not yet," I said ; " two minutes more, and I will not 
 answer for the consequence." 
 
 Other whispers ensued. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the man, leaning on one arm over 
 the counter, and looking up in my face, with the most 
 engaging frankness, " it is t^rue that I have such a dia 
 mond ; but it is not mine. It is left with me to be deliv 
 ered to the Baron Stahl, who comes as an agent from his 
 court for its purchase." 
 
 Yes, I know." 
 
 " He was to have paid me half a million francs, not 
 half its worth, in trust for the person who left it, who is 
 not M. Arthur Ulster, but Mine, de St. Cyr." 
 
 3Iadame de St. Cyr ! How under the sun No, 
 it could not be possible. The case stood as it stood 
 before. The rogue was in deeper water than I had 
 thought ; he had merely employed Mme. de St. Cyr. I 
 ran this over in iny mind, while I said, " Yes." 
 
 " Now, sir," I continued, " you will state the terms of 
 this transaction." 
 
 " With pleasure. For my trouble I was myself to re 
 ceive patronage and five thousand francs. The Baron is 
 to be here directly, on other and public business. Reine 
 du del, Monsieur ! how shall I meet him ? " 
 
 " He is powerless in Paris ; your fear is idle." 
 
 " True. There were no other terms." 
 
 " Nor papers ? " 
 
 " The lady thought it safest to be without them. She 
 took merely my receipt, which the Baron Stahl will bring 
 to me from her before receiving this." 
 
 " I will trouble you for it now." 
 
IN A CELLAR. 87 
 
 He bowed and shuffled away. At a glance from me, 
 the gendarme slipped to the rear of the building, where 
 three others were stationed at the two exits in that direc 
 tion, to caution them of the critical moment, and returned. 
 Ten minutes passed, the merchant did not appear. If, 
 after all, he had made off with it ! There had been the 
 click of a bolt, the half-stifled rattle of arms, as if a door 
 had been opened and rapidly closed again, but nothing 
 more. 
 
 " I will see what detains my friend," said Mademoiselle, 
 the little woman. 
 
 We suffered her to withdraw. In a moment more a 
 quick expostulation was to be heard. 
 
 " They are there, the gendarmes, my little one ! I 
 should have run, but they caught me, the villains ! and 
 replaced me in the house. Oh, sacre!" and rolling 
 this word between his teeth, he came down and laid a 
 little box on the counter. I opened it. There was 
 within a large, glittering, curiously-cut piece of glass. 
 I threw it aside. 
 
 " The diamond ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Monsieur had it," he replied, stooping to pick up the 
 glass with every appearance of surprise and care. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you endeavored to escape with 
 that bawble ? Produce the diamond instantly, or you 
 shall hang as high as Haman ! " I roared. 
 
 Whether he knew the individual in question or not, 
 the threat was efficient ; he trembled and hesitated, and 
 finally drew the identical shagreen case from his bosom. 
 
 " I but jested," he said. " Monsieur will witness that I 
 relinquish it with reluctance." 
 
 " I will witness that you receive stolen goods ! " I cried, 
 in wrath. 
 
88 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 He placed it in my hands. 
 
 " Oh ! " he groaned, from the bottom of his heart, hang 
 ing his head, and laying both hands on the counter before 
 him, " it pains, it grieves me to part with it ! " 
 
 " And the chain," I said. 
 
 " Monsieur did not demand that ! " 
 
 " I demand it now." 
 
 In a moment, the chain also was given me. 
 
 " And now will Monsieur do me a favor ? Will he in 
 form me by what means he ascertained these facts ? " 
 
 I glanced at the gargon, who had probably supplied 
 himself with his master's finery illicitly; he was the 
 means ; we have some generosity ; I thought I should 
 prefer doing him the favor, and declined. 
 
 I unclasped the shagreen case ; the sergent-de-ville and 
 the gendarme stole up and looked over my shoulder ; the 
 garqon drew near with round eyes ; the little woman 
 peeped across ; the merchant, with tears streaming over 
 his face, gazed as if it had been a loadstone ; finally, I 
 looked myself. There it lay, the glowing, resplendent 
 thing ! flashing in affluence of splendor, throbbing and 
 palpitant with life, drawing all the light from the little 
 woman's candle, from the sparkling armor around, from 
 the steel barbs, and the distant lantern, into its bosom. 
 It was scarcely so large as I had expected to see it, but 
 more brilliant than anything I could conceive of. I do 
 not believe there is another such in the world. One saw 
 clearly that the Oriental superstition of the sex of stones 
 was no fable ; this was essentially the female of diamonds, 
 the queen herself, the principle of life, the rejoicing recep 
 tive force. It was not radiant, as the term literally taken 
 implies ; it seemed rather to retain its wealth, instead 
 of emitting its glorious rays, to curl them back like the 
 
IN A CELLAK. 89 
 
 fringe of a madrepore, and lie there with redoubled quiv 
 ering scintillations, a mass of white magnificence, not 
 prismatic, but a vast milky lustre. I closed the case ; on 
 reopening it, I could scarcely believe that the beautiful 
 sleepless eye would again flash upon me. I did not com 
 prehend how it could afford such perpetual richness, such 
 sheets of lustre. 
 
 At last we compelled ourselves to be satisfied. I left 
 the shop, dismissed my attendants, and, fresh from the 
 contemplation of this miracle, again trod the dirty, reek 
 ing streets, crossed the bridge, with its lights, its ware 
 houses midway, its living torrents who poured on uncon 
 scious of the beauty within their reach. The thought of 
 their ignorance of the treasure, not a dozen yards distant, 
 has often made me question if we all are not equally una 
 ware of other and greater processes of life, of more per 
 fect, sublimed, and, as it were, spiritual crystallizations 
 going on invisibly about us. But had these been told of 
 the thing clutched in the hand of a passer, how many of 
 them would have known where to turn ? and we, are 
 we any better ? 
 
 / 
 
 II. 
 
 FOR a few days I carried the diamond about my per 
 son, and did not mention its recovery even to my valet, 
 who knew that I sought it, but communicated only with 
 the Marquis of G., who replied, that he would be in Paris 
 on a certain day, when I could safely deliver it to him. 
 
 It was now generally rumored that the neighboring 
 government was about to send us the Baron Stahl, am 
 bassador concerning arrangements for a loan to maintain 
 the sinking monarchy in supremacy at Paris, the usual 
 synecdoche for France. 
 
90 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 The weather being fine, I proceeded to call on Mine, 
 tie. St. Cyr. She received me in her boudoir, and on my 
 way thither I could not but observe the perfect quiet and 
 cloistered seclusion that pervaded the whole house, the 
 house itself seeming only an adjunct of the still and sunny 
 garden, of which one caught a glimpse through the long 
 open hall-windows beyond. This boudoir did not differ 
 from Others to which 1 have been admitted: the same 
 delicate shades; all the dainty appliances of Art for 
 beauty ; the lavish profusion of bijouterie. ; and the usual 
 statuettes of innocence, to indicate, perhaps, the presence 
 of that commodity which might not be guessed at other 
 wise ; and burning in a silver cup, a rich perfume loaded 
 the air with voluptuous sweetness. Through a half-open 
 door an inner boudoir was to be seen, which must have 
 been Delphine's; it looked like her; the prevailing hue 
 was a soft purple, or gray ; a prie-dieu, a book-shelf, and 
 desk, of a dark West Indian wood, were just visible. There 
 was hut one picture, a sad-eyed, beautiful Fate. It was 
 the type of her nation. I think she worshipped it. And 
 how apt is misfortune to degenerate into Fate ! not that 
 the girl had ever experienced the former, but, dissatisfied 
 with life, and seeing no outlet, she accepted it stoically 
 and waited till it should be over. She needed to be 
 aroused; the station of an MftfaMttdrtetf, which I de 
 sired for her, might kindle the spark. There were no 
 flowers, no perfumes, no busts, in this ascetic place. 
 Delphine herself, in some faint rosy gauze, her fair hair 
 streaming round her, as she lay on a white-draped couch, 
 half-risen on one arm, while she read the mo rn ing's j c/n'l/e- 
 ton, was the most, perfect statuary of which a room could 
 boast, illumined, as I saw her, by the gay beams that 
 entered at the loftily -arched window, broken only by the 
 
IX A CELLAR. 91 
 
 flickering of the vine-leaves that clustered the curiously- 
 lattieed panes without. She resembled in kind a Nymph, 
 just bursting from the sea; so Pallas might have posed 
 for Aphrodite, Madame de St. Cyr received me with 
 emprt'sscnicnt, and, so doing, closed the door of this shrine. 
 AVe spoke of various things, of the court, the theatre, 
 the weather, the world, skating lightly round the slen 
 der edges of her secret, till finally she invited me to lunch 
 with her in the garden. Here, on a rustic table, stood 
 wine and a few delicacies, while, by extending a hand, 
 we could grasp the hanging pears and nectarines, still 
 warm to the lip and luscious with sunshine, as we dis 
 puted possession with the envious wasp who had estab 
 lished a priority of claim. 
 
 " It is to be hoped," I said, sipping the Haul-Brian, 
 whose fine and brittle smack contrasted rarely with the 
 delicious juiciness of the fruit, "that you have laid in a 
 supply of this treasure that neither moth nor rust doth cor 
 rupt, before parting with that little gem in the Gironde." 
 
 " Ah ? You know, then, that I have sold it ? " 
 
 " Yes," I replied. " I have the pleasure of Mr. Ulster's 
 acquaintance." 
 
 "He arranged the terms for me," she said, with re 
 straint, adding, " I could almost wish now that it had 
 not been/' 
 
 This was probably true ; for the sum which she hoped 
 to receive from Ulster for standing sponsor to his jewel 
 wa> possibly equnl to the price of her vineyard. 
 
 " It was indispensable at the time, this sale ; I thought 
 be<t to haxard it on one more season. If, after such ad 
 vantages, Delphine will not marry, why it remains to 
 retire into the country and end our days with the barba 
 rians ! " she continued, shrugging her shoulders ; " I have 
 a house there." 
 
92 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " But you will not be obliged to throw us all into de 
 spair by such a step now," I replied. 
 
 She looked quickly, as if to see how nearly I had ap 
 proached her citadel, then, finding in my face no ex 
 pression but a complimentary one, " No," she said, " I 
 hope that my affairs have brightened a little. One never 
 knows what is in store." 
 
 Before long I had assured myself that Mme. de St. 
 Cyr was not a party to the theft, but had merely been 
 hired by Ulster, who, discovering the state of her affairs, 
 had not, therefore, revealed his own, and this without 
 in the least implying any knowledge on my part of the 
 transaction. Ulster must have seen the necessity of leav 
 ing the business in the hands of a competent person, and 
 Mme. de St. Cyr's financial talent was patent. There 
 were few ladies in Paris who would have rejected the 
 opportunity. Of these things I felt a tolerable certainty. 
 
 " We throng with foreigners," said Madame, archly, as 
 I reached this point. " Diplomates, too. The Baron 
 Stahl arrives in a day." 
 
 " I have heard," I responded. " You are acquainted ? " 
 
 " Alas ! no," she said. " I knew his father well, though 
 he himself is not young. Indeed, the families thought 
 once of intermarriage. But nothing has been said on the 
 subject for many years. His Excellency, I hear, will 
 strengthen himself at home by an alliance with the young 
 Countess, the natural daughter of the Emperor." 
 
 " He surely will never be so imprudent as to rivet his 
 chain by such a link ! " 
 
 " It is impossible to compute the dice in those despotic 
 countries," she rejoined, which was pretty well, consid 
 ering the freedom enjoyed by France at that period. 
 
 " It may be," I suggested, " that the Baron hopes to 
 open this delicate subject with you yourself, Madame." 
 
IN A CELLAR. 93 
 
 " It is unlikely," she said, sighing. " And for Delphine, 
 should I tell her his Excellency preferred scarlet, she 
 would infallibly wear blue. Imagine her, Monsieur, in 
 fine scarlet, with a scarf of gold gauze, and rustling grasses 
 in that unruly gold hair of hers ! She would be divine ! " 
 
 The maternal instinct as we have it here at Paris con 
 founds me. I do not comprehend it. Here was a mother 
 who did not particularly love her child, who would not be 
 inconsolable at her loss, would not ruin her own complex 
 ion by care of her during illness, would send her through 
 fire and water and every torture to secure or maintain a 
 desirable rank, who yet would entangle herself deeply in 
 intrigue, would not hesitate to tarnish her own reputation, 
 and would, in fact, raise heaven and earth to endow 
 this child with a brilliant match. And Mme. de St. Cyr 
 seemed to regard Delphine, still further, as a cool matter 
 of Art. 
 
 These little confidences, moreover, are provoking. They 
 put you yourself so entirely out of the question. 
 
 " Mile, de St. Cyr's beauty is peerless," I said, slightly 
 chagrined, and at a loss. " If hearts were trumps, instead 
 of diamonds ! " 
 
 " We are poor," resumed Madame, pathetically. " Del 
 phine is not an heiress. Delphine is proud. She will not 
 stoop to charm. Her coquetry is that of an Amazon. 
 Her kisses are arrows. She is Medusa ! " And Madame, 
 her mother, shivered. 
 
 Here," with her hair knotted up and secured by a tiny 
 dagger, her gauzy drapery gathered in her arm, Delphine 
 floated down the green alley toward us, as if in a rosy 
 cloud. But this soft aspect never could have been more 
 widely contradicted than by the stony repose and cutting 
 calm of her beautiful face. 
 
94 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " The Marquis of G.," said her mother, " he also arrives 
 ambassador. Has he talent ? Is he brilliant ? Wealthy, 
 of course, but gauche ? " 
 
 Therewith I sketched for them the Marquis and his 
 surroundings. 
 
 "It is charming," said Madame. "Delphine, do you 
 attend ? " 
 
 " And why ? " asked Delphine, half concealing a yawn 
 with her dazzling hand. " It is wearisome ; it matters 
 not to me." 
 
 " But he will not go to marry himself in France," said 
 her mother. " Oh, these English," she added, with a 
 laugh, "yourself, Monsieur, being proof of it, will not 
 mingle blood, lest the Channel should still flow between 
 the little red globules ! You will go ? but to return 
 shortly ? You will dine with me soon ? Au revoir ! " 
 and she gave me her hand graciously, while Delphine 
 bowed as if I were already gone, threw herself into a gar 
 den-chair, and commenced pouring the wine on a stone 
 for a little tame snake which came out and lapped it. 
 
 Such women as Mme. de St. Cyr have a species of 
 magnetism about them. It is difficult to retain one's self- 
 respect before them, for no other reason than that one 
 is, at the moment, absorbed into their individuality, and 
 thinks and acts with them. Delphine must have had a 
 strong will, and perpetual antagonism did not weaken it. 
 As for me, Madame had, doubtless, reasons of her own 
 for tearing aside these customary bands of reserve, 
 reasons which, if you do not perceive, I shall not enu 
 merate. 
 
 " Have you met with anything further in your search, 
 sir ? " asked my valet, next morning. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 95 
 
 " Oh, yes, Hay," I returned, in a very good humor, 
 " with great success. You have assisted me so much, that 
 I am sure I owe it to you to say that I have found the 
 diamond." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, you are very kind. I have been inter 
 ested, but my assistance is not worth mentioning. I 
 thought likely it might be, you appeared so quiet." 
 The cunning dog ! " How did you find it, sir, may I 
 ask?" 
 
 I briefly related the leading facts, since he had been 
 aware of the progress of the case to that point, without, 
 however, mentioning Mme. de St. Cyr's name. 
 
 " And Monsieur did not inform me ! " a French valet 
 would have cried. 
 
 " You were prudent not to mention it, sir," said Hay. 
 " These walls must have better ears than ordinary ; for a 
 family has moved in on the first floor recently, whose ac 
 tions are extremely suspicious. But is this precious affair 
 to be seen ? " 
 
 I took it from an inner pocket and displayed it, having 
 discarded the shagreen case as inconvenient. 
 
 " His Excellency must return as he came," said I. 
 
 Hay's eyes sparkled. 
 
 " And do you carry it there, sir ? " he asked, with sur 
 prise, as I restored it to my waistcoat-pocket. 
 
 " I shall take it to the bank," I said. " I do not like 
 the responsibility." 
 
 " It is very unsafe," was the warning of this cautious 
 fellow. " Why, sir ! any of these swells, these pickpock 
 ets, might meet you, run against you, so ! " said Hay, 
 suiting the action to the word, " and, with the little sharp 
 knife concealed in just such a ring as this I wear, give a 
 light tap, and there 's a slit in your vest, sir, but no dia- 
 
96 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 mond!" and instantly resuming his former respectful 
 deportment, Hay handed me my gloves and stick, and 
 smoothed my hat. 
 
 "Nonsense!" I replied, drawing on the gloves, "I 
 should like to see the man who could be too quick for 
 me. Any news from India, Hay?" 
 
 " None of consequence, sir. The indigo crop is said to 
 have failed, which advances the figure of that on hand, so 
 that one or two fortunes will be made to-day. Your hat, 
 sir ? your lunettes ? Here they are, sir." 
 
 " Good morning, Hay." 
 
 " God morning, sir." 
 
 I descended the stairs, buttoning my gloves, paused a 
 moment at the door to look about, and proceeded down 
 the street, which was not more than usually thronged. 
 At the bank I paused to assure myself that the diamond 
 was safe. My fingers caught in a singular slit. I started. 
 As Hay had prophesied, there was a fine longitudinal cut 
 in my waistcoat, but the pocket was empty. My God ! 
 the thing was gone. I never can forget the blank nihility 
 of all existence that dreadful moment when I stood fum 
 bling for what was not. Calm as I sit here and tell of it, 
 I vow to you a shiver courses through me at the very 
 thought. I had circumvented Stahl only to destroy my 
 self. The diamond was lost again. My mind flew like 
 lightning over every chance, and a thousand started up 
 like steel spikes to snatch the bolt. For a moment I was 
 stunned, but, never being very subject to despair, on my 
 recovery, which was almost at once, took every measure 
 that could be devised. Who had touched me ? Whom 
 had I met ? Through what streets had I come ? In ten 
 minutes the Prefect had the matter in hand. My injunc 
 tions were strict privacy. I sincerely hoped the mishap 
 
IN A CELLAR. 97 
 
 would not reach England ; and if the diamond were not 
 recovered before the Marquis of G. arrived, why, there 
 was the Seine. It is all very well to talk, yet suicide 
 is so French an affair, that an Englishman does not take 
 to it naturally, and, except in November, the Seine is too 
 cold and damp for comfort, but during that month I sup 
 pose it does not greatly differ in these respects from our 
 own atmosphere. 
 
 A preternatural activity now possessed me. I slept 
 none, ate little, worked immoderately. I spared no 
 efforts, for everything was at stake. In the midst of all, 
 G. arrived. Hay also exerted himself to the utmost ; I 
 promised him a hundred pounds, if I found it. He never 
 told me that he said how it would be, never intruded the 
 state of the market, never resented my irritating conduct, 
 but watched me with narrow yet kind solicitude, and fre 
 quently offered valuable suggestions, which, however, as 
 everything else did, led to nothing. I did not call on G., 
 but in a week or so his card was brought up one morning 
 to me. " Deny me," I groaned. It yet wanted a week 
 of the day on which I had promised to deliver him the 
 diamond. Meanwhile the Baron Stahl had reached 
 Paris, but he still remained in private, few had seen 
 him. 
 
 The police were forever on the wrong track. To 
 day they stopped the old Comptesse du Quesne and 
 her jewels, at the Barriere ; to-morrow, with their long 
 needles, they riddled a package of lace destined for the 
 Duchess of X. herself; the Secret Service was doubled ; 
 and to crown all, a splendid new star of the testy Prince 
 de Ligne was examined and proclaimed to be paste, 
 the Prince swearing vengeance, if he could discover the 
 cause, while half Paris must have been under arrest. 
 
 5 G 
 
98 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 My own hotel was ransacked thoroughly, Hay begging 
 that his traps might be included, but nothing resulted, 
 and I expected nothing, for, of course, I could swear that 
 the stone was in my pocket when I stepped into the street. 
 I confess I never was nearer madness, every word and 
 gesture stung me like asps, I walked on burning coals. 
 Enduring all this torment, I must yet meet my daily com 
 rades, eat ices at Tortoni's, stroll on the Boulevard^, call 
 on my acquaintance, with the same equanimity as before. 
 I believe I was equal to it. Only by contrast with that 
 blessed time when Ulster and diamonds were unknown, 
 could I imagine my past happiness, my present wretched 
 ness. Rather than suffer it again, I would be stretched 
 on the rack till every bone in my skin were broken. I 
 cursed Mr. Arthur Ulster every hour in the day ; myself, 
 as well ; and even now the word diamond sends a cold 
 blast to my heart. I often met my friend the marchand 
 des armures. It was his turn to triumph ; I fancied there 
 must be a hang-dog kind of air about me, as about 
 every sharp man who has been outwitted. It wanted 
 finally but two days of that on which I was to deliver 
 the diamond. 
 
 One midnight, armed with a dark lantern and a cloak, 
 I was traversing the streets alone, unsuccessful, as 
 usual, just now solitary, and almost in despair. As I 
 turned a corner, two men were but scarcely visible a 
 step before me. It was a badly-lighted part of the town. 
 Unseen and noiseless I followed. They spoke in low 
 tones, almost whispers ; or rather, one spoke, the 
 other seemed to nod assent. 
 
 " On the day but one after to-morrow," I heard spoken 
 in English. Great Heavens ! was it possible ? had 1 
 arrived at a clew ? That was the day of days for me. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 99 
 
 " You have given it, you say, in this billet, I wish to 
 be exact, you see," continued the voice, " to prevent 
 detection, you gave it, ten minutes after it came into your 
 
 hands, to ^the butler of Madame ," (here the speaker 
 
 stumbled on the rough pavement, and I lost the name,) 
 
 " who," he continued, " will put it in the " (a second 
 
 stumble acted like a hiccough) " cellar." 
 
 " Wine-cellar," I thought ; and what then ? " 
 
 " In the ." A third stumble was followed by a 
 
 round German oath. How easy it is for me now to fill 
 up the little blanks which that unhappy pavement caused ! 
 
 " You share your receipts with this butler. On the 
 day I obtain it," he added, and I now perceived his 
 foreign accent, "I hand you one hundred thousand 
 francs ; afterward, monthly payments till you have re 
 ceived the stipulated sum. But how will this butler 
 know me, in season to prevent a mistake ? Hem ! 
 he might give it to the other!" 
 
 My hearing had been trained to such a degree that I 
 would have promised to catch any given dialogue of 
 the spirits themselves, but the whisper that answered him 
 eluded me. I caught nothing but a faint sibillation. 
 " Your ring ? " was the rejoinder. " He shall be in 
 structed to recognize it ? Very well. It is too large, 
 no, that will do, it fits the first finger. There is nothing 
 more. I am under infinite obligations, sir ; they shall 
 be remembered. Adieu ! " 
 
 The two parted ; which should I pursue ? In despera 
 tion I turned my lantern upon one, and illumined a face 
 fresh with color, whose black eyes sparkled askance after 
 the retreating figure, under straight black brows. In a 
 moment more he was lost in a false cul-de-sac, and I found 
 it impossible to trace the other. 
 
100 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 I was scarcely better off than before ; but it seemed to 
 me that I had obtained something, and that now it was 
 
 wisest to work this vein. " The butler of Madame ." 
 
 There were hundreds of thousands of Madames in town. 
 I might call on all, and be as old as the Wandering Jew 
 at the last call. The cellar. Wine-cellar, of course, 
 that came by a natural connection with butler, but 
 whose ? There was one under my own abode ; certainly 
 I would explore it. Meanwhile, let us see the entertain 
 ments for Wednesday. The Prefect had a list of these. 
 For some I found I had cards ; I determined to allot a 
 fraction of time to as many as possible ; my friends in the 
 Secret Service would divide the labor. Among others, 
 Madame de St. Cyr gave a dinner, and, as she had been 
 in the affair, I determined not to neglect her on this occa 
 sion, although having no definite idea of what had been, 
 or plan of what should be done. I decided not to speak 
 of this occurrence to Hay, since it might only bring him 
 off some trail that he had struck. 
 
 Having been provided with keys, early on the following 
 evening I entered the wine-cellar, and, concealed in an 
 empty cask that would have held a dozen of me, waited for 
 .something to turn up. Really, when I think of myself, a 
 diplomate, a courtier, a man-about-town, curled in a dusty, 
 musty wine-barrel, I am moved with vexation and laugh 
 ter. Nothing, however, turned up, and at length I re 
 tired baffled. The next night came, no news, no 
 identification of my black-browed man, no success ; but 
 I felt certain that something must transpire in that cellar. 
 I don't know why I had pitched upon that one in partic 
 ular, but, at an earlier hour than on the previous night, I 
 again donned the cask. A long time must have elapsed; 
 dead silence filled the spacious vaults, except where now 
 
IN A CELLAR. 101 
 
 and then some Sillery cracked the air with a quick explo 
 sion, or some newer wine bubbled round the bung of its 
 barrel with a faint effervescence. I had no intention of 
 leaving this place till morning, but it suddenly appeared 
 like the most woful waste of time. The master of this 
 tremendous affair should be abroad and active ; who 
 knew what his keen eyes might detect; what loss his 
 absence might occasion in this nick of time ? And here 
 he was, shut up and locked in a wine-cellar ! I began to 
 be very nervous ; I had already, with aid, searched every 
 crevice of the cellar; and now I thought it would be 
 some consolation to discover the thief, if I never regained 
 the diamond. A distant clock tolled midnight. There 
 was a faint noise, a mouse ? no, it was too pro 
 longed; nor did it sound like the fiz of Champagne; 
 a great iron door was turning on its hinges ; a man with 
 a lantern was entering; another followed, and another. 
 They seated themselves. In a few moments, appearing 
 one by one and at intervals, some thirty people were in 
 the cellar. "Were they all to share in the proceeds of the 
 diamond ? With what jaundiced eyes we behold things ! 
 I myself saw all that was only through the lens of this 
 diamond, of which not one of these men had ever heard. 
 As the lantern threw its feeble glimmer on this group, 
 and I surveyed them through my loophole, I thought I 
 had never seen so wild and savage a picture, such enor 
 mous shadows, such bold outline, such a startling flash on 
 the face of their leader, such light retreating up the 
 threatening arches. More resolute brows, more deter 
 mined words, more unshrinking hearts, I had not met. 
 In fact, I found myself in the centre of a conspiracy, a 
 society as vindictive as the Jacobins, as unknown and 
 terrible as the Marianne of to-day. I was thunderstruck, 
 
102 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 too, at the countenances on which the light fell, men 
 the loyalest in estimation, ministers and senators, million- 
 naires who had no reason for discontent, dandies whose 
 reason was supposed to be devoted to their tailors, poets 
 and artists of generous aspiration and suspected tenden 
 cies, and one woman, Delphine de St. Cyr. Their 
 plans were brave, their determination lofty, their con 
 clave serious and fine ; yet as slowly they shut up their 
 hopes and fears in the black masks, one man bent toward 
 the lantern to adjust his. "When he lifted his face before 
 concealing it, I recognized him also. I had met him 
 frequently at the Bureau of Police ; he was, I believe, 
 Secretary of the Secret Service. 
 
 I had no sympathy with these people. I had sufficient 
 liberty myself, I was well enough satisfied with the 
 world, I did not care to revolutionize France ; but my 
 heart rebelled at the mockery, as this traitor and spy, 
 this creature of 'a system by which I gained my fame, 
 showed his revolting face and veiled it again. And Del 
 phine, what had she to do with them ? One by one, as 
 they entered, they withdrew, and I was left alone again. 
 But all this was not my diamond. 
 
 Another hour elapsed. Again the door opened, and 
 remained ajar. Some one entered, whom I could not 
 see. There was a pause, then a rustle, the door 
 creaked ever so little. "Art thou there?" lisped a 
 shrill whisper, a woman, as I could guess. 
 
 " My angel, it is I," was returned, a semitone lower. 
 She approached, he advanced, and the consequence was 
 a salute resonant as the smack with which a Dutch bur 
 gomaster may be supposed to set down his mug. I was 
 prepared for anything. Ye gods! if it should be Del 
 phine ! But the base suspicion was birth-strangled as 
 
IN A CELLAR. 103 
 
 they spoke again. The conversation which now ensued 
 between these lovers under difficulties was tender and 
 affecting beyond expression. I had felt guilty enough 
 when an unwilling auditor of the conspirators, since, 
 though one employs spies, one does not therefore act that 
 part one's self, but on emergencies, an unwillingness 
 which would not, however, prevent my turning to advan 
 tage the information gained ; but here, to listen to this re 
 hearsal of woes and blisses, this ah man Femand, this aria 
 in an area, growing momently more fervent, was too much. 
 I overturned the cask, scrambled upon my feet, and fled 
 from the cellar, leaving the astounded lovers to follow, 
 while, agreeably to my instincts, and regardless of the 
 diamond, I escaped the embarrassing predicament. 
 
 At length it grew to be noon of the appointed day. 
 Nothing had transpired ; all our labor was idle. I felt, 
 nevertheless, more buoyant than usual, whether be 
 cause I was now to put my fate to the test, or that to-day 
 was the one of which my black-browed man had spoken, 
 and I therefore entertained a presentiment of good for 
 tune, I cannot say. But when, in unexceptionable 
 toilet, I stood on Mme. de St. Cyr's steps, my heart 
 sunk. G. was doubtless already within, and I thought 
 of the marchand des armures' exclamation, " Queen of 
 Heaven, Monsieur ! how shall I meet him ! " I was 
 plunged at once into the profoundest gloom. Why had 
 I undertaken the business at all ? This interference, this 
 good-humor, this readiness to oblige, it would ruin me 
 yet! I forswore it, as Falstaff forswore honor. Why 
 needed I to meddle in the melee ? Why But I was 
 no catechumen. Questions were useless now. My emo 
 tions are not chronicled on my face, I flatter myself ; and 
 with my usual repose I saluted our hostess. Greeting G 
 
104 IN A CELLAR, 
 
 without any allusion to the diamond, the absence of which 
 allusion he received as a point of etiquette, I was con 
 versing with Mrs. Leigh, when the Baron Stahl was an 
 nounced. I turned to look at his Excellency. A glance 
 electrified me. There was my dark-browed man of the 
 midnight streets. It must, then, have been concerning 
 the diamond that I had heard him speak. His counte 
 nance, his eager glittering eye, told that to-day was as 
 eventful to him as to me. If he were here, I could well 
 afford to be. As he addressed me in English, my cer 
 tainty was confirmed ; and the instant in which I observed 
 the ring, gaudy and coarse, upon his finger, made confir 
 mation doubly sure. I own I was surprised that anything 
 could induce the Baron to wear such an ornament. Here 
 he was actually risking his reputation as a man of taste, as 
 an exquisite, a leader of haut ton, a gentleman, by the de 
 testable vulgarity of this ring. But why do I speak so 
 of the trinket ? Do I not owe it a thrill of as fine joy as 
 I ever knew ? Faith ! it was not unfamiliar to me. It 
 had been a daily sight for years. In meeting the Baron 
 Stahl I had found the diamond. 
 
 The Baron Stahl was, then, the thief? Not at all. 
 My valet, as of course you have been all along aware, 
 was the thief. 
 
 My valet, moreover, was my instructor ; he taught me 
 not again to scour Cathay for what might be lying under 
 my hand at home. Nor have I since been so acute as to 
 overreach myself. Yet I can explain such intolerable 
 stupidity only by remembering that when one has been in 
 the habit of pointing his telescope at the stars, he is not 
 apt to turn it upon pebbles at his feet. 
 
 The Marquis of G. took down Mme. de St. Cyr ; Stahl 
 preceded me, with Delphine. As we sat at table, G. was 
 
IN A CELLAR. 105 
 
 at the right, I at the left of our hostess. Next G. sat 
 Delphine ; below her, the Baron ; so that we were nearly 
 vis-a-vis. I was now as fully convinced that Mme. de St. 
 Cyr's cellar was the one, as the day before I had been 
 that the other was ; I longed to reach it. Hay had given 
 the stone to a butler doubtless this the moment of its 
 theft ; but, not being aware of Mme. de St. Cyr's previous 
 share in the adventure, had probably not afforded her 
 another. And thus I concluded her to be ignorant of the 
 game we were about to play ; and I imagined, with the 
 interest that one carries into a romance, the little prelim 
 inary scene between the Baron and Madame that must 
 have already taken place, being charmed by the cheerful 
 ness with which she endured the loss of the promised 
 reward. 
 
 As the Baron entered the dining-room, I saw him 
 withdraw his glove, and move the jewelled hand across 
 his hair while passing the solemn butler, who gave it a 
 quick recognition ; the next moment we were seated. 
 There were only wines on the table, clustered around a 
 central ornament, a bunch of tall silver rushes and flag- 
 leaves, on whose airy tip danced fleurs-de-lis of frosted 
 silver, a design of Delphine's, the dishes being on side- 
 tables, from which the guests were served as they signified 
 their choice of the variety on their cards. Our number 
 not being large, and the custom so informal, rendered it 
 pleasant. 
 
 I had just finished my oysters and was pouring out a 
 glass of Chablis, when another plate was set before the 
 Baron. 
 
 " His Excellency has no salt," murmured the butler, 
 at the same time placing one beside him. A glance, at 
 entrance, had taught me that most of the service was uni- 
 5* 
 
106 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 form ; this dainty little saliere I had noticed on the buffet, 
 solitary, and unlike the others. What a fool had I been ! 
 Those gaps in the Baron's remarks caused by the paving- 
 stones, how easily were they to be supplied ! 
 
 " Madame ? " 
 
 Madame de St. Cyr. 
 
 "The cellar?" 
 
 A salt-cellar, 
 
 How quick the flash that enlightened me while I sur 
 veyed the saliere ! 
 
 " It is exquisite ! Am I never to sit at your table but 
 some new device charms me ? " I exclaimed. " Is it 
 your design, Mademoiselle ? " I said, turning to Delphine. 
 
 Delphine, who had been ice to all the Baron's ad 
 vances, only curled her lip. " JDes babioles ! " she said. 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! " cried Mme. de St. Cyr, extending her 
 hand for it. " But none the less her taste. Is it not a 
 fairy thing ? A Cellini ! Observe this curve, these lines ! 
 but one man could have drawn them ! " and she held it 
 for our scrutiny. It was a tiny hand and arm of ivory, 
 parting the foam of a wave and holding a golden shell, in 
 which the salt seemed to have crusted itself as if in some 
 secretest ocean-hollow. I looked at the Baron a moment ; 
 his eyes were fastened upon the saliere, and all the color 
 had forsaken his cheeks, his face counted his years. 
 The diamond was in that little shell. But how to obtain 
 it ? I had no novice to deal with ; nothing but finesse 
 would answer. 
 
 " Permit me to examine it ? " I said. She passed it to 
 her left hand for me to take. The butler made a step 
 forward. 
 
 " Meanwhile, Madame," said the Baron, smiling, " I 
 have no salt." 
 
IN A CELLAR. 107 
 
 The instinct of hospitality prevailed ; she was about 
 to return it. Might I do an awkward thing ? Unhesitat 
 ingly. Reversing my glass, I gave my arm a wider 
 sweep than necessary, and, as it met her hand with vio 
 lence, the saliere fell. Before it touched the floor I 
 caught it. There was still a pinch of salt left, nothing 
 more. 
 
 " A thousand pardons ! " I said, and restored it to the 
 Baron. 
 
 His Excellency beheld it with dismay ; it was rare to 
 see him bend over and scrutinize it with starting eyes. 
 
 " Do you find there what Count Arnaldos begs in the 
 song," asked Delphine, " the secret of the sea, Mon 
 sieur ? " 
 
 He handed it to the butler, observing, " I find here 
 no " 
 
 " Salt, Monsieur ? " replied the man, who did not doubt 
 but all had gone right, and replenished it. 
 
 Had one told me in the morning that no intricate ma 
 noeuvres, but a simple blunder, would effect this, I might 
 have met him in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 " We will not quarrel," said my neighbor, lightly, with 
 reference to the popular superstition. 
 
 " Rather propitiate the offended deities by a crumb 
 tossed over the shoulder," added I. 
 
 " Over the left ? " asked the Baron, to intimate his 
 knowledge of another idiom, together with a reproof for 
 my gaucherie. 
 
 " A gauche, quelquefois c*est justement a droit" I 
 replied. 
 
 " Salt in any pottage," said Madame, a little uneasily, 
 " is like surprise in an individual ; it brings out the flavor 
 of every ingredient, so my cook tells me." 
 
108 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " It is a preventive of palsy," I remarked, as the slight 
 trembling of my adversary's finger caught my eye. 
 
 "And I have noticed that a taste for it is peculiar 
 to those who trace their blood," continued Madame. 
 
 " Let us, therefore, elect a deputation to those mines 
 near Cracow," said Delphine. 
 
 " To our cousins, the slaves there ? " laughed her 
 mother. 
 
 " I must vote to lay your bill on the table, Mademoi 
 selle," I rejoined. 
 
 "But with a boule blanche, Monsieur?" 
 
 "As the salt has been laid on the floor," said the 
 Baron. 
 
 Meanwhile, as this light skirmishing proceeded, my 
 sleeve and Mme. de St. Cyr's dress were slightly pow 
 dered, but I had not seen the diamond. The Baron, 
 bolder than I, looked under the table, but made no dis 
 covery. I was on the point of dropping my napkin to 
 accomplish a similar movement, when my accommodating 
 neighbor dropped hers. To restore it, I stooped. There 
 it lay, large and glowing, the Sea of Splendor, the Moon 
 of Milk, the Torment of my Life, on the carpet, within 
 half an inch of a lady's slipper. Mademoiselle de St. 
 Cyr's foot had prevented the Baron from seeing it ; now 
 it moved and unconsciously covered it. All was as I 
 wished. I hastily restored the napkin, and looked stead 
 ily at Delphine, so steadily, that she perceived some 
 meaning, as she had already suspected a game. By my 
 sign she understood me, pressed her foot upon the stone 
 and drew it nearer. In France we do not remain at 
 table until unfit for a lady's society, we rise with them. 
 Delphine needed to drop neither napkin nor handker 
 chief; she composedly stooped and picked up the stone, 
 so quickly that no one saw what it was. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 109 
 
 " And the diamond ? " said the Baron to the butler, 
 rapidly, as he passed. 
 
 " It was in the saliere ! " whispered the astonished 
 creature. 
 
 In the drawing-room I sought the Marquis. 
 
 " To-day I was to surrender you your property," I 
 said ; " it is here." 
 
 " Do you know," he replied, " I thought I must have 
 been mistaken ? " 
 
 " Any of our volatile friends here might have been," I 
 resumed ; " for us it is impossible. Concerning this, 
 when you return to France, I will relate the incidents ; 
 at present, there are those who will not hesitate to take 
 life to obtain its possession. A conveyance leaves in 
 twenty minutes ; and if I owned the diamond, it should 
 not leave me behind. Moreover, who knows what a day 
 may bring forth ? To-morrow there may be an emeute. 
 Let me restore the thing as you withdraw." 
 
 The Marquis, who is not, after all, the Lion of Eng 
 land, pausing a moment to transmit my words from his 
 ear to his brain, did not afterward delay to make inquiries 
 or adieux, but went to seek Mme. de St. Cyr and wish 
 her good-night, on his departure from Paris. As I 
 awaited his return, which I knew would not be imme 
 diate, Delphine left the Baron and joined me. 
 
 " You beckoned me ? " she asked. 
 
 No, I did not." 
 
 " Nevertheless, I come by your desire, I am sure." 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I said, " I am not in the custom of 
 doing favors ; I have forsworn them. But before you 
 return me my jewel, I risk my head and render one last 
 one, and to you." 
 
110 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " Do not, Monsieur, at such price," she responded, with 
 a slight mocking motion of her hand. 
 
 " Delphine ! those resolves, last night, in the cellar, 
 were daring, they were noble, yet they were useless." 
 
 She had not started, but a slight tremor ran over her 
 person and vanished while I spoke. 
 
 "They will be allowed to proceed no farther, the axe 
 is sharpened ; for the last man who adjusted his mask was 
 a spy, was the Secretary of the Secret Service." 
 
 Delphine could not have grown paler than was usual 
 with her of late. She flashed her eye upon me. 
 
 " He was, it may be, Monsieur himself," she said. 
 
 " I do not claim the honor of that post." 
 
 " But you were there, nevertheless, a spy ! " 
 
 " Hush, Delphine ! It would be absurd to quarrel. I 
 was there for the recovery of this stone, having heard that 
 it was in a cellar, which, stupidly enough, I had insisted 
 should be a wine-cellar." 
 
 "It was, then " 
 
 "In a salt-cellar, a blunder which, as you do not 
 speak English, you cannot comprehend. I never mix 
 with treason, and did not wish to assist at your pastimes. 
 I speak now, that you may escape." 
 
 " If Monsieur betrays his friends, the police, why 
 should I expect a kinder fate?" 
 
 " When I use the police, they are my servants, not my 
 friends. I simply warn you, that, before sunrise, you 
 will be safer travelling than sleeping, safer next week 
 in Vienna than in Paris." 
 
 " Thank you ! And the intelligence is the price of the 
 diamond ? If I had not chanced to pick it up, my throat," 
 and she clasped it with her fingers, " had been no slenderer 
 than the others ? " 
 
IN A CELLAR. Ill 
 
 " Delphine, will you remember, should you have occa 
 sion to do so in Vienna, that it is just possible for an Eng 
 lishman to have affections, and sentiments, and, in fact, 
 sensations ? that, with him, friendship can be inviolate, 
 and to betray it an impossibility? And even were it 
 not, I, Mademoiselle, have not the pleasure to be classed 
 by you as a friend." 
 
 " You err. I esteem Monsieur highly." 
 
 I was impressed by her coolness. 
 
 "Let me see if you comprehend the matter," I de 
 manded. 
 
 " Perfectly. The arrest will be used to-night, the guil 
 lotine to-morrow." 
 
 " You will take immediate measures for flight ? " 
 
 "No, I do not see that life has value. I shall be 
 the debtor of him who takes it." 
 
 " A large debt. Delphine, I exact a promise of you. 
 I do not care to have endangered myself for nothing. It 
 is not worth while to make your mother unhappy. Life 
 is not yours to throw away. I appeal to your magna 
 nimity." 
 
 " ' Affections, sentiments, sensations ! ' " she quoted. 
 " Your own danger for the affection, it is an affair 
 of the heart ! Mme. de St. Cyr's unhappiness, there 
 is the sentiment. You are angry, Monsieur, that must 
 be the sensation." 
 
 " Delphine, I am waiting." 
 
 " Ah, well. You have mentioned Vienna, and why ? 
 Liberals are countenanced there ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. But Madame 1'Ambassadrice will 
 be countenanced." 
 
 " I do not know her." 
 
 " We are not apt to know ourselves." 
 
112 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 " Monsieur, how idle are these cross-purposes ! " she 
 said, folding her fan. 
 
 " Delphine," I continued, taking the fan, " tell me 
 frankly which of these two men you prefer, the Mar 
 quis or his Excellency." 
 
 "The Marquis? He is antiphlogistic, he is ice. 
 Why should I freeze myself? I am frozen now, I 
 need fire ! " 
 
 Her eyes burned as she spoke, and a faint red flushed 
 her cheek. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you demonstrate to me that life has yet 
 a value to you." 
 
 " I find no fire," she said, as the flush fell away. 
 
 " The Baron ? " 
 
 " I do not affect him." 
 
 " You will conquer your prejudice in Vienna." 
 
 " I do not comprehend you, Monsieur ; you speak in 
 riddles, which I do not like." 
 
 "I will speak plainer. But first let me ask you for 
 the diamond." 
 
 " The diamond ? It is yours ? How am I certified of 
 it ? I find it on the floor ; you say it was in my mother's 
 saliere ; it is her affair, not mine. No, Monsieur, I do 
 not see that the thing is yours." 
 
 Certainly there was nothing to be done but to relate 
 the story, which I did, carefully omitting the Baron's 
 name. At its conclusion, she placed the prize in my 
 hand. 
 
 "Pardon, Monsieur," she said; "without doubt you 
 should receive it. And this agent of the government, 
 one could turn him like hot iron in this vice, who was 
 he?" 
 
 " The Baron Stahl." 
 
IN A CELLAR. 113 
 
 All this time G. had been waiting on thorns, and, leav 
 ing her now, I approached him, displayed for an instant 
 the treasure on my palm, and slipped it into his. It 
 was done. I bade farewell to this Eye of Morning 
 and Heart of Day, this thing that had caused me such 
 pain and perplexity and pleasure, with less envy and 
 more joy than I thought myself capable of. The relief 
 and buoyancy that seized me, as his hand closed upon 
 it, I shall not attempt to portray. An abdicated king 
 was not freer. 
 
 The Marquis departed, and I, wandering round the 
 salon, was next stranded upon the Baron. He was yet 
 hardly sure of himself. We talked indifferently for a few 
 moments, and then I ventured on the great loan. He was, 
 as became him, not communicative, but scarcely thought it 
 would be arranged. I then spoke of Delphine. 
 
 " She is superb ! " said the Baron, staring at her 
 boldly. 
 
 She stood opposite, and, in her white attire on the back 
 ground of the blue curtain, appeared like an impersonation 
 of Greek genius relieved upon the blue of an Athenian 
 heaven. Her severe and classic outline, her pallor, her 
 downcast lids, her absorbed look, only heightened the re 
 semblance. Her reverie seemed to end abruptly, the 
 same red stained her cheek again, her lips curved in a 
 proud smile, she raised her glowing eyes and observed us 
 regarding her. At too great distance to hear our words, 
 she quietly repaid our glances in the strength of her new 
 decision, and then, turning, began to entertain those next 
 her with an unwonted spirit. 
 
 " She has needed," I replied to the Baron, " but one 
 thing, to be aroused, to be kindled. See, it is done ! 
 I have thought that a life of cabinets and policy might 
 
114 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 achieve this, for her talent is second not even to her 
 beauty." 
 
 " It is unhappy that both should be wasted," said the 
 Baron. " She, of course, will never marry." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " For various reasons." 
 
 "One?" 
 
 She is poor." 
 
 " Which 'will not signify to your Excellency. An 
 other?" 
 
 " She is too beautiful. One would fall in love with 
 her. And to love one's own wife it is ridiculous ! " 
 
 " Who should know ? " I asked. 
 
 " All the world would suspect and laugh." 
 
 " Let those laugh that win." 
 
 " No, she would never do as a wife ; but then as " 
 
 " But then in France we do not insult hospitality ! " 
 
 The Baron transferred his gaze to me for a moment, 
 then tapped his snuff-box, and approached tne circle 
 round Delphine. 
 
 It was odd that we, the arch enemies of the hour, 
 could speak without the intervention of seconds ; but I 
 hoped that the Baron's conversation might bq diverting, 
 the Baron hoped that mine might be didactic. 
 
 They were very gay with Delphine. He leaned on the 
 back of a chair and listened. One spoke of the new gal 
 lery of the Tuileries, and the five pavilions, a remark 
 which led us to architecture. 
 
 " We all build our own houses," said Delphine, at last, 
 " and then complain that they cramp us here, and the wind 
 blows in there, while the fault is not in the order, but in 
 us, who increase here and shrink there without reason." 
 
 " You speak in metaphors," said the Baron. 
 
IN A CELLAR. 115 
 
 " Precisely. A truth is often more visible veiled than 
 nude." 
 
 "We should soon exhaust the orders," I interposed; 
 " for who builds like his neighbor ? " 
 
 " Slight variations, Monsieur ! Though we take such 
 pains to conceal the style, it is not difficult to tell the or 
 der of architecture chosen by the builders in this room. 
 My mother, for instance, you perceive that her pavil 
 ion would be the florid Gothic." 
 
 " Mademoiselle's is the Doric," I said. 
 
 " Has been," she murmured, with a quick glance. 
 
 " And mine, Mademoiselle ? " asked the Baron, indif 
 ferently. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur," she returned, looking serenely upon 
 him, " when one has all the winning cards in hand and 
 yet loses the stake, we allot him un pavilion chinois" 
 which was the polite way of dubbing him Court Fool. 
 
 The Baron's eyes fell. Vexation and alarm were vis 
 ible on his contracted brow. He stood in meditation for 
 some time. It must have been evident to him that Del- 
 phine knew of the recent occurrences, that here in 
 Paris she could denounce him as the agent of a felony, 
 the participant of a theft. What might prevent it ? 
 Plainly but one thing: no woman would denounce her 
 husband. He had scarcely contemplated this step on 
 arrival. 
 
 The guests were again scattered in groups round the 
 room. I examined an engraving on an adjacent table. 
 Delphine reclined as lazily in a fauteuil as if her life did 
 not hang in the balance. The Baron drew near. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said he, " you allotted me just now a 
 cap and bells. If two should wear it ? if I should in 
 vite another into my pavilion chinois f if I should pro- 
 
116 IN A CELLAR. 
 
 pose to complete an alliance, desired by my father, with 
 the ancient family of St. Cyr ? if, in short, Mademoi 
 selle, I should request you to become my wife ? " 
 
 " JSh, bien, Monsieur, and if you should ? " I heard 
 her coolly reply. 
 
 But it was no longer any business of mine. I rose and 
 sought Mme. de St. Cyr, who, I thought, was slightly un 
 easy, perceiving some mystery to be afloat. After a few 
 words, I retired. 
 
 Archimedes, as perhaps you have never heard, needed 
 only a lever to move the world. Such a lever I had put 
 into the hands of Delphine, with which she might move, 
 not indeed the grand globe, with its multiplied attractions, 
 relations, and affinities, but the lesser world of circum 
 stances, of friends and enemies, the circle of hopes, fears, 
 ambitions. There is no woman, as I believe, but could 
 have used it. 
 
 The next day was scarcely so quiet in the city as usual. 
 The great loan had not been negotiated. Both the Baron 
 Stahl and the English minister had left Paris, and there 
 was a coup d'etat. 
 
 But the Baron did not travel alone. There had been 
 a ceremony at midnight in the Church of St. Sulpice, and 
 her Excellency the Baroness Stahl, nee de St. Cyr, ac 
 companied him. 
 
 It is a good many years since. I have seen the dia 
 mond in the Duchess of X.'s coronet, once, when a young 
 queen put on her royalty, but I have never seen Del 
 phine. The Marquis begged me to retain the chain, and 
 I gave myself the pleasure of presenting it, through her 
 mother, to the Baroness Stahl. I hear, that, whenever 
 she desires to effect any cherished object which the Baron 
 
IN A CELLAR. 117 
 
 opposes, she has only to wear this chain, and effect it. It 
 appears to possess a magical power, and its potent spell 
 enslaves the Baron as the lamp and ring of Eastern tales 
 enslaved the Afrites. The life she leads has aroused her. 
 She is no longer the impassive Silence; she has found 
 her fire. I hear of her as the charm of a brilliant court, 
 as the soul of a nation of intrigue. Of her beauty one 
 does not speak, but her talent is called prodigious. What 
 impels me to ask the idle question, If it were well to save 
 her life for this ? Undoubtedly she fills a station which, 
 in that empire, must be the summit of a woman's ambi 
 tion. Delphine's Liberty was not a principle, but a dis 
 satisfaction. The Baroness Stahl is vehement, is Impe 
 rialist, is successful. While she lives, it is on the top of 
 the wave ; when she dies ah ! what business has 
 Death in such a world ? 
 
 As I said, I have never seen Delphine since her mar 
 riage. The beautiful statuesque girl occupies a niche 
 into which the blazing and magnificent intrigante cannot 
 crowd. I do not wish to be disillusioned. She has read 
 me a riddle, Delphine is my Sphinx. 
 
 As for Mr. Hay, I once said the Antipodes were 
 tributary to me, not thinking that I should ever become 
 tributary to the Antipodes. But such is the case ; since, 
 partly through my instrumentality, that enterprising indi 
 vidual has been located in their vicinity, where diamonds 
 are not to be had for the asking, and the greatest rogue is 
 not a Baron. 
 
-& 
 
 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 E 'S took 'ith all the sym't'ms, thet 's one 
 thing sure ! Dretful pain in hez back an' 
 Tins, legs feel's ef they bed telegraph-wires 
 inside 'era workin' fur dear life, head aches, 
 face fevered, pulse at 2.40, awful stetch in the side, an* 
 pressed fur breath. You guess it 's neuralogy, Lurindy ? 
 I do'no' nothing abeout yer high-flyin' names fur rheu- 
 matiz. / don't guess so ! " 
 
 "But, Aunt Mirny, what do you guess?" asked mother. 
 " I don' guess nothin' at all, I nigh abeout know ! " 
 Well, you don't think it 's " 
 " I on'y wish it mebbe the veryaloud, I on'y wish it 
 mebbe. But that '& tew good luck ter happen ter one o' 
 the name. No, Miss Ruggles, I think it 's the raal 
 article at first hand." 
 
 " Goodness, Aunt Mirny ! what " 
 "Yes, I du; an' you'll all hev it stret through the 
 femily, every one ; you need n't expect ter go scot-free, 
 Emerline, 'ith all your rosy cheeks ; an' you '11 all hev ter 
 stay in canteen a month ter the least ; an' ef you 're none 
 o' yer perfected by vaticination, I reckon I " 
 
 " Well, Aunt Mirny, if that 's your opinion, I '11 harness 
 the filly and drive over for Dr. Sprague." 
 6 
 
122 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 " Lor' ! yer no need ter du thet, Miss Ruggles, I kin 
 kerry yer all through jest uz well uz Dr. Sprague, an' a 
 sight better, ef the truth wuz knowed. I tuk Miss Dea 
 con Smiler an' her hull femily through the measles an' 
 hoopin'-cough, like a parcel o' pigs, this fall. They do 
 say Jane 's in a poor way an' Nathan'l 's kind o' declinin' ; 
 but, uz I know they say it jest ter spite me, I don' so much 
 mind. You a'n't gwine now, be ye ?" 
 
 " There 's safety in a multitude of counsellors, you 
 know, Aunt Mirny, and I think on the whole I had best." 
 
 "Wai! ef that's yer delib'rate ch'ice betwixt Dr. 
 Sprague an' me, ye kin du ez ye like. I never force my 
 advice on no one, 'xcept this, I 'd advise Emerline there 
 ter throw them socks inter the fire ; there '11 never none 
 o' them be fit ter sell, 'nless she wants ter spread the dis 
 ease. Wai, I 'm sorry yer Ve concluded ter hev thet old 
 quack Sprague ; never hed no more diplomy 'n me ; don* 
 b'lieve he knows cow-pox from kine, when he sees it. 
 The poor young man 's hed his last well day, I 'm afeard. 
 Good-day ter ye ; say good-by fur me ter Stephen. I'll 
 call ag'in, ef ye happen ter want any one to lay him 
 eout." 
 
 And, staying to light .her little black pipe, she jerked 
 together the strings of her great scarlet hood, wrapped 
 her cloak round her like a sentinel at muster, and went 
 puffing down the hill like a steamboat. 
 
 Aunt Mirny Ruggles was n't any relation to us, I 
 would n't have you think, though our name was Ruggles, 
 too. Aunt Mirny used to sell herbs, and she rose from 
 that to taking care of the sick, and so on, till once Dr. 
 Sprague having proved that death came through her igno 
 rance, she had to abandon some branches of her art ; and 
 she was generally roaming round the neighborhood, seek- 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 123 
 
 ing whom she could devour in the others. And so she 
 came into our house just at dinner-time, and mother 
 asked her to, sit by, and then mentioned Cousin Stephen, 
 and she went up to see him, and so it was. 
 
 Now it can't be pleasant for any family to have such a 
 thing turn up, especially if there '& a pretty girl in it ; and 
 I suppose I was as pretty as the general run, at that time, 
 
 perhaps Cousin Stephen thought a trifle prettier ; pink 
 cheeks, blue eyes, and hair the color and shine of a chest 
 nut when it bursts the burr, can't be had without one 's 
 rather pleassCnt-looking ; and then I 'm very good-natured 
 and quick-tempered, and I 've got a voice for singing, and 
 I sing in the choir, and a'n't afraid to open my mouth. 
 I don't look much like Lurindy, to be sure ; but then 
 Lurindy 's an old maid, as much as twenty-five, and 
 don't go to singing-school. At least, these thoughts ran 
 through my head as I watched Aunt Mirny down the hill. 
 
 Lurindy a'n't so very pretty, I continued to think, but 
 she 's so very good, it makes up. At sewing-circle and 
 quilting and frolics, I 'm as good as any ; but somehow 
 I 'm never any 'count at home ; that 's because Lurindy is 
 by, at home. Well, Lurindy has a little box in her 
 drawer, and there 's a letter in it, and an old geranium- 
 leaf, and a piece of black silk ribbon that looks too broad 
 for anything but a sailor's necktie, and a shell. I don't 
 know what she wants to keep such old stuff for, I 'm sure. 
 
 We were none so rich, I suppose I may as well tell 
 the truth, that we were nearly as poor as poor can be. 
 We 'd the farm, but it 's such a small one that mother and 
 I could carry it on ourselves, with now and then a day's 
 help or a bee, but a bee 's about as broad as it is long, 
 
 and we raised just enough to help the year out, but 
 did n't sell. We had a cow and the filly and some sheep ; 
 
124 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 and mother sheared and carded, and Lurindy spun, I 
 can't spin, it makes my head swim, and I knit, knit 
 socks and sold them. Sometimes I had needles almost 
 as big as a pipe-stem, and chose the coarse, uneven yarn 
 of the tags, and then the work went off like machinery. 
 Why, I can knit two pair, and sometimes three, a day, 
 and get just as much for them as I do for the nice ones, 
 they 're warm. But when I want to knit well, as I did 
 the day Aunt Mirny was in, I take my best blue needles 
 and my fine white yarn from the long wool, and it keeps 
 me from daybreak till sundown to knit one p^ir. I don't 
 know why Aunt Jemimy should have said what she did 
 about my socks ; I 'm sure Stephen had n't been any 
 nearer them than he had to the cabbage-bag Lurindy was 
 netting, and there was n't such a nice knitter in town as 
 I, everybody will tell you. She always did seem to take 
 particular pleasure in hectoring and badgering me to 
 death. 
 
 Well, I was n't going to be put down by Aunt Mirny, 
 so I made the needles fly while mother was gone for the 
 doctor. By and by I heard a knock up in Stephen's 
 room, I suppose he wanted something, but Lurindy 
 did n't hear it, and I did n't so much want to go, so I sat 
 still and began to count out loud the stitches to my nar- 
 rowings. By and by he knocked again. 
 
 " Lurindy," says I, " a'n't that Steve a-knocking ? " 
 
 " Yes," says she, " why don't you go ? " for I had 
 been tending him a good deal that day. 
 
 " Well," says I, " there 's a number of reasons ; one is, 
 I 'm just binding off my heel." 
 
 Lurindy looked at me a minute, then all at once she 
 smiled. 
 
 " Well, Emmy," says she, " if you like a smooth skin 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 125 
 
 more than a smooth conscience, you 're welcome," and 
 went up-stairs herself. 
 
 I suppose I had ought to V gone, and I suppose I 'd 
 ought to wanted to have gone, but somehow it was n't so 
 much fear as that I did n't want to see Stephen himself 
 now. So Lurindy stayed up chamber, and was there 
 when mother and the doctor come. And the doctor said 
 he feared Aunt Mirny was right, and nobody but mother 
 and Lurindy must go near Stephen, (you see, he found 
 Lurindy there,) and they must have as little communica 
 tion with me as possible. And his boots creaked down 
 the back-stairs, and then he went. 
 
 Mother came down a little while after, for some water 
 to put on Stephen's head, which was a good deal worse, 
 she said ; and about the middle of the evening I heard 
 her crying for me to come and help them hold him, he 
 was raving. I did n't go very quick ; I said, " Yes, 
 just as soon as I 've narrowed off my toe." And when at 
 last I pushed back my chair to go, mother called in a dis 
 approving voice, and said that they 'd got along without 
 me and I'd better go to bed. 
 
 Well, after I was in bed I began to remember all that 
 had happened lately. Somehow my thoughts went back 
 to the first time Cousin Stephen came to our place, when 
 I was a real little girl, and mother 'd sent me to the well 
 and I had dropped the bucket in, and he ran straight 
 down the green slippery stones and brought it up, laugh 
 ing. Then I remembered how we 'd birds-nested togeth 
 er, and nutted, and come home on the hay-carts, and how 
 we 'd been in every kind of fun and danger together ; and 
 how, when my new Portsmouth lawn took fire, at Martha 
 Smith's apple-paring, he caught me right in his arms and 
 squeezed out the fire with his own hands ; and how, when 
 
126 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 he saw once I had a notion of going with Elder Hooper's 
 son James, he stepped aside till I saw what a nincom Jim 
 Hooper was, and then he appeared as if nothing had hap 
 pened, and was just as good as ever ; and how, when the 
 ice broke on Deacon Smith's pond, and I fell in, and the 
 other boys were all afraid, Steve came and saved my life 
 again at risk of his own ; and how he always seemed to 
 think the earth was n't good enough for me to walk on ; 
 and how I 'd wished, time and again, I might have some 
 way to pay him back ; and here it was, and I 'd failed 
 him. Then I remembered how I 'd been to his place in 
 Berkshire, a rich old farm, with an orchard that smelled 
 like the Spice Islands in the geography, with apples and 
 pears and quinces and peaches and cherries and plums, 
 and how Stephen's mother, Aunt Emeline, had been as 
 kind to me as one's own mother could be. But now Aunt 
 Emeline and Uncle 'Siah were dead, and Stephen came a 
 good deal oftener over the border than he 'd any right to. 
 To-day, he brought some of those new red-streaks, and 
 wanted mother to try them ; next time, they 'd made a 
 lot more maple-sugar on his place than he wanted ; and 
 next time, he thought mother's corn might need hoeing, 
 or it was fine weather to get the grass in : I don't know 
 what we should have done without him. Then I thought 
 how Stephen looked, the day he was pall-bearer to Charles 
 Payson, who was killed sudden by a fall, so solemn 
 and pale, nowise craven, but just up to the occasion, so 
 that, when the other girls burst out crying at sight of the 
 coffin and at thought of Charlie, I cried, too, but it was 
 only because Stephen looked so beautiful. Then I re 
 membered how he looked the other day when he came, 
 his cheeks were so red with the wind, and his hair, those 
 bright curls, was all blown about, and he laughed with 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 127 
 
 the great hazel eyes he has, and showed his white 
 teeth ; and now his beauty would be spoiled, and 
 he 'd never care for me again, seeing I had n't cared 
 for him. And the wind began to come up ; and it was 
 so lonesome and desolate in that little bed-room down 
 stairs, I felt as if we were all buried alive; and I 
 could n't get to sleep ; and when the sleet and snow 
 began to rattle on the pane, I thought there was n't 
 any one to see me and I 'd better cry to keep it com 
 pany ; and so I sobbed off to dreaming at last, and woke 
 at sunrise and found it still snowing. 
 
 Next morning, I heard mother stepping across the 
 kitchen, and when I came out, she said Lurindy 'd just 
 gone to sleep ; they 'd had a shocking night. So I went 
 and watered the creatures and milked Brindle, and got 
 mother a nice little breakfast, and made Stephen some 
 gruel. And then I was going to ask mother if I 'd done 
 so very wrong in letting Lurindy nurse Stephen, instead 
 of me ; and then I saw she was n't thinking about that ; 
 and besides, there didn't really seem to be any reason 
 why she should n't ; she was a great deal older than I, 
 and so it was more proper ; and then Stephen had n't 
 ever said anything to me that should give me a peculiar 
 right to nurse him more than other folks. So I just 
 cleared away the things, made everything shine like a 
 pin, and took my knitting. I 'd no sooner got the seam 
 set than I was called to send something up on a contriv 
 ance mother 'd rigged in the back-entry over a pulley. 
 And then I had to make a red flag, and find a stick, and 
 hang it out of the window by which there were the most 
 passers. Well, I did it ; but I did n't hurry, I did n't 
 get the flag out -till afternoon ; somehow I hated to, it al 
 ways seemed such a low-lived disease, and I was mortified 
 
128 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 to acknowledge it, and I knew nobody 'd come near us for 
 so long, though goodness knows I did n't want to see 
 anybody. Well, when that was done, Lurindy came 
 down, and I had to get her something to eat, and then 
 she went up-stairs, and mother took her turn for some 
 sleep; and there were the creatures to feed again, and 
 what with putting on, and taking off, and tending fires, 
 and doing errands, and the night's milking, and clearing 
 the paths, I did n't knit another stitch that day, and was 
 glad enough, when night came, to go to bed myself. 
 
 Well, so we went on for two or three days. I 'd got 
 my second sock pretty well along in that time, just 
 think ! half a week knitting half a sock ! and was set 
 ting the heel, when in came Aunt Mirny. 
 
 " I ain't afeard on it," says she ; " don't you be skeert. 
 I jest stepped in ter see ef the young man wuz approach- 
 in' his eend." 
 
 " No," said I, " he is n't, any more than you are, Aunt 
 Mirny." 
 
 " Any more 'n I be ? " she answered. " Don't you lose 
 yer temper, Emerline. We 're all approachin' .it, but some 
 gits a leetle ahead ; it ain't no disgrace, ez I knows on. 
 What yer doin' of? Knittin' sale-socks yet? and, my 
 gracious ! still ter work on the same pair ! You '11 make 
 yer fortin', Emerline ! " 
 
 I did n't say anything, I was so provoked. 
 
 " I don' b'lieve you know heow ter take the turns w'en 
 yer mother a'n't by to help," she continued. " Can't ye 
 take up the heel ? Widden ev'ry fourth. Here, let me ! 
 You won't ? Wai, I alluz knowed you wuz mighty techy, 
 Emerline Euggles, but ye no need to fling away in thet 
 style. Neow I '11 advise ye ter let socks alone ; they 're 
 tew intricate fur sech ez you. Mitt'ns is jest abeout 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 129 
 
 'ithin the compass uv your mind, mitt'ns, men's single 
 mitt'ns, put up on needles larger 'n them o' yourn be, an' 
 by this rule. Seventeen reounds in the wrist, tew an' 
 one 's the best seam " 
 
 " Now, Miss Jemimy, just as if I did n't know how to 
 knit mittens ! " 
 
 " Wai, it seems you don't," said she, " though I don' 
 deny but you may know heow ter give 'em ; an' ez I alluz 
 like ter du w'at good I kin, I 'm gwine ter show ye." 
 
 " Show away," says I ; " but I '11 be bound, I 've knit 
 and sold and eaten up more mittens than ever you put 
 your hands in ! " 
 
 " Du tell ! I 'm glad to ha' heern you 've got such a 
 good digestion," says she, hunting up a piece of paper to 
 light her pipe. " Wai, ez I wuz sayin'," says she, " tew 
 an' one 's the best seam, handiest an' 'lastickest ; twenty 
 stetches to a needle, cast up so loose thet the fust one 's 
 ter one eend uv the needle an' the last ter t' other eend, 
 thet gives a good pull." 
 
 " I guess your smoke will hurt Stephen's head," said I, 
 thinking to change her ideas. 
 
 " Oh, don't you bother abeout Stephen's head ; ef it 
 can 't stan' thet, 't ain't good for much. Wai, an' then 
 you set yer thumb an' knit plain, 'xcept a seam-stetch 
 each side uv yer thumb; an' you widden tew stetches, 
 one each side, s'pose ye know heow ter widden ? an* 
 narry ? ev'ry third reound, tell yer 've got nineteen 
 stetches across yer thumb ; then ye knit, 'ithout widden- 
 in', a matter uv seven or eight reounds more, you lis- 
 tenin', Emerline ? " 
 
 "Lor', Miss Jemimy, don't you know better than to 
 ask questions when I 'm counting ? Now I 've got to go 
 and begin all over again." 
 
 6* i 
 
130 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 " Highty-tighty, Miss ! You 're a weak sister, ef ye 
 can't ceount an' chat, tew. Wai, ter make a long mat 
 ter short, then ye drop yer thumb onter some thread an' 
 cast up seven stetches an' knit reound fur yer hand, an' 
 every other time you narry them seven stetches away ter 
 one, fur the gore." 
 
 " Dear me, Aunt Mirny ! do be quiet a minute ! I be 
 lieve mother 's a-calling." 
 
 " I '11 see," said Aunt Mirny, and she stepped to the 
 door and listened. 
 
 " No," says she, coming back on tiptoe, " an' you 
 didn't think you heern any one neither. It's ruther 
 small work fur to be foolin' an old woman. Hows 'ever, 
 I don' cherish grudges ; so, ez I wuz gwine ter say, ye 
 knit thirty-six reounds above wheer ye dropped yer 
 thumb, an' then ye toe off in ev'ry fifth stetch, an' du it 
 reg'lar, Emerline; an' then take up yer thumb on tew 
 needles, an' on t' other you pick up the stetches I told yer 
 ter cast up, an' knit twelve reounds, an' thumb off 'ith 
 narryin' ev'ry third " 
 
 " Well, Miss Jemimy, I guess I shall know how to 
 knit mittens, now ! " 
 
 " Ef ye don't, 't ain't my fault. When you 've fastened 
 off the eends, you roll 'em up in a damp towel, an' 
 press 'em 'ith a middlin' warm iron on the wrong side. 
 There!" 
 
 After this, Miss Mirny smoked awhile in silence, sat 
 isfied and gratified. At last she knocked the ashes out 
 of her pipe. 
 
 " Wai," says she, " I must be onter my feet. I 'd liked 
 ter seen yer ma, but I won't disturb her, an' you can du 
 ez well. Yer ma promised me a mess o' tea, an' I guess 
 I may ez well take it neow ez any day." 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 131 
 
 " Why, Miss Mirny," said I, " there a'n't above four or 
 live messes left, and we can't get any more till I sell my 
 socks." 
 
 " Wai, never mind, then, you can le' me take one, an' 
 mebbe I kin make up the rest at Miss Smilers's." 
 
 So I went into the pantry to get it, and Aunt Mirny 
 followed me, of course. 
 
 " Them 's nice-lookin' apples," said she. " Come from 
 Stephen's place ? Poor young man, he won't never want 
 'em ! S'pose he won't hev no objection ter my tryin' a 
 dozen," and she dropped that number into her great 
 pocket. 
 
 " Nice-lookin' butter, tew," said she. " Own churnin' ? 
 Wai, you Idn du sunthin', ' Emerline. Wen I wuz a 
 heousekeeper, I used ter keep the femily in butter an' sell 
 enough to Miss Smith, she thet wuz Mary Breown 
 ter buy our shoes, all off uv one ceow. S'pose I take 
 this pat?" 
 
 I was kind of dumfoundered at first ; I forgot Aunt 
 Mirny was the biggest beggar in Rockingham County. 
 
 " No," says I, as soon as I got my breath, " I sha'n't 
 suppose any such thing. You 're as well able to make 
 your butter as I am to make it for you." 
 
 " Wai, Emerline Ruggles ! I alluz knowed you wus 
 close ez the bark uv a tree ; it 's jest yer father's narrer- 
 contracted sperrit ; you don' favor yer ma a speck. She 's 
 ez free ez water." 
 
 "If mother's a mind to give away her eye-teeth, it 
 don't follow that I should," said I ; " and I won't give you 
 another atom ; and you just clear out ! " 
 
 " Wai, you kin keep yer butter, sence you 're so sot on 
 it, an' I '11 take a leetle dust o' pork instead." 
 . " Let 's see you take it ! " said I. 
 
132 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 "I guess I'll speak 'ith yer ma. I shall git a con- 
 sider'ble bigger piece, though I don't like ter add t' 'er 
 steps." 
 
 " Now look here, Miss Mirny," says I, " if you '11 
 promise not to ask for another thing, and to go right 
 away, I'll get you a piece of pork." 
 
 So I went down cellar, and fished round in the pork- 
 barrel and found quite a respectable piece. Coming up, 
 just as my head got level with the floor, what should I 
 see but Miss Jemimy pour all the sugar into her bag and 
 whip the bowl back on the shelf, and turn round and face 
 me as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes. After she had 
 taken the pork, she looked round a minute and said, 
 
 " Wai, arter all, I nigh upon forgot my arrant. Here 's 
 a letter they giv' me for Lurindy, at the post-office ; 
 ev'rybody else's afeard ter come up here." And by 
 and by she brought it up from under all she'd stowed 
 away there. " Thet jest leaves room," says she. 
 
 " For what ? " says I. 
 
 " Fur tew or three uv them eggs." 
 
 I put them into her bag and said, " Now you remem 
 ber your promise, Aunt Mirny ! " 
 
 " Lor' sakes ! " says she, " you 're in a mighty herry ter 
 git me off. Neow you 've got all you kin out uv me, the 
 letter, 'n' the mitt'ns, I may go, may I ? I niver see a 
 young gal so furrard 'ith her elders in all my born days ! 
 I think Stephen Lee 's well quit uv ye, fur my part, ef he 
 hed to die ter du it. I don't 'xpect ye ter thank me fur 
 w'at instruction I gi'n ye ; there 's some folks I niver 
 du 'xpect nothin' from; you can't make a silk pus out uv 
 a sow's ear. Wat ye got thet red flag out the keepin'- 
 room winder fur? 'Cause Lurindy 's nussin' Stephen? 
 Wai, good-day!" 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 133 
 
 And so Aunt Mirny disappeared, and the pat of butter 
 with her. 
 
 I called Lurindy and gave her the letter, and after a 
 little while I heard my name, and Lurindy was sitting on 
 the top of the stairs with her head on her knees, and 
 mother was leaning over the banisters. Pretty soon 
 Lurindy lifted up her head, and I saw she had been cry 
 ing, and between the two I made out that Lurindy 'd 
 been engaged a good while to John Talbot, who sailed 
 out of Salem on long voyages to India and China ; and 
 that now he 'd come home, sick with a fever, and was 
 lying at the house of his aunt, who was n't well herself ; 
 and as he 'd given all his money to help a shipmate in 
 trouble, she could n't hire him a nurse, and there he was ; 
 and, finally, she 'd consider it a great favor, if Lurindy 
 would come down and help her. 
 
 Now Lurindy 'd have gone at once, only she 'd been 
 about Stephen, so that she 'd certainly carry the conta 
 gion, and might be taken sick herself, as soon as she ar 
 rived ; and mother could n't go and take care of John, for 
 the same reason ; and there was nobody but me. Lu 
 rindy had a half-eagle that John had given her once to 
 keep ; and I got a little bundle together and took all the 
 precautions Dr. Sprague advised ; and he drove me off in 
 his sleigh, and said, as he was going about sixteen miles 
 to see a patient, he 'd put me on the cars at the nearest 
 station. Well, he stopped a minute at the post-office, and 
 when he came out he had another letter for Lurindy. I 
 took it, and, after a moment, concluded I' d better read it. 
 
 "What are you about?" says the doctor; "your name 
 is n't Lurindy, is it ? " 
 
 " I wish it was," says I, " and then I should n't be 
 here." 
 
134 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 " Oh ! you 're sorry to leave Stephen ? " says he. 
 " Well, you can comfort yourself with reflecting that 
 Lurindy 's a great deal the best nurse." 
 
 As if that was any comfort ! If Lurinda was the best 
 nurse, she 'd ought to have had the privilege of taking 
 care of her own lover, and not of other folks's. Besides, 
 for all I knew, Stephen would be dead before ever I 
 came back, and here I was going away and leaving him ! 
 Well, I did n't feel so very bright ; so I read the letter. 
 The doctor asked me what ailed John Talbot. I thought, 
 if I told him that Miss Jane Talbot wrote now so that 
 Lurindy should n't come, and that he was sick just as 
 Stephen was, he would n't let me go. So I said I sup 
 posed he 'd burnt his mouth, like the man in the South, 
 eating cold pudding and porridge ; men always cried out 
 at a scratch. And he said, " Oh, do they ? " and laughed. 
 
 After about two hours' driving, there came a scream as 
 if all the panthers in Coos County were let loose to yell, 
 and directly we stopped at a little place where a red flag 
 was hung out. I asked the doctor if they'd got the 
 small-pox here, too ; but before he could answer, the 
 thunder running along the ground deafened me, and in a 
 minute he had put me inside the cars and was off. 
 
 I was determined I would n't appear green before so 
 many folks, though I 'd never seen the cars before ; so I 
 took my seat, and paid my fare to Old Salem, and looked 
 about me. Pretty soon a woman came bustling in from 
 somewhere, and took the seat beside me. There she 
 fidgeted round so that I thought I should have flown. .. ,; 
 
 " Miss," says she, at length, " will you close your win 
 dow ? I never travel with a window open ; my health 's 
 delicate." 
 
 I tried to shut it, but it would n't go up or down, till a 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 135 
 
 gentleman put out his cane and touched it, and down it 
 slid, like Signor Blitz. It did seem as if everything 
 about the cars went by miracle. I thanked him, but I 
 found afterward it would have been more polite not to 
 have spoken. After that woman had done everything 
 she could think of to plague and annoy the whole neigh 
 borhood, she got out at Ipswich, and somebody met her 
 that looked just like our sheriff; and I should n't be a bit 
 surprised to hear that she 'd gone to jail. When she got 
 out, somebody else got in, and took the same seat. 
 
 " Miss," says she, " will you have the goodness to open 
 your window ? this air is stifling." 
 
 And she did everything that the other woman did n't 
 do. When she found I would n't talk, she turned to the 
 young gentleman and lady that sat opposite, and that 
 looked as if there was a great deal too much company in 
 the cars, and found they would n't talk either, and at last 
 she caught the conductor and made him talk. 
 
 All this while we were swooping over the country in 
 the most terrific manner. I thought how frightened 
 mother and Lurindy 'd be, if they should see me. It 
 was no use trying to count the cattle or watch the fences, 
 and the birch-trees danced rigadoons enough to make one 
 dizzy, and we dashed through everybody's back-yard, and 
 ran so close up to the kitchens that we could have seen 
 what they had for dinner, if we had stayed long enough ; 
 and finally I made up my mind that the engine had run 
 away with the driver, and John Talbot would never have 
 me to tend him ; and I began to wonder, as I saw the 
 sparks and cinders and great clouds of steam and smoke, 
 if those tornadoes that smash round so out West in the 
 newspapers were n't just passenger-trains, like us, off the 
 track, when all at once it grew as dark as midnight. 
 
136 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 " Now," says I to myself, " it 's certain. They 've run 
 the thing into the ground. However, we can 't go long 
 now." 
 
 And just as I was thinking about Korah and his troop, 
 I remembered what the Doctor had told me about Salem 
 Tunnel, and it began to grow lighter, and we began to go 
 slower, and I picked up my wits and looked about me 
 again. I had only time to notice that the young gentle 
 man and lady looked very much relieved, and to shake 
 my shawl from the clutch of the woman beside me, when 
 we stopped at Salem, safe and sound. 
 
 I had a good deal of trouble to find Miss Talbot's house, 
 but find it I did ; and the first thing she gave me was a 
 scolding for coming, thinking I was Lurindy, and her 
 tongue was n't much cooler when she found I was n't ; 
 and then finally she said, as long as I was there, I might 
 stay ; and I went right up to see John, and a sight he 
 was! 
 
 It was about three months I stayed and took the greater 
 part of the care of him. Sometimes in the midnight, when 
 he was quite beside himself, and dreaming out loud, it was 
 about as good as a story-book to hear him. He told me 
 of some great Indian cities where there were men in 
 white, with skins swarthier than old red Guinea gold, 
 and with great shawls all wrought in palm-leaves of gold 
 and crimson bound on their heads, who could sink a ship 
 with their lacs of rupees ; and of islands where the shores 
 came down to the water's edge and unrolled like a green 
 ribbon, and brooks came sparkling down behind them, and 
 great trees hung above like banners, and beautiful women 
 came off on rafts and skiffs loaded with fruit, the islands 
 set like jewels on the back of the sea, and the sky covered 
 them with light and hung above them bluer than the hang- 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 137 
 
 ings of the Tabernacle, and they sent long rivers of spice 
 out on the air to entice the sailor back, islands where 
 night never came. Sometimes, when he talked on so, I 
 remembered that I 'd felt rather touched up when I found 
 that Lurindy 'd had a sweetheart all this time, and mother 
 knew it, and they 'd never told me, and I wondered how 
 it happened. Now it came across me, that, quite a num 
 ber of years before, Lurindy had gone to Salem and 
 worked in the mills. She didn't stay long, because it 
 did n't agree with her, the neighbors said, because she 
 was lazy. Lurindy lazy, indeed ! There a'n't one of us 
 knows how to spell the first syllable of that word. But 
 that 's where she must have got acquainted with John 
 Talbot. He 'd been up at our place, too ; but I was over 
 to Aunt Emeline's, it seems. But one night, about this 
 time, I thought he was dying, he 'd got so very low ; and 
 I thought how dreadful it was for Lurindy never to see 
 him again, and how it was all my selfish fault, and how 
 maybe he would n't 'a' died, if he 'd had her to have taken 
 care of him ; and I suppose no convicted felon ever en 
 dured more remorse than I did, sitting and watching that 
 dying man all that long and lonely night. But with the 
 morning he was better, they always are a great deal 
 worse when they are getting well from it; he laughed 
 when the doctor came, and said he guessed he 'd weath 
 ered that gale ; and by and by he got well. 
 
 He meant to have gone up and seen Lurindy, after all, 
 but his ship was ready for sea just as he was ; and I 
 thought it was about as well, for he was n't looking his 
 prettiest. And so he declared I was the neatest little 
 trimmer that ever trod water, and he believed he should 
 know a Ruggles by the cut of her jib, (I wonder if he 'd 
 have known Aunt Mirny,) and if ever he went master, 
 
138 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 he 'd name his ship for me, and call it the Sister of Char 
 ity. And he kissed me on both cheeks, and looked seri 
 ous enough when he sent his love to Lurindy, and went 
 away ; and no sooner was he gone than Miss Talbot said 
 I'd better have the doctor myself; and I did n't sit up 
 again for about three weeks. 
 
 All this time I had n't heard a word from home, and, 
 for all I knew, Stephen might be dead and buried. I 
 did n't feel so very light-hearted, you may be sure, when 
 one day Miss Talbot brought me a letter. It was from 
 mother, and it seemed Stephen 'd only had a bad fever, 
 and had been up and gone home for more than a week. 
 So I wrote back, as soon as I could, all about John, and 
 how he 'd gone to sea again, and how Miss Talbot, who 
 set sights by John, was rather lonely, and I thought I 'd 
 keep her company a little longer, and try a spell in the 
 mills, seeing that our neighbors did n't think a girl had 
 been properly accomplished till she 'd had a term or two in 
 the factory. The fact was, I did n't want to go home just 
 then ; I thought, maybe, if I waited a bit, my face would 
 get back to looking as it used to. So I worked in the 
 piece-room, light work and good pay, sent mother and 
 Lurindy part of my wages, and paid my board to Miss 
 Talbot. She'd become quite attached to me, and I to 
 her, for all she was such an old-maidish thing ; but I 'd 
 got to thinking an old maid was n't such a very bad thing, 
 after all. Fourth of July came at last, and the mills were 
 closed, and I went with some of the other girls on an ex 
 cursion down the harbor ; and when I got home, Miss 
 Talbot told me my Cousin Stephen had been down to see 
 me, and had been obliged to go home in the last train. 
 I wondered why Stephen did n't stay, and then it flashed 
 upon me that she 'd told him all about it, and he did n't 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 139 
 
 want to see me afterwards. I knew mother and Lurindy 
 suspected why I did n't come home, and now, thinks I, 
 they know ; but I asked no questions. 
 
 When September came, I saw it was n't any use delay 
 ing, and I might as well go back to knitting sale-socks 
 then as any time. However, I didn't go till October. 
 You need n't think I 'd stayed away from the farm all 
 that time, while the tender things were opening, the tiny 
 top-heavy beans pushing up, the garden-sarse greening, 
 the little grass-blades two and two, while all the young 
 creatures were coming forward, the chickens breaking the 
 shell, and the gosling-storm brewing and dealing destruc 
 tion, while the strawberries were growing ripe and red 
 up in the high field, and the hay and clover were getting 
 in, you need n't think I 'd stayed from all that had been 
 pleasant in my life, without many a good heart-ache ; and 
 when at last I saw the dear old gray house again, all 
 weather-beaten and homely, standing there with its well- 
 sweep among the elms, I fairly cried. Mother and Lu 
 rindy ran out to meet me, when they saw the stage stop, 
 and after we got into the house it seemed as if they would 
 never get done kissing me. And mother stirred round 
 and made hot cream-biscuits for tea, and got the best 
 china, and we sat up till nigh midnight, talking, and I had 
 to tell everything John did and said and thought and 
 looked, over and over again. 
 
 By and by I unpacked my trunk, and there was a little 
 parcel in the bottom of it, and I pulled it up. 
 
 " There, Lurindy," says I, " John told me to tell you to 
 have your wedding-dress ready against he came home, 
 he 's gone mate, and here it is." And I unrolled the 
 neatest brown silk you ever saw, just fit for Lurindy, 
 she 's so pale and genteel, and threw it into her lap. I 'd 
 stayed the other month to get enough to buy it. 
 
140 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 The first thing Lurindy did, by way of thanks, was to 
 burst into tears and declare she never could take it, that 
 she never should marry now ; and the more I urged her, 
 the more she cried. But at last she said she 'd accept it 
 conditionally, and the condition was, I should be mar 
 ried when she was. ' -^ 
 
 " Well," says I, " agreed, if you '11 provide the neces 
 sary article ; because I can't very well marry my shadow, 
 and I don't know any one else that would be fool enough 
 to have such a little fright." 
 
 At that Lurindy felt all the worse, and it took all the 
 spirits I had to build up hers and mother's. I suppose I 
 was sorry to see they felt so bad, (and they had n't meant 
 that I should,) because it gave the finishing stroke to my 
 conviction ; and after I was in bed, I grew sorrier still ; 
 and if I cried, 't was n't on account of myself, but I 
 saw how Lurindy 'd always feel self-accused, though she 
 had n't ought to, whenever she looked at me, and how all 
 her life she 'd feel my scarred face like a weight on her 
 happiness, and think I owed it to John, and how intolera 
 ble such an obligation, though it was only a fancied one, 
 would be ; and I saw, too, that it all came from my not 
 going up-stairs that first time when Stephen knocked, 
 because if I had, I should have been there when the 
 doctor came, and Lurindy 'd have gone to have taken care 
 of John herself, and it would have been her face that was 
 ruined instead of mine ; and though it was a great deal 
 better that it should be mine, still she 'd have been easier 
 in her mind; and so thinking and worrying, I fell 
 
 Next day was baking-day, and Stephen was coming in 
 the afternoon, and it was almost five o'clock when we got 
 cleared away, and I went up-stairs to change my dress. 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 141 
 
 I thought 't was n't any use to trim myself out in bows 
 and ruffles now, so I just put on my brown gingham and 
 a white linen collar ; but Lurindy came and tied a pink 
 ribbon at my throat, and fixed my hair herself, and looked 
 down and said, 
 
 " Well, I don't see but you 're about as pretty as ever 
 you was?" 
 
 That almost finished me ; but I contrived to laugh, and 
 got down-stairs. Mother 'd run over to the village to get 
 .some yarn to knit up, for she'd used all our own wool. 
 It was getting dark, and I had just brought in another 
 log, and hung the kettle on the crane. The l<5g had n't 
 taken fire yet, and there was only a light glimmer, from 
 the coals, on the ceiling. I heard the back-door latch 
 click, and thought it was mother, and commenced hum 
 ming in the middle of a tune, as if I 'd been humming the 
 rest and had just reached that part ; but the figure stand 
 ing there was a sight too tall for mother. 
 
 " Oh, Stephen," says I, and my heart jumped in my 
 throat, but I just swallowed it down, and thanked Heaven 
 that the evening was so dark, " is that you ? " 
 
 " Yes," says he, stepping forward, and putting out his 
 hands, and making as if he would kiss me. Just for a 
 minute I hung back, then I went and gave him my hand 
 in a careless way. 
 
 " Yes," says he ; " and I can't say that you seem so 
 very glad to see me." 
 
 " Oh, yes," I answered, " I am glad. Did you drive 
 over ? " 
 
 " Well," says he, " maybe you are ; but I should call it 
 a mighty cool reception, after almost a year's absence. 
 However, I suppose it's the best manners not to show 
 any cordiality ; you 've had a chance to learn more 
 
142 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 politeness down at Salem than we have up here in the 
 country." 
 
 I was a little struck up by Stephen's running on so, 
 he was generally so quiet, and said so little, and then in 
 such short sentences. But in a minute I reckoned he 
 thought I was nervous, and was trying to put me at my 
 ease, and he knew of old that the best way to do that 
 was to rouse my temper. 
 
 " I ha'n't seen anybody at Salem better mannered 'n 
 mother and Lurindy," said I. 
 
 " Come home for Thanksgiving ? " asked Stephen, 
 hanging up his coat. 
 
 I kept still a minute, for I could n't for the life of me 
 see what I had to give thanks for. Then it came over 
 me what a cheery, comfortable home this was, and how 
 Stephen would always be my kind, warm-hearted friend, 
 and how thankful I ought to be that my life had been 
 spared, and that I was useful, that I 'd made such good 
 friends as I had down to Salem, and that I was n't soured 
 against all mankind on account of my misfortune. 
 
 " Yes, Stephen," says I, " I 've come home for Thanks 
 giving ; and I have a great deal to give thanks for." 
 
 " So have I," said he. 
 
 " Stephen," says I, " I don't exactly know, but I 
 should n't wonder if I 'd had a change of heart." 
 
 " Don't know of anybody that needed it less," says 
 Stephen, warming his hands. " However, if it makes 
 you any more comfortable, I sha'n't object ; except 
 the part of it that belongs to me, I sha'n't have that 
 changed." 
 
 The fire 'd begun to brighten now, and the room was 
 red and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see 
 me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 143 
 
 pretending I was doing this and the other, which I was n't ; 
 I hated to break the old way of things ; and then I took 
 the tongs and blew a coal and lighted the dip and held it 
 up, as if I was looking for something. Pretty soon I 
 found it ; it was a skein of linen thread I was going to 
 wind for Lurindy. Then I got the swifts and came and 
 sat down in front of the candle. 
 
 " There," says I, " the swifts is broken. What shall 
 I do?" 
 
 "I'll hold the thread, if that's your trouble," says 
 Stephen, and came and sat opposite to me while I 
 wound. 
 
 I wondered whether he was looking at me, but I did n't 
 durst look up," and then I could n't, if my life had de 
 pended upon it. At last we came to the end ; then I 
 managed to get a glance edgeways. He hadn't been 
 looking at all, I don't believe, till that very moment, 
 when he raised his eyes. 
 
 " Are folks always so sober, when they 've had a change 
 of heart ? " he asked, with his pleasant smile. 
 
 " They are, when they 've had a change of face," I was 
 going to say ; but just then mother came in with her 
 bundle of yarn, and Lurindy came down, and there was 
 such a deal of welcoming and talking : that I slipped 
 round and laid the table, and had the tea made before 
 they thought of it. I'd about made up my mind now 
 that Stephen would act as if nothing had happened, and 
 pretend to like me just the same, because he was so ten 
 der-hearted and couldn't bear to hurt my feelings nor 
 anybody's ; and I 'd made up my mind, too, that, as soon 
 as he gave me a chance, I 'd tell him I was set against 
 marriage : leastwise, I would n't have him, because I 
 would n't have any man marry me out of pity ; and the 
 
144 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 more I cared for him, the more I could n't hamper an 
 ugly face on him forever. So, you see, I had quite re 
 solved, that, cost me what it would, I 'd say " No," if 
 Stephen asked me. Well, it 's a very good thing to make 
 resolutions ; but it 's a great deal better to break them, 
 sometimes. 
 
 Having come to my conclusions, I grew as merry as 
 any of them. And when mother put two spoons into 
 Stephen's cup, I told him he was going to have a present. 
 And he said he guessed he knew what it was ; and I said 
 it must be a mitten, I 'd heard that Martha Smith had 
 taken to knitting lately; and he confounded Martha 
 Smith, Mother and Lurindy were very busy talking 
 about the yarn, and how Mr. Fisher wanted the next 
 socks knit; and Stephen asked me what that dish was 
 beside me. I said, it was lemon-tart, and the top-crust 
 was made of kisses, and would he have some ? And he 
 said, he did n't care for anybody's kisses but mine, and he 
 believed he would n't. And I told him the receipt of this 
 came from the Queen's own kitchen. And he said, he 
 did n't know that the Queen of England was any better 
 than the Queen of Hearts. Then I said, I supposed he 
 remembered how the latter lady was served by the Knave 
 of Hearts in " Mother Goose " ? And he replied that he 
 was n't going to be Jack-at-a-pinch for anybody. And so 
 on, till mother finished tea. 
 
 After tea, I sat up to the table and ended some barley- 
 trimming that I 'd just learned how to make ; and as the 
 little kernels came tumbling out from under my fingers, 
 Stephen sat beside and watched them as if it was a field 
 of barley, growing, reaped, and threshed under his eyes. 
 By and by I finished it ; and then, rummaging round in 
 the table-drawer, I found the sock that I was knitting, 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 145 
 
 waiting at the very stitch where I left it, 'most a year 
 ago. 
 
 " Well, if that is n't lucky ! " said I. And I sat down 
 on a stool by the fireside, determined to finish that sock 
 that night ; and no sooner had I set the needles to dan 
 cing, like those in the fairy-story, than open came the 
 kitchen-door again, and in, out of the dark, stepped Aunt 
 Mirny. 
 
 " Good-evenin', Miss Ruggles ! " says she. " Heow d' ye 
 du, Emerline ? hope yer gwine ter stay ter hum a spell. 
 Why, Stephen, 's this you ? Quite a femily-party, I de 
 clare fur 't ! Wai, Miss Ruggles, I got kind o' tired set- 
 tin' in the dark, an', ez I looked out an' see the dips blaz- 
 in' in yer winder, thinks I, I '11 jest run up an' see w'at 's 
 ter pay." 
 
 " Why, there 's only one dip," says Lurindy. 
 
 " Wai, that 's better 'n none," answered Miss Mirny. 
 
 I had enough of the old Adam left in me to be riled at 
 her way of begging as much as ever I was ; but I saw 
 that Stephen was amused ; he had n't ever happened to 
 be round, when Aunt Mirny was at her tricks. 
 
 " No, Miss Ruggles," continued she, " I thank the Lord 
 I ha'n't got a complainin' sperrit, an' hed jest ez lieves 
 see by my neighbor's dip ez my own, an', mebbe ye '11 
 say, a sight lieveser." 
 
 And then Miss Mirny pulled out a stocking without be 
 ginning or end, and began to knit as fast as she could rat 
 tle, after she 'd fixed one needle in a chicken-bone, and 
 pinned the chicken-bone to her side. 
 
 " Wai, Emerline," says she, " I s'pose ye 've got so 
 grand down ter the mills, thet, w'at 'ith yer looms an' 
 machines an' tic-doloreux, ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter 
 the old way uv knittin' socks." 
 
 7 j 
 
146 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 " Does this look like it, Aunt Mirny ? " says I, shaking 
 ray needles by way of answer. " I 'm going to finish this 
 pair to-night." 
 
 " Oh," says she, " you be, be you ? Wai, ef I don't 
 e'en-a'most vum it's the same one! ef ye ha'n't been 
 nigh abeout a hull year a-knittin' one pair uv socks ! " 
 
 " How do you know they 're the same pair ? " asked I. 
 
 " By a mark I see you sot in 'em ter the top, ef ye want 
 ter know, afore I thought it would be hangin' by the eye 
 lids the rest uv yer days. Wai, I never 'xpected ye 'd 
 be much help ter yer mother ; ye 're tew fond uv hikin* 
 reound the village." 
 
 " Indeed, Miss Mirny," said Lurindy, kind of indignant, 
 " she 's always been the greatest help to mother." 
 
 " I don't know how I should have made both ends meet 
 this year, if it had n't been for her wages," said mother. 
 
 Stephen was whittling Miss Mirny's portrait on the end 
 of a stick, and laughing. I was provoked with mother 
 and Lurindy for answering the thing, and was just going 
 to speak up, when I caught Stephen's eye, and thought 
 better of it. Pretty soon Aunt Mirny produced a bundle 
 of herbs from her pocket, and laid them on the table. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Aunt Jemimy," says mother. " Pen 
 nyroyal and catnip 's always acceptable." 
 
 " Yes," said Aunt Mirny. " An' I '11 take my pay in 
 some uv yer dried apples. Heow much does Fisher give 
 fur socks, Miss Ruggles ? " she asked, directly. 
 
 " Fifty cents and I find, fifteen and he finds." 
 
 " An' ye take it out uv the store ? Varry reasonable. 
 I wuz thinkin' uv tryin' my han' myself; businesses 
 ruther dull, folks onkimmon well this fall. Heow many 
 strings yer gwine ter give me fur the yarbs ? " 
 
 Then mother went up garret to get the apples and 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 147 
 
 spread the herbs to dry, and Lurindy wanted some dif 
 ferent needles, and went after her. Stephen 'd just 
 heaped the fire, and the big blaze was tumbling up 
 the chimney, and Miss Mirny lowered her head and 
 looked over her great horn-bowed spectacles at me. 
 
 " Wai, Emerline Ruggles," says she, after a while, go 
 ing back to her work, " you 've lost all your pink cheeks !" 
 
 I suppose it took me rather sudden, for all at once a 
 tear sprung and fell right down my work. I saw it glis 
 tening on the bright needles a minute, and then my eyes 
 filmed so that I felt there was more coming, and I bent 
 down to the fire and made believe count my narrowings. 
 After all, Aunt Mirny was kind of privileged by every 
 body to say what she pleased. But Stephen did n't do as 
 every one did, always. 
 
 " Emmie's beauty was n't all in her pink cheeks, Miss 
 Mirny," I heard him say, as I went into the back-entry to 
 ask mother to bring down the mate of my sock. 
 
 "Wai, wherever it was, there's precious little of it 
 left ! " said she, angry at being took up, which maybe 
 she never was before in her life. 
 
 " You don't agree with her friends," said he, cutting in 
 the stick the great mole on the side of her nose ; " they 
 all think she 's got more than ever she had." 
 
 Mother tossed me down the mate, and I went back. 
 
 " Young folks," says Aunt Mirny, after two or three 
 minutes' silence, " did ye ever hear tell o' 'Miah Kemp ? " 
 
 "Any connection of old Parson Kemp in the other 
 parish?" asked Stephen. 
 
 " Yes," said Aunt Mirny, " his brother. Wai, w'en 
 I wuz a young gal, livin' ter hum, my father wuz ez 
 wealthy ez any farmer thereabouts, ye know, I used 
 to keep company 'ith 'Miah Kemp. 'Miah was a stun- 
 
148 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 mason, the best there wuz in the deestrik, an' the harn- 
 somest boy there tew, though I say it thet should n't 
 say it, he hed close-curlin' black hair, an' an arm it 
 done ye good to lean on. Wai, one spring night, I 
 mind it well, we wuz walkin' deown the lane together, 
 an' the wind wuz blowin', the laylocks wuz in bloom, an* 
 all over-head the lane wuz rustlin' 'ith the great purple 
 plumes in the moonlight, an' the air wuz sweeter 'ith their 
 breath than any air I 've ever taken sence, an' ez we wuz 
 walkin', 'Miah wuz askin' me fur ter fix eour weddin'-day. 
 Wai, w'en he left me at the bars, I agreed we 'd be mer- 
 ried the fifteenth day uv July comin', an' I walked hum ; 
 an' I mind heow I wondered ef Eve wuz so happy in 
 Paradise, or ef Paradise wuz half so beautiful ez thet 
 scented lane. The nex' mornin', ez I wuz milkin', the 
 ceow tuk fright an' begun ter cut up, an' she cut up so 
 thet I run an' she arter me, an' the long an' the short 
 uv it wuz thet she tossed me, an' w'en they got me up 
 they foun' I hed n't but one eye. Wai, uv course, my 
 looks wuz sp'iled, fur I 'd been ez pretty 'z Emerline 
 wuz, you wuz pretty once, Emerline, an' I sent 
 'Miah Kemp word I 'd hev no more ter du 'ith him nor 
 any one else neow. 'Miah he come ter see me ; but I 
 wuz detarmined, an' I stuck ter my word. He did an' 
 said everything thet mortal man could, that he loved 
 me better 'n ever, an' thet 't would be the death uv him, 
 an' tuk on drefful. But w'en he 'd got through, I giv' 
 him the same answer, though betwixt ourselves it ormost 
 broke my heart ter say it. I kep' a stiff upper-lip, an' he 
 grew desp'rate, an' tuk all sorts uv dangerous jobs, blastin' 
 rocks an' haulin' stuns. One night, 't wuz jest a year 
 from the night I 'd walked 'ith him in thet lane, I wuz 
 stan'in' by the door, an' all ter once I heerd a noise an' 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 149 
 
 crash ez ef all the thunderbolts in the Almighty's hand 
 hed fallen together, an' I run deown the lane an' met the 
 men bringin' up sunthin' on an old door. They hed been 
 blastin' Elder Payson's rock, half-way deown the new 
 well, an' the mine hed n't worked, an' 'Miah 'd gone 
 deown ter see w'at wuz in it; an' jest ez he got up 
 ag'in, off it went, an' here he wuz 'ith a great splinter 
 in his chist, ef the rest uv it wuz him. They could n't 
 kerry him no furder, an' sot him deown ; an' there wuz 
 all the trees a-wavin' overhead ag'in, an' all the sweet 
 scents a-beatin' abeout the air, jest uz it wuz a year ago 
 w'en he parted from me so strong an' whole an' harnsome; 
 all the fleowers wuz a-blossomin', all the winds wuz blowin', 
 an' this lump uv torn flesh an' broken bones wuz 'Miah. 
 I laid deown on the grass beside him, an' put my lips close 
 to hisn, an' I could feel the breath jest stirrin' between ; 
 an' the doctor came an' said 't warn't no use ; an' they 
 threw a blanket over us, an' there I laid tell the sun rose 
 an' sparkled in the dew an' the green leaves an' the pur 
 ple bunches, an' the air came frolickin' fresh an' sweet 
 abeout us ; an' though I 'd knowed it long, layin' the*re in 
 the dark, neow I see fur sartain thet there warn't no 
 breath on them stiff lips, an' the forehead was cold uz the 
 stuns beneath us, an' the eyes wuz fixed an' glazed in 
 thet las' look uv love an' tortur' an' reproach thet he giv* 
 me. They say I went distracted ; an' I du b'lieve I Ve 
 be'n cracked ever sence." 
 
 Here Aunt Mirny, who had told her whole story with 
 out moving a muscle, commenced rocking violently back 
 and forth. 
 
 "I don't often remember all this," says she, after a 
 little, " but las' spring it flushed over me ; an' w'en I 
 heerd heow Emerline 'd be'n sick, I hear a gre't 
 
150 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 many things ye do'no' nothin' abeout, children, I 
 thought I 'd tell her, fust time I see her." 
 
 " What made you think of it last spring ? " asked Ste 
 phen. 
 
 u The laylocks wuz in bloom," said Miss Mirny, " the 
 laylocks wuz in bloom." 
 
 Just then mother came down with the apples, and some 
 dip-candles, and a basket of broken victuals ; and Miss 
 Mirny tied her cloak and said she believed she must be 
 going. And Stephen went and got his hat and coat, and 
 said, 
 
 "Miss Mirny, wouldn't you like a little company to 
 help you carry your bundles ? Come, Emmie, get your 
 shawl." 
 
 So I ran and put on my things, and Stephen and I 
 went home with Aunt Mirny. 
 
 " Emmie," says Stephen, as we were coming back, and 
 he 'd got hold of my hand in his, where I 'd taken his 
 arm., " what do you think of Aunt Mirny now ? " 
 
 " Oh," says I, " I 'm sorry I 've ever been sharp with 
 her." 
 
 " I don't know," said Stephen. " 'T a'n't in human na 
 ture not to pity her ; but then she brought her own trouble 
 on herself, you see." 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 " I don't know how to blast rocks," says Stephen, when 
 we 'd walked a little while without saying anything, 
 " but I suppose there is something as desperate that I 
 can do." 
 
 " Oh, you need n't go to threatening me ! " thinks I ; 
 and, true enough, he had n't any need to. 
 
 " Emmie," says he, " if you say ' No,' when I ask you 
 to have me, I sha'n't ask you again." 
 
KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 151 
 
 " Well ? " says I, after a step or two, seeing he did n't 
 speak. 
 
 "Well?" says he. 
 
 " I can't say ' Yes ' or ' No ' either, till you ask me," 
 said I. 
 
 He stopped under the starlight and looked in my eyes. 
 
 " Emmie," says he, "did you ever doubt that I loved 
 you ? " 
 
 " Once I thought you did," said I ; " but it 's different 
 now." 
 
 " I do love you," said he, " and you know it." 
 
 " Me, Stephen ? " said I, " with my face like a spec 
 kled sparrow's-egg ? " 
 
 " Yes, you," said he ; and he bent down and kissed me, 
 and then we walked on. 
 
 By and by Stephen said, When would I come and be 
 the life of his house and the light of his eyes ? That was 
 rather a speech for Stephen ; and I said, I would go when 
 ever he wanted me. And then we went home very com 
 fortably, and Stephen told mother it was all right, and 
 mother and Lurindy did what they 'd got very much in 
 the habit of doing, cried ; and I said I should think I 
 was going to be buried, instead of. married ; and Stephen 
 took my knitting-work away, and said, as I had knit all 
 our trouble and all our joy into that thing, he meant to 
 keep it just as it was ; and that was the end of my knit 
 ting sale-socks. 
 
 I suppose, now I 've told you so far, you 'd maybe like 
 to know the rest. Well, Lurindy and John were married 
 Thanksgiving morning ; and just as they moved aside, 
 Stephen and I stepped up and took John and Aunt 
 Mirny rather- by surprise by being married too. 
 
 " Wai," says Aunt Mirny, " ef ever you hang eout an- 
 
152 KNITTING SALE-SOCKS. 
 
 other red flag, 't won't be because Lurindy's nussin' Ste 
 phen!" 
 
 I don't suppose there 'a a happier little woman in the 
 State than me. I should like to see her, if there is. I 
 go over home pretty often, and Aunt Mirny makes just 
 as much of my baby I 've named him John as 
 mother does ; and that 's enough to ruin any child that 
 was n't a cherub born. And Miss Mirny always has a 
 bottle of some new nostrum of her own stilling every time 
 she sees any of us ; we 've got enough to swim a ship, on 
 the top-shelf of the pantry to-day, if it was all put together. 
 As for Stephen, there he comes now through the huckle 
 berry-pasture, with the baby on his arm; he seems to 
 think there never was a baby before ; and sometimes 
 Stephen 's such a home-body I'm tempted to think 
 that maybe I have married my own shadow, after all. 
 However, I would n't have it other than it is. Lurindy, 
 she lives at home the most of the time ; and once in a 
 while, when Stephen and mother and I and she are all 
 together, and as gay as larks, and the baby is creeping 
 round, swallowing pins and hooks and eyes as if they 
 were blueberries, and the fire is burning, and the kettle 
 singing, and the hearth swept clean, it seems as if heaven 
 had actually come down, or we 'd all gone up without 
 waiting for our robes ; it seems as if it was altogether too 
 much happiness for one family. And I 've made Stephen 
 take a paper on purpose to watch the ship-news ; for John 
 sails captain of a fruiter to the Mediterranean, and, sure 
 enough, its little gilt figure-head that goes dipping in the 
 foam is nothing else than the Sister of Charity. 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 > 'ii$r^ 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 HE had remained, during all that day, with a 
 sick neighbor, those eastern wilds of Maine 
 in that epoch frequently making neighbors and 
 miles synonymous, and so busy had she 
 been with care and sympathy that she did not at first 
 observe the approaching night. But finally the level 
 rays, reddening the snow, threw their gleam upon the 
 wall, and, hastily donning cloak and hood, she bade her 
 friends farewell and sallied forth on her return. Home 
 lay some three miles distant, across a copse, a meadow, 
 and a piece of woods, the woods being a fringe on the 
 skirts of the great forests that stretch far away into the 
 North. That home was one of a dozen log-houses lying 
 a few furlongs apart from each other, with their half- 
 cleared demesnes separating them at the rear from a 
 wilderness untrodden save by stealthy native or deadly 
 panther tribes. 
 
 She-was in a nowise exalted frame of spirit, on the 
 contrary, rather depressed by the pain she had witnessed 
 and the fatigue she had endured ; but in certain tempera 
 ments such a condition throws open the mental pores, so 
 to speak, and renders one receptive of every influence. 
 Through the little copse she walked slowly, with her 
 
156 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 cloak folded about her, lingering to imbibe the sense of 
 shelter, the sunset filtered in purple through the mist of 
 woven spray and twig, the companionship of growth not 
 sufficiently dense to band against her, the sweet home- 
 feeling of a young and tender wintry wood. It was 
 therefore just on. the edge of the evening that she 
 emerged from the place and began to cross the meadow- 
 land. At one hand lay the forest to which her path 
 wound ; at the other the evening star hung over a tide of 
 failing orange that slowly slipped down the earth's broad 
 side to sadden other hemispheres with sweet regret. 
 Walking rapidly now, and with her eyes wide-open, she 
 distinctly saw in the air before her what was not there a 
 moment ago, a winding-sheet, cold, white, and ghastly, 
 waved by the likeness of four wan hands, that rose 
 with a long inflation, and fell in rigid folds, while a voice, 
 shaping itself from the hollowness above, spectral and 
 melancholy, sighed, " The Lord have mercy on the 
 people ! The Lord have mercy on the people ! " Three 
 times the sheet with its corpse-covering outline waved 
 beneath the pale hands, and the voice, awful in its solemn 
 and mysterious depth, sighed, " The Lord have mercy on 
 the people ! " Then all was gone, the place was clear 
 again, the gray sky was obstructed by no deathly blot ; 
 she looked about her, shook her shoulders decidedly, and, 
 pulling on her hood, went forward once more. 
 
 She might have been a little frightened by such an ap 
 parition, if she had led a life of less reality than frontier 
 settlers are apt to lead ; but dealing with hard fact does 
 not engender a flimsy habit of mind, and this woman was 
 too sincere and earnest in her character, and too happy in 
 her situation, to be thrown by antagonism, merely, upon 
 superstitious fancies and chimeras of the second- sight. 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 157 
 
 She did not even believe herself subject to an hallucina 
 tion, but smiled simply, a little vexed that her thought 
 could have framed such a glamour from the day's occur 
 rences, and not sorry to lift the bough of the warder of 
 the woods and enter and disappear in their sombre path. 
 If she had been imaginative, she would have hesitated at 
 her first step into a region whose dangers were not vis 
 ionary ; but I suppose that the thought of a little child at 
 home would conquer that propensity in the- most habit 
 uated. So, biting a bit of spicy birch, she went along. 
 Now and then she came to a gap where the trees had 
 been partially felled, and here she found that the linger 
 ing twilight was explained by that peculiar and perhaps 
 electric film which sometimes sheathes the sky in diffused 
 light for many hours before a brilliant aurora. Suddenly, 
 a swift shadow, like the fabulous flying-dragon, writhed 
 through the air before her, and she felt herself instantly 
 seized and borne aloft. It was that wild beast the 
 most savage and serpentine and subtle and fearless of our 
 latitudes known by hunters as the Indian Devil, and 
 he held her in his clutches on the broad floor of a swing 
 ing fir-bough. His long sharp claws were caught in her 
 clothing, he worried them sagaciously a little, then, find 
 ing that ineffectual to free them, he commenced licking 
 her bare arm with his rasping tongue and pouring over 
 her the wide streams of his hot, foetid breath. So quick 
 had this flashing action been that the woman had had no 
 time for alarm ; moreover, she was not of the screaming 
 kind : but now, as she felt him endeavoring to disentangle 
 his claws, and the horrid sense of her fate smote her, and 
 she saw instinctively the fierce plunge of those weapons, 
 the long strips of living flesh torn from her bones, the 
 agony, the quivering disgust, itself a worse agony, 
 
158 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 while by her side, and holding her in his great lithe em 
 brace, the monster crouched, his white tusks whetting and 
 gnashing, his eyes glaring through all the darkness like 
 balls of red fire, a shriek, that rang in every forest hol 
 low, that startled every winter-housed thing, that stirred 
 and woke the least needle of the tasselled pines, tore 
 through her lips. A moment afterward, the beast left the 
 arm, once white, now crimson, and looked up alertly. 
 
 She did not think at this instant to call upon God. 
 She called upon her husband. It seemed to her that she 
 had but one friend in the world ; that was he ; and again 
 the cry, loud, clear, prolonged, echoed through the woods. 
 It was not the shriek that disturbed the creature at his 
 relish ; he was not born in the woods to be scared of an 
 owl, you know ; what then ? It must have been the 
 echq, most musical, most resonant, repeated and yet re 
 peated, dying with long sighs of sweet sound, vibrated 
 from rock to river and back again from depth to depth of 
 cave and cliff. Her thought flew after it ; she knew, that, 
 even if her husband heard it, he yet could not reach her 
 in time ; she saw that while the beast listened he would 
 not gnaw, and this she felt directly, when the rough, 
 sharp, and multiplied stings of his tongue retouched her 
 arm. Again her lips opened by instinct, but the sound 
 that issued thence came by reason. She had heard that 
 music charmed wild beasts, just this point between life 
 and death intensified every faculty, and when she 
 opened her lips the third time, it was not for shrieking, 
 but for singing. 
 
 A little thread of melody stole out, a rill of tremulous 
 motion ; it was the cradle-song with which she rocked her 
 baby ; how could she sing that ? And then she remem 
 bered the baby sleeping rosily on the long settee before 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 159 
 
 the fire, the father cleaning his gun, with one foot on 
 the green wooden rundle, the merry light from the 
 chimney dancing out and through the room, on the rafters 
 of the ceiling with their tassels of onions and herbs, on the 
 log walls painted with lichens and festooned with apples, 
 on the king's-arm slung across the shelf with the old 
 pirate's-cutlass, on the snow-pile of the bed, and on the 
 great brass clock, dancing, too, and lingering on the 
 baby, with his fringed-gentian eyes, his chubby fists 
 clenched on the pillow, and his fine breezy hair fanning 
 with the motion of his father's foot. All this struck her 
 in one, and made a sob of her breath, and she ceased. 
 
 Immediately the long red tongue thrust forth again. 
 Before it touched, a song sprang to her lips, a wild sea- 
 song, such as some sailor might be singing far out on 
 trackless blue water that night, the shrouds whistling 
 with frost and the sheets glued in ice, a song with the 
 wind in its burden and the spray in its chorus. The 
 monster raised his head and flared the fiery eyeballs upon 
 her, then fretted the imprisoned claws a moment and was 
 quiet ; only the breath like the vapor from some hell-pit 
 still swathed her. Her voice, at first faint and fearful, 
 gradually lost its quaver, grew under her control and sub 
 ject to her modulation ; it rose on long swells, it fell in 
 subtile cadences, now and then its tones pealed out like 
 bells from distant belfries on fresh sonorous mornings. 
 She sung the song through, and, wondering lest his name 
 of Indian Devil were not his true name, and if he would 
 not detect her, she repeated it. Once or twice now, in 
 deed, the beast stirred uneasily, turned, and made the 
 bough sway at his movement. As she ended, he snapped 
 his jaws together, and tore away the fettered member, 
 curling it under him with a snarl, when she burst into 
 
160 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 the gayest reel that ever answered a fiddle-bow. How 
 many a time she had heard her husband play it on the 
 homely fiddle made by himself from birch and cherry- 
 wood ! how many a time she had seen it danced on the 
 floor of their one room, to the patter of wooden clogs and 
 the rustle of homespun petticoat ! how many a time she 
 had danced it herself ! and did she not remember once, 
 as they joined clasps for eight-hands-round, how it had 
 lent its gay, bright measure to her life ? And here she 
 was singing it alone, in the forest, at midnight, to a 
 wild beast ! As she sent her voice trilling up and down 
 its quick oscillations between joy and pain, the creature 
 who grasped her uncurled his paw and scratched the bark 
 from the bough ; she must vary the spell ; and her voice 
 spun leaping along the projecting points of tune of a horn 
 pipe. Still singing, she felt herself twisted about with a 
 low growl and a lifting of the red lip from the glittering 
 teeth; she broke the hornpipe's thread, and commenced 
 unravelling a lighter, livelier thing, an Irish jig. Up and 
 down and round about her voice flew, the beast threw 
 back his head so that the diabolical face fronted hers, and 
 the torrent of his breath prepared her for his feast as the 
 anaconda slimes his prey. Franticly she darted from 
 tune to tune ; his restless movements followed her. She 
 tired herself with dancing and vivid national airs, growing 
 feverish and singing spasmodically as she felt her horrid 
 tomb yawning wider. Touching in this manner all the 
 slogan and keen clan cries, the beast moved again, but 
 only to lay the disengaged paw across her with heavy 
 satisfaction. She did not dare to pause ; through the 
 clear cold air, the frosty starlight, she sang. If there 
 were yet any tremor in the tone, it was not fear, she 
 had learned the secret of sound at last ; nor could it be 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 161 
 
 chill, far too high a fever throbbed her pulses ; it was 
 nothing but the thought of the log-house and of what 
 might be passing within it. She fancied the baby stirring 
 in his sleep and moving his pretty lips, her husband 
 rising and opening the door, looking out after her, .and 
 wondering at her absence. She fancied the light pouring 
 through the chink and then shut in again with all the 
 safety and comfort and joy, her husband taking down the 
 fiddle and playing lightly with his head inclined, playing 
 while she sang, while she sang for her life to an Indian 
 Devil. Then she knew he was fumbling for and finding 
 some shining fragment and scoring it down the yellowing 
 hair, and unconsciously her voice forsook the wild war- 
 tunes and drifted into the half-gay, half-melancholy Rosin 
 the Bow. 
 
 Suddenly she woke pierced with a pang, and the dag 
 gered tooth penetrating her flesh ; dreaming of safety, 
 she had ceased singing and lost it. The beast had re 
 gained the use of all his limbs, and now, standing and 
 raising his back, bristling and foaming, with sounds that 
 would have been like hisses but for their deep and fear 
 ful sonority, he withdrew step by step toward the trunk 
 of the tree, still with his flaming balls upon her. She 
 was all at once free, on one end of the bough, twenty feet 
 from the ground. She did not measure the distance, but 
 rose to drop herself down, careless of any death, so that it 
 were not this. Instantly, as if he scanned her thoughts, 
 the creature bounded forward with a yell and caught her 
 again in his dreadful hold. It might be that he was not 
 greatly famished ; for, as she suddenly flung up her voice 
 again, he settled himself composedly on the bough, still 
 clasping her with invincible pressure to his rough, raven 
 ous breast, and listening in a fascination to the sad, 
 
 x 
 
162 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 strange U-la-lu that now moaned forth in loud, hollow 
 tones above him. He half closed his eyes, and sleepily 
 reopened and shut them again. 
 
 What rending pains were close at hand ! Death ! and 
 what a death ! worse than any other that is to be named ! 
 Water, be it cold or warm, that which buoys up blue ice 
 fields, or which bathes tropical coasts with currents of 
 balmy bliss, is yet a gentle conqueror, kisses as it kills, 
 and draws you down gently through darkening fathoms' to 
 its heart. Death at the sword is the festival of trumpet 
 and bugle and banner, with glory ringing out around you 
 and distant hearts thrilling through yours. No gnawing 
 disease can bring such hideous end as this ; for that is a 
 fiend bred of your own flesh, and this is it a fiend, this 
 living lump of appetites ? What dread comes with the 
 thought of perishing in flames ! but fire, let it leap and 
 hiss never so hotly, is something too remote, too alien, to 
 inspire us with such loathly horror as a wild beast ; if it 
 have a life, that life is too utterly beyond our comprehen 
 sion. Fire is not half ourselves ; as it devours, arouses 
 neither hatred nor disgust; is not to be known by the 
 strength of our lower natures let loose ; does not drip 
 our blood into our faces from foaming chaps, nor mouth 
 nor slaver above us with vitality. Let us be ended by 
 fire, and we are ashes, for the winds to bear, the leaves to 
 cover; let us be ended by wild beasts, and the base, cursed 
 thing howls with us forever through the forest. All this 
 she felt as she charmed him, and what force it lent to her 
 song God knows. If her voice should fail ! If the damp 
 and cold should give her any fatal hoarseness ! If all the 
 silent powers of the forest did not conspire to help her ! 
 The dark, hollow night rose indifferently over her ; the 
 wide, cold air breathed rudely past her, lifted her wet hair 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 163 
 
 and blew it down again ; the great boughs swung with a 
 ponderous strength, now and then clashed their iron lengths 
 together and shook off a sparkle of icy spears or some long- 
 lain weight of snow from their heavy shadows. The green 
 depths were utterly cold and silent and stern. These beau 
 tiful haunts that all the summer were hers and rejoiced to 
 share with her their bounty, these heavens that had yielded 
 their largess, these stems that had thrust their blossoms in 
 to her hands, all these friends of three moons ago forgot her 
 now and knew her no longer. 
 
 Feeling her desolation, wild, melancholy, forsaken songs 
 rose thereon from that frightful aerie, weeping, wailing 
 tunes, that sob among the people from age to age, and 
 overflow with otherwise unexpressed sadness, all rude, 
 mournful ballads, old tearful strains, that Shakespeare 
 heard the vagrants sing, and that rise and fall like the 
 wind and tide, sailor-songs, to be heard only in lone 
 mid- watches beneath the moon and stars, ghastly rhym 
 ing romances, such as that famous one of the Lady Mar 
 garet, when 
 
 " She slipped on her gown of green 
 
 A piece below the knee, 
 And 'twas all a long cold winter's night 
 A dead corse followed she." 
 
 Still the beast lay with closed eyes, yet never relaxing 
 his grasp. Once a half-whine of enjoyment escaped 
 him, he fawned his fearful head upon her; once he 
 scored her cheek with his tongue : savage caresses that 
 hurt like wounds. How weary she was! and yet how 
 terribly awake ! How fuller and fuller of dismay grew 
 the knowledge that she was only prolonging her anguish 
 and playing with death ! How appalling the thought that 
 with her voice ceased her existence ! Yet she could not 
 
164 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 sing forever ; her throat was dry and hard ; her very 
 breath was a pain ; her mouth was hotter than any des 
 ert-worn pilgrim's ; if she could but drop upon her 
 burning tongue one atom of the ice that glittered about 
 her ! but both of her arms were pinioned in the giant's 
 vice. She remembered the winding-sheet, and for the 
 first time in her life shivered with spiritual fear. Was it 
 hers ? She asked herself, as she sang, what sins she had 
 committed, what life she had led, to find her punishment 
 so soon and in these pangs, and then she sought eager 
 ly for some reason why her husband was not up and 
 abroad to find her. He failed her, her one sole hope 
 in life ; and without being aware of it, her voice forsook 
 the songs of suffering and sorrow for old Covenanting 
 hymns, hymns with which her mother had lulled her, 
 which the class-leader pitched in the chimney-corners, 
 grand and sweet Methodist hymns, brimming with melo 
 dy and with all fantastic involutions of tune to suit that 
 ecstatic worship, hymns full of the beauty of holiness, 
 steadfast, relying, sanctified by the salvation they had lent 
 to those in worse extremity than hers, for they had 
 found themselves in the grasp of hell, while she was but 
 in the jaws of death. Out of this strange music, peculiar 
 to one character of faith, and than which there is none 
 more beautiful in its degree nor owning a more potent 
 sway of sound, her voice soared into the glorified chants 
 of churches. What to her was death by cold or famine 
 or wild beasts ? " Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
 in him," she sang. High and clear through the frore 
 fair night, the level moonbeams splintering in the wood, 
 the scarce glints of stars in the shadowy roof of branches, 
 these sacred anthems rose, rose as a hope from despair, 
 as some snowy spray of flower-bells from blackest mould. 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 165 
 
 Was she not in God's hands ? Did not the world swing 
 at his will ? If this were in his great plan of provi 
 dence, was it not best, and should she not accept it ? 
 
 " He is the Lord our God ; his judgments are in all 
 the earth." 
 
 Oh, sublime faith of our fathers, where utter self-sacri 
 fice alone was true love, the fragrance of whose unre- 
 quired subjection was pleasanter than that of golden 
 censers swung in purple-vapored chancels! 
 
 Never ceasing in the rhythm of her thoughts, articu 
 lated in niusic as they thronged, the memory of her first 
 communion flashed over her. Again she was in that 
 distant place on that sweet spring morning. Again the 
 congregation rustled out, and the few remained, and she 
 trembled to find herself among them. How well she re 
 membered the devout, quiet faces, too accustomed to the 
 sacred feast to glow with their inner joy ! how well the 
 snowy linen at the altar, the silver vessels slowly and si 
 lently shifting! and as the cup approached and passed, 
 how the sense of delicious perfume stole in and height 
 ened the transport of her prayer, and she had seemed, 
 looking up through the windows where the sky soared 
 blue in constant freshness, to feel all heaven's balms drip 
 ping from the portals, and to scent the lilies of eternal 
 peace ! Perhaps another would not have felt so much 
 ecstasy as satisfaction on that occasion ; but it is a true, 
 if a later disciple, who has said, " The Lord bestoweth his 
 blessings- there, where he findeth the vessels empty." 
 
 " And does it need the walls of a church to renew my 
 communion ? " she asked. " Does not every moment 
 stand a temple four-square to God? And in that morn 
 ing, with its buoyant sunlight, was I any dearer to the 
 Heart of the World than now? 'My beloved is mine, 
 
166 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 and I am his,' " she sang over and over again, with all 
 varied inflection and profuse tune. How gently all the 
 winter-wrapt things bent toward her then ! into what re 
 lation with her had they grown ! how this common de 
 pendence was the spell of their intimacy ! how at one 
 with Nature had she become ! how all the night and the 
 silence and the forest seemed to hold its breath, and to 
 send its soul up to God in her singing ! It was no longer 
 despondency, that singing. It was neither prayer nor pe 
 tition. She had left imploring, " How long wilt thou for 
 get me, Lord ? Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the 
 sleep of death ! For in death there is no remembrance 
 of thee," with countless other such fragments of sup 
 plication. She cried rather, " Yea, though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for 
 thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort 
 me," and lingered, and repeated, and sang again, " I 
 shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." 
 
 Then she thought of the Great Deliverance, when he 
 drew her up out of many waters, and the flashing old 
 psalm pealed forth triumphantly : . 
 
 " The Lord descended from above, 
 
 and bow'd the heavens hie: 
 And underneath his feet he cast 
 
 the darknesse of the skie. 
 On cherubs and on cherubins 
 
 full royally he road : 
 And on the wings of all the winds 
 
 came flying all abroad." 
 
 She forgot how recently, and with what a strange pity 
 for her own shapeless form that was" to be, she had 
 quaintly sung, 
 
 " lovely appearance of death ! 
 
 What sight upon earth is so fair? 
 
 Not all the gay pageants that breathe 
 
 Can with a dead body compare ! " 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 167 
 
 She remembered instead, " In thy presence is fulness 
 of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures forever- 
 more. God will redeem my soul from the power of 
 the grave : for he shall receive me. He will swallow 
 up death in victory." Not once now did she say, " Lord, 
 how long wilt thou look on ; rescue my soul from their 
 destructions, my darling from the lions," for she knew 
 that the young lions roar after their prey and seek their 
 meat from God. " O Lord, thou preservest man and 
 beast!" she said. 
 
 She had no comfort or consolation in this season, such 
 as sustained the Christian martyrs in the amphitheatre. 
 She was not dying for her faith ; there were no palms in 
 heaven for her to wave ; but how many a time had she 
 declared, "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house 
 of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness ! " 
 And as the broad rays here and there broke through the 
 dense covert of shade and lay in rivers of lustre on crystal 
 sheathing and frozen fretting of trunk and limb and on 
 the great spaces of refraction, they builded up visibly that 
 house, the shining city on the hill, and singing, " Beautiful 
 for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, 
 on the sides of the North, the city of the Great King," 
 her vision climbed to that higher picture where the angel 
 shows the dazzling thing, the holy Jerusalem descending 
 out of heaven from God, with its splendid battlements and 
 gates of pearls, and its foundations, the eleventh a jacinth, 
 the twelfth an amethyst, with its great white throne, 
 and the rainbow round about it, in sight like unto an em 
 erald : "And there shall be no night there, for the 
 Lord God giveth them light," she sang. 
 
 What whisper of dawn now rustled through the wilder 
 ness ? How the night was passing ! And still the beast 
 
168 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 crouched upon the bough, changing only the posture of 
 his head, that again he might command her with those 
 charmed eyes ; half their fire was gone ; she could al 
 most have released herself from his custody ; yet, had she 
 stirred, no one knows what malevolent instinct might have 
 dominated anew. But of that she did not dream ; long 
 ago stripped of any expectation, she was experiencing in 
 her divine rapture how mystically true it is that " he that 
 dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide 
 under the shadow of the Almighty." 
 
 Slow clarion cries now wound from the distance as 
 the cocks caught the intelligence of day and re-echoed 
 it faintly from farm to farm, sleepy sentinels of night, 
 sounding the foe's invasion, and translating that dim intu 
 ition to ringing notes of warning. Still she chanted on. 
 A remote crash of brushwood told of some other beast on 
 his depredations, or some night-belated traveller groping 
 his way through the narrow path. Still she chanted on. 
 The far, faint echoes of the chanticleers died into distance, 
 the crashing of the branches grew nearer. No wild beast 
 that, but a man's step, a man's form in the moonlight, 
 stalwart and strong, on one arm slept a little child, in 
 the other hand he held his gun. Still she chanted on. 
 
 Perhaps, when her husband last looked forth, he was 
 half ashamed to find what a fear he felt for her. He 
 knew she would never leave the child so long but for 
 some direst need, and yet he may have laughed at him 
 self, as he lifted and wrapped it with awkward care, and, 
 loading his gun and strapping on his horn, opened the 
 door again and closed it behind him, going out and plung 
 ing into the darkness and dangers of the forest. He was 
 more singularly alarmed than he would have been willing 
 to acknowledge ; as he had sat with his bow hovering 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 169 
 
 over the strings, he had half believed to hear her voice 
 mingling gayly with the instrument, till he paused and 
 listened if she were not about to lift the latch and enter. 
 As he drew nearer the heart of the forest, that intimation 
 of melody seemed to grow more actual, to take body and 
 breath, to come and go on long swells and ebbs of the 
 night-breeze, to increase with tune and words, till a 
 strange shrill singing grew ever clearer, and, as he 
 stepped into an open space of -moonbeams, far up in the 
 branches, rocked by the wind, and singing, " How beau 
 tiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth 
 good tidings, that publisheth peace," he saw his wife, 
 his wife, but, great God in heaven ! how ? Some mad 
 exclamation escaped him, but without diverting her. 
 The child knew the singing voice, though never heard 
 before in that unearthly key, and turned toward it 
 through the veiling dreams. With a celerity almost in 
 stantaneous, it lay, in the twinkling of an eye, on the 
 ground at the father's feet, while his gun was raised to 
 his shoulder and levelled at the monster covering his wife 
 with shaggy form and flaming gaze, his wife so ghastly 
 white, so rigid, so stained with blood, her eyes so fixedly 
 bent above, and her lips, that had indurated into the 
 chiselled pallor of marble, parted only with that flood of 
 solemn song. 
 
 I do not know if it were the mother-instinct that for a 
 moment lowered her eyes, those eyes, so lately riveted 
 on heaven, now suddenly seeing all life-long bliss possible. 
 A thrill of joy pierced and shivered through her like a 
 weapon, her voice trembled in its course, her glance lost 
 its steady strength, fever-flushes chased each other over 
 her face, yet she never once ceased chanting. She was 
 quite aware, that, if her husband shot now, the ball must 
 8 
 
1 70 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 pierce her body before reaching any vital part of the 
 beast, and yet better that death, by his hand, than the 
 other. But this her husband also knew, and he remained 
 motionless, just covering the creature with the sight. He 
 dared not fire, lest some wound not mortal should break 
 the spell exercised by her voice, and the beast, enraged 
 with pain, should rend her in atoms ; moreover, the light 
 was too uncertain for his aim. So he waited. Now and 
 then he examined his gun to see if the damp were in 
 juring its charge, now and then he wiped the great drops 
 from his forehead. Again the cocks crowed with the 
 passing hour, the last time they were heard on that 
 night. Cheerful home sound then, how full of safety and 
 all comfort and rest it seemed ! what sweet morning inci 
 dents of sparkling fire and sunshine, of gay household 
 bustle, shining dresser, and cooing baby, of steaming 
 cattle in the yard, and brimming milk-pails at the door ! 
 what pleasant voices ! what laughter ! what security ! 
 and here 
 
 Now, as she sang on in the slow, endless, infinite mo 
 ments, the fervent vision of God's peace was gone. Just 
 as the grave had lost. its sting, she was snatched back 
 again into the arms of earthly hope. In vain she tried 
 to sing, " There remaineth a rest for the people of God," 
 her eyes trembled on her husband's, and she could 
 only think of him, and of the child, and of happiness that 
 yet might be, but with what a dreadful gulf of doubt be 
 tween ! She shuddered now in the suspense ; all calm 
 forsook her; she was tortured with dissolving heats or 
 frozen with icy blasts ; her face contracted, growing small 
 and pinched; her voice was hoarse and sharp, every 
 tone cut like a knife, the notes became heavy to lift, 
 withheld by some hostile pressure, impossible. One 
 
CIRCUMSTANCE. 171 
 
 gasp, a convulsive effort, and there was silence, she 
 had lost her voice. 
 
 The beast made a sluggish movement, stretched and 
 fawned like one awaking, then, as if he would have yet 
 more of the enchantment, stirred her slightly with his 
 muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of the man standing 
 below with the raised gun smote him ; he sprung round 
 furiously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into 
 some unknown airy den of the topmost branches now 
 waving to the slow dawn. The late moon had rounded 
 through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full upon 
 the bough with fairy frosting ; the wintry morning light 
 did not yet penetrate the gloom. The woman, suspended 
 in mid-air an instant, cast only one agonized glance be 
 neath, but across and through it, ere the lids could fall, 
 shot a withering sheet of flame, a rifle-crack, half- 
 heard, was lost in the terrible yell of desperation that 
 bounded after it and filled her ears with savage echoes, 
 and in the wide arc of some eternal descent she was fall 
 ing . but the beast fell under her. 
 
 I think that the moment following must have been too 
 sacred for us, and perhaps the three have no special in 
 terest again till they issue from the shadows of the wilder 
 ness upon the white hills that skirt their home. The 
 father carries the child hushed again into slumber, the 
 mother follows with no such feeble step as might be an 
 ticipated. It is not time for reaction, the tension not yet 
 relaxed, the nerves still vibrant, she seems to herself like 
 some one newly made ; the night was a dream ; the pres 
 ent stamped upon her in deep satisfaction, neither weighed 
 nor compared with the past ; if she has the careful tricks 
 of former habit, it is as an automaton ; and as they slowly 
 climb the steep under the clear gray vault and the paling 
 
172 CIKCUMSTAXCE. 
 
 morning star, and as she stops to gather a spray of the 
 red-rose berries or a feathery tuft of dead grasses for the 
 chimney-piece of the log-house, or a handful of brown 
 cones for the child's play, of these quiet, happy folk 
 you would scarcely dream how lately they had stolen 
 from under the banner and encampment of the great 
 King Death. The husband proceeds a step or two in ad 
 vance ; the wife lingers over a singular foot-print in the 
 snow, stoops and examines it, then looks up with a hur 
 ried word. Her husband stands alone on the hill, his 
 arms folded across the babe, his gun fallen, stands de 
 fined as a silhouette against the pallid sky. What is there 
 in their home, lying below and yellowing in the light, to 
 fix him with such a stare? She springs to his side. 
 There is no home there. The log-house, the barns, the 
 neighboring farms, the fences, are all blotted out and min 
 gled in one smoking ruin. Desolation and death were in 
 deed there, and beneficence and life in the forest. Toma 
 hawk and scalping-knife, descending during that night, 
 had left behind them only this work of their accomplished 
 hatred and one subtle foot-print in the snow. 
 
 For the rest, the world was all before them, where 
 to choose. 
 
 
DESERT SANDS. 
 
DESERT SANDS. 
 
 is one of my bad habits to paint so long as 
 the mask of Proteus, which hangs just under 
 my ceiling, smiles ; with the darkness the an 
 gles fall differently, and it frowns. But al 
 ways when the day fails, when the gold has reddened and 
 deepened and vanished in purple, when the air is inter 
 fused with a soft voluptuous sense that I feel as I might 
 a new tint, be it mauve or fuchsine, when this coolness 
 streams over my burning lids, when I scent the sweet- 
 brier's ineffable fragrance wantoning through the place, 
 always when this moment comes for which the world 
 was made I throw down my brushes, and without paus 
 ing to clean my palette, go out. 
 
 I speak in the present sad wretch ! I, who live only 
 in the days that are gone. It is all past, all past, with me 
 now. Alas ! and yet again alas ! I paint no more. 
 
 Why am I less omnipotent than those demigods? When 
 the curse fell for one and heaven was blank, did numbers 
 cease to flow ? When all sound was hushed on the ear of 
 the other, did harmonies any the less build up their great 
 vaults in air and melodies cease to blow through them ? 
 And I 
 
 It should be that hour now ; this sweet-brier that pranks 
 
176 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 my window gives all its breath to the damp night-wind ; 
 it is that which steals memory, and makes the lost mine 
 once more. Always, at this hour, when I went out, it was 
 to see her that I went. Eos, I called her, because I liked 
 then to deck her in all fancies, to think of her as a bright 
 and morning star. But loveliness like hers needed no 
 phrases of mine, that skin, where the delicate dyes 
 mingled as on the apple-blossom ; those eyes, bluer than 
 the violet planet ! All that, indeed, was much, but when 
 it withered, her power would be the same ; she was like 
 the lilies of eternal peace. 
 
 I did not know I loved her, if, certainly, I ever loved 
 her, too selfish, even, to know myself. But there are 
 seasons when all youth's blood riots in the frame and blos 
 soms on the cheek, when the heaven-given instincts stir in 
 the veins, and the spring that sends the sap along the 
 bough, sent me restlessness and longing for my part. 
 
 That night then, as many a night before, I went to Eos. 
 She was singing in some upper room, but came down at 
 my demand, and sang to me. Then her sister brought in 
 lights; and Charley had a ship to rig. How gay we 
 were, with what names we christened her, how she served 
 as a skeleton on which to hang all sea legends, how we en 
 riched her with lore of the Armada and the flags of old 
 heroic battle-ships, how perfectly we equipped her, and 
 how we ran her little pennon at half-mast when her skip 
 per was sent to his pillow ! At last her father rose and 
 folded up his paper. 
 
 " Eos," said he, " it is time to go to bed." 
 
 " Eos," said I, " good-night." 
 
 She came out with me, and down the little garden. We 
 waited at the gate a moment, perhaps to penetrate our 
 selves with the sweet-brier's perfume, the night, and the 
 
DESERT SANDS. 177 
 
 summer stars. I had told her that I was going away 
 shortly. 
 
 " For long? " she had asked. 
 
 " Forever," I had answered. 
 
 Then a pause ; in it I listened to the crickets singing, 
 the leaves rustling. 
 
 " I shall walk," I added, " that is the way to surprise 
 Nature in her hiding-places. I shall camp one night on 
 hemlock boughs, and the next on a ledge above the clouds. 
 I shall learn the cipher that hides the inner spell of for 
 ests and hills and sheets of falling rivers ; see much, and 
 take as I go. It will be a life almost new, as cheery as 
 those bas-reliefs where, at every breath, you expect the 
 pipes to blow, the flowers to fall." 
 
 " Yes," I continued, after a while, " all my pictures have 
 sold. I have earned too much money this year. Now I 
 shall not begin another till November, and to this old 
 country town I shall return no more." 
 
 She did not reply. Indeed, to my speeches she fre 
 quently made no answer, but now I felt her silence like a 
 reproach. 
 
 " And what have you to say to that ? " I asked at length. 
 
 " Nothing but good-by," she said. 
 
 " Good-by ? good-by ? " I repeated. " I have not 
 thought of that. I cannot say good-by to you, Eos. I 
 will not travel to a region without sunshine, blue sky, 
 and universal air ; without darkness and stillness and 
 fragrance and you. You must go with me, Eos." 
 
 So Eos went with me. 
 
 I am one of those who have no right to marriage-vows, 
 in whom self-love excludes love, who find home so thor 
 oughly in all the wide beauty of the world that they do 
 not need one hearth, and a woman sitting by it. I said 
 
 8* L 
 
178 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 to myself, I cannot serve two masters. I did not know 
 that in serving Eos I served God. 
 
 Of what use is regret ? will it restore ? Let me only 
 remember, remember those passionate seasons when I 
 absorbed another life into mine, and remember with sav 
 age joy and celerity. 
 
 That summer we journeyed as I had intended, except 
 that when I walked she rode by my side. Sometimes 
 when I climbed a crag, she waited for me at its base ; 
 again, I sketched some bold play of cloud shadows over 
 wide intervals, and then fleeing forward to become part 
 of the scene 
 
 " More fleet she skimmed the plains 
 Than she whose elfin courser springs 
 By night to eery warblings, 
 When all the glimmering moorland rings 
 To jingling bridle-reins." 
 
 Yet always she came circling back to me, like the moth 
 to its flame. She was blithe as birds at dawn, airier than 
 glancing foam-flakes are ; she took like a prism all the 
 white rays of happiness into her bosom, and sparkled 
 them out in rainbows on those about her. When the 
 autumn came, we went into a country ripe with color, 
 while the year set like the sun. All this time my art 
 had been in abeyance, I had found that life was some 
 thing different from my thought ; Eos was my wife, this 
 summer I was a bridegroom, for a brief three months, 
 at least, I loved as I was loved. One day I opened 
 my easel, chalked my sketch, and then went out alone. 
 Returning, I held clearly the thing that I would paint, 
 the fine, keen drawing, the clarity of tint, the strength of 
 color; I took my brushes and worked. The next day 
 and another I did the same ; nothing came of it ; the old 
 
IXESEKT SANDS. 179 
 
 inspiration failed, my hand was powerless, my secret lost, 
 my fancy dead. I said, Life has been too rich, it has im 
 poverished art ; that shall cease. That did cease. 
 
 In the evening, as I stood at the window, silent and 
 resolved, Eos came and crept again into my arms ; I suf 
 fered her to remain, but I did not tighten my clasp, give 
 her kiss or caress, or call her by any new endearing name. 
 It was hard at first, that once it was hard, afterwards it 
 cost me no such effort, and became habit. It is true that 
 now and then, when south winds blew, when some divine 
 day melted in heaven, youth and love returned to me, my 
 heart expanded in their warmth, passion wrapped me in 
 its cloud, and I sought Eos. She was always there, she 
 never swerved from following me. Before the close, such 
 days only plunged me deeper in the intoxication of their 
 own beauty, only bent me more earnestly to my purpose. 
 It may be that I should have suffered her to help me, that 
 she should have mounted with me step for step ; but she 
 could not, she kept me at her level. I was right, I knew 
 that I was right ; when I had attained, I should have 
 turned to her again. She was not strong enough to wait, 
 and so the game was lost. 
 
 In November, we went to the city. I said to her, 
 " One must not be niggardly. You shall go home awhile 
 now, they have never been so long parted from you 
 before. I can spare you." 
 
 Perhaps, but for that last sentence she would not have 
 gone. As it was, she hesitated, and seemed to forebode 
 evil. Then I lost no time in putting myself at work. 
 But before the third week of her absence I found that all 
 was useless without her. I needed her, she must be 
 about me, she must, in fact, give all and receive nothing. 
 I brought her back. 
 
180 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 On arriving at her father's house that evening, I could 
 not but contrast the cheer with the forlorn, place I had 
 left, for then I was not rich, the . crimson shadows, 
 the sparkling firelight ; they had a warm welcome for me, 
 for they knew nothing of my conduct, and, indeed, what 
 was there to know, I asked myself; Eos was not unhap 
 py, she had a woman's quick perception, saw its necessity, 
 and adapted herself to it. Once in the evening, when we 
 were alone a moment, she came and said : 
 
 " I did not expect you. I am surprised. I thought 
 you could spare me." 
 
 " No," I replied, " I cannot have you away. Eos, you 
 are my sun, the light in which I live. How did I live 
 before I knew you, love ? " 
 
 She laid her cheek upon my arm, the dumb caress 
 touched me, and I stroked her, hair; so rare had any 
 expression on my part become, that the least now thrilled 
 her with a timid joy, I think. 
 
 " Do you know," said she, " I had begun to feel as if it 
 were all a dream, to fancy that the little glimpse of differ 
 ent life, this summer's snatch of delight, was something I 
 had slept through, that I was not your wife, at all, but just 
 Eos here at home." 
 
 I started ; that must not be ; least of all, now that her 
 cousin Alain was here again, he whose relationship al 
 lowed a brother's freedom with her, and who, by his 
 quick eye and traveller-instinct, would tell at a glance 
 how things lay. 
 
 " Ah ? " I said lightly, " has it reached that, Eos at 
 home away from me ? But you are my wife, you know, 
 and to-morrow we will go." 
 
 "No," she said, lifting her head, "to-morrow I shall 
 not go. I wish to stay a day longer." 
 
DESERT SANDS. 181 
 
 " Eos with a will of her own ? " I replied now, amused 
 at the phenomenon. " I have half the mind to indulge it, 
 and see where the caprice ends." 
 
 Just then Alain entered. I kept my arm round Eos 
 till she withdrew and took her work. Alain found some 
 charts and began to examine them; he would shortly 
 leave for Algiers, to join his father's regiment there, for 
 on one side he was of French extraction, and the knowl 
 edge of the dangers and monotonies in the life he was 
 henceforward to lead caused every one's manners to 
 wear an additional air of kindness in his regard. As 
 I looked at him now, I acknowledged that his was the 
 most faultless face I had ever seen ; had I been a figure 
 painter, I could have asked no greater boon than perpet 
 ual companionship with such beauty ; as it was, to have 
 seen him once was to have seen him too often. He had 
 that air of easy command, that gracious coolness which 
 carries everything before it. I saw at once that through 
 my error all was in train for a catastrophe. We would 
 go to-morrow, I thought ; not an instant would we delay ; 
 no wonder she wished to stay ; this man, with his sedu 
 cing graces, could win a saint from heaven, and it was 
 not heaven from which Eos was to be won. Then I be 
 came aware that I was possessed of jealousy. I had 
 hoped such a possibility was over, and could scarcely 
 remember the time in which I had been so utterly dis 
 pleased with myself. In revenge, I was on the point of 
 allowing her the desired day ; the wounded fiend turned 
 in my heart at the thought, and whispered, In that day, 
 watch ! I strangled it with a death-grip. 
 
 " Eos," I said, " I have business in the next town, and 
 you have two days more at home." 
 
 But had my life depended thereon, I could not hinder 
 
182 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 myself from hastening through my affairs, and back again. 
 Still, however, I did not immediately seek the house, but 
 returned there only after a long walk undertaken to sub 
 due this last spark of the heart's rebellion. It wanted yet 
 an hour to sunset ; I turned the handle of the parlor-door 
 and entered noiselessly. An easel stood beside the win 
 dow, before it, with stick and palette, sat my wife ; Alain 
 was by her side. 
 
 " Will he be pleased ? " asked she. " It is finished, but 
 is it fine ? " 
 
 I stole behind them, and looked at the canvas : a cliff, 
 yet blue ip heavy night-shadows, was rent apart, and in 
 the rift a brook a thread of limpid water crept down 
 and curled from reach to reach to lose itself in dimness ; a 
 tuft of long bearded grass, half-guessed, bent forward and 
 shook its awns in a wind ; a young birch shivered with 
 the tremors of its perpetual joy, half-way up on the other 
 side ; and in a sky of dark and tender twilight, the morn 
 ing star hung, and tricked her beams in the stream below. 
 For an instant I could not detect the faults ; nothing that 
 I had done equalled it. 
 
 " It is perfect ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 Eos started, sprang to her feet, and hid her face in my 
 cloak. Alain grasped my hand. 
 
 u You are noble, Ruy Diaz ! " said he (for so they often 
 travestied the first syllable of my name), " I beg your for 
 giveness for having feared your surprise would not be so 
 agreeable. You humble me ! " 
 
 I bent back Eos's head and kissed the blushing forehead 
 for reply. Nevertheless, he was wrong. I was not pleased. 
 I did not love Art well enough to give my wife to it ; I did 
 not want a rival in her ; above all, I could not have her sa 
 cred name on everybody's lips. She was mine, not theirs. 
 
DESERT SANDS. 183 
 
 Had I kept her apart and hidden, veiling her when she 
 went out, always accompanying her, scarcely suffering 
 her existence to be known, now to hear other men discuss 
 her merits and demerits and slime her with their praise ? 
 What an enigma I present to my own understanding^! I 
 loved her only as a part of myself. I allowed her no in 
 tegral life. 
 
 No fault to find ? " asked Eos at length. 
 
 " Oh, yes," I answered, " doubtless there are plenty. I 
 could tell you there is no composition, color crude, senti 
 ment too intense. But to what use ? " 
 
 " To improve me." 
 
 " Well, and if I do not wish to improve you, sweet ? 
 Whose picture is this ? " 
 
 " It is mine," said Alain, entrenched in his former sus 
 picion. " She has given it to me." 
 
 " And what do you design to do with it, may I ask ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I shall exhibit it at Dash and Blank's." 
 
 " I shall be extremely displeased at any such course." 
 
 " So I thought," said Alain, dryly. 
 
 " But you are mistaken. Nothing can give me greater 
 pleasure than this discovery. I am rejoiced to find in my 
 wife a kindred soul ; genius gives her new links to me, art 
 seals her mine indeed, she is nearer and dearer because 
 of this immortal flame in her spirit. I am glad, darling," 
 I said, folding her closer, " and is not my joy enough ? " 
 
 " It is enough ! " said Eos fervently, clinging to me. 
 
 And so the picture was never shown. 
 
 That evening, as Eos busied herself with her needles 
 and her skeins of brilliant worsteds, and Alain was intent 
 upon his charts again, I drew near the table and took up 
 a little book of French sentiment, that bore his pencilling?. 
 
 " What balderdash ! " I exclaimed ; " any woman could 
 
184 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 have told him better. Eos, what is it that a woman loves 
 best in a man ? " 
 
 " His selfishness," said Alain, without looking up. 
 
 " No," replied Eos, " not exactly, not at all. But a 
 certain self-poise, something that convicts her of the fact 
 that he can do without her." 
 
 " And is that what you find in me ? " I asked. 
 
 " Could you do without me ? " she replied, archly, and 
 with the smile that, when she was happy enough to shed 
 it, always brought me to her feet. I could reply only 
 with my gaze ; never had I been so conscious of my love 
 as at that moment, of my need of her, of her grace, her 
 sweetness, her perfection ; my whole soul trembled in my 
 eyes to meet her own. She must have been aware, and 
 yet she refused to look up, and bent but the lower over 
 her needles. Alain rose and left the room for dividers. 
 I resolved to lift those mutinous lids and gain the glance 
 that was surely beneath. For a moment she remained 
 motionless, then slowly raised her head and suffered me 
 to see that tears streamed over the face. Instantly I was 
 beside her. 
 
 " Eos," I exclaimed, " what is it ? " 
 
 She dropped the work and threw her arms about me. 
 
 " Oh, I fear that you could do without me, I know that 
 you could ! I already oppress you ! I wish I were dead ! " 
 she cried, sobbing convulsively. 
 
 " Darling," I murmured, " in the day you died, I, too, 
 should cease to live." 
 
 Still she clasped me, still wept. 
 
 " What shall I do, Eos," I asked, " to convince you how 
 dear you are ? " 
 
 " Only forgive me now," she murmured, with fresh grief. 
 
 I heard Alain's step. " You are weak and nervous," I 
 
DESERT SANDS. 185 
 
 said, as I felt myself shaken with the violence of her emo 
 tion. " You have applied too closely of late. And, Eos, 
 I do not wish to grieve you, but you must control your 
 self. Such outbursts, such vehemence, are not at all to 
 my taste." 
 
 At the word, she rebounded like a steel spring, and 
 hardly was she in her seat before Alain re-entered. 
 
 The next day, remembrance of the last evening's dis 
 turbance effaced, we returned to the city. For four 
 months I worked breathlessly; every day when Eos had 
 finished her little household cares, she came and sat near 
 me ; is it strange that the work was beautiful, when so 
 constantly she sent her soul into it ? In the evenings we 
 went out, down the damp streets snow or rain or whis 
 tling east shooting along the slippery pavements, she 
 and I together, in the light of flaring gas and the great 
 squares of color, amethyst, ruby, and emerald, spread from 
 the chemists' windows. Sometimes I left her for a club, 
 or a play, sometimes we both needed music. I had my 
 aim in the world ; I was reaching it. Whether I were 
 happy or not did not occur to me, whether Eos were 
 happy or not I did not pause to ask. It was then that I 
 first saw Vespasia. 
 
 One February morning Eos had not yet come in, some 
 one mounted the stair and knocked : it was a footman with 
 the card of Mrs. Dean Vivian. Immediately on his de 
 parture, another step followed, and Mrs. Dean Vivian her 
 self enfered. 
 
 She was an imposing woman, not so much through 
 height as proportion, neither in the splendor of her ar 
 ray though that was considerable, and was necessary 
 to such a face so completely as in the grace which ren 
 dered it, unlike that of so many women, merely an ac 
 cessory. 
 
186 -DESERT SANDS. 
 
 " If I may command your time, Mr. Sydney," said a 
 voice that I could compare to nothing but the mellow 
 sweetness of a too-ripe pear, as her skin to the soft and 
 smooth gold-brown of the beurre, illumined as it was by 
 the sinister contrast of eyes wearing the lustre and almost 
 the tint of emeralds. " If I may command your time, Mr. 
 Sydney," and the smile that always accompanied her words 
 broke up the face into vivid beauty, " I wish to examine 
 your portfolios and to order a pendant for your ' Mist on 
 the Meadows/ which I lately purchased." 
 
 " My time is at Mrs. Vivian's service for an hour, after 
 that I regret an engagement," I stated, for it is always 
 best to meet such imperious dames on their own ground. 
 The manner had the desired effect. 
 
 " Perhaps, then, another day would be more opportune," 
 she said. 
 
 " Not at all," I replied, wheeling a rack toward her. 
 " Be seated, and allow me." She sank into a chair, 
 sweeping her violet draperies about her, and turned the 
 sheets. 
 
 "An effect of Kearsarge in cloud," I said rapidly. 
 " Rainbows in Pemigewasset valley, Spray at Apple- 
 dore, Montmorenci seen from " 
 
 " Yes," said she, detaining it, " that is well arrested ; 
 curled in foam, a fleece upon the azure. Why do you 
 not elaborate it ? " 
 
 " Some day I may." I opened another portfolio. 
 " These are studies," I added, " attempts at sentiment 
 rather than scenery. I have fused and inwrought them 
 with the spirit of the line which they illustrate. God's 
 own profound : the melancholy main : Ariel fetching dew 
 by midnight from the still-vexed Bermoothes." 
 
 Mrs. Vivian surveyed each with the swift eye of a con- 
 
DESERT SANDS. 187 
 
 noisseur, noted its points, and passed to the next. Soon 
 she leaned back in her chair, and folded her hands. " Ah, 
 well," said she, " you would certainly play the showman 
 till I went, if permitted." 
 
 " Excuse me. I am merely condensing your time, 
 madam," I responded. 
 
 " Oh, I thank you there ; but I knew the artist well 
 enough before, and in his works. It seemed to me that I 
 should like to make acquaintance with the individual. 
 Am I too presuming?" 
 
 " I can assure Mrs. Vivian that only as the artist should 
 I repay her trouble," I answered, sincerely enough, for my 
 experience taught me that I had already, in theory, ab 
 jured my human side. 
 
 " We shall see," she replied, so coolly that I was 
 nettled. 
 
 " And it is only as the artist that I care to be known," 
 I added. 
 
 " Making headway famously," she exclaimed, with a 
 low laugh. "Ah, Mr. Sydney, I always succeed ! If 
 portraiture were your branch, I should sit to you for a 
 child of the sun, I am East Indian by birth as it is, 
 I shall be your guest continually while my picture pro 
 ceeds, and you must be mine when it is hung. Are such 
 orders, such visitors, unwarrantable ? " 
 
 " Such orders are frequent enough, such visitors rare." 
 
 " I see you can be genial, on occasion. That gives me 
 heart to beg your company at dinner next week ; some 
 beautiful women, some sparkling wits, some poets and 
 men of your sib." 
 
 " It is impossible, thank you. I cannot infringe upon 
 my rule even for such enticement." 
 
 Here Mrs. Vivian rose and sailed slowly about the 
 
188 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 room, scrutinizing its arrangements ; pulling aside a frag 
 ment of gold brocade that hung from the arm of an 
 antique and swept the floor, she extended her long arm, 
 brought out an object from its screen, and inspected it. 
 
 It was a spot of swamp where the rhodora grows in 
 leafless bloom, and the purple blossoms crowding the 
 place danced on the tips of their long stems like a swarm 
 of brilliant insects late lit from southern gales, waving 
 their antennae, rustling their wings, eager and tremulous 
 for fresh flight. It bore as motto, written in delicate 
 characters beneath, the line: 
 
 " In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes." 
 
 " I must have it ! " she exclaimed. " It is dainty and 
 matchless, quite out of your style. Is the price fixed, 
 Mr. Sydney?" 
 
 " It has no price, madam." 
 
 " But you will arrange one ? Pray don't hesitate." 
 And she named enormous sums. 
 
 " The thing is a trifle," I replied, " not worth a fraction 
 of what you mention. Nevertheless, I cannot part with 
 it." 
 
 " But my heart is set upon it. Pardon me I am 
 rich." 
 
 " You are not rich enough to buy it." 
 
 " Then it is of value to you, not your handiwork, 
 perhaps ? Whose then ? May I ask the artist's name ? 
 Who painted this exquisite bit?" 
 
 I was more annoyed than I could express, dropped my 
 palette and pencils with a clang, stooped to collect them, 
 and then, as she still paused for a reply, gave one : 
 
 " My wife." 
 
 " Ah ! I had heard I was scarcely aware " and 
 here she ceased, in order to examine the picture anew. 
 
DESERT SANDS. 189 
 
 Mrs. Vivian owed her usual success, as many others 
 do, to a want of delicacy. 
 
 " Well, sir," said she, " your wife can paint you another ; 
 as for me " and she held it arm's length while gazing. 
 
 I took the picture from her hand, as if she had wished 
 to relinquish it, and restored it to its former place. She 
 shrugged her shoulders slightly. 
 
 "I shall see that wife, Mr. Sydney, never fear, and 
 engage her good services on my own behalf. In what 
 seclusion she is cloistered. Is she from Stamboul ? Do 
 you keep a seraglio? .... Then you will not dine with 
 me?" she added, rising, and fixing the glittering eyes 
 upon me. 
 
 " I deplore my inability." 
 
 " Which means that you could if you chose." She 
 paused a moment before my easel, and adventurously 
 raised the curtain. " Shall I tell you what satisfaction I 
 find in your work ? " she said. " If one must link Emer 
 son's sentences with chains of their own logic, and if 
 Shakespeare leaves always room for your imagination, 
 some painters possess the same great quality. In won 
 dering at the boldness of your effects, I remember how 
 Beethoven 'permitted' consecutive fifths." 
 
 She dropped the curtain and moved on. 
 
 "I shall do myself the honor of calling upon Mrs. 
 Sydney, shortly," she continued, as a work-basket caught 
 her eye. 
 
 " I thank you, but Mrs. Sydney does not receive calls," 
 I replied. 
 
 She laughed, and the flash of white teeth completed 
 her extremes of color. At the door she paused to disturb 
 a pile of pencil-drawings. 
 
 " Wood-scenes ? Illustrations ? " she said. " Ah, By- 
 
190 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 ron's Dream, I see. You comprehend so various man 
 ners, from fresco to missal ! Have you ever seen a 
 missal, by the way?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " No ? I have one, a gorgeous little thing, the work 
 of Attavante, the Florentine. I shall have pleasure in 
 placing it at your disposal." And resting her perfectly 
 gloved hand in mine a moment, she bowed, smiled, and 
 was gone." 
 
 In the afternoon I received a parcel with Mrs. Dean 
 Vivian's compliments. It was the missal, in a case of 
 carved sandal-wood. Within was written, in faded ink : 
 Vespasia Rome, and a date of some ten years before. 
 She was then probably far my senior, and while looking 
 at it, it seemed to me that my morning's guest had been 
 some creature of the old Latin reign, and that the seal 
 dropped from her chatelain had its device Vce Victis 
 in her native tongue. 
 
 To the surprise of Eos, I left everything for the exam 
 ination of this treasure its arabesques, its floral wealth, 
 its grotesque and brilliant fancies, its colors that defied 
 time. At length I put it in my pocket and went out. I 
 walked far ; it was impossible to return till the mood that 
 was on me should be past. I could not keep my thoughts 
 away from the superb thing that had that morning filled 
 my vision from the serpentine grace, the splendid 
 hues, the daring, dazzling manner ; it was new, and fas 
 cinated like a vision of Lamia. I might have thought 
 that my over-wrought fancy had belied me, but the casket 
 of spicy wood that enclosed the precious fardel lay under 
 my hand, and was actual. This woman seemed to me 
 some Oriental creature of fire and strength, and not in 
 herself so much as in her suggestion, I was charmed. All 
 
DESERT SANDS. 191 
 
 ' the old Eastern dream of my youth picture of palm- 
 tree and desert wrapped me at remembrance of her. 
 When I returned home, at twilight, Eos was sleeping in 
 a chair by the grate ; a book had slipped from her hand 
 to the floor ; it was the Arabian Nights. I took it ; 
 and as I read by the flickering flame awhile, the spell 
 grew deeper ; I saw Damascus's gardens of delight, Cairo's 
 streets of grottoed shadow, the stainless sky of Philoe, 
 the Nile, mystery of mysteries. I wondered how I had 
 endured life with this pale phantom of a woman; I 
 cursed the dense and crowded air. The sting was upon 
 me ; henceforth though I lingered, my tent was struck. 
 
 Day followed day now, and yet I achieved nothing. 
 Eos saw that some trouble oppressed me ; she could not 
 become sweeter than before, but she made me feel her 
 sweetness more, and she lavished such vital force as she 
 possessed in counteracting the fatal influence ; but what 
 spell, what magnetism, could so feeble a nature exercise 
 against the all-potent one of that jewel-eyed enchantress ? 
 She endeavored to soothe me with her quiet, to cheer 
 me with her sunshine ; she sang to me almost constantly, 
 since frequently, when my sense of color became involved, 
 fine tints, clear contrasts, rich combinations, unrolled them 
 selves to my thought at her singing-voice. She twined 
 fresh vines about the casts ; she brought in her camellia- 
 bush, mooned and cresseted with spotless blossom ; she 
 heaped vase and shell with mounds of snowy bloom : the 
 only odor, that faintly distilled from some pure and dewy- 
 cool moss-rose. It was all in vain. The first time I went 
 to Vespasia's, the house reeked with the insidious perfume 
 of a daphne-tree 
 
 Vespasia came also to me. She begged me not to 
 cease work, and found herself a seat. I obeyed ; for 
 
192 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 beneath her eyes I felt a power not my own flow through 
 my fingers and enrich my canvas. While I worked, I 
 recognized her will, her magic, as she reclined in the low 
 chair behind me ; I submitted to her ordination, to the 
 influx of foreign force ; my creations grew instinct with 
 loveliness, the color spilled ripe and profuse from my 
 pencil. A door opened, and Eos, unaware, stepped down. 
 I hesitated, looked at her, and thought of St. Lucia bear 
 ing light to the blind ; my line faltered, my hand remained 
 palsied, as it were : so might a Madonna confront the 
 Venus of Titian. She welcomed the other in distant 
 courtesy, but continued standing by the easel, firm, mild, 
 and with, so to say, a gentle diffusive influence ; they were 
 antagonists, and Vespasia retreated. 
 
 Vespasia came to my studio no more, but not once or 
 twice only did I seek her, it became a constant custom. 
 Every evening I was her guest, by her side I heard all 
 choice music, her lips persuaded with honeyed eloquence, 
 her presence was a cup of intoxication, she was an adept 
 in all ravishing arts. Did I then love her ? No ; I loved 
 Eos as far as I could love at all ; but Vespasia's bound 
 less beauty, with its strange tone, -her luxurious habit, 
 her sumptuous surroundings, her prodigality of spirit and 
 person and array, were like some rich oil that fed the 
 flame of my genius till nothing seemed impossible to me. 
 But for the other did she keep watch and wait ? did 
 her cheek grow pale, her eye restless ? did she gather 
 greater quiet and more enduring patience ? In all this 
 weary while, what became of Eos? 
 
 One night I was with Vespasia at the opera. She was 
 magnificent ; she was very gay, I fancy, also ; but though 
 I kept my gaze fixed on her, I listened only to the music. 
 As the curtain fell on the first act of Der Freyschiitz, her 
 
DESERT SANDS. 193 
 
 eyes flashed for an instant toward the opposite portion of 
 the house, and then I saw that she was exerting all her 
 charms to retain my attention. Following a furtive 
 glance thrown again at the same point, I met that of 
 Eos. She was white and radiant, her eyes darkened and 
 glittering. Beside her sat Alain. I excused myself for 
 a few moments, and joined her. 
 
 " Eos ? " I said. " And here ? I left you at home, I 
 thought." 
 
 " Certainly you did," said Alain, in a low tone, before 
 she could reply. " I arrived in your absence, and saw 
 that the first thing she needed was diversion ; and the 
 next, a journey, which I hope to be able to persuade her 
 to take, and to take in the direction of her old home." 
 
 I bent across Eos, so that none but he could hear me : 
 
 " M. Duchenecosur knows, perhaps, the price of such 
 interference ? " I murmured. 
 
 " And always meets his obligations," was the reply, 
 with an indignant glance. 
 
 I offered Eos my hand, she rose, and we stepped into a 
 coach at the vestibule. I did not suffer her to sit aloof, 
 but held her in my arms, cheek to cheek. Perhaps I 
 thought she understood me, perhaps I did not care. I 
 left her in the studio, re-entered the coach, drove furi 
 ously back, and rejoined Vespasia as the curtain rose 
 again. I was more disturbed than I wished should ap 
 pear. I was half aware that some dream was broken, 
 but turned and composed myself anew, like one who 
 wished to continue it. Perhaps nothing could have 
 aroused my attention, and therefore calmed me, sooner 
 than the terrible diablerie of this drama, while its music 
 was like a soothing hand on weary eyelids. I was again 
 in the atmosphere of this regal woman, again breathing 
 
194 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 her magic, stilled in her affluence ; again at the breath of 
 horn and flute, with the chord of braided harmony all 
 soft and grateful color swathed me. I went home with 
 Vespasia ; others were there, the rooms were ringing, I 
 stood shrouded in a curtain and looking out. There were 
 the pavements wet with spring rain and shining in the 
 light. There was a woman with her shawl wrapped 
 closely about her, leaning against the lamp-post, her 
 white face bent upward and covering the window with 
 such a gaze as that with which a tigress protects her 
 young ; she had no significance for me, I was wrapped, 
 remotely, in a mist of bewilderment and sense. Then 
 the others went, the lights fell, there was only a luminous 
 blush in the place from behind rosy transparencies. 
 Vespasia floated on toward me ; I left the curtain, and 
 sat at her feet. 
 
 " Do you remember," said she, " how the Fay Vivien 
 bound Merlin ? " 
 
 I did not reply, too involved in the enjoyment of deli 
 cious fancy. Her arm was upon my shoulder ; I was 
 conscious of her form bending above me, of the bunch of 
 geraniums and lemon-leaves that blazed upon her bosom 
 and loaded the air with superabundant sweetness, of her 
 breath sweeping my cheek. I heard a voice that seemed 
 to issue from a cloud in one swift murmur : 
 
 " Sydney, do you love me ? " 
 
 A thorn of the sweetbrier bud which I had taken from 
 Eos stung my hand. I did not look at Vespasia, but 
 rose and walked from the room, from the house, out into 
 cool night air, sleet, and wind, and freedom. 
 
 Reaching home, I sought Eos. She was neither in the 
 studio nor elsewhere ; she was not to be found. A wild 
 suspicion crossed me, I leaped down the stairs to the 
 
DESERT SANDS. 195 
 
 door ; something lay under the shadows of the porch, 
 head drooping, arm outflung ; it was she. I carried her 
 in and summoned assistance. She was in a heavy stu 
 por ; with the morning, in high fever. Standing by her 
 bedside, I did not remember our words of the evening 
 before, when Alain entered. 
 
 " Too late, as I feared," he said impetuously. " You 
 succeed beyond my anticipations. I thought you had 
 only broken her heart, and it seems you have taken her 
 life!" 
 
 I could not care, just then, for anything he might say 
 " Hush ! " was all I answered. 
 
 He looked about the room ; its appointments were 
 chaste and costly enough. " Yes," he murmured, " you 
 become opulent, or hold the talisman to be so. Your 
 work commands enormous amounts ; one stroke of the 
 
 brush fills the purse but all your gold is coined from 
 
 her heart's blood ! " 
 
 " It has not been at my option to do other than I have 
 done," I replied, somewhat moved. 
 
 He laughed in his low-mocking way. " They are all 
 alike," he muttered ; " from Attila to Sydney, they are all 
 the scourge of God, the instruments." 
 
 I put my hand upon his shoulder and pointed at the 
 door. I was roused, and my eyes must have flamed. 
 
 He glanced back at Eos, and turned. " No," he said, 
 " I shall remain ; she is almost my sister, she will need 
 me, too." 
 
 " She needs no one," I exclaimed in the same sup 
 pressed tone ; " she has me." 
 
 " She will not have you long, the fit will pass, and 
 revert to your oil-tubes and pencils," he replied coolly. 
 " Well, I will stoop so much and ask it : let me stay." 
 
196 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 So he stayed. She was ill long ; so soon as delirium 
 and danger were past, I resumed my painting ; I had 
 orders to fill, and ideas to elaborate. I was fortunate 
 beyond thought; I had never so nearly brought my 
 performance to the level of my conception. Weeks 
 passed swiftly, the night went, the summer was upon 
 us. Alain, who, it may be, began to see that any other 
 than the course which I had pursued was impossible 
 with me, remitted his hostility. More faithful and 
 careful than a watch-dog, he followed Eos, wheeled her 
 sofa into the studio, lifted and held her that she might 
 see me work, recounted to her incidents of my fame, 
 sang to her, read to her, ransacked the markets for dainty 
 fruits pomegranates from Florida, granadillas, all glow 
 ing and gorgeous infiltrations of tropical sweetness and 
 wealth. When the twilight came, at close of our wed 
 ding-day, I took her in my arms and walked with her 
 till she slept. Alain, meanwhile, neglected none of his 
 studies ; he read us his father's letters, and his conver 
 sation, when best pleased, was chiefly of his future home 
 in the East At the word, all the old fire flashed up in 
 my veins, again the desert-mania, the pyramids, the eter 
 nal sands. 
 
 At last Alain bade us farewell for years ; he was to 
 take the Arabia. Eos was restored, and on the day of 
 his departure, we went into the country by the sea-shore 
 Worn with watching and close application, my eyes 
 troubled me, and Eos, in the hours when sketching was 
 abandoned, read aloud ; the book she happened on was 
 Eothen ; as she proceeded, the fascination became like 
 the eye of the basilisk, drawing me eastward ; I bade 
 her exchange it, and she found Vathek ; she repeated 
 to me Fatima, and she sang to me a strange German 
 
DESERT SANDS. 197 
 
 Song of Sand. When I walked by the shore, again the 
 imperious longing seized me; my fancy travelled along 
 this vast level of calm seas to find the loneliness it coveted, 
 but not the fertilizing heat, the languor, the wild strange 
 life ; bitter salt and cold was the sea. The desire 
 rose unbidden perpetually, it lingered against my wish, 
 it became morbid, and goaded me like the gadfly of 
 lo. I was not ready for extended travel yet. America 
 I recognized as the prime school of landscape ; I had a 
 principle in the thing, and wished to drain the cup at my 
 lips ere turning to the lees of that drained centuries ago ; 
 moreover, I feared lest originality should vanish before 
 the overpowering vitality of that old land, and I fall into 
 mere worship. So, after a time, we went back to the city, 
 and so for three years I plodded on. It was not like the 
 weary plodding of others, there was never failure, always 
 satisfaction, always an interior and intense joy, a joy over 
 the beauty that was in the universe, and my mastery 
 thereof, that was a perennial intoxication of triumph. 
 Thus these three years were a season of ideal revelry ; 
 at their close I possessed myself in more strength than 
 ever heretofore, and yet the earth revealed to me her 
 secrets. Still, while I wore deeper and deeper the 
 grooves of my orbit, Eos waited on me pale and patient 
 as a satellite, other than so, she saw I did not need her ; 
 she spoke little, she smiled only on me, at my day and 
 night absences she made no word of remonstrance, she 
 allowed me to find pleasure where I might, convinced that 
 all was but the nutritive compost required to bring the 
 germs of thought into blossom on my canvas ; she be 
 came impervious to jealousy ; once, capable of anger 
 albeit, angry as a dove's wing makes lightning such a 
 thing could no longer strike a spark from her sensation ; 
 
198 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 no indifference, or neglect, or wrong, wrung from her 
 complaint, all suffering had found its ebullition in the 
 night preceding her illness : she was Eos still, but with 
 out the spirit. There grew in her eyes that look of 
 desolation to be found in those of so many a tutelary 
 saint ; I remembered when they were bluer than snow- 
 shadows, and sparkled with perpetual sunshine. 
 
 It was the third summer since Alain had left us ; we 
 went to the mountains this year, and with Eos at my 
 hand, I ranged them again. There was hardly a crevice 
 in their old seamed sides which I did not know. I knew 
 where the black bear kept his den, and where the snakes 
 coiled, and hissed, and bred ; in the clouds upon their 
 summits I had been wrapped, in their valleys stifled. It 
 was a different life that I wanted, a different race of men 
 from these stolid mountaineers ; I wearied of the pastoral 
 the shining armaments of war, the spear, and the bit, 
 were flashing ever before me my mind made pictures 
 that this cold North could never realize. 
 
 One day, at dinner, there were some fresh arrivals, 
 and, in the course of making acquaintance, the conver 
 sation became personal. 
 
 " That reminds me," said one. " Do you know Mrs. 
 Vivian ? " 
 
 " Dean Vivian's widow ? " 
 
 "I suppose so, somebody's widow; wealthy, superb, 
 eyes like broken bottle-glass." 
 
 "Oh, very well." 
 
 " You know, then, that she has left Europe ? " 
 
 " I was not aware that she had been there. "When 
 will she arrive ? " 
 
 " I believe the passage is not long from Marseilles to 
 Alexandria. She will never arrive in America, she has 
 forsworn it, and returns to the East." 
 
DESERT SANDS. 199 
 
 Indeed ! That is a great loss." 
 
 " Yes, in some respects. It is better, on the other 
 hand, to have every object fulfil its destiny ; hers was 
 not in civilization. She always appeared, in my object- 
 glass, like some savage thing panting with restraint : one 
 of those desert-creatures, full of wary, feline instincts, 
 ready to throw off mask and sheathe claws in the desired 
 prey. Ah, sir? "turning to me. 
 
 " Not at all," I replied, " she seemed to me eminently 
 human. I fancied there had been Roman women like 
 her." 
 
 " Impossible ! That is because you misapprehend, and 
 are led astray by her name. I remembered, when I used 
 to see her, the beautiful Ghoul whom the Arabian prince 
 married unawares, the genie and great fairy with woman- 
 faces and ophidian extremities. Yes, her very gait, if 
 you ever noticed, was not like that of most stately females, 
 it was sinuous or sidelong, never attaining any mark by a 
 straight line ; and, upon my soul ! it would not be hard 
 to take the rustle of her silks for hissing. Just imagine 
 the transformation as Keats has done. See the 
 
 ' Gordian shape of dazzling hue, 
 Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue, 
 Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 
 Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barred 
 And full of silver moons, that as she breathes 
 Dissolve, or brighter shine.' 
 
 The very Serpent, slipping among the arid sparkling 
 wastes of sand ; I expect yet to see some of her vic 
 tims set their heel upon her head. Well, it is gratify 
 ing to have any substance acknowledge its magnet, and 
 Mrs. Vivian takes to the sun rarely. It allows hope that, 
 by and by, all the extraneous will filter off, and leave 
 
200 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 only, in a millennial world, the pure ore, that is to say, 
 you and I, sir, and little madam here ! " With which he 
 bowed to his wife, and built a ditch and glacis in her salt 
 cellar, while waiting for dessert. 
 
 "After such a harangue, my dear," said the lady, 
 "your auditory will suspect you of being one of the 
 victims." 
 
 " I shall disown the ( soft impeachment/ My auditory 
 know my specialty ; I do not paint pictures, I paint char 
 acters." 
 
 " It is not Mrs. Vivian's character so much as her 
 personal suggestions, that you have sketched," I inter 
 posed. 
 
 " And they are her character precisely, taking the 
 parallax into account. You know, sir, that the way to 
 see a star best is not to look at it directly." 
 
 Here Eos rose, and I was glad to follow. We wan 
 dered all the afternoon, and came at length upon a wet spot 
 where the scarlet cardinals grew. As I plucked and Eos 
 twined them in her hat, I looked up the great rock that 
 towered behind, and put my hand upon its stained face, 
 unheated by all the August sun. I surveyed the narrow 
 valley, the unyielding barrier of mountains that enclosed 
 me, the pale sky that stretched cold and thin above me ; 
 I gathered another handful of the cardinals, and thought 
 of great African lilies, of skies brimmed with inexhausti 
 ble azure that contrast with the angles of a tent gives violet 
 tinges deep as the lees of claret. I felt oppressed by the 
 great dumb life crowding upon me, I wished to push the 
 gigantic flanks aside, I longed for a sparkle, a rush ; solid 
 and heavy and immobile, I desired the slight and capricious 
 and rapid ; shut so that my very thoughts met with re 
 bound and struck again my own breast, I would have given 
 
DESERT SANDS. 201 
 
 half my life for a gallop over long flat sands. The table- 
 talk, with its hints of the Orient, had fanned the embers 
 to a flame ; my blood seemed to pour like some fierce 
 torrent against my pulse ; at each glance that sought to 
 reach a distance, the hills opposed their opaque wall; 
 included and restrained, I felt myself in prison with all 
 their weight on my soul. My heart beat in my throat, 
 I drew my breath like fire. 
 
 " Eos," I said, " I shall go to the East," 
 
 " I thought you would," was all she replied, gathering 
 up the reins. 
 
 " There is nothing left me here," I continued ; " the 
 great rivers, prairies, everglades, I have sucked them all 
 dry. I may go on with endless repetitions till we die. 
 Besides, they have no storied sanctity, the pyramids do 
 not begin nor the blameless Ethiops end them. My eye 
 craves leagues of interminable extent and stillness, distant 
 air tremulous above burning lands, where vast stretches 
 are compressed in one indefinable line as sky and earth 
 meet, light intense and overflowing with positive vitality, 
 strong enough to sting faint eyes to death. I am 
 weary of undulations, heights that I can overtop, intervals 
 whose boundaries I know, I long for level immeasura 
 bility. It cannot be a thought of Elephantine caverns 
 or ruined lauras, temple, or sphinx ; it is the wide horizon, 
 the fathomless azure, the limitless sand, heat, and lan 
 guor, and life. I am in fetters ! " I exclaimed. " In 
 vention smothered, expression checked, I cannot breathe 
 this air ; I must go, Eos, I must go ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Eos ; " but it is so long." 
 
 " So long ! What lengthens our time there more than 
 here ? " 
 
 " Then I, also can I go ? " 
 
202 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 " Can ? Must ! After all, Eos, it is to paint that I go 
 to the East and without you ? I might as well paint 
 without daylight." 
 
 " But your heats, your languors, I shall die, I am 
 not strong ; I nearly dissolved in Florida, you know." 
 
 When had Eos objected to any project so urged by me, 
 before, and objected on such grounds ? I turned and took 
 her bridle. 
 
 " You were thinking of Vespasia," I said. " /was not. 
 I never cared for the woman, but for her influences. Her 
 East is far beyond, moreover ; swarthier skies are there, 
 and its shores are laved by more southern seas. It is 
 unlikely that we shall meet. Yet fancy, Eos ! if we 
 should, how splendid the picture : white dromedaries, and 
 red saddle-cloths, and the face of Vespasia, from her airy 
 throne, flashing by us in the wilderness. So the Enchant 
 ress Queen Labe might journey from the secret Nile 
 Source to the city of great Magiana ! " 
 
 Eos touched her little mountain pony with the switch, 
 and then bent her head as she subdued his curvetting. 
 That was not effected at once, and we proceeded home in 
 silence. 
 
 Swift and deft beyond all other women, she completed 
 our preparations in season for the next steamer ; and 
 suddenly, one day, all my dreams were accomplished, for 
 we touched the shores of Africa. 
 
 We remained, during the winter, for purposes of re 
 search and acclimation, within the precincts of the old 
 historic town alien and fantastic that received us. I 
 wished, also, to take the plains in their utmost ardor ; 
 meanwhile, I was not idle. With the spring, we obtained 
 a convoy and began our Arab life. When my foot 
 
DESERT SANDS. 203 
 
 touched the stirrup, when my horse first bounded beneath 
 my heel, when some city whose strange, sweet name 
 savored of dates, and palm-wine, and 4 lucent syrops tinct 
 with cinnamon ' veiled itself behind us, and leagues 
 and leagues away and around spread the glimmering 
 sheets, when I beheld that deep line of perpetual flight 
 whose profound color amassed that of so many horizons, 
 when for the first time I found the life I had sought, 
 the bivouac, the siesta, the journeying by early stars, 
 far from experiencing the exhilaration I had foreseen, I 
 felt myself utterly satisfied and at rest. But, in truth, so 
 far from rest, the state in which I was resembled that 
 swift revolution of bodies where they appear to be 
 motionless : it was the very acme of unrest Nothing 
 surprised me in all that was so new; my very array 
 occasioned me no hinderance, it seemed as if I had never 
 worn another, picturesque and varied in all gay shades, 
 effeminate and light as wrappings of air ; accustomed to 
 and demanding luxury, the simplicity of this life became 
 at once mine, the primitive manners charmed me, the 
 coarse fare contented me. In the night, the Arabs 
 circled round the dying fire made groups where chiaro- 
 oscuro could do no more ; in the day we crossed the track 
 of some kindred party, or exchanged salutes with a 
 parcel of French chasseurs, or encountered the great 
 half-yearly caravan, defiling straight along the pathless 
 waste, resplendent in arms, gorgeous in color, fluttering 
 in fringe and scarf and banner, and snatching the breath 
 from the lips with its clamor, and swiftness, and grace. 
 Sometimes many successive halts were made near wells 
 of fresh sweet water, or at other times the provision, 
 tepid and rank, carried in the skins, sufficed us for days ; 
 to me, even this was almost welcome, and joyfully remem- 
 
204 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 bered as a portion of the wild delight of the life. Eos, 
 pillowed and canopied aloft on her mattress, uttered no 
 complaint when perishing of thirst, never murmured at 
 the heat or the jolting gait of her camel ; she retreated far 
 ther under her coverings, and when the cry ran along the 
 line, leaned forth feebly in the hot quiet to draw strength 
 from the yet distant oasis whose palm-plume was cut upon 
 the azure like a gem. Later, with the softness, the sudden 
 nights that fell without twilight, the stars that hung great 
 and glowing from their vaults of crystalline darkness, in 
 the gloom, the coolness, the shelter of tamarisk-thicket 
 and breath of rose-laurel, she became refreshed and 
 enlivened, and appeared, once more, airy and light-hearted 
 as when in youth. How should I have known that in 
 that dreadful sun, those scorching winds, she suffered so ? 
 She never told me, and my own keen enjoyment flushed 
 me too fully to allow perception of any pain in the world. 
 Thus we journeyed. We halted in strange cities of 
 the desert, till then unguessed ; we took up our march 
 again from ruins over which the restless sand had blown 
 for centuries ; all the way began to assume a new aspect, 
 vague, unnatural, almost demoniacal. As we went, the 
 great monumental camels, lost from wandering tribes, 
 strange sad beasts that seem the relics of some primeval 
 era, came and surveyed us, standing gaunt and stolid and 
 stony and starved between us and the sky ; the little sala 
 manders twisted and slipped among the burning sands ; 
 hot exhalations rose and maddened the animals ; the si 
 rocco played fearful fantasies in our brains ; the flying 
 lines, the alluring distances, buried themselves in mock 
 ing mirage, the watercourses became dry, the sun 
 withered the eye that looked abroad, the summer heats 
 beset us. 
 
DESERT SANDS. 205 
 
 Our guides, who regarded everything as a matter of 
 course, sought shelter and sleep. Eos, every limb flaccid, 
 every nerve unstrung, drooped weaker and fainter, with 
 no word, at last, even for me, with imperceptible breath, 
 and nothing but a fluttering pulse to tell the life within 
 her. When the night came, all retook courage. As for 
 me, I did not need it : I was in a state of inexhaustible 
 well-being, I was bathed in the lustre of these overflow 
 ing heavens, I drank the divine melancholy of infinite 
 distance, I was penetrated with warmth and satiated 
 with light. 
 
 One day, just before the noon halt, there suddenly rose 
 upon our vision a small caravan, rose from no one knew 
 where, since in the desert, owing perhaps to space, such 
 sights* come and go like ephemera. It consisted of a 
 pack-camel whose driver urged it along at intervals with 
 a peculiarly shrill song, and following, an Arab horseman, 
 the trappings of purple and burnished silver glowing in 
 the sun, and a dun-colored dromedary. From a seat of 
 sumptuous cushions high embossed on the latter, a figure, 
 all in white, bent, lifted aside its veil, and a face, golden 
 in the noonlight, and with the sinister contrast of emerald 
 eyes, flashed upon me. It was the face of Vespasia. 
 The whole passed at a rapid pace, and became lost in the 
 depths of the desert. Shortly afterward, we paused, and 
 the little bivouac slept silent in siesta. While they rested, 
 I had been sketching, for I allowed nothing to escape me, 
 neither- the hooded viper with his angry hue, in the patch 
 of grass, nor the scorpion writhing from sight, nor an 
 ostrich flying before the wind of his speed with all his 
 plumes spread and dancing. At last I entered the tent 
 and lay down. For a moment I pressed my hand upon 
 my eyes, a sudden darkness, edged with splendor, fol- 
 
206 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 lowed, then shooting gleams and rings and fiery spires. 
 I opened them in the soft demi-shade of the tent ; the 
 light was intolerable. I was alarmed. 
 
 " Eos," I said, " I can scarcely see, I am dazzled. 
 We must remain encamped here till I recover ; it would 
 not be pleasant to be left in the dark, you know," and I 
 laughed as I spoke. 
 
 Eos lifted her languid head, put back the hair, brought 
 her dressing-case nearer after an effort, and wetting a 
 handkerchief in some cool -ointment there, crept toward 
 me and bound it about my eyes. Then she drew my 
 head upon her bosom, and I fell asleep. When I awoke, 
 it was with a sharp exclamation and then a laugh. My 
 difficulty had vanished with rest. I saw Eos near the 
 lifted hangings, and Alain bending over me. He had 
 been with us in the winter, and had counted upon meet 
 ing us frequently during our travel. He was out with 
 skirmishers, in pursuit of fragments of certain rebellious 
 tribes. They lingered and took the evening meal with us. 
 
 Alain was no longer genial ; on the contrary, as sar 
 donic as I had ever at any time seen him, and now and 
 then giving way to a biting sentence. At length his 
 companions gave notice of departure. Alain rose and 
 bade Eos good-night ; I stepped outside with him. 
 
 " You are at your old tricks again ! " said he abruptly, 
 as we stood alone a moment. I did not understand him. 
 " Eos is dying now in good earnest." 
 
 I was startled, and then remembered his habit. " Eos 
 experiences lassitude from the heat," I replied, " nothing 
 more. I have nearly finished my studies ; we shall 
 return, and all will be well." 
 
 Slightly soothed by my calmness, " Heaven grant it ! " 
 said he. " She is thinner than a shadow, in this accursed 
 
DESERT SANDS. 207 
 
 land where there are no shadows ! She is transparent. I 
 have not seen such pallor in a living countenance. Her 
 eyes are more luminous, with the trace of those great blue 
 half-circles below them, than these porcelain heavens. 
 Yes, she is dying, I say ! " he continued with more vehe 
 mence, " not only of heat and weariness, but of suppres 
 sion ! This aptitude, this power, this whatever you choose 
 to call it, genius or inspiration, for which you refuse her 
 utterance, this has produced a spiritual asphyxia. She 
 had better be an Arab woman and live her life ! You 
 have killed her, but no one can hang you for it ! " Before 
 I could reply, he strode to his horse, mounted, and fled 
 like an arrow to rejoin his fellows. 
 
 At the tent-door stood Eos ; I took her in my arms 
 and wandered up and down the place, once a green island 
 in the sea of sand, now parched and withered. I told her 
 of my success, I talked of what swayed my thoughts, I 
 bade her have yet a few days' patience. Perhaps the 
 sight of Alain had reanimated her, perhaps my unusual 
 treatment ; she slipped, at length, from my grasp and 
 walked beside me and grew gay ; now she ran a few 
 paces in advance, now came back and hung over my 
 hand ; she sang broken tunes, bits of homesick airs, 
 twittering and chirping, as I said, like a bird at dawn. 
 
 " Alain has teased you," said she at length. " He 
 thinks me ill, I know ; but I am perfectly well, only 
 tired. And seeing Alain was like going home." 
 
 " We will go soon, Eos ; you shall be there before the 
 last harebells are faded, for what would the year be un 
 less I saw their blue deepen the blue of your eyes ? The 
 grapes over your mother's arbor will just have purpled 
 to your gathering, do you remember once when you 
 rubbed the bloom off the bunches that their skins might 
 
208 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 shine like Copts ? I wonder if the honeysuckle by the 
 south window is dead yet ; its berries should be the color 
 of chalcedony by this time ; your mother used " 
 
 " Don't speak of home ! " cried Eos, bursting into a 
 sudden passion of tears, clinging to me and speaking 
 through her sobs. " Don't speak of home ! Of those 
 days! It breaks my heart to think of them!" 
 
 " Eos ! " I said in surprise, " do ydU regret it so un 
 happily ? " 
 
 " No, no, I am not unhappy ! I am most blest, because 
 you love me better than you ever did before ; but once in 
 a while all that rises, and I perish with longing." 
 
 " Dear child," I said, smoothing the fair, flying hair 
 from her forehead, " you shall go to-morrow, if you will. 
 I can easily find you escort, and then remain till my work 
 is done, without you." 
 
 " Could you ? " asked Eos, drying her tears. " But I 
 could not ; where you are is my home always. I am 
 sorry I have been so naughty, a hindering little thing, 
 a weak and silly little wife ! " 
 
 We lingered in silence a moment, to breathe the soft 
 warm night, to feel the gentle air sighing in the tamarisks, 
 to see the great jewelry of heaven that every night spread 
 its brilliant net above the desert, sapphire and chryso 
 lite and ruby and beryl. As we went in, Eos pointed 
 with her white finger at one star, just above the horizon, 
 red as a drop of blood ready to fall. 
 
 Early, under the awfully white sheen of a desert moon, 
 the tents were struck, and we were on our way again. 
 There was all the awakening cheer of the morning, the 
 neighing horses, protesting camels, the stir of equipage, 
 tintinnabulation of bells, and cries of Arabs. The heav 
 ens bleached, a stain like that from some ruddy and enor- 
 
DESERT SANDS. 209 
 
 mous blossom dyed the east, the shadows lengthened, rosy 
 light welled up and filled the great hollow of the sky ; 
 there were no clouds, no pomp, nothing but intense lustre 
 and overpowering heat. 
 
 I had gradually fallen behind the others, as here and 
 there appeared subjects for my pencil, and had lost them 
 entirely from view, since I liked much to find myself so 
 unimpeded and utterly alone, trusting the instinct of my 
 horse to recover the train on occasion. Nothing could 
 equal the profound hush ; it seemed as if the vast extent 
 of stillness swallowed every noise into itself, as the sea 
 closes over dross. 
 
 While this thought passed through my mind, my horse 
 suddenly pricked his ears and quivered under my hand, 
 throwing back his head with swollen nostril and clustered 
 veins, and rolling a fiery eyeball about ; he appeared to 
 listen intently, standing crisp-maned, and with the stif 
 fened muscular action of a bronze. In a moment, I heard 
 a long low note winding from the right a signal of 
 alarm. I touched him with the spur, folded my imple 
 ments as we went, and galloped in its direction. 
 
 The train had already ceased progress, and had en 
 circled the women in a hollow square. Sheik Ibrahim, 
 meeting me, assured me that there were indisputable 
 signs of an enemy, that he had suspected it for two or 
 three days, but judged that the presence of the French, 
 within such short distance, would be a sufficient safe 
 guard, and therefore had said nothing. I remonstrated 
 with him on his posture of defence, urging that it invited 
 attack. He replied it was well known that bands hostile 
 to his own tribe patrolled the desert, and it was singular 
 we had already met none of sufficient force to assail us, 
 and that I should soon see if his precautions were vain. 
 
210 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 Far from terror, I found Eos exhilarated and trembling 
 with excitement ; her hand lay in mine like ice, and her 
 eyes were fixed on a distant and increasing point. My 
 glance followed hers, and before long I could plainly de 
 tect the glitter of spear-heads, the flash of sunshine on 
 mounted weapons, floating pennons, and a mingled splen 
 dor of color, while a strangely discordant yet thrilling 
 music announced no peaceful errand. Our horsemen 
 pranced up and down the line, their eyes sparkling, their 
 scarfs streaming, with difficulty restraining themselves 
 from hurling a shower of spears at their assailants. 
 
 An hour's waiting, and they were near enough to ex 
 change defiance ; a lance leaped out and fell at my feet ; 
 then, without a word's warning, a volley of musketry, and 
 the impetuous charge. For a moment, all thought of 
 defence abandoned me, as I found myself in the midst of 
 the melee, with its great, leaping steeds, its tossing kaf 
 tans, its purple and scarlet and gold, its irate motion and 
 gesture and shrilling trumpet-peals, its flaming eyes, and 
 the one lithe figure that flashed to and fro, mercurial and 
 savage, among the swords, ever insinuating nearer, in 
 the next, a blind instinct seized me, and the warlike fury. 
 
 I do not know how the little battle fell ; our enemy 
 exceeded us thrice ; I can easily imagine that their cer 
 tainty of victory already dashed us with defeat. I shook 
 a hand from my shoulder, felt it again, turned and saw 
 Eos, who had slipped from her nest, grasping a rusty old 
 yataghan, and replete with spirit. 
 
 "Alain!" she cried, "Alain!" 
 
 And deliverance, with the French tirailleurs, was upon 
 us. The hostile party swerved, broke precipitately and 
 fled ; the lithe figure, which I had remarked before, alone 
 wheeled back upon us in a wide detour, poised suddenly 
 
DESERT SANDS. 211 
 
 in its career, and leaning on one stirrup from the saddle, 
 dashed aside white burnous and violet turban-scarf, and, 
 under the meteor of the uplifted sword-blade, I caught 
 again that sinister dazzle of blazing leopard eyes. I had 
 but time to fling Eos behind me when the blow descended 
 and sheared a portion of her dress. As instantly the 
 balance was restored, and the figure swept on, but not 
 before I saw the long gleam of a tirailleur's polished bar 
 rel raised in the sun, and swiftly as it fled a swifter foe 
 fled after. I shut my eyes, but I must have felt the 
 bound, the reel, the headlong plunge, the dragging stirrup, 
 till a second shot felled the horse with its rider. 
 
 " Yes," said Alain, a little later, when he joined us, 
 " the very tribe we hunt ! Well routed, too." 
 
 " Among them, effendi," said Ibrahim, " was an adven 
 turess, who certainly purchased their favor with immense 
 treasure. Their defeat is no less than a miracle of God, 
 a blow for charging in mad noon at command of a 
 woman ! Dogs, and sons of dogs ! God willed it ; she 
 lies there dead ! " 
 
 Tender to the friend, inexorable to th^ enemy, with the 
 one savage trait of his nature, Alain extended his hand 
 to Eos. 
 
 " You can set your heel upon her head ! " he said. 
 
 Eos flung him a glance like the blue light shed from 
 the swallow's wing, and clung unreasonably to me. 
 
 I wonder now why she loved me, why, rather, she did 
 not hate me ! I had occasioned her only distress, I gave 
 her no joy, no rest. Too sure it is that human attractions 
 and repulsions are as invisible as potent. 
 
 This affair in nowise hurried our movements ; we felt, 
 henceforth, much safer, like those who have suffered a 
 
212 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 contagious illness to be suffered but once. I lingered 
 farther from the camp, prolonged our stages, wrought up 
 the hints afforded me, tried my effects in the face of what 
 they sought to accomplish, imbibed the warmth and ra 
 diance like a fruit of the tropics, and felt myself con 
 stantly more affluent. But while I made such revelry of 
 every day, to Eos they brought torture ; the reaction from 
 the enthusiasm and shocks of the fray prostrated her, the 
 heats still wrung away her vitality, the very sands be 
 came loathsome in her eyes ; lifted from one arm to 
 another, she had that horror of touching them with her 
 foot that one has of treading on a grave ; she seemed to 
 fear, perpetually, the sight of those jewel-eyes, that trail 
 ing viscous length, those splendid dyes, sliding among the 
 golden grains, frequently she seemed fascinated and 
 forced to seek for them ; the skirmish was every night 
 re-enacted in her dreams ; she woke with the curve of the 
 descending weapon and the glare of that envenomed gaze 
 before her face, her sleep was a shivering nightmare, 
 finally, she ceased to sleep at all. But all these things I 
 never thought of then, blinder than now. And so my 
 slow murder was accomplishing. 
 
 At length the summer was over, the term of Sheik 
 Ibrahim's service expired, I turned my back upon the 
 desert, not forever, as I hoped, bade farewell to these 
 fierce rays that had ravished me from myself, to this feast 
 of lustre, to these long lines that shared the grandeur of 
 infinity ; I awoke from my debauch of light, I left the 
 great solace of sun and solitude and space and silence. I 
 threaded again the dark, narrow bazaars, and again, with 
 Eos, found myself on level calms of blue water; and 
 thus, as it were, by gentle gradations came back to my 
 old life. 
 
DESERT SANDS. 213 
 
 At sea, Eos lay upon the deck, placid and peaceful, yet 
 motionless ; but people were always sick at sea, I said. 
 Once at home, and reinstated in our old ways, I looked 
 for her recovery, and looked in vain ; it became necessary 
 to regard her as a confirmed invalid. That is the case 
 with all American women, I said. I found her attend 
 ance, then missed her unfailing services that I had never 
 recognized, and wondered if I could not anticipate my own 
 wants. She lay, during the greater portion of the day, on 
 a couch at the lower window of the room where I painted, 
 and now I worked with a will and energy I had never 
 known before. I rose at daybreak to contemplate my 
 progress ; I scarcely allowed myself time for my daily 
 food ; I took no recreation : it was recreation enough, it 
 was complete joy, thus to reproduce the only summer, I 
 declared, in which I had ever lived. I combined, and 
 eliminated, and heightened, there was no strength possible 
 to my palette which I difl not demand, I exhausted the 
 secrets of my art, my eyes grew heated with fixed labor, 
 my breath, itself, paused on my lips. Eos, as intent as I, 
 watched its growth with a fever in her cheek, and, in her 
 feeble way, grew blithe at any powerful success. She 
 used to follow me with her glance ; now and then, yet 
 seldom, she beckoned me to leave all and kiss her, she 
 was so weak that she scarcely ever attempted to walk ; 
 except to carry her from room to room, to obey her rare 
 requests, I was too absorbed to be more than remotely 
 sensible of her existence. But she she seemed to con 
 centrate the love of long life into those few months. Once, 
 when my sight was fatigued, I sat and shaded it with my 
 hand ; she thought me confused in color, and remembered 
 her old remedy, rose, reached the piano, and slowly un 
 wound a chain of clear, fine chords, a rill of melody steal- 
 
214 DESERT SANDS. 
 
 ing through them to be lost in closing chords finer and 
 sweeter, the rich sediment that had remained in her mem 
 ory from some imposing Mass. The sound, so unusual 
 now, startled me. 
 
 " Eos ! " I exclaimed, " what has happened ? Are you 
 well ? " 
 
 " You know the wick flashes up when the flame is ex 
 tinguished, if the day is to be fine to-morrow," she said, 
 and laughed. 
 
 Then her face grew still, her eye wistful, she staggered 
 and fell, and I bore her to the couch again. 
 
 So the winter skimmed away, it grew to be late in the 
 spring, and I could look forward to the completion of my 
 work. I did not think, then, of its pompous parade, its 
 triumphal march from town to town, of its throng of lovers, 
 of its world-wide fame ; I saw and felt only its beauty, 
 and needed no other recompense. There lay the desert 
 before me again, its one moment of dawn, when the sands 
 blanched, the skies blenched, and the opposite quarter 
 dreamed of rosy suffusion to cast it again yet more faintly 
 on the white dromedary and the white-wrapped Arab 
 beside him. They, and their long pallid shadows falling 
 from the east, alone taught me the ineffable solitude and 
 hush ; beyond them, I found again the lengthening lines, 
 the hints of fuller light, slow and fine detail, desert com 
 pressed within desert, space and immensity daringly shut 
 on a canvas. There was the sparkle of the sterile stretch, 
 the wide air emptied of its torrid stings, the eternal calm 
 and peace the melancholy for one, the rapture for an 
 other. There was the soul of summer shed, older and 
 more mysterious and sadder than the sea, fresh made with 
 .every morn in vigor and hope, the work was worth its 
 price ! 
 
DESERT SANDS. 215 
 
 One day I waited merely for the artisans with the frame. 
 I went gayly and sat down on Eos's couch. I took her in 
 my arms, she was lighter than any child, laid her 
 head on my shoulder, and talked to her a few moments 
 of my hopes and certainties. Then we were silent. She 
 lifted her hand and placed it on my forehead. 
 
 " How glad I am that you love me as you do," she said. 
 " Other love might regard me as a separate thing, seek 
 my ease or pleasure aside, but you have made and felt me 
 a part of yourself. I am glad, darling, and I thank God 
 for you ! " 
 
 She lifted her still beautiful head and pressed her lips 
 to mine, long, fervently, and as if she wished I should 
 drink the last drops of her life, then sank back. 
 
 I heard the men on the stairs. I dropped her among 
 her cushions, drew the screen, and admitted them. That 
 was soon done. Then there were a few touches yet 
 to be given, some delicate strokes, a shadow to deepen, 
 a light to intensify, and the radiant thing stood perfect 
 before me. 
 
 " Eos, my work is ended ! " I cried. " There is nothing 
 more to do ! " 
 
 I stepped back ; I scanned it intently ; I turned, bewil 
 dered ; and, at a sharp sting, drew my fingers down my 
 lids. At the touch, a spear, as of some Northern Light, 
 leapt across my vision, then murk darkness, and creeping 
 over that, my picture, the sands of the desert, forever and 
 forever slretched before my eyes. 
 
 " Who has drawn the shades ? " I asked. " Have I 
 worked till night ? Eos, are you here ? " 
 
 I moved forward, the bell from a neighboring church- 
 tower struck the hour of noon, my hand passed through 
 
216 
 
 DESEKT SANDS. 
 
 the open window and clutched empty air, groped back 
 again and lay on features bathed in vapid chill. 
 
 Truly, there was nothing more to do, in all my life 
 long, nothing more to do ! Night had fallen at noon. I 
 was blind, and Eos was dead. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 10 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 i. 
 
 ROBABLY you never saw such a superb 
 creature, if that word, creature, does not 
 endow her with too much life : a Semiramis, 
 without the profligacy, an Isis, without the 
 worship, a Sphinx, yes, a Sphinx, with her desert, who 
 long ago despaired of having one come to read her riddle, 
 strong, calm, patient perhaps. In this respect she seemed 
 to own no redundant life, just enough to eke along exist 
 ence, not living, but waiting. 
 
 I say, all this would have been one's impression ; and 
 one's impression would have been incorrect. 
 
 I really cannot state her age ; and having attained to 
 years of discretion, it is not of such consequence as it is 
 often supposed to be, whether one be twenty or sixty. 
 You would have been confident, that, living to count her 
 hundreds, she would only have bloomed with more im 
 mortal freshness ; but such a thought would not have oc 
 curred to you at all, if you had not already felt that she 
 was no longer young, she possessed so perfectly that 
 certain self-reliance, self-understanding, aplomb, into which 
 little folk crystallize at an early age, but which is not to 
 be found with those whose identities are cast in a larger 
 
220 MIDSUMMEK AND MAY. 
 
 mould, until they have passed through periods of fuller 
 experience. 
 
 That Mrs. Laudersdale was the technical magnificent 
 woman, I need not reiterate. I wish I knew some name 
 gorgeous enough in sound and association for that given 
 her at christening; but I don't. It is my opinion that 
 she was born Mrs. Laudersdale, that her coral-and-bell 
 was marked Mrs. Laudersdale, and that her name stands 
 golden-lettered on the recording angel's leaf simply as 
 Mrs. Laudersdale. It is naturally to be inferred, then, 
 that there was a Mr. Laudersdale. There was. But 
 not by any means a person of consequence, you assume ? 
 Why, yes, of some, to one individual at least. Mrs. 
 Laudersdale was so weak as to regard him with compla 
 cency ; she loved adored her husband. Let me have 
 the justice to say that no one suspected her of it. Of 
 course, then, Mr. Roger Raleigh had no business to fall in 
 love with her. 
 
 Well, but he did. 
 
 At the time when Mrs. Laudersdale had become some 
 what more than a reigning beauty, and held her sceptre 
 with such apparent indifference that she seemed about 
 abandoning it forever, she no longer dazzled with unven- 
 tured combinations of colors and materials in dress. She 
 wore most frequently, at this epoch, black velvet that sup 
 pled about her well-asserted contours ; and the very trail 
 of her skirt was unlike another woman's, for it coiled and 
 bristled after her with a life and motion of its own, like a 
 serpent. Her hair, of too dead a black for gloss or glis 
 ter, was always adorned with a nasturtium-vine, whose 
 vivid flames seemed like some personal emanation, and 
 whose odor, acrid and single, dispersed a character about 
 her ; and the only ornaments she condescended to assume 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 221 
 
 were of Etruscan gold, severely simple in design, elabo 
 rately intricate in workmanship. It is evident she was a 
 poet in costume, and had at last en regie acquired a man 
 ner. But thirteen years ago she apparelled herself other 
 wise, and thirteen years ago it was that Mr. Roger Raleigh 
 fell in love with her. This is how it was. 
 
 Among the many lakes in New Hampshire, there is one 
 of extreme beauty, a broad, shadowy water, some nine 
 miles in length, with steep, thickly wooded banks, and 
 here and there, as if moored on its calm surface, an island 
 fit for the Bower of Bliss. At one spot along its shore 
 was, and still is, an old country-house, formerly used as a 
 hotel, but whose patrons, always pleasure-seekers from the 
 neighboring towns, had been drawn away by the erection 
 of a more modern and satisfactory place of entertainment 
 at the other extremity of the lake, and it had now been 
 for many years closed. There were no dwellings of any 
 kind in its vicinity, so that it reigned over a solitude of a 
 half-dozen miles in every direction. Once in a while the 
 gay visitors in the more prosperous regions stretched their 
 sails and skimmed along till they saw its white porticos 
 and piazzas gleaming faintly up among the trees ; once 
 in a while a belated traveller tied his horse at the gate, 
 and sought admittance in vain, at the empty house, of the 
 shadows who may have kept it. It was not pleasant to 
 see so goodly a mansion falling to ruin for want of fit oc 
 cupancy, truly ; and just as the walls had grown gray with 
 rain and time, the chimneys choked and the casements 
 shrunken, a merry company of friends and families, from 
 another portion of the country, consolidated themselves 
 into a society for the pursuit of happiness, rented the old 
 place, put in carpenters and masons and glaziers, and, 
 when the last tenants vacated the premises, took posses- 
 
222 MIDSUMMEE AND MAY. 
 
 sion in state themselves. Care and responsibility were 
 not theirs; the matron and her servants alone received 
 such guests; the long summer-days were to come and 
 go with them as joyously as with Bacchus and his 
 crew. 
 
 Behold the party domesticated a fortnight at the Bawn, 
 as it was afterward dubbed. Mr. Laudersdale had re 
 turned to New York that morning, and his wife had not 
 been met since. Now, at about five o'clock, her white 
 robe floated past the door, and she was seen moving up 
 and down the long piazza and humming a faint little tune 
 to herself. Just then a flock of young women, married 
 and single, fluttered through door and windows to join 
 her ; and just then Mrs. Laudersdale stepped down from 
 the end of the piazza, and floated up the garden-path and 
 into the woods that skirted the lake-shore and stretched 
 far back and away. Thus abandoned, the others turned 
 their attention to the expanse before and below them ; and 
 one or two made their way down to the brink, unhooked a 
 boat, ventured in, and, lifting the single pair of oars, were 
 soon laboring gayly out and creating havoc on the placid 
 waters. 
 
 As Mrs. Laudersdale continued to walk, the path which 
 she followed slowly descended to the pebbly rim, rich in 
 open spaces, slopes of verdure just gilding in the declin 
 ing sun, and coverts of cool, deep shadow. As she ad 
 vanced leisurely, involved in pleasant fancy, something 
 caught her eye, an unusual object, certainly, lying in a 
 duskier recess ; she drew nearer and hung a moment 
 above it. Some fallen statue among rank Roman growth, 
 some marble semblance of a young god, overlaced with a 
 vine and plunged in tall ferns and beaded grasses ? And 
 she, bending there, was it Diana and Endymion over 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 223 
 
 again, Psyche and Eros ? Ah, no ! simply Mrs. Laud- 
 ersdale and Roger Raleigh. Only while one might have 
 counted sixty did she linger to take the real beauty of the 
 scene : the youth, adopted as it were, to Nature's heart 
 by the clustering growth that sprang up rebounding under 
 the careless weight that crushed it ; an attitude of com 
 plete and unconscious grace, one arm thrown out be 
 neath the head, the other listlessly fallen down his side, 
 while the hand still detained the straw hat ; the profile, 
 by no means classic, but in strong relief, the dark hair 
 blowing in the gentle wind, the flush of sleep that went 
 and came almost perceptibly with the breath, and the 
 sunbeam that slanting round suddenly suffused the whole. 
 "Pretty boy!" thought Mrs. Laudersdale. Beautiful 
 picture ! " and she flitted on. But Roger Raleigh was 
 not a boy, although sleep, that gives back, to all, stray 
 glimpses of their primal nature, endowed him peculiarly 
 with a look of childlike innocence unknown to his waking 
 hours. 
 
 Startled, perhaps, by the intruding step, for it was no 
 light one, a squirrel leaped from the bough to the grass, 
 and, leaping, woke the sleeper. He himself now unper- 
 ceived, saw a vision in return, this woman, young and 
 rare, this queenly, perfect thing, floating on and vanishing 
 among the trees. Whence had she come, and who was 
 she ? And hereupon he remembered the old Bawn and 
 its occupants. Had she seen him ? Unlikely ; but yet, 
 unimportant as it was, it remained an interesting and 
 open question in his mind. Bringing down the hair so 
 ruffled in the idle breeze, he crowded his hat over it with 
 a determined air, half ran, half tumbled, down the bank, 
 sprang into his boat, and, shaking out a sail, went flirting 
 over the lake as fast as the wind could carry him. Leav- 
 
224 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 ing a long, straight, shining wake behind him, Mr. Roger 
 Raleigh skimmed along the skin of ripples, and, in order 
 to avoid a sound of shrill voices, skirted the angle of an 
 island, and found himself deceived by the echo and in the 
 midst of them. 
 
 Mrs. McLean, Miss Helen Heath, and Miss Mary 
 Purcell, who had embarked with a single pair of oars, 
 were now shipwrecked on the waters wide, as Helen 
 said ; for one of their means of progress, she declared, 
 had been snatched by the roaring waves and was floating 
 in the trough of the sea, just beyond their reach. None 
 of the number being acquainted with the process of scull 
 ing, they considered it imperative to secure the truant 
 tool, unless they wished to perish floating about unseen ; 
 and having weighed the expediency of rigging Helen into 
 a jury-mast, they were now using their endeavors to re 
 gain the oar, Mary Purcell whirling them about like a 
 maelstrom with the remaining one, and Mrs. McLean 
 with her two hands grasping Helen's garments, while the 
 latter half stood in the boat and half lay recumbent on the 
 lake, tipping, slipping, dipping, till her head resembled a 
 mermaid's ; while they all three filled the air with more 
 exclaim, shrieking, and laughter than could have been 
 effected by a large-lunged mob. 
 
 " Bedlam let loose," thought the intruder, " or all the 
 Naiads up for a frolic ? " And as he shot by, a hush fell 
 upon the noisy group, Helen pausing and erecting her 
 self from her ablutions, Mary's frantic efforts sending them 
 as a broadside upon the Arrow and nearly capsizing it, and 
 Mrs. McLean, ceasing merriment, staring from both her 
 eyes, and saying nothing. Mr. Raleigh seized the oar in 
 passing, and directly afterward had placed it in Helen's 
 hands. Receiving it with a profusion of thanks, she 
 

 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 225 
 
 seated herself and bent to its use. But, looking back in 
 a few seconds, Mr. Raleigh observed that the exhausted 
 rowers had made scarcely a yard's distance. He had no 
 inclination for gallantry, his eyes and thoughts were full 
 of his late vision in the woods, he wished to reach home 
 and dream ; but in a moment he was again beside them, 
 had taken their painter with a bow and an easy sentence, 
 but neither with empressement nor heightened color, and, 
 changing his course, was lending them a portion of the 
 Arrow's swiftness in flight towards the Bawn. It seemed 
 as if the old place sent its ghosts out to him this afternoon. 
 Bearing close upon the flat landing-rock, and hooking the 
 painter therein, he sheered off, lifting Ms hat, and was 
 gone. 
 
 " Roger ! Roger Raleigh ! " cried Mrs. McLean, from 
 the shore, " come back ! " 
 
 Obeying her with an air of puzzled surprise, the per 
 son so unceremoniously addressed was immediately beside 
 her again. 
 
 " A cool proceeding, sir ! " said she, extending both her 
 hands. " How long would you know your Cousin Kate 
 to be here, and refuse to spare her an hour ? " 
 
 " Upon my honor," said her cousin, bending very low 
 over the hands, " I but this moment learn her presence 
 in my neighborhood." 
 
 " Ah, sir ! and what becomes of my note sealed with 
 sky-blue wax and despatched to you ten days ago ? " 
 
 " It is true such a note lies on my table at this mo 
 ment, and it is still sealed with sky-blue wax." 
 
 " And still unread ? " 
 
 " You will not force me to confess such delinquency ? " 
 
 "And still unread?" 
 
 " Ten thousand pardons ! Shall I go home and read 
 10* o 
 
226 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 it ? " And herewith the saucy indifference of his face be 
 came evident, as he raised it. 
 
 " No. But is that the way to serve a lady's communi 
 cations ? Fie, for a gallant ! I must take you in hand. 
 These are your New Hampshire customs?" 
 
 " ' O Kate, nice customs curtsy to nice kings ! ' " 
 
 " So I Ve heard, when curtsying was in fashion ; but 
 that is out of date, together with a good many other nice 
 things, caring for one's friends, for instance. Why 
 don't you ask how all your uncles and aunts are, sir ? " 
 
 " How are all my uncles and aunts, Miss ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't you know ? I thought you did n't. There 's 
 another billet, enclosing a bit of pasteboard, lying on your 
 table now unopened too, I'll warrant. Don't you read 
 any of your letters ? " 
 
 " Alphabetical or epistolary ? " 
 
 " Answer properly, yes or no." 
 
 "No."' 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I know no one that has authority to write to me, as 
 half a reason." 
 
 " Thank you, for one, sir. And what becomes of your 
 Uncle Reuben?" 
 
 " Not included in the category." 
 
 " Then you 're not aware that I 've changed my estate ? 
 You don't know my name now, do you ?" 
 
 " ' Bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, 
 But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom.' " 
 
 " Nonsense ! What an exasperating boy ! Just the 
 same as ever ! Well, it explains itself. Here comes a 
 recent property unto me appertaining. McLean ! My 
 husband, Mr. John McLean, my cousin, Mr. Roger 
 Raleigh." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 227 
 
 The new-comer was one of those " sterling men " al 
 ways to be relied on, generally to be respected, and safely 
 and appropriately leading ' society and subscription-lists. 
 He was not very imaginative, and he understood at a 
 glance as much of the other as he ever would understand. 
 And the other, feeling instantly that only coin of the 
 king's stamp would pass current here, turned his own 
 counter royal side up, and met his host with genuine 
 cordiality. Shortly afterward, Mrs. McLean withdrew 
 for an improvement in her toilet, and soon returning, 
 found them comparing notes as to the condition of the 
 country, tender bonds of the Union, and relative merits 
 of rival candidates, for all which neither of them cared a 
 straw. 
 
 " How do you find me, sir ? " she asked of her cousin. 
 
 " Radiant, rosy, and rarely arrayed." 
 
 " I see that your affections are to be won, and I pro 
 ceed accordingly, by making myself charming, in the first 
 place. And now, will you be cheered, but not inebriated, 
 here under the trees, in company with dainty cheese-cakes 
 compounded by these hands, and jelly of Helen Heath's 
 moulding, and automatic trifles that caught an ordaining 
 glimpse of Mrs. Laudersdale's eye and rushed madly to 
 gether to become almond-pasty ? " 
 
 " With a method in their madness, I hope." 
 
 " Yes, all the almonds not on one side." 
 
 " In company with cheese-cakes, jelly, and pasty, sim 
 ply, I should have claret and crackers at home, Capua 
 willing. Will it pay ? " 
 
 " You shall have Port here, when Mrs. Laudersdale 
 conies." 
 
 " Not old enough to be crusty yet, Kate," said her hus 
 band. 
 
228 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Very good, for you, John ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale is your housekeeper ? " asked her 
 cousin. 
 
 "Mrs. Laudersdale? That is rich! But I should 
 never dare to tell her. Our housekeeper? Our cyno 
 sure ! She is our argent-lidded Persian Girl, our se 
 rene, imperial Eleanore ; 
 
 ' Whene'er she moves, 
 The Samian Here rises, and she speaks 
 A Memnon smitten with the morning sun.' " 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! And this is a conventicle of young mat 
 rimonial victims to practise cookery in seclusion, upon 
 which I have blundered ? " 
 
 " If the fancy pleases you, yes. There they are." 
 
 And hereon followed a series of necessary introductions. 
 
 Mr. Roger Raleigh sat with both arms leaning on the 
 table before him, and wondering which of the ladies, half 
 whose names he had not heard, was the Samian Here, 
 
 if any of them were, and if, and if, and here Mr. 
 
 Roger Raleigh's reflections went wandering back to the 
 lake-side path and its vision. Not inopportunely at this 
 moment, a white garment, which, it is unnecessary to say, 
 he had long ago seen advancing, fluttered down the oppo 
 site path, and she herself approached. 
 
 " Ah ! Al fresco ? " said the pleasantest voice in the 
 world. 
 
 " And is n't it charming ? " asked Mrs. McLean. " Im 
 agine us with tables spread outside the door in Fifth Av 
 enue, in Chestnut Street, or on the Common ! " 
 
 " Even then the arabesque would be wanting," said 
 she, trailing a long branch of the wild grape-vine, with 
 its pale and delicately fragrant blooms, along the snowy 
 board. " Are the cheese-cakes a success, Mrs. McLean ? 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 229 
 
 I did n't dine, and am famished. I see that you have 
 at last heard from your cousin," she added, in an under 
 tone. 
 
 " Yes ; let me pre Roger ! " 
 
 Quickly frustrating any such presentation, Mr. Roger 
 Raleigh half turned, and, bowing, said, 
 
 " I believe I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. 
 Laudersdale before." 
 
 Her haughtiness would have frozen any one else. She 
 bent with the least possible inclination, and sat down upon 
 a stump that immediately became a throne. He resumed 
 his former position, and drummed lightly on the table, 
 while waiting to be served. In less complete repose than 
 she had previously seen him, Mrs. Laudersdale now ex 
 amined anew the individual before her. 
 
 Not by any means tall she found him, but having the 
 square shoulders and broad chest which give, in so much 
 greater a degree than mere height, an impression of 
 strength, a frame agile and compact, with that easy 
 carriage of the head and that rapid movement so de 
 ceptively increasing the stature. The face, too, was 
 probably what, if not informed by a singularly clean 
 and fine soul, would, in the lapse of years, become 
 gross, the skin of a clear olive, which had slightly 
 flushed as he addressed herself, but not when speaking 
 to other strangers, kept beardless, and rather square in 
 contour; the mouth not small, but keenly cut, like marble, 
 and always quivering before he spoke, as if the lightning 
 of his thought ran thither naturally to seek spontaneous 
 expression ; teeth white ; chin cleft ; nose of the unclas 
 sified order, rather long, the curve opposite to aquiline, 
 and saved from sharpness by nostrils that dilated with a 
 pulse of their own, as those of very proud and sensitive 
 
230 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 people are apt to do ; a wide, low forehead crowned with 
 dark hair, long and fine; heavy brows that overhung 
 deep-set eyes of lightest hazel, but endowed by shadow 
 with a power that no eye of gypsy-black ever swayed for 
 an instant. His whole countenance reminded you of 
 nothing so much as of the young heroes of the French 
 Revolution, for whom irregular features and sallow cheeks 
 were transmuted into brilliant and singular beauty. It 
 wore an inwrapped air, and, with all its mobility, was a 
 mask. He very seldom raised the lids, and his pallor, 
 though owning more of the golden touch of the sun, was 
 as dazzling as Mrs. Laudersdale's own. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale scarcely observed, she felt ; and 
 probably she saw nothing but the general impression of 
 what I have been telling you. 
 
 " Tea, Roger ? " asked Mrs. McLean. 
 
 " Green, I thank you, and strong." 
 
 Rising to receive it, he continued lu's course till it nat 
 urally brought him before Mrs. Laudersdale. Pausing 
 deliberately and sipping the pungent tonic, he at last 
 looked up, and said, 
 
 " Well, you are offended ? " 
 
 " Then you were awake when I stayed to look at you ? " 
 she asked, in reply ; for curiosity is a solvent. 
 
 " Then you did stay and look at me ? That is exactly 
 what I wished to know. How did I look, Belphosbe ? " 
 
 " Out of his eyes, tell him," said Helen Heath, in 
 passing. 
 
 " They were not open," responded Mrs. Laudersdale. 
 " And I cannot tell how you saw me." 
 
 " I saw you as Virgil saw his mother, I mean ^Eneas, 
 as the goddesses are always known, you remember, in 
 departure." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 231 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale felt a weight on her lids beneath his 
 glance, and rose to approach the table. 
 
 "Allow me," said Mr. Raleigh, taking her plate and 
 bringing it back directly with a wafery slice of bread and 
 a quaking tumulus of fragrant jelly. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale laughed, though perhaps scarcely 
 pleased with him. 
 
 " How did you know my tastes so well ? " she asked. 
 
 " Since they are not mine," he replied. " Of course 
 you eat jelly, because it is no trouble ; you choose your 
 bread thin for the same reason ; likewise you would find 
 a glass of that suave, rich cream delicious. Among all 
 motions, you prefer smooth sailing ; and I '11 venture to 
 say that you sleep in down all summer." 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale looked up in slow and still astonish 
 ment ; but Mr. Raleigh was already pouring out the glass 
 of cream. 
 
 " I 've no doubt you would like to have me sweeten it," 
 said he, offering it to her ; " but I will not humor such as 
 cetic tendencies. I never approved of flagellation." 
 
 And as he spoke, he was gone to break ground for a 
 flirtation with Helen Heath. 
 
 Helen Heath appeared to be one of those gay, not-to- 
 be-heart-broken damsels who can drink forever of this 
 dangerous and exhilarating cup without showing symp 
 toms of intoxication. Young men who have nothing 
 worse to do with their time gravitate naturally and un 
 awares toward them for amusement, and spin out the 
 thread till they reach its end without expectation, without 
 surprise, without regret, without occasion for remorse. 
 Mr. Raleigh could not have been more unfortunate than 
 he was in meeting her, since it gave him reason and ex 
 cuse henceforth for visiting the Bawn at all seasons. 
 
232 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 The table was at last -removed, the dew began to fall, 
 Mrs. Laudersdale shivered and withdrew toward the 
 house. 
 
 " Incessu patet dea" Mr. Raleigh remembered. 
 
 Somewhat later, he started from his seat, bade them all 
 good-night, ran gayly down the bank, and shoved off from 
 shore. And shortly after, Mrs. Laudersdale, looking from 
 her window, saw, for an instant, a single firefly hovering 
 over the dark lake. It was Mr. Roger Raleigh's distant 
 lantern, as, stretched at ease, he turned the slow leaves of 
 a Froissart, and suffered the Arrow to drift as it would 
 across the night. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Laudersdale descended, as 
 usual, to the breakfast-table, at an hour when all the rest 
 had concluded their repast. Miss Helen Heath alone 
 remained, trifling with the tea-cups, and singing little 
 exercises. 
 
 " Quite an acquisition, Mrs. Laudersdale ! " said she. 
 
 "What?" said the other, languidly, leaning one arm 
 on the table and looking about for any appetizing edible. 
 " What is an acquisition ? " 
 
 " You mean who. Mr. Raleigh, of course. But is n't 
 it the queerest thing in the world, up here in this savage 
 district, to light upon a gentleman?" 
 
 "Is this a savage district? And is Mr. Raleigh a 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 " Is he ? I never saw his match." 
 
 Nor I." 
 
 " What ! don't you find him so ? a thorough gentle 
 man ? " 
 
 " I don't know what a thorough gentleman is, I dare 
 say," assented Mrs. Laudersdale, indifferently, with no 
 spirit for repartee, breaking an egg and putting it down, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 233 
 
 crumbling a roll, and finally attacking a biscuit but 
 gradually raising the siege, yawning, and leaning back in 
 her chair. 
 
 " You poor thing ! " said Helen. " You are starving 
 to death. What shall I get for you ? I have influence in 
 the kitchens. Does marmalade, to spread your muffins, 
 present any attractions ? or shall I beg for rusks ? or 
 what do you say to doughnuts ? there are doughnuts in 
 this closet ; crullers and milk are nice for breakfast." 
 
 And in a few minutes Helen had rifled a shelf of suffi 
 cient temptations to overcome Mrs. Laudersdale's absti 
 nence. 
 
 " After all," said she then, " you did n't answer my 
 question." 
 
 "What question?" 
 
 " If it were n't odd to meet Mr. Raleigh here." 
 
 " I don't know," said Mrs. Laudersdale. 
 
 " Dear ! Mary Purcell takes as much interest. She 
 said he was impertinent, made her talk too much, and 
 made fun of her." 
 
 " Very likely." 
 
 " You are as aggravating as he ! If you had anything 
 to do except to look divinely, we 'd quarrel. I thought I 
 had a nice bit of entertaining news for you." 
 
 " Is that your trouble ? I should be sorry to oppress 
 you with it longer. Pray, tell it." 
 
 " Will it entertain you ? " 
 
 " It won't bore you" 
 
 " I don't know that I will tell it on such terms. How 
 ever, I must talk. Well, then. I have not been 
 dreaming by daylight, but up and improving my oppor 
 tunities. Partly from himself, and partly from Kate, and 
 partly from the matron here, I have made the following 
 
234 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 discoveries. Mr. Roger Raleigh has left some very gay 
 cities, and crossed some parallels of latitude, to exile him 
 self in this wilderness of ice and snow, that 's what you 
 and I vote it, whether the trees are green and the sun 
 shines, or not ; and I don't see what bewitched mother to 
 adopt such a suicidal plan as coming here to be buried 
 alive. He, that is, Mr. Raleigh, to join my ends, has 
 lived here for five years ; and as he came when he was 
 twenty, he is consequently about my age now, I 
 should n't wonder if a trifle older than you. He came 
 here because an immense estate was bequeathed him on 
 the condition that he should occupy this corner of it 
 during one half of every year from his twenty-first to his 
 thirty-first. He has chosen to occupy it during the entire 
 year, running down now and then to have a little music 
 or see a little painting. Sometimes a parcel of his 
 friends, he never was at college, has n't any chums, and 
 has educated himself by all manner of out-of-the-way 
 dodges, sometimes these friends, odd specimens, old 
 music-masters, rambling artists, seedy tutors, fencers, 
 boxers, hunters, clowns, all light down together, and then 
 the neighborhood rings with this precious covey ; the rest 
 of the year, may-be, he don't see an individual. One 
 result of this isolation is, that freaks which would be very 
 strange escapades in other people with him are mere 
 commonplaces. Sometimes he goes over to the city 
 there, and roams round like a lost soul seeking for its 
 body ; sometimes he goes up a hundred miles or two, 
 takes a guide and handles the mountains ; and, except in 
 the accidents at such times, he has n't seen a woman since 
 he came." 
 
 " That accounts," said Mrs. Laudersdale. 
 
 " Yes. But just think what a life ! " 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 235 
 
 He would n't stay, if he did n't like," replied Mrs. 
 Laudersdale, to whom the words poverty and riches con 
 veyed not the least idea. 
 
 " I don't know. He has an uncle, of whom he is very 
 fond, in India," continued Helen, " an unfortunate kind 
 of man, with whom everything goes wrong, and who is 
 always taking fevers ; and once or twice Mr. Raleigh has 
 started to go and take care of him, and lose the whole 
 estate by the means. He intends to endow him, I believe, 
 by and by, after the thing is at his disposal. This uncle 
 kept him at school, when he was an orphan in different 
 circumstances, at a Jesuit institution ; and he and Miss 
 Kent were always quarrelling over him, and she thought 
 she had tied up her property nicely out of old Reuben 
 Raleigh's way. It will be nuts, if he ever accepts his 
 nephew's proposed present. The best of it all is, that, if 
 he breaks the condition, there 's no accounting for the 
 caprices of wills, part of it goes to a needy institution, 
 and part of it inalienably to Mrs. McLean, who " 
 
 " Is an institution, too." 
 
 " Who is not needy. There, is n't that a pretty little 
 conte ? " 
 
 " Very," said Mrs. Laudersdale, having listened with 
 increasing interest. " But, Helen, you '11 be a gossip, if 
 you go on and prosper." 
 
 " Why, my dear child ! He '11 be over here every day, 
 now ; and do you suppose I 'm going to flirt with any 
 one, when I don't know his antecedents ? There he is 
 now ! " 
 
 And as Mrs. Laudersdale turned, she saw Mr. Raleigh 
 standing composedly in the doorway and surveying them. 
 She bade him good-morning, coolly enough, while Helen 
 began searching the grounds of the teacups, rather un- 
 
236 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 certain how much of her recital might have met his 
 ears. 
 
 " Turning teacups, Gypsy Helen, and telling fates, all 
 to no audience, and with no cross on your palm ? " asked 
 the guest. 
 
 " So you ignore Mrs. Laudersdale ? " 
 
 " Not at all ; you were n't looking at her cup, if she 
 has one. Will you have the morning paper ? " he asked 
 of that lady, who, receiving it, leisurely unfolded and 
 glanced over its extent. 
 
 " Where 's my Cousin Kate ? " then demanded Mr. 
 Raleigh of Helen, having regarded this performance. 
 
 " Gone shopping in town." 
 
 " Her vocation. For the day ? " 
 
 "No, it is time for their return now. When you 
 hear wheels " 
 
 " I hear them " ; and he strolled to the window. " You 
 should have said, when I heard tongues; Medes and 
 Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia were less 
 cheerful. A very pretty team. So she took her conjugal 
 appurtenance with her ? " 
 
 " And left her cousinly impertinence behind her," re 
 torted a gay voice from his elbow. 
 
 " Ah, Kate ! are you there ? It 's not a moment since 
 I saw you 'coming from the town.' A pretty hostess, 
 you ! I arrive on your invitation to pass the day " 
 
 " But I did n't expect you before the sun." 
 
 " To pass the day, and find you absent and the break 
 fast-table not cleared away." 
 
 " My dear Roger, we have not quite taken our habits 
 yet. As soon as the country air shall have wakened and 
 made over Helen and Mrs. Laudersdale, you will find us 
 ready for company at daybreak." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 237 
 
 " What a passion for ( company ' ! I shall not be sur 
 prised some day to receive cards for your death-bed." 
 
 " Friends and relatives invited to attend ? No, Roger, 
 you must n't be naughty. You shall receive cards for my 
 dinner-party before we go, if you won't come without ; for 
 we have innumerable friends in town already." 
 
 " Happy woman ! " 
 
 " What 's that ? A newspaper? A newspaper ! How 
 McLean will chuckle ! " And she seized the sheet which 
 Mrs. Laudersdale had abandoned in sweeping from the 
 room. 
 
 " Is there a Mr. Laudersdale ? Where is he ? " asked 
 Mr. Raleigh, as he leaned against the window. 
 
 " Who ? " asked his cousin, deep in a paragraph. 
 
 " Mr. Laudersdale. Where is he ? " 
 
 " Oh ! between his four planks, I suppose," she replied, 
 thinking of the Sound-boat's berth, which probably con 
 tained the gentleman designated. 
 
 " Between his four planks," repeated Mr. Raleigh, in a 
 musing tone, something shocked by her apparent levity, 
 entirely misinterpreting her, and to this little accident 
 owing nearly thirteen years' unhappiness. 
 
 " She must have married early," he continued. 
 
 " Oh, fabulously early," replied Mrs. McLean, between 
 the lines she read. " She is Creole, I believe. She is 
 perfect. The women are as infatuated about her as the 
 men. Here 's Helen Heath been dawdling round the 
 table all the morning for the sake of chatting to her 
 while she breakfasts. I don't know why, I 'm sure ; the 
 woman 's charming, but she 's too lazy even to talk. 
 McLean! Another flurry in France." 
 
 And after shaking hands with Mr. Raleigh, that worthy 
 seized the proffered paper and vanished behind it, leaving 
 
238 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 to his wife the entertainment of her cousin, which duty 
 she seemed by no means in haste to assume, preferring to 
 remain and vex her husband with a thousand little teasing 
 
 O 
 
 arts. Meanwhile Mr. Raleigh proceeded to take that of 
 fice upon himself, by crossing the hall, exploring the par 
 lors, examining the manuscript commonplace-volumes, and 
 finally by sketching on a leaf of his pocket-book Mrs. 
 Laudersdale, at the other end of the piazza, half-swinging 
 in the vines through which broad sunbeams poured, while 
 Helen Heath was singing and several other ladies were 
 busying themselves with books and needlework in her 
 vicinity. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Raleigh ! " said Helen Heath, as he put up 
 the pocket-book and drew near, " Mrs. Laudersdale 
 and I have been wondering how you amuse yourself 
 up here ; and I make my discovery. You study ani 
 mated nature ; that is to say, you draw Mrs. Laudersdale 
 and me." 
 
 " Mistaken, Miss Helen. I draw only Mrs. Lauders 
 dale ; and do you call that animated nature ? " 
 
 " I wish you would draw Mrs. Laudersdale out" 
 
 At this point Mrs. Laudersdale fell out ; but, without 
 otherwise stirring from his position than by moving an 
 apparently careless arm, Mr. Raleigh caught and restored 
 her to her balance, as lightly as if he had brushed a float 
 ing gossamer from the air to his finger. For the first 
 time, perhaps, in her life, a carnation blossomed an instant 
 in her cheek, then all was as before, only two of the 
 party felt on that instant that in some mysterious manner 
 their relations with each other were entirely changed. 
 
 " But what is it thati you do with yourself ? " persisted 
 Helen. " Tell us, that we may do likewise." 
 
 " Will you come and see ? " he asked, his eyes, how- 
 
MIDSUMMEE AND MAY. 239 
 
 ever, on Mrs. Laudersdale. "Will you come in away 
 from the lake to the brooks, and hang among the alders, 
 and angle, dreaming, all day long ? Or will you rise at 
 dead of night and go out on the lake with me and watch 
 field after field of white lilies flash open as the sun touches 
 them with his spear ? Or will you lie during still noons 
 up among the farmers' fields where myriad bandrol corn- 
 poppies flaunt over your head, and stain your finger-tips 
 with the red berries that hang like globes of light in the 
 palace-gardens of mites and midges, soaking yourself in 
 hot sunshine and south-winds and heavy aromatic earth- 
 scents ? " 
 
 " Come ! " said Mrs. Laudersdale, rising earnestly, like 
 one in an eager dream. 
 
 " It is plain that you are in training for a poet," said 
 Helen Heath, laughing, to Mr. Raleigh. "Well, when 
 will you take us ? Are the lilies in bloom ? Shall we go 
 to-morrow morning ? " 
 
 " I don't know that I shall take you at all, Miss Helen ; 
 river-lilies might suit you best ; but these queens of 
 the lakes, the great, calm pond-lilies, creatures of quiet 
 and white radiance, I have seen only one head that 
 possessed enough of the genuine East-Indian repose to be 
 crowned with them." 
 
 " You like repose," said Mrs. Laudersdale. " But what 
 is it ? " 
 
 " Repose is strength, life that develops from within, 
 and feels itself, and has no need of effort. Repose is 
 inherent security." 
 
 "Goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "Article first in a 
 new dictionary, encyclopaedia, I should say. You wor 
 ship, but you don't possess your god, for you look at this 
 moment like a shaft in the bow ; and here comes an 
 archer to give it flight." 
 
240 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Where are you going, Kate ? " said her cousin. 
 
 " To pick strawberries in the garden. Want to come ? " 
 
 The three could do no better than accept her invitation. 
 The good ladies might stare as they could after Mrs. Lau- 
 dersdale, and wonder what sudden sprite had possessed 
 her, since for neither man nor woman of the numerous 
 party had she hitherto condescended to lift an unwonted 
 eyelid; what they would have said to have seen her 
 plunged in a strawberry-bed, gathering handfuls and rain 
 ing them drop by drop into Helen Heath's mouth, to si 
 lence her while she herself might talk, her own fingers 
 tipped with more sanguine shade than their native rose, 
 her eyes full of the noon sparkle, and her lips parted with 
 laughter, we cannot say. Roger Raleigh forgot to 
 move, to speak, to think, as he watched her. But in 
 the midst of this brilliant and novel gayety of hers, 
 there was still a dignity to make one feel that she had 
 by no means abandoned her regal purple, but merely 
 adorned it with profuse golden nourishes. 
 
 At dinner that day, Helen begged to know if there 
 were not a great many routes in tne vicinity practicable 
 only on horseback, and thought she had attained her end 
 when Mr. Raleigh put his horses and his escort at the 
 service of herself and Mrs. Laudersdale during their stay. 
 
 " During our stay ! " said Mrs. Laudersdale. " That 
 reminds me that we are to go away ! " 
 
 " Pleasantly, certainly. When snows fall and storms 
 pipe, the Bawn is an ice-house," said he. 
 
 After noon, the remainder of the day was interspersed 
 with light thunder-showers, rendering tea on the grass 
 again impossible ; they passed the steaming cups, there 
 fore, as they sat on the piazza, curtained with dripping 
 woodbine. The glitter of the drops in the sunset light, a 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 241 
 
 jewelled scintillation, was caught in Mrs. Laudersdale's 
 eyes, and some unconscious excitement fanned a faint 
 color to and fro on her cheek. At last the moon rose ; the 
 whole party, regardless of wet slippers, sauntered with 
 Mr. Raleigh to the shore, where the little Arrow hung 
 balancing on her restraining cord. Mrs. Laudersdale 
 stepped in, Mr. Raleigh followed, took up an oar, and 
 pushed out, both standing, and drifting slowly for a few 
 rods' distance ; then Mr. Raleigh made .the shore again, 
 assisted her out, and shot impatiently away alone. The 
 waters shone like white fire in the wake he cut, great 
 shadows fell through them where island and wood inter 
 cepted the broad ascending light, and Mrs. Laudersdale's 
 gay laugh rung across them as the space grew, a sweet, 
 rich laugh, that all the spirits of the depths caught and 
 played with like a rare beam that transiently illumined 
 their shadowy silent haunts. 
 
 The next day, and the next, and so for a fortnight, Mr. 
 Roger Raleigh presented himself with the breakfast-urn 
 at the Bawn, tarried during sunshine, slipped home by 
 starlight across the lake. Every day Mrs. Laudersdale 
 was more brilliant, and flashed with a cheery merriment 
 like harmless summer-lightnings. One night, as he 
 pushed away from the bank, he said, 
 
 " Au revoir for five hours." 
 
 " For five hours ? " said Mrs. Laudersdale. 
 
 " For five hours." 
 
 " At half past three in the night ? " 
 
 " In the morning." 
 
 " And what brings you here at dead of dark ? " 
 
 " The lilies and the dawn." 
 
 " Indeed ! And whom do you expect to find ? " 
 
 "You and Miss Helen." 
 
 11 p 
 
242 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Well, summer and freedom are here ; I am ready for 
 all fates, all deeds of valor, vigils among the rest. We 
 will await you at half past three in the morning. Helen, 
 we must sleep at high-pressure, soundly, crowding all we 
 can on the square inch of time. Au revoir" 
 
 A shadow stood on the piazza, in the semi-darkness, at 
 the appointed hour ; two other shadows flitted forward to 
 meet it, and silently down the bank, into the boat, and out 
 upon the lonely glimmering reaches of the water. No 
 body spoke ; the midnight capture of no fort was ever 
 effected with more phantom-like noiselessness than now 
 went to surprise the Vestals of the Lake ; only as two 
 hands touched for an instant, a strange thrill, like fire, 
 quivered through each and tore them apart more swiftly 
 than two winds might cross each other's course. Helen 
 Heath was drowsy and half-nodding in the bow, nodding 
 with the more ease that it was still so dark and that Mr. 
 Raleigh's back was toward her. Mrs. Laudersdale re 
 clined in the stern. Mr. Raleigh once in a while sent 
 them far along with a strong stroke, then only an occa 
 sional plash broke the charm of perfect stillness. Ever 
 and anon they passed under the lee of some island, and 
 the heavy air grew full of idle night-sweetness ; the 
 waning moon with all its sad and alien power hung low, 
 dun, malign, and distant, a coppery blotch on the rich 
 darkness of heaven. They floated slowly, still ; now and 
 then she dipped a hand into the cool current ; now and 
 then he drew in his oars, and, bending forward, dipped 
 his hand with hers. The stars retreated in a pallid veil 
 that dimmed their beams, faint lights streamed up the 
 sky, the dark yet clear and delicious. They paused 
 motionless in the shelter of a steep rock ; over them a 
 wild vine hung and swayed its long wreaths in the water, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 243 
 
 a sweet-brier starred with fragrant sleeping buds climbed 
 and twisted, and tufts of ribbon-grass fell forward and 
 streamed in the indolent ripple ; beneath them the lake, 
 lucid as some dark crystal, sheeted with olive transpa 
 rence a bottom of yellow sand ; here a bream poised on 
 slowly waving fins, as if dreaming of motion, or a perch 
 flashed its red fin from one hollow to another. The 
 shadow lifted a degree, the eye penetrated to farther re 
 gions ; a bird piped warily, then freely, a second and third 
 answered, a fourth took up the tale, blue-jay and thrush, 
 cat-bird and bobolink ; wings began to dart about them, 
 the world to rustle overhead, near and far the dark prime 
 grew instinct with sound, the shores and heavens blew 
 out gales of melody, the air broke up in music. He 
 lifted his oars silently ; she caught the sweet-brier, and, 
 lightly shaking it, a rain of dew-drops dashed with deepest 
 perfume sprinkled them ; they moved on. A thin mist 
 breathed from the lake, steamed round the boat, and lay 
 like a white coverlet upon the water ; a light wind sprang 
 up and blew it in long rags and ribbons, lifted, and torn, 
 and streaming, out of sight. All the air was pearly, the 
 sky opaline, the water now crisply emblazoned with a 
 dark and splendid jewelry, the paved work of a sap 
 phire ; a rosy fleece sailed across their heads, some fur 
 nace glowed in the east behind the trees, long beams fell 
 resplendently through and lay beside vast shadows, the 
 giant firs stood black and intense against a red and risen 
 sun ; they trailed with one oar through a pad of buds all- 
 unaware of change, stole from the overhanging thickets 
 through a high-walled pass, where, on the open lake, the 
 broad, silent, yellow light crept from bloom to bloom and 
 awoke them with a touch. How perfectly they put off 
 sleep ! with what a queenly calm displayed their spotless 
 
244 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 snow, their priceless gold, and shed abroad their matchless 
 scent ! He twined his finger round a slippery serpent- 
 stem, turned the crimson underside of the floating pavil 
 ion, and brought up a waxen wonder from its throne to 
 hang like a star in the black braids on her temple. An 
 hour's harvesting among the nymphs, in this rich at 
 mosphere of another world, and with a loaded boat they 
 turned to shore again. 
 
 " Smothered in sweets ! " exclaimed Mr. Raleigh, as he 
 sprang out, and woke Helen Heath, where, slipped down 
 upon the floor of the boat, her head fallen on her arms, 
 she had lain half asleep. They were the first words 
 spoken during the morning, and in such situations silence 
 is dangerous. 
 
 When the rest of the family descended to breakfast, 
 they found the pictures framed in wreaths of lilies, great 
 floats of them in hall and parlor, and the table laden with 
 flat dishes where with coiled stems they crowded, a white, 
 magnificent throng. Mr. Raleigh still lingered, and, 
 while Mrs. Laudersdale and Helen renewed their toilets, 
 had busied himself in weaving a crown of these and 
 another of poppy-leaves, hanging the one on Mrs. Lau- 
 dersdale's head, as she entered refreshed, snowy, and fra 
 grant herself, and the sleep-giving things on Helen's, 
 the latter avenging herself by surveying her companion's 
 adornment, and, as she adjusted the bloom-gray leaves of 
 her own, inquiring if olives grew pickled. 
 
 Nothing could be more airy and blithe than were Mrs. 
 Lauderdale's spirits all that morning, bubbles dancing 
 on a brook, nor foam-sparkle of rosy Champagne. She 
 related their adventures with graphic swiftness, and im 
 provised dangers and escapes with such a reckless disre 
 gard of truth that Mr. Raleigh was forced to come to the 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 245 
 
 rescue with more startling improbabilities than they would 
 have encountered in the Enchanted Forest. 
 
 The red dawn brought its rain, and before they rose 
 from table the sunshine withdrew and large drops began 
 to patter in good earnest. Mr. Raleigh, who had gen 
 erally suffered others to entertain him, now, as Mrs. 
 McLean ushered the whole company into the sewing- 
 room, seemed spurred by gayety and brilliance, and to 
 bring into employ all those secrets through which he had 
 ever annihilated time. For a while devoting himself to 
 the elder dames, he won the heart of one by a laborious 
 invention of a million varicolored angles to a square bar 
 ley-corn of worsted-work, involved Mrs. McLean's cro 
 cheting in an inextricable labyrinth as he endeavored to 
 afford her some requisite conchological assistance, and 
 turned with three strokes a very absurd drawing of Mrs. 
 Laudersdale's into a splendid caricature. Having made 
 himself thus generally useful, he now proceeded to make 
 himself generally agreeable ; went with all necessary 
 gravity through a series of complicate dancing-steps with 
 Miss Heath ; begged Miss Purcell, who was longing to 
 cry over her novel, to allow him to read for her, since he 
 saw that she was trying her eyes, and therewith made 
 fiasco of a page of delicious dolor ; and being challenged 
 to chess by a third, declared that was child's play, and 
 dominos was the game for science, whereon, having 
 seated a circle at that absorbing sport, he deserted for a 
 meerschaum and the gentlemen, and in company with 
 Captain Purcell, Mr. McLean, and the rest, rolled up 
 from the hall, below, wreaths' of smoke, bursts of laughter, 
 and finally chimes of those concordant voices with which 
 gentlemen talk politics, and, even when agreeing infa 
 mously, become vociferant and high-colored. 
 
246 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 It was after lunch that Mrs. Laudersdale, having grown 
 weary of the needle-women's thread of discourse, left the 
 sewing-room and proceeded toward her own apartment. 
 Just as she crossed the head of the staircase, the hall-door 
 was flung open, admitting a gleeful blast of the boisterous 
 gale, and an object that, puffing and blowing like a sad- 
 hued dolphin, and shaking like a Newfoundland, appeared 
 at first to be the famous South West Wind, Esq., in proper 
 person, whose once sumptuous array clung to his form, 
 and whose face and hands, shining as coal, rolled off the 
 rain like a bronze. 
 
 " Bless my heart, Capua ! " cried Mr. Raleigh, remov 
 ing the stem from his lips ; " how came you here ? " 
 
 " Lors, Massa, it 's only me," said Capua. 
 
 " So I see," replied his master, restoring the pipe to its 
 former position. " How did you come ? " 
 
 "'Bout swimmed, I 'spect," answered Capua, ground 
 ing a chuckle on a reef of ivory. " 'T a' n't no fish-story, 
 dat ! " 
 
 " Well, what brings you ? " 
 
 " Naughty Nan, she had n't been out " 
 
 " Do you mean to say, you rascal ! that you 've taken 
 Nan out on such a day ? and round the lake, too, I '11 
 warrant ? " asked Mr. Raleigh, with some excitement. 
 
 " Jes' dat ; an' round de lake, ob course ; we could n' 
 come acrost." 
 
 " You 've ruined her, then " 
 
 " Bress you, Massa, she won't ketch no cold, she ! 
 Smokes like a beaver now ; came like streak o' lightnin'." 
 
 "You may as well swim her back, and where we 
 can all see the sport, too." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " No buts about it, Capua," insisted his master, with 
 mock gravity, the stem between his teeth. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 247 
 
 " 'Spect I 'd better rub her down, now I'se here, an' 
 wait '11 it holds up a bit, Mass* Roger ? " urged Capua, 
 coaxingly. 
 
 " Do as you 're bid ! " ejaculated his master ; which, 
 evidently, from long habit, meant, Do as you please. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale and Helen Heath had crept down the 
 stairs during this dialogue, and now stood interested spec 
 tators of the scene. Mrs. McLean came running down 
 behind them. 
 
 " Forgotten me, Capua ? " said she. 
 
 " Lors, Miss Kate ! " he replied, scraping his foot and 
 pulling off his hat, " Cap never f 'gets his friends, though 
 you 've growed. How d' ye do, Miss Kate ? " 
 
 " Nicely, thank you. And how 's your wife ? " 
 
 " My wife ? Well, she 's 'bout beat out. Massa Rog 
 er 'n I, we buried her ; finer funeral dan Massa Roger's 
 own mother, Miss Kate, dat was ! " 
 
 " Poor fellow ! I 'm so sorry ! " began Mrs. McLean, 
 consolingly. 
 
 " Well, Miss Kate, you know some folks is easier spared 
 'n others. Some tongues sharper 'n others. Alwes liked 
 to gib a hot temper time to cool, 's Massa says." 
 
 " And how do you do, Capua ? " 
 
 " Pretty well, Miss Kate ; leastways, I'se well enough, 
 a'n't so pretty." 
 
 " What is his name ? " whispered Helen. 
 
 " 'Anhible, Missis," said the attentive Capua, whose eyes 
 had been for some time oscillating with indecision between 
 Helen Heath and Mrs. Laudersdale. " Hannibal Raleigh 
 's my name ; though Massa alwes call me Cap," he added, 
 insinuatingly, which, by the way, " Massa " never had 
 been known to do. 
 
 " And are you always going to stay and take care of 
 Master Roger ? " 
 
248 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " 'Spect I shall. Lors, Miss Kate, he 's more bother to 
 me 'n all my work, dat boy ! " 
 
 " That will do, Capua," said his master ; " you may go." 
 And therewith Capua scuffled away. 
 
 " Well, Roger, what does this mean ? " asked Mrs. Mc 
 Lean, as the door closed. 
 
 " It means that Capua, having been dying of curiosity, 
 has resolved to die game, and therefore takes matters into 
 his own hands, and arrives to inspect my conduct and my 
 company." 
 
 " Ah, I see. He trembles for his sceptre." 
 
 " Miss Heath," said Mr. McLean, rallyingly, " you re 
 ceived a great many of the sable shafts." 
 
 " A Saint Sebastiana," said his wife. 
 
 " Saint Sebastian died of his wounds. Not I," said 
 Helen. 
 
 " Let me tell you, Miss Helen," said Mr. Raleigh, 
 " that Capua is a connoisseur, and his dictum is worth 
 all flatteries. If he had only been with us this morning!" 
 
 " You have teased me so much about that, Mr. Raleigh, 
 that I have half a mind never to go with you on another 
 expedition." 
 
 " Make no rash vows. I was just thinking what fine 
 company you would be when trouting. The most en 
 chanting quiet is required then, you are aware." 
 
 " Oh ! when shall we go trouting ? " 
 
 " We ? It was only half a mind, then ! We will go 
 to-morrow, wind and weather agreeing." 
 
 " And what must I do ? " 
 
 " You must keep still, stand in the shadow, and fish up 
 stream." 
 
 At this point, Capua put his head inside the door 
 again. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 249 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " Forgot to say, Massa," replied Capua, rolling his eyes 
 fearfully, and still hesitating, and half-closing the door, and 
 then looking back. 
 
 "Well, Capua?" 
 
 " Mass' Raleigh, your house done been burned up ! " 
 said Capua, at last, jerking back his head, as if afraid of 
 losing it. 
 
 " Ah ? And what did you do with " 
 
 " Oh, eberyting safe an' sound. 'T a'n't dat house ; 
 't a'n't dis yer house Massa lib in; Massa's sparrer- 
 house. Reckoned I 'd better come and 'form him." 
 
 " Is that all ? " asked his master, who was accustomed 
 to Capua's method of breaking ill news. 
 
 " Now, Mass' Roger, don't you go to being pervoked 
 an' flyin' into one ob dese yer tempers ! It 's all distin 
 guished now. Ole Cap did n't want to shock his young 
 massa, so thought 't warn't de wisest way to tell him 
 't warn't de sparrer-house, either, at first. 'Twas de in 
 side ob de libery, if he must know de troof ; wet an' smut 
 ty dar now, mebbe, but no fire." 
 
 " Why not ? What made the fire go out ? " asked Mr. 
 Raleigh, composedly. 
 
 " Well, two reasons," replied Capua, rolling a glance 
 over the company ; " one was dis chile's exertions ; an* 
 t'other fact, on account ob wich de flames was checked, 
 was because dere warn't no more to burn. Hi ! " 
 
 " Capua, take Nan, and don't let me see your face 
 again, till I send for it ! " said his master, now slightly 
 irate. 
 
 " Massa's nigger alwes mind him," was the dutiful re 
 sponse. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale's handkerchief fell at that moment 
 
250 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 from the hand that hung over the balustrade. Capua 
 darted to restore it. 
 
 " Bress her pretty eyes ! " said he. " Ole Cap see 's 
 fur into a millstone as any one ! " and vanished through 
 the doorway. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mr. Raleigh, turning to Mrs. 
 Laudersdale. " He has refused to leave me, and I must 
 indulge him too much, and my sins fall on the head of the 
 nearest passer. He appears to have a constitutional ina 
 bility to comprehend this absence of punishment. His 
 immunity is so painful to him that I sometimes fancy him 
 to be 'homesick for a lashing. In fact, all those Burdens 
 of the Book of Isaiah, which his people carry on their 
 backs, are dust in his balance. The sorrows that have 
 darkened the brows of his race touch no electric chord in 
 him. Capua is not a representative man. He is only 
 the dry-nurse of my failings. Ah, welladay ! Now if I 
 do not hasten home, Kate, I shall find a conflagration of 
 the whole house there before me." 
 
 And making quick adieux, while Mrs. Laudersdale 
 jested about tempting the raging waters, and the dinner- 
 bell was ringing, and Helen singing, 
 
 " Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, brave Charlie! 
 Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine wi' McLean! " 
 
 he opened the door, suffered a patch of blue sky to be 
 seen, and the segment of an afternoon rainbow, shut it, 
 and was gone. 
 
 Early again the next morning, Mr. Raleigh sought the 
 Bawn, followed this time by Capua, who was determined 
 not to lose any ground once made, and who now carried 
 the rods, bait, and other paraphernalia. 
 
 " Powerful pretty woman, dat, Massa ! " said he, as 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 251 
 
 through the open doors a voice was heard gayly exclaim 
 ing and answering. 
 
 " Which one, Capua ? " asked his master. 
 
 " A'n't no t'orrer," was his reply ; " leastwise, a'n't no 
 'count, good for nott'n. Now she, pity she a'n't sin 
 gle, Massa, should say she 'd lived where sun was 
 plenty and had laid up heaps in her heart." 
 
 Here Mrs. Laudersdale came out, and shortly after 
 ward Helen and three or four others. In reply to their 
 questions, Mr. Raleigh stated that the preceding day's 
 disaster had been occasioned by a meerschaum, and had 
 merely charred a table with its superficies of papers and 
 pamphlets, which Capua had chosen to magnify for his 
 own purposes ; and the asssemblage immediately turned 
 its course inland and toward the brooks. The two who 
 led soon distanced the rest, Capua trudging respectfully 
 behind and keeping them in sight. Here, as they brushed 
 along through the woods, they delayed in order to examine 
 a partridge's nest, to tree a squirrel, to gather some strange 
 wild-flower opening at their approach. Here on the banks 
 they watched the bitterns rise and sail heavily away, and 
 finally in silence commenced the genuine sport. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Helen Heath, meaningly, as Mrs. 
 Laudersdale, when the others joined them, displayed her 
 first capture. " Is that all you 've caught ? " 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale drew in another for reply. 
 
 " How absurd ! " said Helen. " Here a month ago 
 you were the dearest and most helpless of mortals, and 
 now you are doing everything ! " 
 
 The other opened her eyes a moment, and then laughed. 
 
 " Hush ! " said she. 
 
 " Shs ! shs ! " echoed Capua, making an infinite hub 
 bub himself. 
 
252 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Silence accordingly reigned and produced a string fit 
 for the Sultan's kitchen, of all the number, Mrs. Lau- 
 dersdale adding by far the majority, possibly because 
 her shining prey found destination in the same basket 
 with Mr. Raleigh's, possibly because, as Helen had in 
 timated, a sudden deftness had bewitched her fingers, so 
 that neither dropping rod nor tangling reel detained her 
 for an instant. 
 
 " Our lines have fallen in pleasant places," said Helen, 
 as they took at last their homeward path ; " and what a 
 shame ! not an adventure yet ! " 
 
 Mrs. McLean hung on Mr. Raleigh's arm as they went, 
 for she had taken a whim and feared to see her cousin 
 in the fangs of a coquette ; by which means Helen be 
 came the companion of Captain Purcell and his daughter, 
 and Mrs. Laudersdale kept lightly in advance, leading a 
 gambol with the greyhound that Capua had added to the 
 party, and presenting in one person, as she went springing 
 from knoll to knoll along the bank, now in sunshine, now 
 in shade, lifting the green boughs or sweeping them aside, 
 a succession of the vivid figures of some antique and pro 
 cessional frieze. Suddenly, with a quick cry, she disap 
 peared, and Helen had her adventure. Mr. Raleigh 
 darted forward, while the hound came frisking back; 
 yet, when .he found her fainting in the hollow, stood 
 with stolid immobility until Capua snatched her up and 
 carried her along in his arms, leaving his master to reflect 
 how many times such swarthy servitors might have borne 
 her, as a child, through her island groves. And thus the 
 party, somewhat sobered, resumed their march again. 
 But in the discovery that he had not dared to lift her 
 in his arms, he who took such liberties with every one, 
 that, lying under her semblance of death, she had inspired 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 253 
 
 him with a certain awe, that he had suddenly found this 
 woman to be an object somewhat sacred, in this discov 
 ery Mr. Raleigh learned not a little. And it would not, 
 perhaps, be an untrue surmise that he found therein, as 
 much of pain as of any other emotion ; since all the ex 
 periences and passions of life must share the phenomena 
 of the great fact itself whose pulse beats through them ; 
 and if to love unawares be to dwell like a child in the re 
 gion of thoughtless and innocent bliss, in attaining man 
 hood all the sadness which is to be eliminated from life 
 becomes apparent, and bliss henceforth must be sought 
 and earned. From that day, then, Mr. Raleigh with dif 
 ficulty retained his former habits, prevented any eagerness 
 of manner, maintained a cautious vigilance, and in so do 
 ing he again became aware that the easy insouciance with 
 which he addressed all other women had long been lost 
 toward Mrs. Laudersdale, or, if yet existing, had become 
 like the light and tender play of any lingering summer- 
 wind in the tress upon her brow. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale's ankle having been injured by her 
 fall, and Mrs. McLean having taken a cold, the two in 
 valids now became during a week and a day the auditory 
 for all quips and pranks that Miss Heath and Mr. Raleigh 
 could devise. And on the event of their convalescence, 
 the Lord of Misrule himself seemed to have ordained the 
 course of affairs, with a swarming crew of all the imps 
 and mischiefs ever hatched. Mr. Raleigh and Capua 
 went and came with boat-loads of gorgeous stuff from 
 across the lake, a little old man appeared on the spot in 
 answer to a flight of telegrams, machinery and scenery 
 rose like exhalations, music was brought from the city, 
 all the availables of the family were to be found in gar 
 den, closet, house-top, conning hieroglyphical pages, and 
 
254 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 the whole chaotic confusion takes final shape and resolves 
 into a little Spanish Masque, to which kings and queens 
 have once listened in courtly state, and which now unrolls 
 its resplendent pageant before the eyes of Mrs. Lauders- 
 dale, translating her, as it were, into another planet, where 
 familiar faces in pompous entablature look out upon her 
 from a whirl of light and color, and familiar voices utter 
 stately sentences in some honeyed unknown tongue. And 
 finally, when the glittering parade finishes, and the strange 
 groups, in their costly raiment, throng out for dancing, she 
 herself gives her hand to some Prince of the pageantry, 
 who does her homage, and, sealing the fact of her restora 
 tion, swims once round the room in a mist of harmony, and 
 afterward sits by his side, captive to his will, and subject 
 to his enchantment, while 
 
 " All night had the roses heard 
 
 The flute, violin, bassoon, 
 All night had the casement jessamine stirred 
 
 With the dancers dancing in tune, 
 Till a silence fell with the waking bird 
 
 And a hush with the setting moon." 
 
 This little episode of illness and recovery having been 
 thus duly celebrated, the masqueraders again forswore 
 roofs and spent long days in distant junketing throughout 
 the woods ; the horses, too, were brought into requisition, 
 and a flock of boats kept forever on the wing. And 
 meanwhile, as Helen Heath said, she then least of all 
 comprehending the real drama of that summer, Mrs. 
 Laudersdale had taught them how the Greek animated 
 his statue. 
 
 " And how was that ? " asked Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " He took it out-doors, I fancy, and called the winds to 
 curl about it. He set its feet in morning-dew, he let in 
 light and shade through green dancing leaves above it, he 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 255 
 
 gave it glimpses of moon and star, he taught the forest- 
 birds to chirp and whistle in its ear, and finally he steeped 
 it in sunshine." 
 
 " Sunshine, then was the vivifying stroke ? " 
 
 Helen nodded. 
 
 " You are mistaken," said he ; " the man never found a 
 soul in his work till he put his own there first." 
 
 " I always wonder," remarked Mrs. Laudersdale here, 
 " that every artist, in brooding over his marble, adding, 
 touching, bringing out effects, does not end by loving it, 
 absorbingly, because so beautiful to him, despairingly, 
 because to him forever silent." 
 
 " You need n't wonder anything about it," said Helen, 
 mischievously. " All that you have to do is to make the 
 most of your sunshine." 
 
 Mr. McLean, struck with some sudden thought, in 
 spected the three as they stood in a blaze of the midsum 
 mer noon, then crossed over to his little wife, drew her 
 arm in his, and held it with cautious imprisonment. The 
 other wife did as she was bidden, and made the most of 
 her sunshine. 
 
 If, on first acquaintance, Mrs. Laudersdale had fasci 
 nated by her repose, her tropical languor, her latent fire, 
 the charm was none the less, when, turning, it became 
 one dazzle of animation, of careless freedom, of swift and 
 easy grace. Nor, unfamiliar as were such traits, did 
 they seem at all foreign to her, but rather, when once 
 donned; never to have been absent ; as if, indeed, she had 
 always been this royal creature, this woman bright and 
 winning as some warm, rich summer's day. The fire 
 that sleeps in marble never flashes and informs the whole 
 mass so fully ; if a pearl lazy growth and accretion of 
 amorphous life should fuse and form again in sparkling 
 
256 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 crystals, the miracle would be less. And with what com 
 plete unconsciousness had she stepped from passive to 
 positive existence, and found this new state to be as sweet 
 and strange as any child has found it ! Long a wife, she 
 had known, nevertheless, nothing but quiet custom or in 
 difference, and had dreamed of love only as the dark and 
 silent side of the moon might dream of light. Now she 
 grew and unfolded in the warmth of this season, like a 
 blossom perfumed and splendid. Sunbeams seemed to 
 lance themselves out of heaven and splinter about her. 
 She queened it over demesnes of sprite-like revelry ; the 
 life they led was sylvan ; at their fetes the sun assisted. 
 The summer held to her lips a glass whose rosy efferves 
 cence, whose fleeting foam, whose tingling spirit exhaled 
 a subtile madness of joy, a draught whose lees were 
 despair. So nearly had she been destitute of emotion 
 hitherto that she had scarcely a right to be classed with 
 humanity ; now, indeed, she would win that right. Not 
 only her character, but her beauty, became another thing 
 under all this largess ; one remembered the very Per 
 sian rose, in looking at her, and thought of gardens amid 
 whose clouds of rich perfume the nightingales sang all 
 night long ; her manner, too, became strangely gracious, 
 and a sweetness lingered after her presence, delicate and 
 fine as the drop of honey in some flower's nectary. So 
 she woke from her icy trance ; but, alas ! what had 
 wakened her ? 
 
 The summer was passing. Every day the garden- 
 scenes of Watteau became vivid and real ; every evening 
 Venice was made possible, when shadowy barks slipped 
 down dusk tides, freighted with song and laughter, and 
 snatches of guitar-tinkling ; and when some sudden torch, 
 that for an instant had summoned with its red fire all 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 257 
 
 fierce lights and strong glooms, dipped, hissed, and 
 quenched below, and, a fantastic flotilla, they passed on 
 into the broad brilliance of a rising moon, all Middle-Age 
 mythology rose and wafted them back into the obscurity. 
 It was a life too fine for every day, fare too rich for 
 health ; they must be exotics who did not wither in such 
 hot-house air. It was rapidly becoming unnatural. They 
 performed in the daylight stray clarified bits from 
 Fletcher or Moliere, drama of an era over-ripe ; they 
 sang only from an old book of madrigals ; their very 
 reading was fragmentary, now an emasculated Boc 
 caccio, then a curdling phantasm of Poe's, and after some 
 such scenic horror as the " Red Death " Helen Heath 
 dashed off the Pesther Waltzes. 
 
 If, finally, on one of the last August-nights, we had 
 passed, Asmodeus-like, over the roofs, looking down we 
 should have seen three things. First, that Mrs. Lauders- 
 dale slept like any innocent dreamer, and, wrapped with 
 white moonlight, in her long and flowing outline, in her 
 imperceptible breath, resembling some perfect statue that 
 we fancy to be instinct with suspended life. Next, that 
 Mr. Raleigh did not sleep at all, but absorbed himself, to 
 the entire disturbance of Capua's slumbers, in the rapture 
 of reproducing, as he could, the turbulent passion and joy 
 of souls larger than his own. And, lastly, that Mrs. 
 McLean woke with visions of burglars before her eyes, 
 to find her pillow deserted and her husband sitting at a 
 writing-table. 
 
 " How startled I was ! " she exclaimed. " What are 
 you doing, dear ? " 
 
 " Writing to Laudersdale," he said, in reply. 
 
 " Why, what for ? what can you be writing to him 
 for?" 
 
258 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " I think it best he should come and take his wife off 
 my hands." 
 
 " How absurd ! how contemptible ! how all you hus 
 bands band together like a parcel of slaveholders, and 
 hunt down each other's runaways ! " 
 
 Mr. McLean laughed. 
 
 " Now, John, you 're not making mischief? " 
 
 " No, child, I am preventing it." And therewith the 
 worthy man, dropping the wax on the envelope, imprinted 
 it with a Scotch crest, and put out the light. " That 's 
 off my mind ! " said he. 
 
 At last September came ; a few more weeks, and they 
 would separate, perhaps, to the four corners of the earth. 
 Mr. Raleigh arrived one afternoon at the Bawn, and 
 finding no one to welcome him, that is to say, Mrs. 
 Laudersdale had gone out, and Helen Heath was invisi 
 ble, he betook himself to a solitary stroll, and, by a 
 short cut through the woods, to the highway, and just 
 before emerging from the green shadows he met Mrs. 
 Laudersdale. 
 
 " Whither now, Wandering Willie ? " said she ; for, 
 singularly enough, they seemed to avoid speaking each 
 other's name in direct address, using always some title 
 suggested by their reading or singing, or some sportive 
 impromptu. 
 
 " I am going to take the road." 
 
 " Like a gallant highwayman ? " And without more 
 ado, and naturally enough, she accompanied him. 
 
 The conversation, this afternoon, was sufficiently insig 
 nificant ; indeed, Mrs. Laudersdale always affected you 
 more by her silence than her speech, by what she was 
 rather than by what she said ; and it is only the impres 
 sion produced on her by this walk with which we have 
 any concern. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 259 
 
 The road, narrow and winding in high banks fringed 
 with golden-rod and purple asters, was at first complete 
 ly shadowed, an old, deep-rutted, cross-country road, 
 birch-trees shivering at either side, and every now and 
 then a puff of pine-breath drifting in between. After a 
 time it rose gradually into the turnpike, and became a 
 long, dusty track, stretching as far as the eye could see, a 
 straight, dazzling line, burnt white by summer-heats, 
 powdered by travel. There was no wind stirring ; the 
 sky was lost in a hot film stained here and there with 
 sulphurous wreaths ; the distant fields, skirted by low 
 hills, were bathed in an azure mist ; nearer, a veil of dun 
 and dimmer smoke from burning brush hung motionless ; 
 around their feet the dust whirled and fell again. Bathed 
 in soft, voluptuous tints, hazed and mellowed, into what 
 weird, strange country were they hastening ? What vis 
 ionary land of delight, replete with perfume and luxury, 
 lay ever beyond ? what region rich, unknown, forbidden, 
 whose rank vegetation steamed with such insidious poi 
 son ? And on what arid, barren road, what weary road, 
 but, alas, long worn and beaten by the feet of other way 
 farers ! a road that ran real and strong through this 
 noxious and seducing mirage ! 
 
 A sudden blast of wind lifted a cloud of dust from be 
 fore them and twisted it down among the meadows ; the 
 sun thrust aside his shroud and burnt for an instant on a 
 scarlet maple-bough that hung in premature brilliance 
 across the way. The hasty color, true and fine, was like 
 a spell against enchantment ; it was the drop that tested 
 the virtue of this chemistry and proved it naught. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale looked askance at her companion, 
 then turned and met his gaze. Slowly her lashes fell, 
 the earth seemed to fail beneath her feet, the light to 
 
260 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 swoon from her eyes, her lips shook, and a full flush 
 swept branding and burning up throat and face, sting 
 ing her very forehead, and shooting down her finger-tips. 
 In an instant it had faded, and she shone the pallid, 
 splendid thing she was before. In that instant, for the 
 first time this summer, she comprehended that her hus 
 band's existence imported anything to her. Behind the 
 maple-tree, the wood began again ; without a syllable, she 
 stepped aside, suffered him to pass, and hastened to bury 
 herself in its recesses. 
 
 What lover ever accounted for his mistress's caprices ? 
 Mr. Raleigh proceeded on his walk alone. And what 
 was her husband to him ? He did not know that such a 
 man existed. For him there had been no deadly allure 
 ment in the fervid scene ; it had stretched a land of 
 promise veiled in its azure ardors, with intimations of 
 rapture and certainty of rest. Now, as he wandered 
 on and turned down another lane to the woods, the 
 tints grew deeper; his eyes, bent inward, saw all the 
 world in the color of his thought ; he would have af 
 firmed that the bare brown banks were lined in deep- 
 toned indigo flower-bells whose fragrance rose visible 
 above them or curled from stem to stem, and that the 
 hollows in which the path hid itself at last were of the 
 same soft gloom. But, finally, when not far distant from 
 the Bawn again, he shook off his reverie and struck an 
 other path that he might avoid rencontre. Perhaps the 
 very sound that awoke him was the one he wished to 
 shun ; at the next step it became more distinct, a 
 child's voice singing some tuneless song ; and directly a 
 tiny apparition appeared before him, as if it had taken 
 shape, with its wide, light eyes and corn-silk hair, from 
 the most wan and watery of sunbeams. But what had a 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 261 
 
 child to do in this paradise, thought he, and from whence 
 did it come ? Impossible to imagine. Her garments, of 
 rich material, hung freshly torn, it may be, but in shreds ; 
 her skin, if that of some fair and delicate nursling, was 
 stained with berries and smeared with soil ; she seemed 
 to have no destination; and after surveying him a mo 
 ment, she mounted a fallen tree, and, bending and swing 
 ing forward over a bough, still surveyed him. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! " said Mr. Roger Raleigh ; " what have we 
 here?" 
 
 The child still looked in his face, but vouchsafed, in her 
 swinging, no reply. 
 
 " What is the little lady's name ? " he asked then. 
 
 This query, apparently more comprehensible, elicited a 
 response. She informed him that her name was " Dy- 
 mom, Pink, and Beauty." 
 
 " Indeed ! And anything else ? " 
 
 " Rose Pose," she added, as if soliciting the aid of mem 
 ory by lifting her hands near her temples. 
 
 Is that all ? " 
 
 " Little silly Daffodilly." 
 
 "No more?" 
 
 Rite." 
 
 " Rite, ah, that is it ! Rite what ? " 
 
 " Rite ! " said the child, authoritatively, bringing down 
 her foot and shaking back her hair. 
 
 "And how old is Rite?" - 
 
 " One, two, four, twenty. Maman is twenty ; Rite is 
 twenty, too." 
 
 "When was Rite four?" 
 
 " A great while ago. She went to heaven in the after 
 noon," was added, confidentially, after a moment's inspec 
 tion to see if he were worthy. 
 
262 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Ah ! And what was there there ? " 
 
 " Pitchtures, and music, and peoples, and a great 
 house." 
 
 " And where is Rite going now ? " 
 
 " Going away in a ship." 
 
 " Rite will have to wash her face first." 
 
 But at this proposition the child flashed open her pale- 
 blue orbs, half-closed them as a sleepy cat does, and, with 
 no other change of countenance to mark her indignation, 
 appeared to shut him out from her contemplation. Di 
 rectly afterward, she opened them again, bent forward and 
 back over the swinging, and recommenced her song, as if 
 there were not another person than herself within a hun 
 dred miles. Half-hidden in the great hemlock-bough, this 
 tiny, fantastic creature, so fair, so supercilious, seemed 
 in her waywardness a veritable fay, mate for any of 
 the little men in green, bibbers of dew-drops, lodgers in 
 bean-blossoms, Green-Jacket, Red-Cap, and White-Owl's- 
 Feather. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh hesitated whether or not he should remain 
 and watch her fade away into the twilight, wondered if 
 she were bewitching him, then rubbed his hand across 
 his eyes and said, in a disenchanted, matter-of-fact man 
 ner, 
 
 " Do you know your way home, child ? " and obtained, 
 of course, no reply. For an instant he had half the mind 
 to leave her to find it ; but at once convicted of his ab 
 surdity, " Then I shall take you with me," he said, mak 
 ing a step toward her, " because you are, or will be, 
 lost." 
 
 At the motion, she darted past and stood defiantly just 
 out of his reach. Mr. Raleigh attempted to seize her, but 
 he might as easily have put his hand on a butterfly ; she 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 263 
 
 eluded him always when within his grasp, and led him 
 such a dance up and down the forest-path as none other 
 than a will-o'-the-wisp, it seemed, could have woven. All 
 at once a dark figure glided out from another alley and 
 snatched the sprite into its arms. It was a colored nurse, 
 who poured out a torrent of broken French and English 
 over the runaway, and made her acknowledgments to Mr. 
 Raleigh in the same jargon. As she turned to go, the 
 child stretched her arms toward her late pursuer, making 
 the nurse pause, and, putting up her little lips, touched 
 with them his own ; then, picturesque as ever, and thrown 
 into relief by the scarlet sack, snowy turban, and sable 
 skin of her bearer, she disappeared. It is doubtful if in, 
 all his life Mr. Raleigh would ever receive a purer, sweet 
 er kiss. 
 
 He had promised to be at the Bawn that evening, and 
 now accordingly sought the shore, where the Arrow lay, 
 and was soon within the shelter of his own house. The 
 arrangement of toilet was a brief matter ; and that con 
 cluded, Mr. Raleigh entered his library, an apartment 
 now slightly in disarray, and therefore, perhaps, not un 
 congenial with his present mood. After strolling round 
 the place, Mr. Raleigh paused at the window an instant, 
 the window overhung with clematis, and commanding the 
 long stretch of water between him and the Bawn, which 
 last was, however, too distant for any movement to be 
 discerned there. Soon Mr. Raleigh turned his back upon 
 the scene that lay pictured in such beauty below, and, 
 throwing himself into a deep arm-chair, remained motion 
 less and plunged in thought for many moments. Rising 
 at last, he took from the table a package of letters from 
 India that had arrived in his absence. Glancing absently 
 at the superscriptions, breaking the seal of one, he re- 
 
264 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 placed them : it would take too long to read them now ; 
 they must wait. Then Mr. Raleigh had recourse to a 
 universal panacea, and walked to and fro across the 
 room, with measured, unvarying steps, till the striking 
 clock warned him that time was passing. Mr. Raleigh 
 drew near his desk again, took up the pen, and hesitated ; 
 then recalling his gaze that had seemed to search his own 
 inmost nature, he drew the paper nearer and wrote. 
 
 What he wrote, the very words, may not signify ; with 
 the theme one is sufficiently acquainted. Perhaps he 
 poured out there all that had so often trembled on his 
 lips without finding utterance ; perhaps, if ever passionate 
 heart flashed its own fire into its implements, this pen and 
 paper quivered beneath the current throbbing through 
 them. The page was brief, but therein all was said. 
 Sealing it hastily, he summoned Capua. 
 
 " Capua," said he, giving him the note, " you are to go 
 with me across the lake now. We shall return somewhere 
 between eleven and twelve. Just as we leave, you are to 
 give this note to Mrs. Laudersdale. Do you understand ?" 
 
 "Yah, Massa, let dis chile alone," responded Capua, 
 grinning at the prospect of society, and speedily following 
 his master. 
 
 The breeze had fallen, so that they rowed the whole dis 
 tance, with the idle sail hanging loosely, and arrived only 
 just as the red sunset painted the lake behind them with 
 blushing shadows. Mr. Raleigh joined Helen Heath and 
 his cousin in the hall ; Capua, superb with the importance 
 of his commission, sought another entrance. But just as 
 the latter individual had crossed the threshold, he encoun 
 tered the nurse whom his master had previously met in 
 the wood. Nothing could have been more acceptable in 
 his eyes than this addition to the circle below-stairs. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 265 
 
 Capua's hat was in his hand at once, and bows and 
 curtsies and articulations and gesticulations followed with 
 such confusing rapidity, that, when the mutually pleased 
 pair turned in company toward the kitchens, a scrap of 
 white paper, that had fluttered down in the disorder, was 
 suffered to remain unnoticed on the floor. The courier 
 had lost his despatch. Coming in from her walk, not five 
 minutes later, Mrs. Laudersdale's eye was caught thereby; 
 stooping to take it, she read with surprise her own name 
 thereon, and ascended the stairs possessed thereof. 
 
 What burden of bliss, what secret of sorrow, lay in 
 folded there, that at the first thought she covered it with 
 sudden kisses, and the next, crushing it against her heart, 
 burst into a wild weeping ? Again and again she read it, 
 and at every word its intense magne'tic strength thrilled 
 her, rapt her from remembrance, conquered her. She 
 seized a pencil and wrote hurriedly : 
 
 " You are right. With you I live, without you I die. 
 You shut heaven out from me ; make earth, then, heaven. 
 Come to me, for I love you. Yes, I love you." 
 
 She did not stay to observe the contrast between her 
 fervent sentences and the weak, faint characters that 
 expressed them, but hastily sought the servant who was 
 jcustomed to act as postman, gave him directions to ac 
 quaint her of its reception, and watched him out of sight, 
 ill that in the swiftness of a fever-fit. Scarcely had the 
 >at vanished when old thoughts rushed over her again, 
 and she would have given her life to recall it. Return 
 ing, she found Capua eagerly searching for the lost letter, 
 and thus learned that she was not to have received it 
 until several hours later. 
 
 Perhaps no other woman in her situation could have 
 done what Mrs. Laudersdale had done, without incurring 
 12 
 
266 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 more guilt. There could be few who had been reared in 
 such isolation as she, whose intellect, naturally subject 
 to her affection, had become more so through the absence 
 of systematic education, whose morality had been 
 allowed to be merely one of instinct, to whom intro 
 spection had been till now a thing unknown, and who, 
 accepting a husband as another child accepts a parent, 
 had, in the whirl of gay life where she afterward reigned, 
 found so little time for thought, and remained in such 
 mental unsophistication as to experience now her first 
 passion. 
 
 As Mrs. Laudersdale entered her room again, the oppo 
 site door opened and admitted that individual the selfish 
 ness of whose marriage was but half expiated when he 
 found himself on the surplus side of the world. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Mr. Raleigh was gayly passing the 
 time with Helen Heath. There were to be some guests 
 from the town that evening, and they were the topic of 
 her discourse. 
 
 " I wonder if we are never to have tea," said she at 
 last, looking at her watch. 
 
 " I did n't know you were attached to the custom," said 
 he, indifferently, as he had said everything else, while 
 intently listening for a footstep. 
 
 " Ah ! but I like to see other folks take their bitters." 
 
 " Do not even the publicans the same ? " 
 
 " You will become a proficient chemist, converting the 
 substance of my remarks to airy nothings through your 
 gospel-retorts." 
 
 " Oh, I understand your optics as well. You like to 
 see other folks ; taking the bitters is a different thing. 
 The tea-bell is a tocsin." 
 
 " Pshaw ! You don't care to see any one ! But shall 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 267 
 
 there be no more cakes and ale ? Have n't you any sym 
 pathy for a sweet tooth ? " 
 
 " None at all." 
 
 " Not even in Mrs. Laudersdale's instance ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Laudersdale has a sweet tooth, then?" Mr. 
 Raleigh asked in return, as if there were any trivial thing 
 concerning her in which he could yet be instructed. 
 
 " I 'm not going to tell you anything about Mrs. 
 Laudersdale." 
 
 " There comes that desired object, the tea-tray. It 's 
 not to be formal, then, to-night. That 's a blessing ! 
 What shall I bring you ? " he continued, " tea or 
 cocoa ? " 
 
 " Neither. You may have the tea, and I '11 leave the 
 cocoa for Mrs. Laudersdale." 
 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale drinks cocoa, then ? " 
 
 " You may bring me some milk and macaroons." 
 
 As Mr. Raleigh was about to obey, his little apparition 
 of the wood suddenly appeared in the doorway, followed 
 by her nurse, having arisen from the discipline of bath 
 and brush, fair and spotless as a snowflake. She flitted 
 by him with a mocking recognition. 
 
 " Rite ! " cried a voice from above, familiar, but with 
 how strange a tone in it ! " Little Rite ! " 
 
 " Maman ! " cried the sprite, and went dancing up the 
 stairs. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh's face, as he turned, darkened with a 
 heavier flush than half a score of Indian summers 
 branded upon it afterward. 
 
 " That is Mrs. Laudersdale's little maid ? " asked he, 
 when, after a few moments, he brought the required 
 salver. 
 
 " Yes, would you ever suspect it ? " 
 
268 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Numberless as had been the times he had heard her 
 speak of Rite, he never had suspected it, but had always 
 at the name pictured some indifferent child, some baby- 
 friend, or cousin by courtesy. 
 
 " She is not like her mother," said he, coolly. 
 
 " The very antipodes, all her father. Bless me ! 
 What is this ? A real Laudersdale mess, custards and 
 cheese-cakes, and I detest them both." 
 
 " Blame my unfortunate memory. I thought I had 
 certainly pleased you, Miss Helen." 
 
 " When you forgot my orders ? Well, never mind. 
 Is n't she exquisite ? " 
 
 " Is n't who exquisite ? Oh, the little maid ? Quite ! 
 Why has n't she been here all summer ? " 
 
 " She was always a sickly, ailing thing, and has been 
 at one of those rich Westchester farms where health and 
 immortality are made. And now she is going away to 
 Martinique, where her grandmother will take charge of 
 her, bottle up those spirits, and make her a second edition 
 of her mother. By the way, how that mother has effer 
 vesced this summer ! " continued Helen, as the detested 
 custard disappeared. " I wonder what made her. Do 
 you suppose it was because her husband was away ? " 
 
 At that instant Mrs. Laudersdale came sailing down 
 the stairs. 
 
 A week previously, when, to repay the civilities of 
 their friends in the neighboring city, Mrs. McLean had 
 made a little fancy-party, Helen appearing as Champagne, 
 all in rosy gauzes with a veiling foam of dropping silver 
 lace, had begged Mrs. Laudersdale to give her promi 
 nence by dressing for Port ; and accordingly that lady 
 had arrayed herself in velvet, out of which her shoulders 
 rose like snow, and whose rich duskiness made her per- 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 269 
 
 feet pallor more apparent, while its sumptuous body of 
 color was sprinkled with glittering crystal drops and cor 
 uscations ; and wreathing her forehead with crisp vine- 
 leaves and tendrils, she had bunched together in intricate 
 splendor all the amethysts, carbuncles, garnets, and rubies 
 in the house, for grape-clusters at the ear, till she seemed, 
 with her smile and her sunshine, the express and incar 
 nate spirit of vintage. To-night, stripped of its sparkling 
 drops, she wore the same dress, and in her hair a wreath 
 of fresh white roses. Behind her descended a tall and 
 stately gentleman. She swept forward. " Mr. Raleigh," 
 she murmured, while her eyes diffused their gloom and 
 fell, " let me introduce you to my husband ! " 
 
 The blow had come previously. Mr. Raleigh bowed 
 almost to the ground, without a word, then looked up and 
 offered his hand. Mr. Laudersdale comprehended the 
 whole matter at a heart-beat, and took it. Then they 
 moved on toward other friends, whom, while waiting for 
 knowledge of his wife's return from her walk, Mr. Lau 
 dersdale had not seen. Mr. Raleigh went in search of 
 Capua, and ere long reappeared. 
 
 It grew quite dark; the candles were lighted. Rite 
 slipped in, and, after having flown about like a thistle 
 down for a while, mounted a chair and put her arms 
 about her mother's shoulders. Then Mr. Raleigh, sitting 
 silently on a sofa, attracted her, and shortly afterward she 
 had curled herself beside him and fallen asleep with her 
 head upon his knee ; otherwise he did not touch her. 
 Mrs. Laudersdale stood by an open casement ; the ser 
 vant who had carried her note came up the lawn and 
 spoke to her from without. There was no one in the 
 house, and he had left it on the library-table. The pres 
 sure of those tender little arms was yet warm about the 
 
270 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 mother's neck ; she glanced sidelong at the sleeping child. 
 " He shall never see that note ! " she murmured, and 
 slipped through the casement. 
 
 Accustomed to all rash and intrepid adventure during 
 this summer, it was nothing for her to unmoor a boat, en 
 ter it, and lift the oars, not pausing to observe that it was 
 the Arrow. Just then, however, a little wind ruffled down 
 and shook the sail, a wind not quite favorable, but in which 
 she could tack across and back ; she drew in the oars, put 
 to the proof all her new boat-craft, and recklessly dashed 
 through the dark element that curled and seethed about 
 her. She had to make but two tacks in that hour's im 
 petuous progress, before the house rose, as it had fre 
 quently done before, glooming at but a few rods' distance, 
 and loading with odorous breath the air that tossed its 
 vines ere stealing across the lake. She trembled now, 
 and remembered that she alone of all the party had al 
 ways unconsciously evaded entering Mr. Ealeigh's house, 
 had never seen the house nearer than now, and never 
 been its guest. It was entering some dark, unknown 
 place ; it was to intrude on a sacred region. But the 
 breeze hurried her along while she thought, and the next 
 moment the keel was buried in the sand. There was no 
 time to lose ; she left the boat, ascended a flight of stone 
 steps close at hand, and was in the garden. Low, ripe 
 greenery was waving over her here, deep alluring shadows 
 opening around, full fresh fragrance fanning idly to and 
 fro and stealing her soul away. Beyond, the lake gleamed 
 darkly, the water lapped gently, the wind sighed and fell 
 like a fluttering breath. She would have lingered for 
 ever, she dared not linger a moment. She brushed 
 the dew from the heavy blossoms as she swept on, then 
 the drenching branches swayed and closed behind her; 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 271 
 
 she found a door ajar, and hastily entered the first room 
 which appeared. 
 
 There were stray starbeams in this apartment; her 
 eyes were accustomed to the gloom ; she could dimly 
 discern the great book-cases lining the wall, an an 
 tique chair, the glittering key-board of a grand-piano 
 that stood apart, yet thrilling perhaps with recent harmo 
 nies, a colossal head of Antinoiis, that self-involved 
 dreamer, stone-entranced in a calm of passion. She had 
 been feverishly agitated; but as this white silence dawned 
 upon her, so strong, yet voluptuous, never sad, making in 
 its masque of marble one intense moment eternal, some of 
 the same power spread soothingly over her. She paused 
 a moment to gather the thronging thoughts. How still the 
 room was! She had not known that music was at his 
 command before. How sweet the air that blew in at the 
 window ! what late flowers bore such pungent balm ? 
 That portrait leaning half-startled from the frame, was 
 it his mother ? These books, were they the very ones 
 that had fed his youth ? How everything was yet warm 
 from his touch ! how his presence yet lingered ! how 
 much of his life had passed into the dim beauty of the 
 place! How each fresh waft from the blooms without 
 came drowned in fine perfume, laden with delicious lan 
 guor ! What heaven was there ! and, ah ! what heaven 
 was yet possible there ! 
 
 Something that had flitted from the table in the draught, 
 and had hovered here and there along the floor, now lay 
 at her foot ; she caught it absently ; it was her letter. To 
 snatch it from its envelope, and so tear it the more easily 
 to atoms, was her first thought; but as suddenly she 
 paused. Was it hers? Though written and sealed by 
 her hand, had she any longer possession therein ? Had 
 
272 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 she more rule over it than over any other letter that 
 might be in the room ? Absurd refinement of honor ! 
 She broke the seal. Yet stay! Was there no justice 
 due to him ? That letter which had been read long be 
 fore the intended time, whose delivery any accident might 
 have frustrated, whose writer might have recalled it, 
 did it demand no magnanimity of reply on her part? 
 Had he now no claim to the truth from her? As she 
 knew what he never would have told her an hour later, 
 had she authority to recede from the position she had 
 taken in response, simply because she could and he could 
 not ? Should she ignobly refuse him his right ? 
 
 Whether this were a sophism of sin or the logic of 
 highest virtue, she, who would have blotted out her writ 
 ing with her heart's blood, did not wait to weigh. 
 
 " To him, also, I owe a duty ! " she exclaimed, dropped 
 the letter where she had found it, and fled, fled, hurry 
 ing through all the bewildering garden-walks, down from 
 the fragrance, the serenity, the bowery seclusion, from all 
 this conspiring loveliness that tempted her to dally and 
 commanded her to stay, fled from this dream of pas 
 sion, this region of joy, fled forever, as she thought, 
 out into the wide, chill, lonely night. 
 
 Pushing off the boat and springing in, once more the 
 water curled beneath the parting prow, and she shot with 
 her flashing sail and hissing wake heedlessly, like a phan 
 tom, past another boat that was making more slowly in to 
 shore. 
 
 "This way, Helen," murmurs a subdued voice. "There 
 are some steps, Mr. Laudersdale. Here we are ; but it 's 
 dark as Erebus. Give me your hand ; I 'm half afraid ; 
 after that spectre that walked the water just now, these 
 shadows are not altogether agreeable. There 's the door, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 273 
 
 careful housekeeper, this Mr. Raleigh ! I wonder what 
 McLean would say. Don't believe he 'd like it." 
 
 " What made you come, then ? " asks Helen, as they 
 step within. 
 
 " Oh, just for the frolic ; it was getting stupid, too. I 
 suppose we 've ruined our dresses. But there ! we must 
 hurry and get back,, I did n't think it would take so 
 long. He can't manage a boat so well as Roger," adds 
 Mrs. McLean, in a whisper. 
 
 " Goodness ! " exclaims Helen. " I can't see an inch 
 of the way. We shall certainly deal devastation." 
 
 " I 've been exploring a mantel-shelf ; here 's a candle, 
 but how to light it ? Have n't you a match, Mr. Lau- 
 dersdale?" 
 
 That gentleman produces one from a little pocket-safe ; 
 it proves a failure, and so a second, and a third. 
 
 " This is the last, Mrs. McLean. Have your candle 
 ready." 
 
 The little jet of flame flashes up. 
 
 " Quick, Helen ! a scrap of paper, quick ! " 
 
 " I don't know where to find any. Here 's a billet on 
 the floor ; tGe seal's broken ; Mr. Raleigh don't read his 
 letters, you know ; shall I take it ? " 
 
 " Anything, yes ! My fingers are burning ! Quick, 
 it's the last match! There!" 
 
 Helen waves a tiny flambeau, the candle is lighted, the 
 flame whirled down upon the hearth and trodden out. 
 
 " I ^wonder what it was, though," adds Mrs. McLean, 
 stooping over it. " Some of our correspondence. No 
 matter, then. Now for that Indian mail. Here, no, 
 
 this must be it. ' Mr. Roger Raleigh,' l Roger Ra 
 leigh, Esq.,' that 's not it, l Day, Knight, & Co., for 
 Roger Raleigh.' Why, Mr. Laudersdale, that 's your 
 
 12* R 
 
274 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 firm. Aren't you the Co. there? Ah, here it is, 
 'Mrs. Catherine McLean, care of Mr. Roger Raleigh/ 
 Does n't that look handsomely, Helen ? " contemplating 
 it with newly married satisfaction. 
 
 " Now you have it, come ! " urges Helen. 
 
 " No, indeed ! I must find that Turkish tobacco, to 
 reward Mr. Laudersdale for his hejoic exertions in our 
 behalf." 
 
 Mr. Laudersdale, somewhat fastidious and given to 
 rigid etiquette, looks as if the exertions would be best 
 rewarded by haste. Mrs. McLean takes the candle in 
 hand and proceeds on a tour of the apartment. 
 
 " There ! is n't this the article ? John says it 's pitiful 
 stuff, not to be compared with Virginia leaf. Look at 
 this meerschaum, Mr. Laudersdale ; there 's an ensample. 
 Prettily colored, is it not ? " 
 
 " Now are you coming ? " asks Helen. 
 
 "Would you? We've never been here without my 
 worshipful cousin before ; I should like to investigate his 
 domestic arrangements. Needle and thread. Now what 
 do you suppose he is doing with needle and thread ? Oh, 
 
 it 's that little lacework that Mrs. Sketches ! I 
 
 wonder whom he 's sketching. You, Helen ? Me ? Up 
 side down, of course. No, it 's Yes, we may as 
 
 well go. Come ! " 
 
 And in the same breath Mrs. McLean blows out the 
 candle and precedes them. Mr. Laudersdale scorns to 
 secure the sketch ; and holding back the boughs for Miss 
 Heath, and assisting her down the steps, quietly follows. 
 
 Meantime, Mrs. Laudersdale has reached her point of 
 departure again, has stolen up out of the white fog now 
 gathering over the lake, slipped into her former place, 
 and found all nearly as before. The candles had been 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 275 
 
 taken away, so that light came merely from the hall and 
 doorways. Some of the guests were in the brilliant din 
 ing-room, some in the back-parlor. Mr. Raleigh, while 
 Fate was thus busying herself about him, still sat motion 
 less, one hand upon the sofa's side, one on the back, little 
 Rite still sleeping on his knee. Capua came and ex 
 changed a few words with his master ; then the colored 
 nurse stepped through the groups, sought the child, and 
 carried her away, head and arms hanging heavy with 
 slumber. Still Mr. Raleigh did not move. Mrs. Laud- 
 ersdale stood in the window, vivid and glowing. There 
 were no others in the room. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. McLean?" asked Mary Purcell at 
 the door, after the charade in which she had been engaged 
 was concluded. 
 
 " Gone across the lake with Nell and Mr. Laudersdale 
 for a letter," replied Master Fred Heath, who had re 
 turned that afternoon from the counting-room, with his 
 employer, and now sauntered by. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale started; she had not escaped too early; 
 but then Her heart was beating in her throat. 
 
 " What letter ? " asked Mrs. Heath, with amiable cu 
 riosity, as she joined them. 
 
 " Do you know what letter, Mr. Raleigh ? " 
 
 " One from India, Madame," was his response. 
 
 " Strange ! Helen gone without permission ! What 
 was in the letter, I wonder. Do you know what was in 
 the letter, Mr. Raleigh ? " 
 
 " Congratulations, and a recommendation of Mrs. Mc 
 Lean's cousin to her good graces," he said. 
 
 " Oh, it was not Helen's, then ? " 
 
 No." 9 
 
 " My young gentleman 's not in good humor to-night," 
 
276 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 whispered Mrs. Heath to Miss Purcell, with a significant 
 nod, and moving off. 
 
 " How did you know what was in Mrs. McLean's letter, 
 sir ? " asked Mary Purcell. 
 
 " I conjectured. In Mrs. Heath's place, I should have 
 known." 
 
 " There they come ! you can always tell Mrs. Mc 
 Lean's laugh. You 've lost all the charades, Helen ! " 
 
 They came in, very gay, and seemed at once to arouse 
 an airier and finer spirit among the humming clusters. 
 Mr. Laudersdale did not join his wife, but sat on the 
 piazza talking with Mr. McLean. People were looking 
 at an herbal, others coquetting, others quiet. Some one 
 mentioned music. Directly afterward, Mr. Raleigh rose 
 and approached the piano. Every one turned. Taking 
 his seat, he threw out a handful of rich chords ; the in 
 strument seemed to diffuse a purple cloud ; then, buoyed 
 over perfect accompaniment, the voice rose in that one 
 love-song of the world. What depth of tenderness is 
 there from which the Adelaide does not sound ? What 
 secret of tragedy, too ? Singing, he throbbed through it a 
 vitality as if the melody surcharged with beauty grew 
 from his soul and were his breath of life indeed. The 
 thrilling strain came to penetrate and fill one heart ; the 
 passionate despair surged round her ; the silence follow 
 ing was like the hand that closes the eyes of the dead. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh did not rise, nor look up, as he finished. 
 
 " How melancholy ! " said Helen Heath, breaking the 
 hush. 
 
 " All music should be melancholy," said he. 
 
 " How absurd, Roger ! " said his cousin. " There is 
 mu^h music that is only intensely beautiful." 
 
 " Intense beauty at its height always drops in pathos, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 277 
 
 or rather the soul does in following it, since that is 
 infinite, the soul finite." 
 
 " Nonsense ! There 's that song, Number Three in 
 Book One " 
 
 " I don't remember it." 
 
 " Well, there's no pathos there ! It's just one trill of 
 laughter and merriment, a sunbeam and effect. Play it, 
 Helen." 
 
 Helen went, and, extending her hands before Mr. 
 Raleigh, played a couple of bars ; he continued where 
 she left it, as one might a dream, and, strangely enough, 
 the little, gushing sparkle of joy became a phantom of 
 itself, dissolving away in tears. 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Mrs. McLean, " you can make 
 mouths in a glass, if you please ; but I, for one, detest 
 melancholy ! Don't you, Mrs. Laudersdale ? " 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale had shrunk into the shadow of the 
 curtain. Perhaps she did not hear the question ; for her 
 reply, that did not come at once, was the fragment of a 
 Provencal romance, sung, and sung in a voice neither 
 sweet nor rich, but of a certain personal force as potent 
 as either quality, and a stifled strength of tone that made 
 one tremble. 
 
 We 're all alone, we 're all alone ! 
 The moon and stars are dead and gone, 
 The night 's at deep, the winds asleep, 
 And thou and I are all alone ! 
 
 What care have we, though life there be ? 
 Tumult and life are not for me ! 
 Silence and sleep about us creep : 
 Tumult and life are not for thee ! 
 
 How late it is since such as this 
 
 Had topped the height of breathing bliss ! 
 
 And now we keep an iron sleep, 
 
 In that grave thou, and I in this ! 
 
278 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Her voice yet shivered through the room, he struck a 
 chord of dead conclusion, the curtain stirred, she emerged 
 from the gloom and was gone. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh rose and bade his cousin good night. 
 Mrs. McLean, however, took his arm and sauntered with 
 him down the lawn. 
 
 " I thought Capua came with you," she remarked. 
 
 " He returned in a spare wherry, some time since," he 
 replied ; and thereon they made a few paces in silence. 
 
 " Roger," said the little lady, taking breath preparatory 
 to wasting it, " I thought Helen was a coquette. I Ve 
 changed my mind. The fault is yours." 
 
 He turned and looked down at her with some sur 
 prise. 
 
 " You know we have n't much more time, and cer 
 tainly " 
 
 "Kate!" 
 
 " Yes, don't scold ! and if you are going to pro 
 pose, I really think you ought to, or else " 
 
 " You think I ought to marry Miss Heath ? " 
 
 Why I well Oh, dear ! I wish I had held 
 my peace ! " 
 
 " That might have been advisable." 
 
 " Don't be offended now, Roger ! " 
 
 " Is there any reason to suppose her to suppose 
 me " 
 
 " Yes, there ! " replied Mrs. McLean, desperately. 
 
 He was silent a moment. 
 
 " Good God, Kate ! " said he, then, clasping his hands 
 behind his head, and looking up the deep transparence of 
 the unanswering night. " What a blessing it is that life 
 don't last forever!" 
 
 " But it does, Roger," she uttered under her breath, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 279 
 
 terrified at kis abrupt earnestness, and unwitting what 
 storm she had aroused. 
 
 "The formula changes," he replied, with his old air, 
 and retracing their steps. 
 
 The guests were all gone. Helen Heath was eating 
 an ice ; he bent over her chair and said, 
 
 " Good night, Miss Helen ! " 
 
 " Oh, good night, Mr. Raleigh! You are going ? Well, 
 we 're all going soon. What a glorious summer it has 
 been ! Are n't you sorry we must part ? " 
 
 " Why must we part ? " he asked in a lower tone. 
 " Where is the necessity of our parting ? Why won't you 
 stay forever, Helen ? " 
 
 She turned and surveyed him quickly, while a red 
 whether of joy or anger he could not tell flashed up her 
 cheek. 
 
 " Do you mean " 
 
 " Miss Heath, I mean, will you marry me ? " 
 
 " Mr. Raleigh, no ! " 
 
 With a bow he passed on. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh trimmed the Arrow's sail, for the breeze 
 had sunk again, and swept slowly out with one oar sus 
 pended. A waning moon was rising behind the trees, it 
 fell upon the little quay that had been built that summer, 
 and seemed with its hollow beams still to continue the 
 structure upon the water. The Arrow floated in the 
 shadow just beyond. Mr. Raleigh's eyes were on the 
 quay ; he paused, nerveless, both oars trailing, a cold 
 damp starting on his forehead. Some one approached 
 as if looking out upon the dim sheet, some one who, 
 deceived by the false light, did not know the end to be so 
 near, and walked forward firmly and confidently. Indeed, 
 the quay had been erected in Mr. Laudersdale's absence. 
 The water was deep there, the bottom rocky. 
 
280 MIDSUMMEK AND MAY. 
 
 " Shout and warn him of his peril ! " urged a voice in 
 Mr. Raleigh's heart. 
 
 " Let him drown ! " urged another voice. 
 
 If he would have called, the sound died a murmur in 
 his throat. His eyes were on the advancing figure ; it 
 seemed as if that object were to be forever stamped upon 
 the retina. Still as he gazed, he was aware of another 
 form, one sitting on the quay, unseen in shadow like him 
 self, and seeing what he saw, and motionless as he. Would 
 Mrs. Laudersdale dip her hands in murder? It all passed 
 in a second of time ; at the next breath he summoned 
 every generous power in his body, sprang with the leap 
 of a wild creature, and confronted the recoiling man. Ere 
 his foot touched the quay, the second form had glided from 
 the darkness, and seized her husband's arm. 
 
 "A thousand pardons, sir," said Mr. Raleigh, then. "I 
 thought you were in danger. Mrs. Laudersdale, good 
 night ! " 
 
 It was an easy matter to regain the boat, to gather up 
 his oars, and shoot away. Till they faded from sight, he 
 saw her still beside him ; and so they stood till the last 
 echo of the dipping oars was muffled in distance and lost. 
 
 Summer-nights are brief; breakfast was late on the 
 next morning, or rather, Mrs. Laudersdale was late, as 
 usual, to partake it. 
 
 " Shall I tell you some news ? " asked Helen Heath. 
 
 She lifted her heavy eyes absently. 
 
 " Mrs. McLean has made her husband a millionnaire. 
 There was an Indian mail yesterday. Mr. Raleigh read 
 his letters last night, after going home. His uncle is dy 
 ing, old, unfortunate, forlorn. He has abandoned every 
 thing, and must hew his own way in the world from this 
 day forward. Mr. Raleigh left this morning for India." 
 
MIDSUMMEE AND MAY. 281 
 
 When you saw Mrs. Laudersdale for the first time, at 
 a period thirteen years later, would you have imagined 
 her possessed of this little drama ? You fancy now that 
 in this flash all the wealth of her soul burned out and left 
 her a mere volition and motive power? You are mis 
 taken, as I said. 
 
 II. 
 
 WHEN Miss Kent, the maternal great-aunt of Mr. Ka- 
 leigh, devised her property, the will might possibly have 
 been set aside as that of a monomaniac, but for the fact 
 that he cared too little about anything to go to law for it, 
 and for the still more important fact that the heirs-at-law 
 were sufficiently numerous to ingulf the whole property 
 and leave no ripple to attest its submerged existence, had 
 he done so ; and on deserting it, he was better pleased to 
 enrich the playfellow of his childhood than a host of un 
 known and unloved individuals. I cannot say that he did 
 not more than once regret what he had lost : he was not 
 of a self-denying nature, as we know ; on the contrary, 
 luxurious and accustomed to all those delights of life gen 
 erally to be procured only through wealth. But, for all 
 that, there had been intervals, ere his thirteen years' exile 
 ended, in which, so far from regret, he experienced a cer 
 tain joy at remembrance of this rough and rugged point 
 of time where he had escaped from the chrysalid state to 
 one of action and freedom and real life. He had been 
 happy in reaching India before his uncle's death, in ap 
 plying his own clear understanding to the intricate entan 
 glements of the affairs before him, in rescuing his uncle's 
 commercial good name, and in securing thus for himself a 
 foothold on the ladder of life, although that step had not 
 
282 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 occurred to him till thrust there by the pressure of cir 
 cumstances. For the rest, I am not sure that Mr. Raleigh 
 did not find his path suiting him well enough. There was 
 no longer any charm in home ; he was forbidden to think 
 of it. That strange summer, that had flashed into his life 
 like the gleam of a carnival-torch into quiet rooms, must 
 be forgotten ; the forms that had peopled it, in his deter 
 mination, should become shadows. Valiant vows ! Yet 
 there must have come moments, in that long lapse of days 
 and years, when the whole season gathered up its gar 
 ments and swept imperiously through his memory: nights, 
 when under the shadow of the Himmaleh, the old passion 
 rose at spring-tide and flooded his heart and drowned out 
 forgetfulness, and a longing asserted itself, that, if checked 
 as instantly by honor as despair, was none the less insuf 
 ferable and full of pain, warm, wide, Southern nights, 
 when all the stars, great and golden, leaned out of heaven 
 to meet him, and all ripe perfumes, wafted by their own 
 principle of motion, floated in the rich dusk and laden air 
 about him, and the phantom of snow on topmost heights 
 sought vainly to lend him its calm. Days also must have 
 showered their fervid sunshine on him, as he journeyed 
 through plains of rice, where all the broad reaches whit 
 ening to harvest filled him with intense and bitterest lone 
 liness. What region of spice did not recall the noons when 
 they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New 
 England pastures, and breathed its intoxicating fragrance? 
 and what forest of the tropics, what palms, what blooms, 
 what gorgeous affluence of color and of growth, equalled 
 the wood on the lake-shores, with its stately hemlocks, its 
 joyous birches, its pale-blue, shadow-blanched violets ? 
 2STor was this regret, that had at last become a part of 
 the man's identity, entirely a selfish one. He had no au- 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 283 
 
 thority whatever for his belief, yet believe he did, that, 
 firmly and tenderly as he loved, he was loved, and of the 
 two fates his was not the harder. But a man, a man, too, 
 in the stir of the world, has not the time for brooding over 
 the untoward events of his destiny that a woman has ; his 
 tender memories are forever jostled by cent per cent ; he 
 meets too many faces to keep the one in constant and un 
 changing perpetuity sacredly before his thought. And so 
 it happened that Mr. Raleigh became at last a silent, keen- 
 eyed man, with the shadow of old and enduring melancholy 
 on his life, but with no certain sorrow there. 
 
 In the course of time his business connections extended 
 themselves ; he was associated with other men more in 
 tent than he upon their aim ; although not wealthy, years 
 might make him so ; his name commanded respect. Some 
 thing of his old indifference lingered about him ; it was sel 
 dom that he was in earnest ; he drifted with the tide, and 
 except to maintain a clear integrity before God and men 
 and his own soul, exerted scarcely an effort. It was not 
 an easy thing for him to break up any manner of life ; 
 and when it became necessary for one of the firm to visit 
 America, and he as the most suitable was selected, he as 
 sented to the proposition with not a heart-beat. America 
 was as flat a wilderness to him as the Desert of Sahara. 
 On landing in India, he had felt like a semi-conscious 
 sleeper in his dream, the country seemed one of phan 
 tasms ; the Lascars swarming in the port, the mer 
 chants wrapped in snowy muslins, who moved like white- 
 robed bronzes faintly animate, the strange faces, modes, 
 and manners, the stranger beasts, immense, and alien 
 to his remembrance ; all objects that crossed his vision 
 had seemed - like a series of fantastic shows ; he could 
 have imagined them to be the creations of a heated 
 
284 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 fancy or the weird deceits of some subtle draught of 
 magic. But now they had become more his life than 
 the scenes which he had left ; this land with its heats 
 and its languors had slowly and passively endeared it 
 self to him ; these perpetual summers, the balms and 
 blisses of the South, had unconsciously become a need 
 of his nature. One day all was ready for his depart 
 ure ; and in the clipper ship Osprey, with a cargo for 
 Day, Knight, and Company, Mr. Raleigh bade farewell 
 to India. 
 
 The Osprey was a swift sailer and handled with con 
 summate skill, so that I shall not venture to say in how 
 few days she had weathered the Cape, and, ploughing up 
 the Atlantic, had passed the Windward Islands, and off 
 the latter had encountered one of the severest gales in 
 Captain Tarbell's remembrance, although he was not new 
 to shipwreck. If Mr. Raleigh had found no time for re 
 flection in the busy current of affairs, when, ceasing to 
 stand aside, he had mingled in the turmoil and become a 
 part of the generations of men, he could not fail to find it 
 in this voyage, not brief at best, and of which every day's 
 progress must assure him anew toward what land and 
 what people he was hastening. Moreover, Fate had 
 woven his lot, it seemed, inextricably among those whom 
 he would shun ; for Mr. Laudersdale himself was deeply 
 interested in the Osprey's freight, and it would be incum 
 bent upon him to extend his civilities to Mr. Raleigh. 
 But Mr. Raleigh was not one to be cozened by circum 
 stances more than by men. 
 
 The severity of the gale, which they had met some 
 three days since, had entirely abated ; the ship was laid 
 to while the slight damage sustained was undergoing re 
 pair, and rocked heavily beneath the gray sky on the long, 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 285 
 
 sullen swell and roll of the grayer waters. Mr. Raleigh 
 had just come upon deck at dawn, where he found every 
 one in unaccountable commotion. " Ship to leeward in 
 distress," was all the answer his inquiries could obtain, 
 while the man on the topmast was making his observa 
 tions. Mr. Raleigh could see nothing, but every now and 
 then the boom of a gun came faintly over the distance. 
 The report having been made, it was judged expedient to 
 lower a boat and render her such assistance as was pos 
 sible. Mr. Raleigh never could tell how it came to pass 
 that he found himself one of the volunteers in this dan 
 gerous service. 
 
 The disabled vessel proved to be a schooner from the 
 West Indies in a sinking condition. A few moments suf 
 ficed to relieve a portion of her passengers, sad wretches 
 who for two days had stared death in the face, and they 
 pulled back toward the Osprey. A second and third 
 journey across the waste, and the remaining men pre 
 pared to lower the last woman into the boat, when a 
 stout, but extremely pale individual, who could no longer 
 contain his frenzy of fear, clambered down the chains and 
 dropped in her place. There was no time to be lost, and 
 nothing to do but submit ; the woman was withdrawn to 
 wait her turn with the captain and crew, and the laden 
 boat again labored back to the ship. Each trip in the 
 heavy sea and the blinding rain occupied no less than a 
 couple of hours, and it was past noon when, uncertain just 
 before if she might yet be there, they again came within 
 sight of the little schooner, slowly and less slowly settling 
 to her doom. As they approached her at last, Mr. Ra 
 leigh could plainly detect the young woman standing at a 
 little distance from the anxious group, leaning against the 
 broken mast with crossed arms, and looking out over the 
 
286 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 weary stretch with pale, grave face and quiet eyes. At 
 the motion of the captain, she stepped forward, bound the 
 ropes about herself, and was swung over the side to await 
 the motion of the boat, as it slid within reach on the top 
 of the long wave, or receded down its shining, slippery 
 hollow. At length one swell brought it nearer, Mr. Ra 
 leigh's arms snatched the slight form and drew her half- 
 fainting into the boat, a cloak was tossed after, and one by 
 one the remainder followed ; they were all safe, and some 
 beggared. The bows of the schooner already plunged 
 deep down in the gaping gulfs, they pulled bravely 
 away, and were tossed along from billow to billow. 
 
 "You are very uncomfortable, Mademoiselle Le Blanc?" 
 asked the rescued captain at once of the young woman, as 
 she sat beside him in the stern-sheets. 
 
 " Moi ? " she replied. " Mais non, Monsieur." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh wrapped the cloak about her, as she spoke. 
 They were equidistant from the two vessels, neither of 
 which was to be seen, the rain fell fast into the hissing 
 brine, their fate still uncertain. There was something 
 strangely captivating and reassuring in this young girl's 
 equanimity, and he did not cease speculating thereon till 
 they had again reached the Osprey, and she had disap 
 peared below. 
 
 By degrees the weather lightened ; the Osprey was on 
 the wing again, and a week's continuance of this fair wind 
 would bring them into port. The next day, toward sun 
 set, as Mr. Raleigh turned about in his regular pacing 
 of the deck, he saw, at its opposite extremity, the same 
 slight figure dangerously perched upon the taffrail, lean 
 ing over, now watching the closing water, and now 
 eagerly shading her eyes with her hand to observe the 
 ship which they spoke, as they lay head to the wind, and 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 287 
 
 for a better view of which she had climbed to this posi 
 tion. It was not Mr. Raleigh's custom to interfere ; if 
 people chose to drown themselves, he was not the man to 
 gainsay them; but now, as his walk drew him toward 
 her, it was the most natural thing in the world to pause 
 and say, 
 
 " 11 serait fdcheux, Mademoiselle, lorsqu'on afaillifaire 
 naufrage, de se noyer " and, in want of a word, Mr. 
 Raleigh ignominiously descended to his vernacular, 
 "with a lee-lurch." 
 
 The girl, resting on the palm of one hand, and unsup 
 ported otherwise, bestowed upon him no reply, and did 
 not turn her head. Mr. Raleigh looked at her a moment, 
 and then continued his walk. Returning, the thing hap 
 pened as he had predicted, and, with a little quick cry, 
 Mademoiselle Le Blanc was hanging by her hands among 
 the ropes. Reaching her with a spring, " Viens, petite ! " 
 he said, and with an effort placed her on her feet again 
 before an alarm could have been given. 
 
 " Ah ! mais fai cm que e'en etait fait de moi I " she 
 exclaimed, drawing in her breath like a sob. In an in 
 stant, however, surveying Mr. Raleigh, the slight emotion 
 seemed to yield to one of irritation, that she had been 
 rescued by him ; for she murmured quickly, in English, 
 head haughtily thrown back and eyes downcast, "Mon 
 sieur thinks that I owe him much for having saved m'y 
 life ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle best knows its worth," said he, rather 
 amused, and turning away. 
 
 The girl was still looking down ; now, however, she 
 threw after him a quick glance. 
 
 " Tenez I " said she, imperiously, and stepping toward 
 him. "You fancy me very ungrateful," she continued, 
 
288 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 lifting her slender hand, and with the back of it brushing 
 away the floating hair at her temples. " Well, I am not, 
 and at some time it may be that I prove it. I do not like 
 to owe debts ; but, since I must, I will not try to cancel 
 them with thanks/' 
 
 Mr. Raleigh bowed, but said nothing. She seemed 
 to think it necessary to efface any unpleasant impres 
 sion, and, with a little more animation and a smile, 
 added, 
 
 " The Captain Tarbell told me your name, Mr. Raleigh, 
 and that you had not been at home for tnirteen years. Ni 
 moi non plus, at least, I suppose it is home where I 
 am going ; yet I remember no other than the island and 
 my-" 
 
 And here the girl opened her eyes wide, as if deter 
 mined that they should not fill with tears, and looked out 
 over the blue and sparkling fields around them. There 
 was a piquancy in her accent that made the hearer wish 
 to hear further, and a certain artlessness in her manner 
 not met with recently by him. He moved forward, keep 
 ing her beside him. 
 
 " Then you are not French," he said. 
 
 " I ? Oh, no, nor Creole. I was born in America ; 
 but I have always lived with mamma on the plantation ; 
 et mamtenant, il y a six mois qu'elle est morte ! " 
 
 Here she looked away again. Mr. Raleigh's glance 
 followed hers, and, returning, she met it bent kindly and 
 with a certain grave interest upon her. She appeared to 
 feel reassured, somewhat protected by one so much her 
 elder. 
 
 " I am going now to my father," she said, " and to my 
 other mother." 
 
 " A second marriage," thought Mr. Raleigh, " and be- 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 289 
 
 fore the orphan's crapes are " Then, fearful lest she 
 should read his thought, he added, " And how do you 
 speak such perfect English ? " 
 
 " Oh, my father came to see us every other year, and I 
 have written home twice a week since I was a little child. 
 Mamma, too, spoke as much English as French." 
 
 " I have not been in America for a long time," said Mr. 
 Raleigh, after a few steps. " But I do not doubt that you 
 will find enjoyment there. It will be new : womanhood 
 will have little like youth for you ; but, in every event, it 
 is well to add to our experience, you know." 
 
 " What is it like, sir ? But I know ! Rows of houses, 
 very counterparts of rows of houses, and they of rows of 
 houses yet beyond. Just the toy-villages in boxes, uni 
 form as graves and ugly as bricks " 
 
 " Brick houses are not such ugly things. I remember 
 one, low and wide, possessed of countless gables, covered 
 with vines and shaded with sycamores ; it could not have 
 been so picturesque, if built of the marble of Paros, and 
 gleaming temple-white through masks of verdure." 
 
 " It seems to me that I, too, remember such a one," 
 said she, dreamily. " Mais non, je m'y perds. Yet, for 
 all that, I shall not find the New York avenues lined with 
 them." 
 
 " No ; the houses there are palaces." 
 
 " I suppose, then, I am to live in a palace," she an 
 swered, with a light tinkling laugh. " That is fine ; but 
 one may miss the verandas, all the whiteness and cool 
 ness. How one must feel the roof ! " 
 
 " Roofs should be screens, and not prisons, not shells, 
 you think ? " said Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 "At home," she replied, "our houses are, so to say, 
 parasols ; in those cities they must be iron shrouds. 
 13 s 
 
290 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Ainsi soit il!" she added, and shrugged her shoulders 
 like a little fatalist. 
 
 " You must not take it with such desperation ; perhaps 
 you will not be obliged to wear the shroud." 
 
 " Not long, to be sure, at first. We go to freeze in the 
 country, a place with distant hills of blue ice, my old 
 nurse told me, old Ursule. Oh, sir, she was drowned ! 
 I saw the very wave that swept her off! ' 
 
 " That was your servant ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, perhaps, I have some good news for you. She 
 was tall and large ? " 
 
 " Oui." 
 
 " Her name was Ursule ? " 
 
 " Oui ! je dis que oui ! " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh laughed at her eagerness. 
 
 " She is below, then," he said, " not drowned. There 
 is Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds, will you take this young 
 lady to her servant, Ursule, the woman you rescued ? " 
 
 And Mademoiselle Le Blanc disappeared under that 
 gentleman's escort. 
 
 The ordinary restraints of social life not obtaining so 
 much on board ship as elsewhere, Mr. Raleigh saw his 
 acquaintance with the pale young stranger fast ripening 
 into friendliness. It was an agreeable variation frbm the 
 monotonous routine of his voyage, and he felt that it was 
 not unpleasant to her. Indeed, with that childlike sim 
 plicity that was her first characteristic, she never saw him 
 without seeking him, and every morning and every even 
 ing it became their habit to pace the deck together. Sun 
 rise and twilight began to be the hours with which he 
 associated her ; and it was strange, that, coming, as she 
 did, out of the full blaze of tropical suns, she yet seemed 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 291 
 
 a creature that had taken life from the fresh, cool, dewy 
 hours, and that must fairly dissolve beneath the sky of noon. 
 She puzzled him, besides, and he found singular contradic 
 tions in her : to-night, sweetness itself, to-morrow, pet 
 ulant as a spoiled child. She had all a child's curiosity, 
 too ; and he amused himself by seeing, at one time, with 
 what novelty his adventures struck her, when, at another, 
 he would have fancied she had always held Taj and Him- 
 maleh in her garden. Now and then, excited, perhaps, 
 by emulation and wonder, her natural joyousness broke 
 through the usually sad and quiet demeanor ; and she 
 related to him, with dramatic abandon, scenes of her gay 
 and innocent island-life, so that he fancied there was not 
 an emotion in her experience hidden from his knowledge, 
 till, all-unaware, he tripped over one reserve and another, 
 that made her, for the moment, as mysterious a being as 
 any of those court-ladies of ancient regimes, in whose lives 
 there were strange lacuna and spaces of shadow. And a 
 peculiarity of their intercourse was, that, let her depart in 
 what freak or perversity she pleased, she seemed always 
 to have a certainty of finding him in the same mood in 
 which she had left him, as some bright wayward vice 
 of Southern forests puts out a tendril to this or that en 
 ticing point, yet, winding back, will find its first support 
 unchanged. Shut out, as Mr. Raleigh had been, from 
 any but the most casual female society, he found a great 
 charm in this familiarity, and, without thinking how lately 
 it had'begun or how soon it must cease, he yielded him 
 self to its presence. At one hour she seemed to him an 
 impetuous and capricious thing, for whose better protec 
 tion the accident of his companionship was extremely for 
 tunate, at another hour, a woman too strangely sweet to 
 part with ; and then Mr. Raleigh remembered that in all 
 
292 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 his years he had really known but two women, and one 
 of these had not spent a week in his memory. 
 
 Mademoiselle Le Blanc came on deck one evening, 
 and, wrapping a soft, thick mantle round her, looked 
 about for a minute, shaded her eyes from the sunset, 
 meantime, with a slender, transparent hand, bowed to one, 
 spoke to another, slipped forward and joined Mr. Raleigh, 
 where he leaned over the ship's side. 
 
 " Void ma capote ! " said she, before he was aware of 
 her approach. " del! qu'il fait frais ! " 
 
 " We have changed our skies," said Mr. Raleigh, 
 looking up. 
 
 " It is not necessary that you should tell me that ! " she 
 replied. " I shiver all the time. I shall become a little 
 iceberg, for the sake of floating down to melt off Mar 
 tinique ! " 
 
 " Warm yourself now in the sunset ; such a blaze was 
 kindled for the purpose." 
 
 " Whenever I see a sunset, I find it to be a splendid 
 fact, une jouissance vraie, Monsieur, to think that men can 
 paint, that these shades, which are spontaneous in the 
 heavens, and fleeting, can be rivalled by us and made 
 permanent, that man is more potent than light." 
 
 " But you are all wrong in -your jouissance." 
 
 She pouted her lip, and hung over the side in an 
 attitude that it seemed he had seen a hundred times 
 before. 
 
 "That sunset, with all its breadth and splendor, is 
 contained in every pencil of light." 
 
 She glanced up and laughed. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! a part of its possibilities. Which proves ? " 
 
 " That color is an attribute of light and an achievement 
 of man." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 293 
 
 " Ca et la, 
 
 Toute lajourn^e, 
 Le vent vain va 
 En sa tourn^e," 
 
 hummed the girl, with a careless dismissal of the subject. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh shut up the note-book in which he had 
 been writing, and restored it to his pocket. She turned 
 about and broke off her song. 
 
 " There is the moon on the other side," she said, " float 
 ing up like a great bubble of light. She and the sun are 
 the scales of a balance, I think ; as one ascends, the other 
 sinks." 
 
 " There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset 
 melts into moonrise, that makes one fancy it enveloping 
 the earth like the bloom on a plum." 
 
 " And see how it has powdered the sea ! The waters 
 look like the wings of the papillon lieu" 
 
 " It seems that you love the sea." 
 
 " Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were 
 like those Chinese who live in great tanka-boats on the 
 rivers ; only our boat rides at anchor. To climb the 
 highest land, and see yourself girt with fields of azure 
 enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and 
 lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translu 
 cent as a gem, that makes one feel strong in isolation, 
 and produces keen races. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " I think that isolation causes either vivid character 
 istics or idiocy, seldom strong or healthy ones ; and I do 
 not value race." 
 
 " Because you came from America ! " with an air of 
 disgust, " where there is yet no race, and the popula 
 tion is still too fluctuating for the mould of one." 
 
 " I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race." 
 
294 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " But, pshaw ! that was not what we were talking 
 about." 
 
 " No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element 
 even more fluctuating than American population." 
 
 " Of course I love the sea ; but if the sea loves me, it 
 is the way a cat loves the mouse." 
 
 " It is always putting up a hand to snatch you ? " 
 
 " I suppose I am sent to Nineveh and persist in ship 
 ping for Tarshish. I never enter a boat without an acci 
 dent. The Belle Voyageuse met shipwreck, and I on 
 board. That was anticipated, though, by all the world ; 
 for the night before we set sail, it was a very murk, 
 hot night, we were all called out to see the likeness of 
 a large merchantman transfigured in flames upon the sky, 
 spars and ropes and hull one net and glare of fire." 
 
 "A mirage, probably, from some burning ship at 
 sea." 
 
 " No, I would rather think it supernatural. Oh, it was 
 frightful ! Rather superb, though, to think of such a 
 spectral craft rising to warn us with ghostly flames that 
 the old Belle Voyageuse was riddled with rats ! " 
 
 " Did it burn blue ? " asked Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " Oh, if you 're going to make fun of me, I '11 tell you 
 nothing more ! " 
 
 As she spoke, Capua, who had considered himself, dur 
 ing the many years of wandering, both guiding and folding 
 star to his master, came up, with his eyes rolling fearfully 
 in a lively expansion of countenance, and muttered a few 
 words in Mr. Raleigh's ear, lifting both hands in comical 
 consternation the while. 
 
 " Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Raleigh, following 
 him, and, meeting Captain Tarbell at the companion-way, 
 the three descended together. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 295 
 
 Mr. Raleigh was absent some fifteen minutes, at the 
 end of that time rejoining Mademoiselle Le Blanc. 
 
 " I did not mean to make fun of you," said he, resuming 
 the conversation as if there had been no interruption. " I 
 was watching the foam the Osprey makes in her speed, 
 which certainly burns blue. See the flashing sparks! 
 now that all the red fades from the west, they glow in 
 the moon like broken amethysts." 
 
 " What did you mean, then ? " she asked, pettishly. 
 
 " Oh, I wished to see if the idea of a burning ship was 
 so terrifying." 
 
 " Terrifying ? No ; I have no fear ; I never was 
 afraid. But it must, in reality, be dreadful. I cannot 
 think of anything else so appalling." 
 
 "Not at all timid?" 
 
 "Mamma used to say, those that know nothing fear 
 nothing." 
 
 " Eminently your case. Then you cannot imagine a 
 situation in which you would lose self-possession ? " 
 
 " Scarcely. Is n't it people of the finest organization, 
 comprehensive, large-souled, that are capable of the ex 
 tremes either of courage or fear ? Now I am limited, so 
 that, without rash daring or pale panic, I can generally 
 preserve equilibrium." 
 
 " How do you know all this of yourself ? " he asked, 
 with an amused air. 
 
 " Certaines occasions me I'ont appris" she replied, 
 briefly. 
 
 " 89 I presumed," said he. " Ah ? They have thrown 
 out the' log. See, we make progress. If this breeze 
 holds!" 
 
 "You are impatient, Mr. Raleigh. You have dear 
 friends at home, whom you wish to see, who wish to 
 see you?" 
 
296 MIDSUMMEK AND MAY. 
 
 u No," he replied, with a certain bitterness in his tone. 
 " There is no one to whom I hasten, no one who waits to 
 receive me." 
 
 "No one? But that is terrible! Then why should 
 you wish to hasten ? For me, I would always be willing 
 to loiter along, to postpone home indefinitely." 
 
 " That is very generous, Mademoiselle." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh " 
 
 Well ? " 
 
 " I wish please you must not say Mademoiselle. 
 Nobody will address me so, shortly. Give me my name, 
 call me Marguerite. Je vous en prie" 
 
 And she looked up with a blush deepening the apple- 
 bloom of her cheek. 
 
 " Marguerite ? Does it answer for pearl or for daisy 
 with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, they called me so because I was such a little 
 round white baby. I could n't have been very precious, 
 though, or she never would have parted with me. Yes, I 
 wish we might drift on some lazy current for years. I 
 hate to shorten the distance. I stand in awe of my father, 
 and I do not remember my mother." 
 
 " Do not remember ? " 
 
 " She is so perfect, so superb, so different from me ! 
 But she ought to love her own child ! " 
 
 "Her own child?" 
 
 " And then I do not know the customs of this strange 
 land. Shall I be obliged to keep an establishment ? " 
 
 " Keep an establishment ? " 
 
 " It is very rude to repeat my words so ! You ought n't ! 
 Yes, keep an establishment ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " No, it is I who am rude." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 297 
 
 " Not at all, but mysterious. I am quite in the dark 
 concerning you." 
 
 " Concerning me ? " 
 
 " Ah, Miss Marguerite, it is my turn now." 
 
 " Oh ! It must be This is your mystery, n'est ce 
 pas ? Mamma was my grandmamma. My own mother 
 was far too young when mamma gave her in marriage ; 
 and, to make amends, mamma adopted me and left me 
 her name and her fortune. So that I am very wealthy. 
 And now shall I keep an establishment ? " 
 
 " I should think not," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile. 
 
 "Do you know, you constantly reassure me? Home 
 grows less and less a bugbear when you speak of it. 
 How strange ! It seems as if I had known you a year, 
 instead of a week." 
 
 " It would probably take that period of time to make 
 us as well acquainted under other circumstances." 
 
 " I wish you were going to be with us always. Shall 
 you stay in America, Mr. Raleigh ? " 
 
 " Only till the fall. But I will leave you . at your 
 father's door " 
 
 And then Mr. Raleigh ceased suddenly, as if he had 
 promised an impossibility. 
 
 " How long before we reach New York ? " she asked. 
 
 " In about nine hours," he replied, adding, in uncon 
 scious undertone, " if ever." 
 
 "What was that you said to yourself? " she demanded, 
 in a light and gayly inquisitive voice, as she looked around 
 and over the ship. " Why, how many there are on deck ! 
 It is such a beautiful night, I suppose. Eh, Mr. Raleigh?" 
 
 " Are you not tired of your position ? " he asked. " Sit 
 down beside me here." And he took a seat. 
 
 " No, I would rather stand. Tell me what you said." 
 13* 
 
298 MIDSUMMER AND MAY 
 
 " Sit, then, to please me, Marguerite, and I will tell 
 you what I said." 
 
 She hesitated a moment, standing before him, the hood 
 of her capote, with its rich purple, dropping from the flut 
 tering yellow hair that the moonlight deepened into gold, 
 and the fire-opal clasp rising and falling with her breath, 
 like an imprisoned flame. He touched her hand, still 
 warm and soft, with his own, which was icy. She with 
 drew it, turned her eyes, whose fair, faint lustre, the pale 
 forget-me-not blue, was darkened by the antagonistic light 
 to an amethystine shadow, inquiringly upon him. 
 
 " There is some danger," she murmured. 
 
 " Yes. When you are not a mark for general observa 
 tion, you shall hear it." 
 
 " I would rather hear it standing." 
 
 " I told you the condition." 
 
 " Then I shall go and ask Captain Tarbell." 
 
 " And come sobbing back to me for * reassurance.' " 
 
 " No," she said, quickly, " I should go down to Ursule." 
 
 " Ursule has a mattress on deck ; I assisted her up." 
 
 " There is the captain ! Now " 
 
 He seized her hand and drew her down beside him. 
 For an instant she would have resisted, as the sparkling 
 eyes and flushed cheeks attested, and then, with the in 
 stinctive feminine baseness that compels every woman, 
 when once she has met her master, she submitted. 
 
 " I am sorry, if you are offended," said he. " But the 
 captain cannot attend to you now, and it is necessary to 
 be guarded in movement ; for a slight thing on such 
 occasions may produce a panic." 
 
 " You should not have forced me to sit," said she, in a 
 smothered voice, without heeding him : " you had no 
 right." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 299 
 
 " This right, that I assume the care of you." 
 
 " Monsieur, you see that I am quite competent to the 
 care of myself." 
 
 "Marguerite, I see that you are determined to 
 quarrel." 
 
 She paused a moment, ere replying ; then drew a little 
 nearer and turned her face toward him, though without 
 looking up. 
 
 Forgive me, then ! " said she. " But I would rather 
 be naughty and froward, it lets me stay a child, and so 
 you can take me in keeping, and I need not think for 
 myself at all. But if I act like a woman grown, then 
 comes all the responsibility, and I must rely on myself, 
 which is such trouble now, though I never felt it so 
 before, I don't know why. Don't you see ? " And she 
 glanced at him with her head on one side, and laughing 
 archly. 
 
 " You were right," he replied, after surveying her a 
 moment; "my proffered protection is entirely super 
 fluous." 
 
 She thought he was about to go, and placed her hand 
 on his, as it lay along the side. " Don't leave me," she 
 murmured. 
 
 " I have no intention of leaving you," he said. 
 
 " You are very good. I have never seen one like you. 
 I love you well." And, bathed in moonlight, she raised 
 her face and her glowing lips toward him. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh gazed in the innocent eyes a moment, to 
 seek the extent of her meaning, and felt, that, should he 
 take advantage of her childlike forgetfulness, he would be 
 only re-enacting the part he had so much condemned in 
 one man years before. So he merely bent low over the 
 hand that lay in his, raised it, and touched his lips to that. 
 
300 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 In an instant the color suffused her face, she snatched the 
 hand away, half rose trembling from her seat, and sank 
 into it again. 
 
 " Soit, Monsieur ! " she exclaimed, abruptly. " But 
 you have not told me the danger." 
 
 " It will not alarm you now ? " he replied, laughing. 
 
 " I have said that I am not a coward." 
 
 " I wonder what you would think of me when I say 
 that without doubt I am." 
 
 " You, Mr. Raleigh ? " she cried, astonishment banish 
 ing anger. 
 
 " Not that I betray myself. But that I have felt the 
 true heart-sinking. Once, surprised in the centre of an 
 insurrection, I expected to find my hair white as snow, if 
 I escaped." 
 
 " Your hair is very black. And you escaped ? " 
 
 " So it would appear." 
 
 " They suffered you to go on account of your terror ? 
 You feigned death? You took flight?" 
 
 " Hardly, neither." 
 
 " Tell me about it," she said, imperiously. 
 
 Though Mr. Raleigh had exchanged the singular re 
 serve of his youth for a well-bred reticence, he scarcely 
 cared to be his own hero. 
 
 " Tell me," said she. " It will shorten the time ; and 
 that is what you are trying to do, you know." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " It was once when I was obliged to make an unpleas 
 ant journey into the interior, and a detachment was placed 
 at my service. We were in a suspected district quite 
 favorable to their designs, and the commanding officer 
 was attacked with illness in the night. Being called to 
 his assistance, I looked abroad and fancied things wore an 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 301 
 
 unusual aspect among the men, and sent Capua to steal 
 down a covered path and see if anything were wrong. 
 Never at fault, he discovered a revolt with intent to mur 
 der my companion and myself, and retreat to the moun 
 tains. Of course there was but one thing to do. I put a 
 pistol in my belt and walked down and in among them, 
 singled out the ringleader, fixed him with my eye, and 
 bade him approach. My appearance was so sudden and 
 unsuspected that they forgot defiance." 
 
 " Bien, but I thought you were afraid." 
 
 " So I was. I could not have spoken a second word. 
 I experienced intense terror, and that, probably, gave my 
 glance a concentration of which I was unaware and by 
 myself incapable ; but I did not suffer it to waver ; I 
 could not have moved it, indeed ; I kept it on the* man 
 while he crept slowly toward me. I shall never forget 
 the horrible sensation. I did not dare permit myself to 
 doubt his conquest ; but if I had failed, as I then thought, 
 his approach was like the slow coil of a serpent about me, 
 and ii ivas his glittering eyes that had fixed mine, and not 
 mine his. At my feet, I commanded him, with a gesture, 
 to disarm. He obeyed, and I breathed ; and one by one 
 they followed his example. Capua, who was behind me, 
 I sent back with the weapons, and in the morning gave 
 them their choice of returning to town with their hands 
 tied behind their backs, or of going on with me and 
 remaining faithful. They chose the latter, did me good 
 service, and I said nothing about the affair." 
 
 " That was well. But were you really frightened ? " 
 
 " So I said. I cannot think of it yet without a slight 
 shudder." 
 
 "Yes, and a rehearsal. Your eyes charge bayonets 
 now. I am not a Sepoy." 
 
302 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Well, you are still angry with me ? " 
 
 " How can I be angry with you ? " 
 
 " How, indeed ? So much your senior that you owe 
 me respect, Miss Marguerite. I am quite old enough to 
 be your father." 
 
 " You are, sir ? " she replied, with surprise. " Why, 
 are you fifty-five years old ? " 
 
 " Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age ? " 
 
 " How did you know Mr. Laudersdale was my father?" 
 
 " By an arithmetical process. That is his age ? " 
 
 "Yes; and yours?" 
 
 " Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August." 
 
 " And will be thirty-eight next ? " 
 
 " That is the logical deduction." 
 
 "I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just 
 twice my age." 
 
 " By what courier will you make it reach me ? " 
 
 " Oh, I forgot. But Mr. Raleigh ? " 
 
 " What is it ? " he replied, turning to look at her, for 
 his eyes had been wandering over the deck. 
 
 " I thought you would ask me to write to you." 
 
 " No, that would not be worth while." 
 
 His face was too grave for her to feel indignation. 
 
 "Why?" she demanded. 
 
 " It would give me great pleasure, without doubt. But 
 in a week you will have too many other cares and duties 
 to care for such a burden." 
 
 " That shows that you do not know me at all. Vous 
 avez mal agi avec moi ! " 
 
 Though Mr. Raleigh still looked at her, he did not 
 reply. She rose and walked away a few steps, coming 
 back. 
 
 " You are always in the right, and I consequently in 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 303 
 
 the wrong," she said. " How often to-night have I asked 
 pardon ? I will not put up with it ? " 
 
 " We shall part in a few hours," he replied ; " when 
 you lose your temper, I lose my time." 
 
 " In a few hours ? Then is the danger which you 
 mentioned past?" 
 
 " I scarcely think so." 
 
 " Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is 
 this dreadful danger ? " 
 
 " Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall prob 
 ably make the port before our situation becomes appar 
 ently worse, that we do not take to the boats, because 
 we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the Belle 
 Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for 
 several other becauses, that every one is on deck, 
 Capua consoling Ursule, the captain having told to each, 
 personally, the possibility of escape " 
 
 "Achevez!" 
 
 " That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, 
 and by dint of excluding the air we can keep the flames 
 in a smouldering state and sail into harbor a shell of safety 
 over this core of burning coal." 
 
 " Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw 
 that she was quite faint. Soon recovering herself, 
 
 " And what do you think of the mirage now ? " she 
 asked. " Where is Ursule ? I must go to her," she 
 added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting to her 
 feet. 
 
 " Shall I accompany you ? " 
 
 Oh, no." 
 
 " She lies on a mattress there, behind that group," 
 
304 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 nodding in the implied direction ; " and it would be well, 
 if you could lie beside her and get an hour's rest." 
 
 " Me ? I could n't sleep. I shall come back to you, 
 may I ? " And she was gone. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had 
 left him, when, a half-hour afterward, she returned. 
 
 " Where is your cloak ? " he asked, rising to receive 
 her. 
 
 " I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly." 
 
 " You will not take cold ?" 
 
 " I ? I am on fire myself." 
 
 " Ah, I see ; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you." 
 
 "It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not? 
 drifting on before the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire 
 and all red-hot raging turbulence. Just look up the long 
 sparkling length of these white, full shrouds, swelling and 
 curving like proud swans, in the gale, and then imagine 
 the devouring monster below in his den ! " 
 
 " Don't imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half 
 the night is gone." 
 
 " I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driv 
 ing forward to destruction on fearful breakers, drank and 
 sang and died madly. I wish the whole ship's company 
 would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or that we 
 might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance, 
 dance wildly into death and daylight. 
 
 " We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. 
 " Our foe is simply time. You dance, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I dance well, like those white fluttering 
 butterflies, as if I were au gre du vent" 
 
 " That would not be dancing well." 
 
 " It would not be dancing well to be at the will of the 
 wind, but it is perfection to appear so." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 305 
 
 " The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. 
 It is breathing sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all 
 other arts." 
 
 " Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. 
 Wait, you shall see." 
 
 He detained her. 
 
 "Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her 
 beside him, though she still continued standing. 
 
 At this moment the captain approached. 
 
 " What cheer ? " asked Mr. Kaleigh. 
 
 " No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger 
 nails into his palm. "The planks forward are already 
 hot to the hand. I tremble at every creak of cordage, 
 lest the deck crash in and bury us all." 
 
 " You have made the Sandy Hook light ? " 
 
 " Yes ; too late to run her ashore." 
 
 " You cannot try that at the " 
 
 Certain death." 
 
 " The wind scarcely " 
 
 " Veered a point. I am carrying all sail. But if this 
 tooth of fire gnaws below, you will soon see the masts go 
 by the board. And then we are lost, indeed ! " 
 
 " Courage ! she will certainly hold together till you can 
 hail the pilots." 
 
 " I think no one need tremble when he has such an in 
 stance of fearlessness before him," replied the captain, 
 bowing to Marguerite ; and turning away, he hid his sus 
 pense and pain again under a calm countenance. 
 
 Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had 
 heard the whole of the conversation, and he felt the hand 
 in his growing colder as it continued. He wondered if it 
 were still the same excitement that sent the alternate flush 
 and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her head 
 
306 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and 
 suffering the light, fine hair to blow about her temples 
 before the steady breeze. He bent over to look into her 
 eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless. 
 
 " Marguerite ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the 
 escape of her words, and to break them into bits of sound ; 
 a shiver shook her from head to foot. 
 
 "I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. 
 " Oh, if there were somewhere to go, something to hide 
 me ! A great horror is upon me ! I am afraid ! Seigneur 
 Dieu ! Mourir par le feu ! Perissons alors au plus vite ! " 
 And she shuddered, audibly. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her 
 closer to himself. He saw at once, that, sensitive as she 
 was to every impression, this fear was a contagious one, a 
 mere gregarian affinity, and that she needed the prepon 
 derating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, 
 the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but 
 his touch must in some measure have counteracted the 
 dread that oppressed her. She ceased trembling, but did 
 not move. 
 
 The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of 
 cloud ; the wind increasing piped and whistled in strident 
 threatening through the rigging ; the ship vibrated to the 
 concussive voice of the minute-gun. No murmurs but 
 those of wind and water were heard among the throng ; 
 they drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly 
 the shriek of one voice, but from fourscore throats, rent 
 the agonized quiet. A red light was running along the 
 deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the forecastle, a 
 spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. 
 Raleigh's arm ; a great sob seemed to go up from all the 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 307 
 
 people. The captain's voice thundered through the tu 
 mult, and instantly the mates sprang forward and the jib 
 went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his eyes 
 away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them 
 by chance on two black specks that danced on the watery 
 horizon. He gazed with intense vision a moment. " The 
 tugs ! " he cried. The words thrilled with hope in every 
 dying heart ; they no longer saw themselves the waiting 
 prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few 
 leaped into the boat at the stern, lowered and cut it 
 away ; others dropped spontaneously into file, and passed 
 the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if possible, the 
 flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed 
 over to Ursule. 
 
 The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to 
 the girl a portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside 
 her, talking low and rapidly, now and then laughing, and 
 all the time communicating nerve with her light, firm 
 finger-touches. Except their quick and unintelligible 
 murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else 
 broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a 
 half-hour of breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were 
 alongside. Already the place was full of fervid torment, 
 and they had climbed upon every point to leave, below, 
 the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the 
 order of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitate 
 ly. Ursule was at once deposited in safety. The captain 
 moved to conduct Marguerite across, but she drew back 
 and clung to Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " J'ai honte," she said ; "je ne lougerai pas plus tot 
 que vous." 
 
 The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as 
 she spoke, the wind of their roaring progress swept her 
 
308 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 hair. He lifted her over without further consultation, 
 and still kept her in his care. 
 
 There was a strange atmosphere on board the little 
 vessels, as they labored about and parted from the 
 doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with awe and joy 
 at their deliverance ; others broke the tense strain of the 
 last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the pant 
 ing engines they answered with waiting heart-beats, as it 
 sent them farther from the fearful wonder, now blazing 
 in multiplex lines of fire against the gray horizon. Mr. 
 Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration 
 of a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze 
 with him. An hour silently passed, and as the fiery 
 phantom faded into dawn and distance she sang sweetly 
 the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another voice 
 took up the measure, stronger and clearer ; those who 
 knew nothing of the words caught the spirit of the tune ; 
 and no choral service ever pealed up temple-vaults with 
 more earnest accord than that in which this chant of 
 grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated 
 men and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing 
 spring-morning. 
 
 The stray sails had thickened into the flickering forest 
 of shipping at last, and as the moment of parting ap 
 proached, Marguerite stood with folded hands before Mr. 
 Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor. 
 
 " I regret all that," she said, " these days that seem 
 years." 
 
 " An equivocal phrase," he replied, with a smile. 
 " But you know what I mean. I am going to stran 
 gers ; I have been with you. I shall find no one so kind 
 to me as you have been, Monsieur." 
 
 " Your strangers can be much kinder to you than I 
 have been." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 309 
 
 " Never ! I wish they did not exist ! What do I care 
 for them ? What do they care for me ? They do not 
 know me ; I shall shock them. I miss you, I hate them, 
 already. Non ! Personne ne m'aime, et je n'aime per- 
 sonne ! " she exclaimed, with low-toned vehemence. 
 
 " Rite," began Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " Rite ! No one but my mother ever called me that. 
 How did you know it ? " 
 
 " I have met your mother, and I knew you a great 
 many years ago." 
 
 " Mr. Raleigh ! " And there was the least possible 
 shade of unconscious regret in the voice before it added, 
 " And what was I ? " 
 
 " You were some little wood-spirit, the imp of a fallen 
 cone, mayhap, or the embodiment of birch -tree shadows. 
 You were a soiled and naughty little beauty, not so 
 different from your present self, and who kissed me on 
 the lips." 
 
 " And did you refuse to take the kiss ? " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " You were a child then," he said. " And I was 
 not " 
 
 "Was not? " 
 
 Here the boat swung round at her moorings, and the 
 shock prevented Mr. Raleigh's finishing his sentence. 
 
 " Ursule is with us, or on the other one ? " she asked. 
 
 " With us." 
 
 " That is fortunate. She is all I have remaining, by 
 which to prove my identity." 
 
 " As if there could be two such maidens in the 
 world!" 
 
 Marguerite left him, a moment, to give Captain Tar- 
 bell her address, and returning, they were shortly after- 
 
310 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 ward seated side by side in a coach, Capua and Ursule 
 following in another. As they stopped at the destined 
 door, Mr. Raleigh alighted and extended his hand. She 
 lingered a moment ere taking it, not to say adieu, nor 
 to offer him cheek or lip again. 
 
 " Que je vous remercie ! " she murmured, lifting her 
 eyes to his. " Que je vous trouve bon ! " and sprang 
 before him up the steps. 
 
 He heard her father meet her in the hall ; Ursule had 
 already joined them ; he re-entered the coach and rolled 
 rapidly beyond recall. 
 
 The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Ra 
 leigh's business relations. Carrying his papers about 
 him, he had personally lost thereby nothing of conse 
 quence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded at once to 
 the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found 
 that affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he 
 had been instructed, and letters from the house had 
 already arrived, by the overland route, which required 
 mutual reply and delay before he could take further 
 steps ; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some 
 months of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a 
 friend. There lay a little scented billet, among the docu 
 ments on his table, that had at first escaped his attention ; 
 he took it up wonderingly, and broke the seal. It was 
 from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before 
 him. Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it 
 said, and begged him, if he had any time to spare, to 
 spend it with her in his old home by the lake, whither 
 every summer they had resorted to meditate on the vir 
 tues of the departed. There was added, in a different 
 hand, whose delicate and pointed characters seemed 
 singularly familiar, 
 
MIDSUMMEE AND MAY. 311 
 
 " Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie, brave Charlie ! 
 Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine wi' McLean! " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments ; he 
 did not think it best to remain long in the city ; he would 
 be glad to know if sight of the old scenes could renew a 
 throb. He answered his letters, replenished his ward 
 robe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. 
 At noon of the second day thereafter he found Mr. 
 McLean's coach, with that worthy gentleman in person, 
 awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it paused at the 
 foot of his own former garden, with a strange sense of the 
 world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error. 
 
 Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him, a 
 face less round and rosy than once, as the need of pink 
 cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and bright as youth. 
 
 "The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the 
 first greeting, putting his hands on' her shoulders and 
 smiling down at her benevolently. 
 
 " Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking 
 her head. " I expected this stain on your skin ; but, 
 dear me ! your eyes look as if you had not a friend in the 
 wodd." 
 
 " How can they look so, when you give me such a 
 welcome ? " 
 
 " Dear old Roger, you are just the same," said she, 
 bestowing a little caress upon his sleeve. " And if you 
 remember the summer before you went away, you will 
 not find that pleasant company so very much changed 
 either." 
 
 " I do not expect to find them at all." 
 
 " Oh, then they will find you ; because they are all 
 here, at least the principals ; some with different 
 names, and some, like myself, with duplicates," as a 
 
312 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother 
 and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over 
 rosy blushes. 
 
 After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. 
 Raleigh turned again to Mrs. McLean. 
 
 " And who are there here ? " he asked. 
 
 " There is Mrs. Purcell, you remember Helen 
 Heath ? Poor Mrs. Purcell, whom you knew, died, and 
 her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary, who is 
 single and speechless yet ; and Captain, now Colonel, 
 Purcell makes a very good silent partner. .He is hunt 
 ing in the West, on furlough ; she is here alone. There 
 is Mrs. Heath, you never have forgotten her ? " 
 
 Not I." 
 
 "There is " 
 
 " And how came you all in the country so early in the 
 season, anybody with your devotion to company ? " 
 
 " To be made April fools, John says." 
 
 " Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will 
 be." 
 
 " I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter ; 
 and Mrs. Laudersdale and I agreed, that, the moment the 
 snow was off the ground up here, we would fly away and 
 be at rest." 
 
 " Mrs. Lauder&dale ? Can she come here ? " 
 
 " Goodness ! Why not ? The last few summers we 
 have always spent together." 
 
 " She is with you now, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I did n't 
 mean to tell, but keep her as a surprise. Of course, you 
 will be a surprise to everybody. There, run along, chil 
 dren ; we '11 follow. Yes, won't it be delightful, Roger ? 
 We can all play at youth again." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 313 
 
 " Like skeletons in some Dance of Death ! " he ex 
 claimed. " We shall be hideous in each other's sight." 
 
 " McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding 
 the late misanthropy ; " Helen is a girl ; the ghost of the 
 prior Mrs. Purcell shall be rediviva ; and Katy there " 
 
 " Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin. " Before you 
 have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down 
 under this hedge, here is an opportune bench, and 
 give me accounts from the day of my departure." 
 
 " Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible ! The 
 ocean in a tea-cup ? Let me see, you had a flirta 
 tion with Helen that summer, did n't you ? Well, she 
 spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It 
 was odd to miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from so 
 ciety at once. Mrs. Laudersdale was ill ; I don't know 
 exactly what the trouble was. You know she had been 
 in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer ; 
 and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old 
 city-life, she became oppressed with a speechless melan 
 choly, I believe, so that the doctors foreboded insanity. 
 She expressed great disinclination to follow their advice, 
 and her husband finally banished them all. It was a 
 great care to him ; he altered much. McLean surmised 
 that she did n't like to see him, while she was in this 
 state ; for, though he used to surround her with every 
 luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and 
 raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully 
 out of her sight during the greater part of the winter. I 
 don't know whether she became insufferably lonely, or 
 whether the melancholy wore off, or she conquered it, and 
 decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing, or 
 what happened. But one cold March evening he set out 
 for his home, dreary, as usual, he thought ; and he found 
 u 
 
314 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 the fire blazing and reddening the ceiling and curtains, 
 the room all aglow with rich shadows, and his wife await 
 ing him, in full toilet, just as superb as you will see her 
 to-night, just as sweet and cold and impassible and impen 
 etrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, 
 " I have manufactured this little romance out of odds and 
 ends that McLean has now and then reported from his 
 conversation. I dare say there is n't a bit of it true, for 
 Mr. Laudersdale is n't a man to publish his affairs ; but / 
 believe it. One thing is certain : Mrs. Laudersdale with 
 drew from society one autumn and returned one spring, 
 and has queened it ever since." 
 " Is Mr. Laudersdale with you ? " 
 " No. But he will come with their daughter shortly." 
 " And with what do you all occupy yourselves, pray ? " 
 " Oh, with trifles and tea, as you would suppose us to 
 do. Mrs. Purcell gossips and lounges, as if she were 
 playing with the world for spectator. Mrs. Laudersdale 
 lounges, and attacks the things of the world with her 
 finger-ends, as if she were longing to remould them. 
 Mrs. McLean gossips and scolds, as if it depended on 
 her to keep the world in order." 
 
 " Are you going to keep me under the hedge all 
 night ? " 
 
 "This is pretty well! Hush! Who is that?" 
 As Mrs. McLean spoke, a figure issued from the great 
 larches on the left, and crossed the grass in front of them, 
 a woman, something less tall than a gypsy queen might 
 be, the round outlines of her form rich and regular, with a 
 certain firm luxuriance, still wrapped in a morning-robe 
 of palm-spread cashmere. In her hand she carried vari 
 ous vines and lichens that had maintained their orange- 
 tawny stains under the winter's snow, and the black hair 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 315 
 
 that was folded closely over forehead and temple was 
 crowned with bent sprays of the scarlet maple-blossom. 
 As vivid a hue dyed her cheek through warm walking, 
 and with a smile of unconscious content she passed quick 
 ly up the slope and disappeared within the doorway. She 
 impressed the senses of the beholder like some ripe and 
 luscious fruit, a growth of sunshine and summer. 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. McLean, drawing breath again, "who 
 is it ? " 
 
 Really I cannot tell," replied Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " Nor guess ? " 
 
 " And that I dare not." 
 
 " Must I tell you ? " 
 
 " Was it Mrs. Laudersdale ? " 
 
 " And should n't you have known her ? " 
 
 Scarcely." 
 
 " Mercy ! Then how did you know me ? She is un 
 altered." 
 
 " If that is Mrs. Purcell, at the window, she does not 
 recognize me, you see ; neither did both she and your 
 self are nearly the same ; one could not fail to know either 
 of you ; but of the Mrs. Laudersdale of thirteen years ago 
 there remains hardly a vestige." 
 
 If Mrs. McLean, at this testimony, indulged in that 
 little inward satisfaction which the most generous woman 
 may feel, when told that her color wears better than the 
 color of her dearest friend, it must have been quickly 
 quenched by the succeeding sentence. 
 
 " Yes, she is certainly more beautiful than I ever 
 dreamed of a woman's being. If she continues, I do 
 not know what perfect thing she will become. She is 
 too exquisite for common use. I wonder her husband is 
 not jealous of every mote in the air, of rain and wind, of 
 
316 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 every day that passes over her head, since each must 
 now bear some charm from her in its flight." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh was talking to Mrs. McLean as one fre 
 quently reposes confidence in a person when quite sure 
 that he will not understand a word you say. 
 
 An hour afterward, Mrs. Purcell joined Mrs. McLean. 
 
 " So that is Mr. Raleigh, is it ? " she said. " He looks 
 as if he had made the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. 
 There 's nothing left of him. Is he taller, or thinner, or 
 graver, or darker, or what ? My dear Kate, your cousin, 
 that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere man- 
 of-business. Did you ever burn fire-crackers ? You 
 have probably found some that just fizzed out, theru" 
 And Mrs. Purcell took an attitude. 
 
 " Roger is a much finer man than he was, I think, 
 so far as I could judge in the short time we have seen 
 each other," replied Mrs. McLean with spirit. 
 
 " Do you know," continued Mrs. Purcell, " what makes 
 the Laudersdale so gay ? No ? She has a letter from 
 her lord, and he brings you that little Rite next week. I 
 must send for the Colonel to see such patterns of conjugal 
 felicity as you and she. Ah, there is the tea-bell ! " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh was standing with one hand on the back 
 of his chair, when Mrs. Laudersdale entered. The cheek 
 had resumed its usual pallor, and she was in her custom 
 ary colors of black and gold. She carried a curiously cut 
 crystal glass, which she placed on the sideboard, and then 
 moved toward her chair. Her eye rested casually for a 
 moment on Mr. Raleigh, as she crossed the threshold, and 
 then returned with a species of calm curiosity. 
 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale has forgotten me ? " he asked, with 
 a bow. His voice, not susceptible of change in its tone 
 of Southern sweetness, identified him. 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 317 
 
 " Not at all," she replied, moving toward him, and offer 
 ing him her hand quietly. " I am happy at meeting Mr. 
 Raleigh again." And she took her seat. 
 
 There was something in her grasp that relieved him. 
 It was neither studiedly cold, nor absurdly brief, nor trai 
 torously tremulous. It was simply and forgetfully indif 
 ferent. Mr. Raleigh surveyed her with interest during 
 the light table-talk. He had been possessed with a rest 
 less wish to see her once more, to ascertain if she had yet 
 any fraction of her old power over him ; he had all the 
 more determinedly banished himself from the city, to 
 find her in the country. Now he sought for some trace 
 of what had formerly aroused his heart. He rose from 
 table convinced that the woman whom he once loved with 
 the whole fervor of youth and strength and buoyant life 
 was no more, that she did not exist, and that Mr. Raleigh 
 might experience a new passion, but his old one was as 
 dead as the ashes that cover the Five Cities of the Plain. 
 He wondered how it might be with her. For a moment 
 he cursed his inconstancy ; then he feared lest she were 
 of larger heart and firmer resolve than he, lest her love 
 had been less light than his ; he could scarcely feel him 
 self secure of freedom, he must watch. And then stole 
 in a deeper sense of loneliness than exile and foreign 
 tongues had taught him, the knowledge of being single 
 and solitary in the world, not only for life, but for eternity. 
 
 The evening was passed in the recitation of affairs by 
 himself and his cousins alone together, and until a week 
 completed its tale of dawns and sunsets there was the 
 same diurnal recurrence of question and answer. One 
 day, as the afternoon was paling, Rite came. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh had fallen asleep on the vine-hidden seat 
 outside the bay window, and was awakened, certainly not 
 
318 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 by Mrs. Laudersdale's velvets trailing over the drawing- 
 room carpet. She was just entering, slow-paced, though 
 in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A 
 little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew 
 into them. 
 
 " maman ! Est ce toi ? " it cried. " comme tu es 
 douce ! Si belle, si chere ! " And the fair head was lying 
 beneath the dark one, the face hidden in the bent and 
 stately neck. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh left his seat, unseen, and betook himself 
 to another abode. As he passed the drawing-room door, 
 on his return, he saw the mother lying on a lounge, with 
 the slight form nestled beside her, playing with it as some 
 tame leopardess might play with her silky whelp. It was 
 almost the only portion of the maternal nature developed 
 within her. 
 
 It seemed as if the tea-hour were a fated one. Mr. 
 Raleigh had been out on the water and was late. As he 
 entered, Rite sprang up, half-overturning her chair, and 
 ran to clasp his hand. 
 
 " I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were ac 
 quainted," said Mrs. McLean. 
 
 " Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of 
 being shipwrecked together," was the reply ; and except 
 that Mrs. Laudersdale required another napkin where her 
 cup had spilled, all went on smoothly. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself 
 for a while. She seemed, at first, to be like some one 
 suddenly possessed of a new sense, and who did not 
 know in the least what to do with it ; but custom and 
 familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear 
 to entertain a doubt of her child's natural affection, but 
 she had care to fortify it by the exertion of every charm 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 319 
 
 she possessed. From the presence of dangerous rivals in 
 the house, an element of determination blended with her 
 manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, 
 as if wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as 
 if there were kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and 
 
 she the destined instrument. You would have selected 
 
 
 
 her, at this time of her lavish devotion to Marguerite, as 
 the one woman of complete capability, of practical effec 
 tive force, and have declared that there was nothing be 
 yond her strength. The relation between herself and her 
 child was certainly as peculiar as anything else about 
 them ; the disparity of age seemed so slight that they 
 appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the younger 
 leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs. 
 They walked through the woods together, learned again 
 its glades and coverts, searched its early treasure of blos 
 soms ; they went out on the lake and spent long April 
 afternoons together, floating about cove and inlet of island- 
 shores ; they returned with innocent gayety to that house 
 which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had 
 fancied to be a possible heaven of delight, and which, 
 since, she had found to be a very indifferent limbo. For, 
 after all, we derive as much happiness from human beings 
 as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that 
 bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and 
 her husband was careful never to oppress her with too 
 much of his society. Whether this woman, who had lived 
 a life of such wordless emotion, who had never bestowed 
 a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the 
 little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her 
 heart, or whether there was always between them the thin 
 impalpable division that estranged the past from the pres 
 ent, there was nothing to tell ; it seemed, nevertheless, as 
 
320 MIDSUMMEK AND MAY. 
 
 if they could have no closer bond, had they read each 
 other's thoughts from birth. 
 
 That this assumption of Marguerite could not continue 
 exclusive Mr. Raleigh found, when now and then joined 
 in his walks by an airy figure flitting forward at his side : 
 now and then ; since Mrs. Laudersdale, without knowing 
 how to prevent, had manifested an uneasiness at every 
 such rencontre ; and that it could not endure forever, 
 another gentleman, without so much reason, congratulated 
 himself, Mr. Frederic Heath, the confidential clerk of 
 Day, Knight, & Co., a rather supercilious specimen, 
 quite faultlessly got up, who had accompanied her from 
 New York at her father's request, and who already be 
 trayed every symptom of the suitor. Meanwhile, Mrs. 
 McLean's little women clamorously demanded and ob 
 tained a share of her attention, although Capua and 
 Ursule, with their dark skins, brilliant dyes, and equivocal 
 dialects, were creatures of a more absorbing interest. 
 
 One afternoon, Marguerite, came into the drawing- 
 room by one door, as Mr. Raleigh entered by another ; 
 her mother was sitting near the window, and other mem 
 bers of the family were in the vicinity, having clustered 
 preparatory to the tea-bell. 
 
 Marguerite had twisted tassels of the willow-catkins in 
 her hair, drooping things, in character with her wavy 
 grace and fresh youth, sprinkling her with their fragrant 
 yellow powder, the very breath of spring ; and in one 
 hand she had imprisoned a premature lace-winged fly, a 
 fairy little savage, in its sheaths of cobweb and emerald, 
 arid with its jewel eyes. 
 
 " Dear ! " said Mrs. Purcell, gathering her array more 
 closely about her. "How do you dare touch such a 
 venomous sprite ? " 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 321 
 
 " As if you had an insect at the North with a sting ! " 
 replied Marguerite, suffering it, a little maliciously, to es 
 cape in the lady's face, and following the flight with a 
 laugh of childlike glee. 
 
 " Here are your snowflakes on stems, mamma," she 
 continued, dropping anemones over her mother's hands, 
 one by one ; that is what Mr. Raleigh calls them. 
 When may I see the snow ? You shall wrap me in 
 eider, that I may be like all the boughs and branches. 
 How buoyant the earth must be, when every twig be 
 comes a feather ! " And she moved toward Mr. Raleigh, 
 singing, " Oh, would I had wings like a dove ! " 
 
 " And here are those which, if not daffodils, yet 
 
 ' Come before the swallow dares, and take 
 The winds of March with beauty,' " 
 
 he said, giving her a basket of hepaticas and winter-green. 
 
 Marguerite danced away with the purple trophy, and, 
 emptying a carafe into a dish of moss that stood near, 
 took them to Mrs. Laudersdale, and, sitting on the foot 
 stool, began to rearrange them. It was curious to see, 
 that, while Mrs. Laudersdale lifted each blossom and let 
 the stem lie across her hand, she suffered it to fall into 
 the place designated for it by Marguerite's fingers, that 
 sparkled in the mosaic till double wreaths of gold-threaded 
 purple rose from the bed of vivid moss and melted into a 
 fringe of the starry spires of winter-green. 
 
 " Is it not sweet ? " said she then, bending over it. 
 
 " They have no scent," said her mother. 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed ! the very finest, the most delicate, a 
 kind of aerial perfume ; they must of course alchemize 
 the air into which they waste their fibres, with some 
 sweetness." 
 
 " A smell of earth fresh from l wholesome drench of 
 14* u 
 
322 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 April rains,' " said Mr. Raleigh, taking the dish of white 
 porcelain between his brown, slender hands. " An im 
 mature scent, just such an innocent breath as should pre 
 cede the epigea, that spicy, exhaustive wealth of savor, 
 that complete maturity of odor, marriage of daphne and 
 linnsea. The charm of these first bidders for the year's 
 favor is neither in the ethereal texture, the depth or deli 
 cacy of tint, nor the large-lobed, blood-stained, ancient 
 leaves. This imponderable soul gives them such a help 
 less air of babyhood." 
 
 " Is fragrance the flower's soul ? " asked Marguerite. 
 " Then anemones are not divinely gifted. And yet you 
 said, the other day, that to paint me would be to paint an 
 anemone." 
 
 " A satisfactory specimen ^ in the family-gallery," said 
 Mrs. Purcell. 
 
 " A flaw in the indictment ! " replied Mr. Raleigh. " I 
 am not one of those who paint the lily." 
 
 " Though you 've certainly added a perfume to the vio 
 let," remarked Mr. Frederic Heath, with that sweetly lin 
 gering accent familiarly called the drawl, as he looked at 
 the hepaticas. 
 
 " I don't think it very complimentary, at any rate," con 
 tinued Marguerite. " They are not lovely after bloom, 
 only the little pink-streaked, budded bells, that hang so 
 demurely. Oui ! I have exchanged great queen mag 
 nolias for rues ; what will you give me for pomegranates 
 and oleanders ? " 
 
 " Are the old oleanders in the garden yet ? " asked Mrs. 
 Laudersdale. 
 
 " Not the very same. The hurricane destroyed those, 
 years ago ; these are others, grand and rosy as sunrise 
 sometimes." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 323 
 
 " It was my Aunt Susanne who planted those, I have 
 heard." 
 
 " And it was your daughter Rite who planted these." 
 
 " She buried a little box of old keepsakes at its foot, 
 after her brother had examined them, a ring or two, a 
 coin from which she broke and kept one half " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! we found the little box, found it when 
 Mr. Heath was in Martinique, all rusted and moulded 
 and falling apart, and he wears that half of the coin on 
 his watch-chain. See ! " 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale glanced up indifferently, but Mrs. 
 Purcell sprang from her elegant lounging and bent to 
 look at her brother's chain. 
 
 " How odd that I never noticed it, Fred ! " she ex 
 claimed. " And how odd that I should wear the same ! " 
 And, shaking her chatelaine, she detached a similar 
 affair. 
 
 They were placed side by side in Mr. Raleigh's hand ; 
 they matched entirely, and, so united, they formed a sin 
 gular French coin of value and antiquity, the missing 
 figures on one segment supplied by the other, the em 
 bossed profile continued and lost on each, the scroll begun 
 by this and ended by that ; they were plainly severed 
 portions of the same piece. 
 
 " And this was buried by your Aunt Susanne Le 
 Blanc?" asked Mrs. Purcell, turning to Mrs. Lauders 
 dale again, with a flush on her cheek. 
 
 " So I presume." 
 
 " Strange ! And this was given to mamma by her 
 mother, whose maiden name was Susan White. There 's 
 some diablerie about it." 
 
 " Oh, that is a part of the ceremony of money-hiding," 
 said Mr. Raleigh. " Kidd always buried a little imp with 
 
324 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 his pots of gold, you know, to work deceitful charms on 
 the finder." 
 
 " Did he ? " said Marguerite, earnestly. 
 
 They all laughed thereat, and went in to tea. 
 
 III. 
 
 SPRING at last stole placidly into summer, and Mar 
 guerite, who was always shivering in the house, kept the 
 company in a whirl of out-door festivals. 
 
 " We have not lived so, Roger," said Mrs. McLean, 
 " since the summer when you went away. We all follow 
 the caprice of this child as a ship follows the little com 
 pass-needle." 
 
 And she made room for the child beside her in the car 
 riage ; for Mr. Raleigh was about driving them into town, 
 an exercise which had its particular charm for Mar 
 guerite, not only for the glimpse it afforded of the gay, 
 bustling inland-city-life, but for opportunities of securing 
 the reins and of occasioning panics. Lately, however, she 
 had resigned the latter pleasure, and sat with quiet pro 
 priety by Mrs. McLean. Frequently, also, she took long 
 drives alone or with one of the children, holding the reins 
 listlessly, and ranging the highway unobservantly for 
 miles around. 
 
 Mrs. Purcell declared the girl was homesick ; Mrs. 
 Heath doubted if the climate agreed with her : she nei 
 ther denied nor affirmed their propositions. 
 
 Mr. Heath came and went from the city where her 
 father was, without receiving any other notice than she 
 would have bestowed on a peaceful walking-stick ; his at 
 tentions to her during his visits were unequivocal ; she 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 325 
 
 accepted them as nonchalantly as from a waiter at table. 
 On the occasion of his last stay, there had been a some 
 what noticeable change in his demeanor : he wore a trifle 
 of quite novel assurance ; his supreme bearing was not 
 mitigated by the restless sparkle of his eye ; and in ad 
 dressing her his compliments, he spoke as one having 
 authority. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale, so long and so entirely accustomed 
 to the reception of homage that it cost her no more reflec 
 tion than an imperial princess bestows on the taxes that 
 produce her tiara, turned slowly from the apparent apathy 
 thus induced on her modes of thought, passivity lost in a 
 gulf of anxious speculation, while she watched the theatre 
 of events with a glow, like wine in lamplight, that burned 
 behind her dusky eyes till they had the steady penetration 
 of some wild creature's. She may have wondered if Mr. 
 Raleigh's former feeling were yet alive ; she may have 
 wondered if Marguerite had found the spell that once she 
 found herself; she may have been kept in thrall by igno 
 rance if he had ever read that old confessing note of hers : 
 whatever she thought or hoped or dreaded, she said 
 nothing, and did nothing. 
 
 Of all those who concerned themselves in the affair of 
 Marguerite's health and spirits, Mr. Raleigh was the only 
 one who might have solved their mystery. Perhaps the 
 thought of wooing the child whose mother he had once 
 loved was sufficiently repugnant to him to overcome the 
 tenderness which every one was forced to feel for so beau 
 tiful a creation. I have not said that Marguerite was this, 
 before, because, until brought into contrast with her moth 
 er, her extreme loveliness was too little positive to be felt ; 
 now it was the e^nescent shimmer of pearl to the deep 
 perpetual fire of the carbuncle. Softened, as she became, 
 
326 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 from her versatile cheeriness, she moved round like a 
 moonbeam, and frequently had a bewildered grace, as if 
 she knew not what to make of herself. Mr. Raleigh, 
 from the moment in which he perceived that she no 
 longer sought his company, retreated into his own apart 
 ments, and was less seen by the others than ever. 
 
 Returning from the drive on the morning of Mrs. Mc 
 Lean's last recorded remark, Mr. Raleigh, who had re 
 mained to give the horses in charge to a servant, was 
 about to pass, when the tableau within the drawing-room 
 caught his attention and altered his course. He entered, 
 and flung his gloves down on a table and himself on the 
 floor beside Marguerite and the children. She appeared 
 to be revisited by a ray of her old sunshine, and had 
 unrolled a giant parcel of candied sweets, which their 
 mother would have sacrificed on the shrine of jalap and 
 senna, the purchase of a surreptitious moment, and was 
 now dispensing the brilliant comestibles with much ill- 
 subdued glee. One mouth, that had bitten off the head 
 of a checkerberry chanticleer, was convulsed with the 
 acidulous tickling of sweetened laughter, till, the biter bit, 
 a metamorphosis into the animal of attack seemed immi 
 nent ; at the hands of another a warrior in barley-sugar 
 was experiencing the vernacular for defeat with reproving 
 haste and gravity ; and there was yet another little 
 omnivorous creature that put out both hands for in(Jis- 
 criminate snatching, and made a spectacle of himself in 
 a general plaster of gum-arabic-drop and brandy-smash. 
 
 " Contraband ? " said Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " And sweet as stolen fruit," said Marguerite. " Ursule 
 makes the richest comfits, but not so innumerable as these. 
 Mamma and I owe our sweet-tooth ami honey-lip to bits 
 of her concoction." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 327 
 
 "Mrs. Purcell," asked Mr. Raleigh, as that lady en 
 tered, " is this little banquet no seduction to you ? " 
 
 " What are you doing ? " she replied. 
 
 " Drinking honey-dew from acorns." 
 
 " Laudersdale as ever ! " ejaculated she, looking over his 
 shoulder. " I thought you had * no sympathy with ' " 
 
 " But I 'like to see other folks take ' " 
 
 " Their sweets, in this case. No, thank you," she con 
 tinued, after this little rehearsal of the past. " What are 
 you poisoning all this brood for ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale eats sweetmeats ; they don't poison 
 her," remonstrated Katy. 
 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale, my dear, is exceptional." 
 
 Katy opened her eyes as if she had been told that the 
 object of her adoration was Japanese. 
 
 " It is the last grain that completes the transformation, 
 as your story-books have told ; and one day you will see 
 her stand a statue of sugar, and melt away in the sun. 
 To be sure, the whole air will be sweetened, but there 
 will be no Mrs. Laudersdale." 
 
 " For shame, Mrs. Purcell ! " cried Marguerite. " You 're 
 not sweet-tempered, or you 'd like sweet dainties yourself. 
 Here are nuts swathed in syrup ; you '11 have none of 
 them ? Here are health and slumber and idle dreams in 
 a chocolate-drop. Not a chocolate ? Here are dates ; if 
 you would n't choose the things in themselves, truly you 
 would for their associations? See, when you take up 
 one, what a picture follows it : the plum that has swung 
 at the top of a palm, and crowded into itself the glow of 
 those fierce noon-suns. It has been tossed by the sirocco ; 
 it has been steeped in reeking dew ; there was always 
 stretched above it the blue intense tent of a heaven full 
 of light, always below and around, long level reaches 
 
328 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 of hot shining sand ; the phantoms of waning desert- 
 moons have hovered over it ; swarthy Arab chiefs have 
 encamped under it ; it has threaded the narrow streets of 
 Damascus that city the most beautiful on the backs 
 of gaunt gray dromedaries ; it has crossed the seas, 
 and all for you, if you take it, this product of desert free 
 dom, torrid winds, and fervid suns ! " 
 
 " I might swallow the date," said Mrs. Purcell, " but 
 Africa would choke me." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh had remained silent for some time, watch 
 ing Marguerite as she talked. It seemed to him that his 
 youth was returning ; he forgot his resolves, his desires, 
 and became aware of nothing in the world but her voice. 
 Just before she concluded, she grew conscious of his gaze, 
 and almost at once ceased speaking ; her eyes fell a mo 
 ment to meet it, and then she would have flashed them 
 aside, but that it was impossible; lucid lakes of light, 
 they met his own ; she was forced to continue it, to 
 return it, to forget all, as he was forgetting, in that long 
 look. 
 
 " What is this ? " said Mrs. Purcell, stooping to pick 
 up a trifle on the matting. 
 
 " G'est a moi ! " cried Marguerite, springing up sud 
 denly, and spilling all the fragments of the feast, to the 
 evident satisfaction of the lately neglected guests. 
 
 "Yours?" said Mrs. Purcell with coolness, still re 
 taining it. "Why do you think in French?" 
 
 " Because I choose ! " said Marguerite, angrily. " I 
 mean How do you know that I do ? " 
 
 " Your exclamation, when highly excited or contemp 
 tuously indifferent, is always in that tongue." 
 
 " Which am I now ? " 
 
 " Really, you should know best. Here is your baw- 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY, 329 
 
 ble " ; and Mrs. Purcell tossed it lightly into her hands, 
 and went out. 
 
 It was a sheath of old morocco. The motion loosened 
 the clasp, and the contents, an ivory oval and a cushion 
 of faded silk, fell to the floor. Mr. Raleigh bent and re- 
 gathered them ; there was nothing for Marguerite but to 
 allow that he should do so. The oval had reversed in 
 falling, so that he did not see it ; but, glancing at her be 
 fore returning it, he found her face and neck dyed deeper 
 than the rose. Still reversed, he was about to relinquish 
 it, when Mrs. McLean passed, and, hearing the scamper 
 ing of little feet as they fled with booty, she also entered. 
 
 " Seeing you, reminds me, Roger," said she. " What 
 do you suppose has become of that little miniature I told 
 you of? I was showing it to Marguerite the other night, 
 and have not seen it since. I must have mislaid it, and 
 it was particularly valuable, for it was some nameless 
 thing that Mrs. Heath found among her mother's trinkets, 
 and I begged it of her, it was such a perfect likeness of 
 you. Can you have seen it ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have it," he replied. " And have n't I as good 
 a right to it as any ? " 
 
 He extended his arm for the case which Marguerite 
 held, and so touching her hand, the touch was more lin 
 gering than it needed to be ; but he avoided looking at 
 her, or he would have seen that the late color had fled 
 till the face was whiter than marble. 
 
 " Your old propensities," said Mrs. McLean. " You 
 always will be a boy. By the way, what do you think 
 6f Mary Purcell's engagement? I thought she would 
 always be a girl." 
 
 " Ah ! McLean was speaking of it to me. Why were 
 they not engaged before ? " 
 
330 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " Because she was not an heiress." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh raised his eyebrows significantly. 
 
 " He could not afford to marry any but an heiress," 
 explained Mrs. McLean. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh fastened the case and restored -it silently. 
 
 " You think that absurd ? You would not marry an 
 heiress ? " 
 
 Mr, Raleigh did not at once reply. 
 
 " You would not, then, propose to an heiress ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 As this monosyllable fell from his lips, Marguerite's 
 motion placed her beyond hearing. She took a few swift 
 steps, but paused and leaned against the wall of the gable 
 for support, and, placing her hand upon the sun-beat 
 bricks, she felt a warmth in them which there seemed to 
 be neither in herself nor in the wide summer-air. 
 
 Mrs. Purcell came along, opening her parasol. 
 
 " I am going to the orchard," said she ; " cherries are 
 ripe. Hear the robins and the bells ! Do you want to 
 come ? " 
 
 " No," said Marguerite. 
 
 " There are bees in the orchard, too, the very bees, 
 for aught I know, that Mr. Raleigh used to watch thir 
 teen years ago, or their great-grand-bees, they stand in 
 the same place." 
 
 "You knew Mr. Raleigh thirteen years ago?" she 
 asked, glancing up curiously. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " How much is very well ? " 
 
 " He proposed to me. Smother your anger ; he did n't 
 care for me ; some one told him that I cared for him." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 331 
 
 Did you ? " 
 
 "This is what the Inquisition calls applying the 
 question ? " asked Mrs. Purcell. " Nonsense, dear child ! 
 he was quite in love with somebody else." 
 
 And that was ?" 
 
 " He supposed your mother to be a widow. Well, if 
 you won't come, I shall go alone and read my L' Allegro 
 under the boughs, with breezes blowing between the 
 lines. I can show you some little field-mice like un*- 
 fledged birds, and a nest that protrudes now and then 
 glittering eyes and cleft fangs." 
 
 Marguerite was silent ; the latter commodity was de 
 trop. Mrs. Purcell adjusted her parasol and passed on. 
 
 Here, then, was the whole affair. Marguerite pressed 
 her hands to her forehead, as if fearful some of the 
 swarming thoughts should escape ; then she hastened up 
 the slope behind the house, and entered and hid herself 
 in the woods. Mr. Raleigh had loved her mother. Of 
 course, then, there was not a shadow of doubt that her 
 mother had loved him. Horrible thought! and she 
 shook like an aspen, beneath it. For a time it seemed 
 that she loathed him, that she despised the woman 
 who had given him regard. The present moment was 
 a point of dreadful isolation ; there was no past to .re 
 member, no future to expect ; she herself was alone and 
 forsaken, the whole world dark, and heaven blank. But 
 that could not be forever. As she sat with her face 
 buried in her hands, old words, old looks, flashed on her 
 recollection ; she comprehended what long years of silent 
 suffering the one might have endured, what barren yearn 
 ing the other ; she saw how her mother's haughty calm 
 might be the crust on a lava-sea ; she felt what desolation 
 must have filled Roger Raleigh's heart, when he found 
 
332 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 that she whom he had loved no longer lived, that he had 
 cherished a lifeless ideal, for Marguerite knew from 
 his own lips that he had not met the same woman whom 
 he had left. 
 
 She started up, wondering what had led her upon this 
 train of thought, why she had pursued it, and what reason 
 she had for the pain it gave her. A step rustled among 
 the distant last-year's leaves ; there in the shadowy wood, 
 where she did not dream of concealing her thoughts, 
 where it seemed that all Nature shared her confidence, 
 this step was like a finger laid on the hidden sore. She 
 paused, a glow rushed over her frame, and her face grew 
 hot with the convicting flush. Consternation, bitter con 
 demnation, shame, impetuous resolve, swept over her in 
 one torrent, and the saw that she had a secret which 
 every one might touch, and touching, cause to sting. She 
 hurried onward through the wood, unconscious how rap 
 idly or how far her heedless course extended. She 
 sprang across gaps at which she would another time have 
 shuddered ; she clambered over fallen trees, penetrated 
 thickets of tangled brier, and followed up the shrunken 
 beds of streams, till suddenly the wood grew thin again, 
 and she emerged upon an open space, a long lawn, 
 where the grass grew rank and tall as in deserted grave 
 yards, and on which the afternoon sunshine lay with most 
 dreary, desolate emphasis. Marguerite had scarcely 
 comprehended herself before ; now, as she looked out on 
 the utter loneliness of the place, all joyousness, all content, 
 seemed wiped from the world. She leaned against a 
 tree where the building rose before her, old and forsaken, 
 washed by rains, beaten by winds. A blind slung open, 
 loose on a broken hinge ; the emptiness of the house 
 looked through it like a spirit. The woodbine seemed 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 333 
 
 the only living thing about it, the woodbine that had 
 swung its clusters, heavy as grapes of Eshcol, along one 
 wall, and, falling from support, had rioted upon the ground 
 in masses of close-netted luxuriance. 
 
 Standing and surveying the silent scene of former 
 gayety, a figure came down the slope, crushing the grass 
 with lingering tread, checked himself, and, half-reversed, 
 surveyed it with her. Her first impulse was to approach, 
 her next to retreat; by a resolution of forces she re 
 mained where she was. Mr. Raleigh's position prevented 
 her from seeing the expression of his face ; from his atr 
 titude seldom was anything to be divined. He turned 
 with a motion of the arm, as if he swung off a burden, 
 and met her eye. He laughed, and drew near. 
 
 "I am tempted to return to that suspicion of mine 
 when I first met you, Miss Marguerite," said he. " You 
 take shape from solitude and empty air as easily as a 
 Dryad steps from her tree." 
 
 " There are no Dryads now," said Marguerite, senten- 
 tiously. 
 
 " Then you confess to being a myth ? " 
 
 " I confess to being tired, Mr. Raleigh." 
 
 Mr. Raleigh's manner changed, at her petulance and 
 fatigue, to the old air of protection, and he gave her his 
 hand. It was pleasant to be the object of his care, to be 
 with him as at first, to renew their former relation. She 
 acquiesced, and walked beside him. 
 
 " You have had some weary travel," he said, " and 
 probably not more than half of it in the path." 
 
 And she feared he would glance at the rents in her 
 frock, forgetting that they were not sufficiently infrequent 
 facts to be noticeable. 
 
 " He treats me like a child," she thought. " He ex- 
 
334 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 pects me to tear my dress ! He forgets that, while thir 
 teen years were making a statue of her, they were making 
 a woman of me ! " And she snatched away her hand. 
 
 " I have the boat below," he said, without paying atten 
 tion to the movement. " You took the longest way round, 
 which, you have heard, is the shortest way home. You 
 have never been on the lake with me." And he was 
 about to assist her in. 
 
 She stepped back, hesitating. 
 
 " No, no," he said. " It is very well to think of walk 
 ing back, but it must end in thinking. You have no im 
 petus now to send you over another half-dozen miles of 
 wood-faring, no pique to sting lo." 
 
 And before she could remonstrate, she was lifted in, 
 the oars had flashed twice, and there was deep water be 
 tween herself and shore. She was in reality too much 
 fatigued to be vexed, and she sat silently watching the 
 spaces through which they glanced, and listening to the 
 rhythmic dip of the oars. The soft afternoon air, with 
 its melancholy sweetness and tinge of softer hue, hung 
 round them ; the water, brown' and warm, was dimpled 
 with the flight of myriad insects ; they wound among the 
 islands, a path one of them knew of old. From the 
 shelving rocks a wild convolvulus drooped its twisted bells 
 across them, a sweet-brier snatched at her hair in passing, 
 a sudden elder-tree shot out its creamy panicles above, 
 they ripped up drowsy beds of folded lily-blooms. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh, lifting one oar, gave the boat a sharp 
 curve and sent it out on the open expanse ; it seemed 
 to him that he had no right thus to live two lives in 
 one. Still he wished to linger, and with now and then 
 a lazy movement they slipped along. He leaned one 
 arm on the upright oar, like a river-god, and from the 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 335 
 
 store of boat-songs in his remembrance, sang now and 
 then a strain. Marguerite sat opposite and rested along 
 the side, content for the moment to glide on as they were, 
 without a reference to the past in her thought, without a 
 dream of the future. Peach-bloom fell on the air, warmed 
 all objects into mellow tint, and reddened deep into sun 
 set. Tinkling cow-bells, where the kine wound out from 
 pasture, stole faintly over the lake, reflected dyes suffused 
 it and spread around them sheets of splendid color, out 
 lines grew ever dimmer on the distant shores, a purple 
 tone absorbed all brilliance, the shadows fell, and, bright 
 with angry lustre, the planet Mars hung in the south, and 
 struck a spear, redder than rubies, down the placid mir 
 ror. The dew gathered and lay sparkling on the thwarts 
 as they touched the garden-steps ; and they mounted and 
 traversed together the alleys of odorous dark. They 
 entered at Mr. Raleigh's door, and stepped thence into 
 the main hall, where they could see the broad light from 
 the drawing-room windows streaming over the lawn be 
 yond. Mrs. Laudersdale came down the hall to meet 
 them. 
 
 " My dear Rite," she said, " I have been alarmed, and 
 have sent the servants out for you. You left home in 
 the morning, and you have not dined. Your father and 
 Mr. Heath have arrived. Tea is just over, and we are 
 waiting for you to dress and go into town ; it is Mrs. 
 Manton's evening, you recollect." 
 
 " Must I go, mamma ? " asked Marguerite, after this 
 statement of facts. " Then I must have tea first. Mr. 
 Raleigh, I remember my wasted sweetmeats of the morn 
 ing with a pang. How long ago that seems ! " 
 
 In a moment her face told her regret for the allusion, 
 and she hastened into the dining-room. 
 
336 MIDSUMMEK AND MAY. 
 
 Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite had a merry tea, and 
 Mrs. Purcell came and poured it out for them. 
 
 " Quite like the days when we went gypsying," said 
 she, at a moment near its conclusion. 
 
 " We have just come from the Bawn, Miss Marguerite 
 and I," he replied. 
 
 " You have ? " I never go near it. Did it break your 
 heart ? " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh laughed. 
 
 " Is Mr. Raleigh's heart such a delicate organ ? " asked 
 Marguerite. 
 
 " Once, you might have been answered negatively ; 
 now, it must be like the French banner, perce, troue, 
 crible " 
 
 " Pray, add the remainder of your quotation," said he, 
 " sans peur et sans reproche" 
 
 " So that a trifle would reduce it to flinders," said Mrs. 
 Purcell, without minding his interruption. 
 
 " Would you give it such a character, Miss Rite ? " 
 questioned Mr. Raleigh, lightly. 
 
 " I ? I don't see that you have any heart at all, sir." 
 
 " I swallow my tea and my mortification." 
 
 " Do you remember your first repast at the Bawn ? " 
 asked Mrs. Purcell. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " And the jelly like molten rubies that I made ? It 
 keeps well." And she moved a glittering dish toward 
 him. 
 
 " All things of that summer keep well," he replied. 
 
 " Except yourself, Mr. Raleigh. The Indian jugglers 
 are practising upon us, I suspect. You are no more like 
 the same person who played sparkling comedy and sang 
 passionate tragedy than this bamboo stick is like that wil 
 low wand." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 337 
 
 " I wish I could retort, Miss Helen," he replied. " I 
 beg your pardon ! " 
 
 She was silent, and her eye fell and rested on the 
 sheeny damask beneath. He glanced at her keenly an 
 instant, then handed her his cup, saying, 
 
 " May I trouble you ? " 
 
 She looked up again, a smile breaking over the face 
 wanner than youth, but which the hour's gayety had 
 flushed to a forgetfulness of intervening years, extended 
 her left hand for the cup, still gazing and smiling. 
 
 Various resolves had flitted through Marguerite's mind 
 since her entrance. One, that she would yet make Mr. 
 Raleigh feel her power, yielded to shame and self-con 
 tempt, and she despised herself for a woman won un- 
 wooed. But she was not sure that she was won. Per 
 haps, after all, she did not care particularly for Mr. 
 Raleigh. He was much older than she ; he was quite 
 grave, sometimes satirical ; she knew nothing about him ; 
 she was slightly afraid of him. On the whole, if she 
 consulted her taste, she would have preferred a younger 
 hero ; she would rather be the Fornarina for a Raffaello ; 
 she had fancied her name sweetening the songs of Giraud 
 Riquier, the last of the Troubadours ; and she did not 
 believe Beatrice Portinari to be so excellent among 
 women, so different from other girls, that her name 
 should have soared so far aloft with that escutcheon of 
 the golden wing on a field azure. " But they say that 
 there cannot be two epic periods in a nation's literature," 
 thought Marguerite, hurriedly; "so that a man who 
 might have been Homer once will be nothing but a gen 
 tleman now." And at this point, having decided that 
 Mr. Raleigh was fully worth unlimited love, she added to 
 her resolves a desire for content with whatever amount 
 15 v 
 
338 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 of friendly affection he chose to bestow upon her. And 
 all this, while sifting the sugar over her raspberries. 
 Nevertheless, she felt, in the midst of her heroic content, 
 a strange jealousy at hearing the two thus discuss days in 
 which she had no share, and she watched them furtively, 
 with a sharp, hateful suspicion dawning in her mind. 
 Now, as Mrs. Purcell's eyes met Mr. Raleigh's, and her 
 hand was still extended for the cup, Marguerite fastened 
 her glance on its glittering ring, and said abruptly, 
 
 " Mrs. Purcell, have you a husband ? " 
 
 Mrs. Purcell started and withdrew her hand, as if it 
 had received a blow, just as Mr. Raleigh relinquished the 
 cup, so that between them the bits of pictured porcelain 
 fell and splintered over the equipage. 
 
 "Naughty child ! " said Mrs. Purcell. " See now what 
 you 've done ! " 
 
 " What have I to do with it ? " 
 
 " Then you have n't any bad news for me ? Has any 
 one heard from the Colonel ? Is he ill ? " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Marguerite, rising and throwing down 
 her napkin. 
 
 She went to the window and looked out. 
 
 " It is time you were gone, little lady," said Mr. Ra 
 leigh. 
 
 She approached Mrs. Purcell and passed her hand 
 down her hair. 
 
 " What pretty soft hair you have ! " said she. " These 
 braids are like carved gold-stone. May I dress it with 
 sweet-brier to-night ? I brought home a spray." 
 
 " Rite ! " said Mrs. Laudersdale sweetly, at the door ; 
 and Rite obeyed the summons. 
 
 In a half-hour she came slowly down the stairs, untwist 
 ing a long string of her mother's abandoned pearls, great- 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 339 
 
 pear-shaped things full of the pale lustre of gibbous moons. 
 She wore a dress of white samarcand, with a lavish orna 
 ment like threads and purfiles of gold upon the bodice, and 
 Ursule followed with a cloak. As she entered the draw 
 ing-room, the great bunches of white azalea, which her 
 mother had brought from the swamps, caught her eye ; 
 she threw down the pearls, and broke off rapid clusters 
 of the queenly flowers, touching the backward-curling 
 hyacinthine petals, and caressingly passing her finger 
 down the pale purple shadow of the snowy folds. Di 
 rectly afterward she hung them in her breezy hair, from 
 which, by natural tenure, they were not likely to fall, 
 bound them over her shoulders and in her waist. 
 
 " See ! I stand like Summer," she said. " Wrapped in 
 perfume. It is intoxicating." 
 
 Just then two hands touched her, and her father bent 
 his face over her. She flung her arms round him, care 
 less of their fragile array, kissed him on both cheeks, 
 laughed, and kissed him again. She did not speak, for 
 he disliked French, and English sometimes failed her. 
 
 " Here is Mr. Heath," her father said. 
 
 She partly turned, touched that gentleman's hand with 
 the ends of her fingers, and nodded. Her father whis 
 pered a brief sentence in her ear. 
 
 " Jamais, Monsieur, jamais ! " she exclaimed ; then, 
 with a quick gesture of deprecation, moved again toward 
 him ; but Mr. Laudersdale had coldly passed to make his 
 compliments to Mrs. Heath. 
 
 " You are not in toilet ? " said Marguerite, following 
 him, but .speaking with Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " No, - Mrs. Purcell has been playing for me a little 
 thing I always liked, that sweet tuneful afternoon chid 
 ing of the Miller and the Torrent." 
 
340 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 She glanced at Mrs. Purcell, saw that her dress re 
 mained unaltered, and commenced pulling off the azaleas 
 from her own. 
 
 " I do not want to go," she murmured. " I need not ! 
 Mamma and Mrs. McLean have already gone in the other 
 carriage." 
 
 " Come, Marguerite," said Mr. Laudersdale, approach 
 ing her, as Mr. Heath and his mother disappeared. 
 
 " I am not going," she replied, quickly. 
 
 " Not going ? I beg your pardon, my dear, but you 
 are ! " and he took her hand. 
 
 She half endeavored to withdraw it, threw a backward 
 glance over her shoulder at the remaining pair, and, led 
 by her father, went out. 
 
 Marguerite did her best to forget the vexation, was 
 very affable with her father, and took no notice of any of 
 Mr. Heath's prolonged remarks. The drive was at best 
 a tiresome one, and she was already half asleep when the 
 carriage stopped. The noise and light, and the little 
 vanities of the dressing-room, awakened her, and she 
 descended prepared for conquest. But, after a few mo 
 ments, it all became weariness, the air was close, the 
 flowers faded, the music piercing. The toilets did not 
 attract nor the faces interest her. She danced along ab 
 sent and spiritless, when her eye, raised dreamily, fell on 
 an object among the curtains and lay fascinated there. 
 It was certainly Mr. Kaleigh ; but so little likely did that 
 seem, that she again circled the room, with her eyes bent 
 upon that point, expecting it to vanish. He must have 
 come in the saddle, unless a coach had returned for him 
 and Mrs. Purcell, yes, there was Mrs. Purcell, and 
 she wore that sweet-brier fresh-blossoming in the light. 
 With what ease she moved ! it must always have been 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 341 
 
 the same grace; how brilliant she was! Youth just 
 enough tarnished to beguile. There, she was going to 
 dance with Mr. Raleigh. No ? Where, then ? Into the 
 
 music-room ! 
 
 The music-room lay beyond an anteroom of flowers 
 and prints, and was closed against the murmur of the par 
 lors by great glass doors. Marguerite, from her position, 
 could see Mr. Raleigh seated at the piano, and Mrs. 
 Purcell standing by his side ; now she turned a leaf, now 
 she stooped, and their hands touched upon the keys. 
 Marguerite slipped alone through the dancers, and drew 
 nearer. There were others in the music-room, but they 
 were at a distance from the piano. She entered the 
 anteroom and sat shadowed among the great fragrant 
 shrubs. A group already stood there, eating ices and 
 gayly gossiping. Mr. Laudersdale and Mr. Manton 
 sauntered in, their heads together, and muttering occult 
 matters of business, whose tally was kept with forefinger 
 on palm. 
 
 " Where is Raleigh ? " asked Mr. Manton, looking up. 
 " He can tell us." 
 
 " At his old occupation," answered a gentleman from 
 beside Mrs. Laudersdale, " flirting with forbidden fruit." 
 
 " An alliterative amusement," said Mrs. Laudersdale. 
 
 " You did not know the original Raleigh ? " continued 
 the gentleman. " But he always took pleasure in female 
 society,; yet, singularly enough, though fastidious in 
 choice, it was only upon the married ladies that he be 
 stowed his platonisms. I observe the old Adam still 
 clings to him." 
 
 " He probably found more liberty with them," remarked 
 Mrs. Laudersdale, when no one else replied. 
 
 " Without doubt he took it." 
 
342 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " I mean, that, where attentions are known to intend 
 nothing, one is not obliged to measure them, or to calcu 
 late upon effects." 
 
 " Of the latter no one can accuse Mr. Raleigh ! " said 
 Mr. Laudersdale, hotly, forgetting himself for once. 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale lifted her large eyes and laid them 
 on her husband's face. 
 
 " Excuse me ! excuse me ! * said the gentleman, with 
 natural misconception. " I was not aware that he was a 
 friend of yours." And taking a lady on his arm, he 
 withdrew. 
 
 " Nor is he ! " said Mr. Laudersdale, in lowest tones, 
 replying to his wife's gaze, and for the first time intimat 
 ing his feeling. " Never, never, can I repair the ruin he 
 has made me!" 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale rose and stretched out her arm, 
 blindly. 
 
 " The room is quite dark," she murmured ; " the flow 
 ers must soil the air. Will you take me up-stairs ? " 
 
 Meanwhile, the unconscious object of their remark was 
 turning over a pile of pages with one hand, while the 
 other trifled along the gleaming keys. 
 
 "Here it is," said he, drawing one from the others, 
 and arranging it before him, a gondel-lied. 
 
 There stole from his fingers the soft, slow sound of 
 lapsing waters, the rocking on the tide, the long sway of 
 some idle weed. Here a jet of tune was flung out from 
 a distant bark, here a high octave flashed like a passing 
 torch through night-shadows and lofty arching darkness 
 told in clustering chords. Now the boat fled through 
 melancholy narrow ways of pillared pomp and stately 
 beauty, now floated off on the wide lagoons alone with 
 the stars and sea. Into this broke the passion of the 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 343 
 
 gliding lovers, deep and strong, giving a soul to the 
 whole, and fading away again, behind its wild beating, with 
 the silence of lapping ripple and dipping oar. 
 
 Mrs. Purcell, standing beside the player, laid a care 
 less arm across the instrument, and bent her face above 
 him like a flower languid with the sun's rays. Suddenly 
 the former smile suffused it, and, as the gondel-lied fell 
 into a slow floating accompaniment, she sang with a swift, 
 impetuous grace, and in a sweet, yet thrilling voice, the 
 Moth Song. The shrill music and murmur from the 
 parlors burst all at once in muffled volume upon the 
 melody, and, turning, they both saw Marguerite standing 
 in the doorway, like an angry wraith, and flitting back 
 again. Mrs. Purcell laughed, but took up the thread of 
 her song again where it was broken, and carried it through 
 to the end. Then Mr. Raleigh tossed the gondel-lied 
 aside, and rising, they continued their stroll. 
 
 " You have more than your share of the good things 
 of life, Raleigh," said Mr. McLean, as the person ad 
 dressed poured out wine for Mrs. Purcell. " Two affairs 
 on hand at once ? You drink deep. Light and spark 
 ling, thin and tart, is n't it Solomon who forbids 
 mixed drink?" 
 
 " I was never the worse for claret," replied Mr. Raleigh, 
 bearing away the glittering glass. 
 
 The party from the Lake had not arrived at an early 
 hour, and it was quite late when Mr. Raleigh made his 
 way through ranks of tireless dancers, toward Marguerite. 
 She had been dancing with a spirit that would have re 
 sembled joyousness but for its reckless abandon. She 
 seemed to him then like a flame, as full of wilful, sinuous 
 caprice. At the first he scarcely liked it, but directly the 
 artistic side of his nature recognized the extreme grace 
 
344 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 and beauty that flowed through every curve of move 
 ment. Standing now, the corn-silk hair slightly disor 
 dered and still blown about by the fan of some one near 
 her, her eyes sparkling like stars in the dew-drops of wild 
 wood-violets, warm, yet weary, and a flush deepening 
 her cheek with color, while the flowers hung dead around 
 her, she held a glass of wine and watched the bead 
 swim to the brim. Mr. Raleigh approached unaware, 
 and startled her as he spoke. 
 
 " It is au gre du vent, indeed," he said, " just the 
 white fluttering butterfly, and now that the wings are 
 clasped above this crimson blossom, I have a chance 
 of capture." And smiling, he gently withdrew the 
 splendid draught. 
 
 " Buvez, Monsieur" she said ; " Jest le vin de la vie! " 
 
 " Do you know how near daylight it is ? " he replied. 
 " Mrs. Laudersdale fainted in the heat, and your father 
 took her home long ago. The Heaths went also ; and 
 the carriage has just returned for the only ones of us that 
 are left, you and me." 
 
 " Is it ready now ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 So am I." 
 
 And in a few moments she sat opposite him in the 
 coach, on their way home. 
 
 " It would n't be possible for me to sit on the box and 
 drive ? " she asked. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I should like it, in this wild starlight, these flying 
 clouds, this breath of dawn." 
 
 Meeting no response, she sank into silence. No emo 
 tion can keep one awake forever, and, after all her late 
 fatigue, the roll of the easy vehicle upon the springs soon 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 345 
 
 soothed her into a dreamy state. Through the efforts at 
 wakefulness, she watched the gleams that fell within 
 from the carriage-lamps, the strange shadows on the 
 roadside, the boughs tossing to the wind and flickering 
 all their leaves in the speeding light ; she watched, also, 
 Mr. Raleigh's face, on which, in the fitful flashes, she 
 detected a look of utter weariness. 
 
 " Monsieur" she exclaimed, with angry assertion, " est 
 ce que je vous gene ! " 
 
 " Immensely," said Mr. Raleigh with a smile ; " but, 
 fortunately, for no great time." 
 
 " We shall be soon at home? Then I must have slept." 
 
 " Very like. What did you dream ? " 
 
 " Oh, one must not tell dreams before breakfast, or they 
 come to pass, you know." 
 
 " No, I am uninitiated in dream-craft. Mr. 
 Heath " 
 
 " Monsieur" she cried, in sudden heat, " il me semble 
 que je comprends les Laocoons! C'est la meme chose 
 avec moi I " 
 
 As she spoke, she fell, struck forward by a sudden 
 shock, the coach was rocking like a boat, and plunging 
 down unknown gulfs. Mr. Raleigh seized her, broke 
 through the door, and sprang out. 
 
 " Qu'avez vous ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " The old willow is fallen in the wind," he replied. 
 
 " Quel dommage that we did not see it fall ! " 
 
 " It has killed one of the horses, I fear," he continued, 
 measuring, as formerly, her terror by her levity. " Capua ! 
 is all right ? Are you safe ? " 
 
 " Yah, massa ! " responded a voice from the depths, as 
 Capua floundered with the remaining horse in the thicket 
 at the lake-edge below. " Yah, massa, nufnn harm 
 
 15* 
 
346 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Ol' Cap in water ; spec he born to die in galluses ; had 
 nuff chance to be in glory, ef 't was n't. I 's done beat 
 wid dis yer pony, anyhow, Mass'r Raleigh. Seems, ef 
 he was a 'sect to fly in de face ob all creation an' pay no 
 Mention to his centre o' gravity, he might walk up dis yer 
 hill ! " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh left Marguerite a moment, to relieve 
 Capua's perplexity. Through the remaining darkness, 
 the sparkle of stars, and wild fling of shadows in the 
 wind, she could but dimly discern the struggling figures, 
 and the great creature trampling and snorting below. 
 She remembered strange tales out of the Arabian Nights, 
 Bellerophon and the Chimaera, St. George and the Drag 
 on ; she waited, half-expectant, to see the great talon- 
 stretched wings flap up against the slow edge of dawn, 
 where Orion lay, a pallid monster, watching the planet 
 that flashed like some great gem low in a crystalline 
 west, and she stepped nearer, with a kind of eager and 
 martial spirit, to do battle in turn. 
 
 " Stand aside, Una ! " cried Mr. Raleigh, who had 
 worked in a determined, characteristic silence, and the 
 horse's head, sharp ear, and starting eye were brought to 
 sight, and then his heaving bulk. 
 
 " All right, massa ! " cried Capua, after a moment's 
 survey, as he patted the trembling flanks. " Pretty tough 
 ex'cise dat ! Spect Massam Clean be mighty high, 
 his best cretur done about killed wid dat tree ; feared 
 he show dis nigger a stick worf two o' dat ! " 
 
 " We had like to have finished our dance on nothing," 
 said Mr. Raleigh now, looking back on the splintered 
 wheels and panels. " Will you mount ? I can secure 
 you from falling." 
 
 " Oh, no, I can walk ; it is only a little way." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 347 
 
 " Reach home like Cinderella ? If you had but one 
 glass slipper, that might be ; but in satin ones it is impos 
 sible." And she found herself seated aloft before quite 
 aware what had happened. 
 
 Pacing along, they talked lightly, with the gayety nat 
 ural upon excitement, Capua once in a while adding a 
 cogent word. As they opened the door, Mr. Raleigh 
 paused a moment. 
 
 " I am glad," he said, " that my last day with you has 
 been crowned by such adventures. I leave the Lake at 
 noon." 
 
 She hung, listening, with a backward swerve of figure, 
 and regarding him in the dim light of the swinging hall- 
 lamp, for the moment half petrified. Suddenly she turned 
 and seized his hand in hers, then threw it off. 
 
 " Cher ami" she murmured hastily, in a piercing whis 
 per, like some articulate sigh, " si vous m'aimez, dites le 
 moi!" 
 
 The door closed in the draught, the drawing-room door 
 opened, and Mr. Laudersdale stepped out, having been 
 awaiting their return. Mr. Raleigh caught the flash of 
 Marguerite's eye and the crimson of her cheek, as she 
 sprang forward up the stairs and out of sight. 
 
 The family did not breakfast together the next day, as 
 politeness chooses to call the first hour after a ball, and 
 Mr. Raleigh was making some arrangements preliminary 
 to his departure, in his own apartments, at about the hour 
 of noon. The rooms which he had formerly occupied 
 Mrs. McLean had always kept closed, in a possibility 
 of his return, and he had found himself installed in them 
 upon his arrival. The library was to-day rather a mel 
 ancholy room : the great book-cases did not enliven it ; 
 the grand-piano, with its old dark polish, seemed like a 
 
348 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 coffin, the sarcophagus of unrisen music ; the oak panel 
 ling had absorbed a richer hue with the years than once 
 it wore ; the portrait of his mother seemed farther with 
 drawn from sight and air ; Antinous took a tawnier tint 
 in his long reverie. The Summer, past her height, sent 
 a sad beam, the signal of decay, through the half-open 
 shutters, and it lay wearily on the man who sat by the 
 long table, and made more sombre yet the faded carpet 
 and cumbrous chair. 
 
 There was a tap on the door. Mr. Raleigh rose and 
 opened it, and invited Mr. Laudersdale in. The latter 
 gentleman complied, took the chair resigned by the other, 
 but after a few words became quiet. Mr. Raleigh made 
 one or two attempts at conversation, then, seeing silence 
 to be his visitor's whim, suffered him to indulge it, and 
 himself continued his writing. Indeed, the peculiar rela 
 tions existing between these men made much conversation 
 difficult. Mr. Laudersdale sat with his eyes upon the 
 floor for several minutes, and his countenance wrapped 
 in thought. Rising, with his hands behind him, he 
 walked up and down the long room, still without speak 
 ing. 
 
 " Can I be of service to you, sir ? " asked the other, 
 after observing him. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Raleigh, I am led to think you can," still 
 pacing up and down, and vouchsafing no further informa 
 tion. 
 
 At last, the monotonous movement ended, Mr. Lauders 
 dale stood at the window, intercepting the sunshine, and 
 examined some memoranda. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Raleigh," he resumed, with all his courtly 
 manner, upon close of the examination^ " I am in hopes 
 that you may assist me in a singular dilemma." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 349 
 
 " I shall be very glad to do so." 
 
 " Thank you. This is the affair. About a year ago, 
 being unable to make my usual visit to my daughter and 
 her grandmother, I sent there in my place our head clerk, 
 young Heath, to effect the few transactions, and also to 
 take a month's recreation, for we were all overworked 
 and exhausted by the crisis. The first thing he proceeded 
 to do was to fall in love with my daughter. Of course he 
 did not mention this occurrence to me, on his return. 
 When my daughter, arrived at New York, I was again 
 detained, myself, and sent her to this place under his care. 
 He lingered rather longer than he should have done, 
 knowing the state of things ; but I suspected nothing, for 
 the idea of a clerk's marriage with the heiress of the great 
 Martinique estate never entered my mind ; moreover, I 
 have regarded her as a child ; and I sent him back with 
 various commissions at several times, once on business 
 with McLean, once to obtain my wife's signature to some 
 sacrifice of property, and so on. I really beg your par 
 don, Mr. Raleigh ; it is painful to another, I am aware, 
 to be thrust upon family confidences " 
 
 " Pray, sir, proceed," said Mr. Raleigh, wheeling his 
 chair about. 
 
 " But since you are in a manner connected with the 
 affair yourself " 
 
 " You must be aware, Mr. Laudersdale, that my chief 
 desire is the opportunity you afford me." 
 
 " I "believe so. I am happy to afford it. On the occa 
 sion of Mr. Heath's last visit to this place, Marguerite 
 drew attention to a coin whose history you heard, and the 
 other half of which Mrs. Purcell wore. Mr. Heath ob 
 tained the fragment he possessed through my wife's aunt, 
 Susanne Le Blanc ; Mrs. Purcell obtained hers through 
 
350 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 her grandmother, Susan White. Of course, these good 
 people were not slow to put the coin and the names to 
 gether ; Mr. Heath, moreover, had heard portions of the 
 history of Susanne Le Blanc when in Martinique. 
 
 " On resuming his duties in the counting-house, after 
 this little incident, one day, at the close of business-hours, 
 he demanded from me the remnants of this history with 
 which he might be unacquainted. When I paused, he 
 took up the story and finished it with ease, and and 
 poetical justice, I may say, Mr. Raleigh. Susanne was the 
 sister of Mrs. Laudersdale's father, though far younger 
 than he. She met a young American gentleman, and 
 they became interested in each other. Her brother de 
 signed her for a different fate, the governor of the 
 island, indeed, was her suitor, and forbade their inter 
 course. There were rumors of a private marriage ; her 
 apartments were searched for any record, note, or proof, 
 unsuccessfully. If there were such, they had been left in 
 the gentleman's hands for better concealment. It being 
 supposed that they continued to meet, M. Le Blanc pre 
 vailed upon the governor to arrest the lover on some tri 
 fling pretence, and send him out of the island. Shortly 
 afterward, as he once confessed to his wife, he caused a 
 circumstantial account of the death and funeral obsequies 
 of each to reach the other. Immediately he urged the 
 governor's suit again, and when she continued to resist. 
 he fixed the wedding-day himself, and ordered the trous 
 seau. Upon this, one evening, she buried the box of 
 trinkets at the foot of the oleanders, and disappeared the 
 next, and no trace of her was found. 
 
 " When I reached this point, young Heath turned to me 
 with that impudently nonchalant drawl of his, saying, 
 
 " ' And her property, sir ? ' 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 351 
 
 " ' That,' I replied innocently, ' which comprised half 
 the estate, and which she would have received on attain 
 ing the requisite age, was inherited by her brother, upon 
 her suicide.' 
 
 " * Apparent suicide, you mean/ said he ; and thereup 
 on took up the story, as I have said, matched date to date 
 and person to person, and informed me that exactly a 
 fortnight from the day of Mademoiselle Susanne Le 
 Blanc's disappearance, a young lady took rooms at a 
 hotel in a Southern city, and advertised for a situation as 
 governess, under the name of Susan White. She gave 
 no references, spoke English imperfectly, and had diffi 
 culty in obtaining one ; finally, however, she was success 
 ful, and after a few years married into the family of her 
 employer, and became the mother of Mrs. Heath. The 
 likeness of Mrs. Purcell, the grandchild of Susan White, 
 to Susanne Le Blanc, was so extraordinary, a number of 
 years ago, that, when Ursule, my daughter's nurse, first 
 saw her, she fainted with terror. My wife, you are aware, 
 was born long after these events. This governess never 
 communicated to her husband any more specific circum 
 stance of her youth than that she had lived in the West 
 Indies, and had left her family because they had resolved 
 to marry her, as she might have done, had she not died 
 shortly after her daughter's birth. Among her few valu 
 ables were found this half-coin of Heath's, and a minia 
 ture, which his mother recently gave your cousin, but 
 which, on account of its new interest, she has demanded 
 again ; for it is probably that of the ancient lover, and 
 bearing, as it does, a very striking resemblance to your 
 self, you have pronounced it to be undoubtedly that of 
 your uncle, Reuben Raleigh, and wondered how it came 
 into the possession of Mrs. Heath's mother. Now, as you 
 
352 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 may be aware, Reuben Raleigh was the name of Susaime 
 Le Blanc's lover." 
 
 " No, I was not aware." 
 
 Mr. Laudersdale's countenance, which had been ani 
 mated in narration, suddenly fell. 
 
 " I was in hopes," he resumed, "I thought, my 
 relation of these occurrences may have been very con 
 fused ; but it is as plain as daylight to me, that Susanne 
 Le Blanc and Susan White are one, and that the property 
 of the first is due to the heirs of the last." 
 
 " Without doubt, sir." 
 
 " The same is plain to the Heaths. I am sure that 
 Marguerite will accept our decision in the matter, sure 
 that no daughter of mine would retain a fraudulent penny ; 
 for retain it she could, since there is not sufficient proof 
 in any court, if we chose to contest ; but it will beggar 
 her." 
 
 " How, sir ? Beggar her to divide her property ? " 
 
 " It is a singular division. The interest due on Su- 
 sanne's moiety swells it enormously. Add to this, that, 
 after M. Le Blanc's death, Madame Le Blanc, a much 
 younger person, did not so well understand the manage 
 ment of affairs, the property depreciated, and many losses 
 were encountered, and it happens that the sum due 
 Mrs. Heath covers the whole amount that Marguerite 
 possesses." 
 
 " Now, then, sir ? " exclaimed Mr. Raleigh, interroga 
 tively. 
 
 " Now, then, Mrs. Heath requests my daughter's hand 
 for her son, and offers to set off to him, at once, such 
 sum as would constitute his half of her new property 
 upon her decease, and allow him to enter our house as 
 special partner." 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 353 
 
 Ah ! " 
 
 " This does not look so unreasonable. Last night he 
 proposed formally to Marguerite, who is still ignorant of 
 these affairs, and she refused him. I have urged her dif 
 ferently, I can do no more than urge, and she re 
 mains obdurate. To accumulate misfortunes, we escaped 
 1857 by a miracle. We have barely recovered ; and 
 now various disasters striking us, the loss of the Os- 
 prey the first and the chief of them, we are to-day on 
 the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing but the entrance of 
 this fortune can save us from ruin." 
 
 " Unfortunate ! " said Mr. Raleigh, " most unfortu 
 nate ! And can I serve you at this point ? " 
 
 " Not at all, sir," said Mr. Laudersdale, with sudden 
 erectness. " No, I have but one hope. It has seemed 
 to me barely possible that your uncle may have commu 
 nicated to you events of his early life, that you may 
 have heard, that there may have been papers telling of 
 the real fate of Susanne Le Blanc." 
 
 "None that I know of," said Mr. Raleigh, after a 
 pause. " My uncle was a very reserved person. I often 
 imagined that his youth had not been without its passages, 
 something to account for his unvarying depression. In 
 one letter, indeed, I asked him for such a narration. He 
 promised to give it to me shortly, the next mail, per 
 haps. The next mail I received nothing ; and after that 
 he made no allusion to the request." 
 
 " Indeed ? Indeed ? I should say, pardon me, Mr. 
 Raleigh, that your portion of the next mail met with 
 some accident. Your servants could not explain it ? " 
 
 " There is Capua, who was majordomo. We can in 
 quire," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile, rising and ringing 
 for that functionary. 
 
354 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 On Capua's appearance, the question was asked, if he 
 had ever secretly detained letter or paper of any kind. 
 
 " Lors, massa ! I alwes knew 't would come to dis ! " 
 he replied. " No, massa, neber ! " shaking his head with 
 repeated emphasis. 
 
 " I thought you might have met with some accident, 
 Capua," said his master. 
 
 " Axerden be , beg massa's parden ; but such 
 
 s'picions poison any family's peace, and make a feller 
 done forgit hisself." 
 
 " Very well," said Mr. Raleigh, who was made to be 
 lieve by this vehemence in what at first had seemed a 
 mere fantasy. " Only remember, that, if you could as 
 sure me that any papers had been destroyed, the assur 
 ance would be of value." 
 
 " 'Deed, Mass Roger ? Dat alters de case," said Capua, 
 grinning. " Dere 's been a good many papers 'stroyed in 
 dis yer house, firs' an' last." 
 
 " Which in particular ? " 
 
 " Don' rekerlember, massa, 's so long ago." 
 
 " But make an effort." 
 
 " Well, Massa Raleigh, 'pears to me I do 'member 
 suthin', I do b'lieve yes, dis 's jist how 't was. Spect 
 I might as well make a crean breast ob it. I 's alwes had 
 it hangin' roun' my conscious ; do' no' but I 's done grad 
 to git rid ob it. Alwes spected massa 'd be 'xcusin' Cap 
 o' turnin' tief." 
 
 " That is the last accusation I should make against you, 
 Capua." 
 
 " But dar I stan's convicted." 
 
 " Out with it, Capua ! " said Mr. Laudersdale, laughing. 
 
 " Lord, Massa Lausdel ! how you do scare a chile ! 
 Didn' know mass'r was dar. See, Mass Roger, dis 's jist 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 355 
 
 how 't was. Spec you mind dat time when all dese yer 
 folks lib'd acrost de lake dat summer, an' massa was pos 
 sessed to 'most lib dar too ? Well, one day, massa mind 
 Ol' Cap's runnin' acrost in de rain an' in great state ob 
 excitement to tell him his house done burnt up ? " 
 
 " Yes. What then ? " 
 
 " Dat day, massa, de letters had come from Massa 
 Reuben out in Indy, an' massa's pipe kinder 'tracted 
 Cap's 'tention, an' so he jist set down in massa's chair an' 
 took a smoke. Bimeby Cap thought, ' Ef massa come 
 an' ketch him ! ' an' put down de pipe an' went to 
 work, and bimeby I smelt mighty queer smell, massa, 
 'bout de house, made him tink Ol' Mck was come hissef 
 for Ol' Cap, an' I come back into dis yer room an' Massa 
 Reuben's letters from Indy was jist most done burnt up, 
 he cotched 'em in dese yer ol' brack han's, Mass Roger, 
 an' jist whipt 'em up in dat high croset." 
 
 And having arrived at great confusion in his personal 
 pronouns, Capua mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, 
 thrust his pocket-knife through a crack of the wainscot, 
 opened- the door of a small unseen closet, and, after grop 
 ing about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in 
 the lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full 
 of charred and blackened papers, talking glibly all the 
 while. 
 
 " Ef massa 'd jist listen to reason," he said, " 'stead o' 
 flyin' into one ob his tantrums, I might sprain de matter. 
 You see, I knew Mass Roger 'd feel so oncomforble and 
 remorsefle to find his ol' uncle's letters done 'stroyed, an' 
 't was all by axerden, an' couldn' help it noways, massa, 
 an' been done sorry eber since, an' wished dar warn't no 
 letters dis side de Atlantic nor torrer, ebery day I woke." 
 
 After which plea, Capua awaited his sentence. 
 
356 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " That will do, it 's over now, old boy," said Mr. 
 Ealeigh, with his usual smile. 
 
 " Now, massa, you a'n't gwine " 
 
 " No, Capua, I 'm going to do nothing but look at the 
 papers." 
 
 "But massa's " 
 
 " You need not be troubled, I said, I was not." 
 
 " But, massa, s'pose I deserve a thrashing ? " 
 
 " There 's no danger of your getting it, you blameless 
 Ethiop ! " 
 
 Upon which pacific assurance, Capua departed. 
 
 The two gentlemen now proceeded to the examination 
 of these fragments. Of the letters nothing whatever was 
 to be made. From one of them dropped a little yellow 
 folded paper that fell apart in its creases. Put together, 
 it formed a sufficiently legible document, and they read 
 the undoubted marriage-certificate of Susanne Le Blanc 
 and Reuben Raleigh. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Mr. Laudersdale, after a moment. 
 " I am sorry, instead of a fortune, to give them a bar- 
 sinister." 
 
 " Your daughter is ignorant ? your wife ? " 
 
 " Entirely. Will you allow me to invite them in here ? 
 They should see this paper." 
 
 " You do not anticipate any unpleasant effect ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest. Marguerite has no notion of want 
 or of pride. Her first and only thought will be sa 
 cousine ffelene" And Mr. Laudersdale went out. 
 
 Some light feet were to be heard pattering down the 
 stairs, a mingling of voices, then Mr. Laudersdale passed 
 on, and Marguerite tapped, entered, and closed the door. 
 
 " My father has told me something I but half under 
 stand," said she, with her hand on the door. " Unless I 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 357 
 
 marry Mr. Heath, I lose my wealth ? What does that 
 signify ? Would all the mines of Peru tempt me ? " 
 
 Mr. Raleigh remained leaning against the corner of the 
 bookcase. She advanced and stood at the foot of the 
 table, nearly opposite him. Her lips were glowing as if 
 the fire of her excitement were fanned by every breath ; 
 her eyes, half hidden by the veiling lids, seemed to throw 
 a light out beneath them and down her cheek. She wore 
 a mantle of swan's down closely wrapped round her, for 
 she had complained ceaselessly of the chilly summer. 
 
 " Mr. Raleigh," she said, " I am poorer than you are, 
 now. I am no longer an heiress." 
 
 At this moment, the door opened again and Mrs. Lau- 
 dersdale entered. At a step she stood in the one sun 
 beam ; at another, the shutters blew together, and the 
 room was left in semi-darkness, with her figure gleaming 
 through it, outlined and starred in tremulous evanescent 
 light. For an instant both Marguerite and Mr. Raleigh 
 seemed to be hah awe-struck by the radiant creature 
 shining out of the dark ; but directly, Marguerite sprang 
 back and stripped away the torrid nasturtium-vine which 
 her mother had perhaps been winding in her hair when 
 her husband spoke with her, and whose other end, long 
 and laden with fragrant flame, still hung in her hand and 
 along her dress. Laughing, Marguerite in turn wound it 
 about herself, and the flowers, so lately plucked from the 
 bath of hot air, where they had lain steeping in sun, 
 flashed through the air a second, and then played all their 
 faint spirit-like luminosity about their new wearer. She 
 seemed sphered in beauty, like the Soul of Morning in 
 some painter's phantasy, with all great stars blossoming 
 out in floral life about her, colorless, yet brilliant in shape 
 and light. It was too much ; Mr. Raleigh opened the 
 
358 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 window and let in the daylight again, and a fresh air that 
 lent the place a gayer life. As he did so, Mr. Lauders- 
 dale entered, and with him Mr. Heath and his mother. 
 Mr. Laudersdale briefly recapitulated the facts, and 
 added, 
 
 " Communicating my doubts to Mr. Raleigh, he has 
 kindly furnished me with the marriage-certificate of his 
 uncle and Mademoiselle Le Blanc. And as Mr. Reuben 
 Raleigh was living within thirteen years, you perceive 
 that your claims are invalidated." 
 
 There was a brief silence while the paper was in 
 spected. 
 
 " I am still of opinion that my grandmother's second 
 marriage was legal," replied Mr. Heath ; " yet I should 
 be loath to drag up her name and subject ourselves to a 
 possibility of disgrace. So, though the estate is ours, we 
 can do without it ! " 
 
 Meanwhile, Marguerite had approached her father, and 
 was patching together the important scraps. 
 
 " What has this to do with it ? " said she. " You ad 
 mitted before this discovery did you not ? that the 
 property was no longer mine. These people are Aunt 
 Susanne's heirs still, if not legally, yet justly. I will not 
 retain a sous of it ! My father shall instruct my lawyer, 
 Mrs. Heath, to make all necessary transfers to yourself. 
 Let us wish you good morning ! " And she opened the 
 door for them to pass. 
 
 " Marguerite ! are you mad ? " asked her father, as the 
 door closed. 
 
 " No, father, but honest, which is the same thing," 
 she responded, still standing near it. 
 
 " True," he said, in a low tone like a groan. " But we 
 are ruined." 
 

 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 359 
 
 " Ruined ? Oh, no ! You are well and strong. So 
 am I. I can work. I shall get much embroidery to do, 
 for I can do it perfectly ; the nuns taught me. I have a 
 thousand resources. And there is something my mother 
 can do ; it is her great secret ; she has played at it sum 
 mer after summer. She has moulded leaves and flowers 
 and twined them round beautiful faces in clay, long 
 enough ; now she shall carve them in stone, and you will 
 be rich again ! " 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale sat in a low chair while Marguerite 
 spoke, the nasturtium-vine clinging round her feet like a 
 gorgeous snake, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, and 
 her attitude that of some queen who has lost her crown 
 and is totally bewildered by this strange conduct on the 
 part of circumstances. All the strength and energy that 
 had been the deceits of manner were utterly fallen away, 
 and it was plain, that, whatever the endowment was 
 which Marguerite had mentioned, she could only play 
 at it. She was but a woman, sheer woman, with the 
 woman's one capability, and the exercise of that denied 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Laudersdale remained with his eyes fixed on her, 
 and lost, it seemed, to the presence of others. 
 
 " The disgrace is bitter," he murmured. " I have kept 
 my name so proudly and so long ! But that is little. It 
 is for you I fear. I have stood in your sunshine and 
 shadowed your life, dear ! At least," he continued, after 
 a pause, " I can place you beyond the reach of suffering. 
 I must finish my lonely way." 
 
 Mrs. Laudersdale looked up slowly and met his earnest 
 glance. 
 
 " Must I leave you ? " she exclaimed, with a wild ter 
 ror in her tone. " Do you mean that I shall go away ? 
 
360 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 Oh, you need not care for me, you need never love 
 me, you may always be cold, but I must serve you, 
 live with you, die with you ! " And she sprang forward 
 with outstretched arms. 
 
 He caught her before her foot became entangled in the 
 long folds of her skirt, drew her to himself, and held her. 
 What he murmured was inaudible to the others ; but a 
 tint redder than roses are swam to her cheek, and a smile 
 broke over her face like a reflection in rippling water. 
 She held his arm tightly in her hand, and erect and 
 proud, as it were with a new life, bent toward Roger 
 Raleigh. 
 
 " You see ! " said she. " My husband loves me. And 
 I, it seems at this moment that I have never loved any 
 other than him ! " 
 
 There came a quick step along the matting, the handle 
 of the door turned in Marguerite's resisting grasp, and 
 Mrs. PurcelFs light muslins swept through. Mr. Raleigh 
 advanced to meet her, a singular light upon his face, a 
 strange accent of happiness in his voice. 
 
 " Since you seem to be a part of the affair," she said in 
 a low tone, while her lip quivered with anger and scorn, 
 " concerning which I have this moment been informed, 
 pray take to Mr. Laudersdale my brother's request to 
 enter the house of Day, Knight, and Company, from this 
 day." 
 
 " Has he made such a request ? " asked Mr. Raleigh. 
 
 " He shall make it ! " she murmured swiftly, and was 
 gone. 
 
 That night a telegram flashed over the wires, and 
 thenceforth, on the great financial tide, the ship Day, 
 Knight, and Company lowered its peak to none. 
 
 The day crept through until evening, deepening into 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 361 
 
 genuine heat, and Marguerite sat waiting for Mr. Raleigh 
 to come and bid her farewell. It seemed that his plans 
 were altered, or possibly he was gone, and at sunset she 
 went out alone. The cardinals that here and there 
 showed their red caps above the bank, the wild roses that 
 still lined the way, the grapes that blossomed and red 
 dened and ripened year after year ungathered, did not 
 once lift her eyes. She sat down, at last, on an old fallen 
 trunk cushioned with moss, half of it forever wet in the 
 brook that babbled to the lake, and waited for the day to 
 quench itself in coolness and darkness. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr. Raleigh, leaping from the other side 
 of the brook to the mossy trunk, " is it you ? I have been 
 seeking you, and what sprite sends you to me ? " 
 
 " I thought you were going away," she said, abruptly. 
 
 " That is a broken paving-stone," he answered, seating 
 himself beside her, and throwing his hat on the grass. 
 
 "You asked me, yesterday, if I confessed to being a 
 myth," she said, after a time. " If I should go back to 
 Martinique, I should become one in your remembrance, 
 should I not ? You would think of me just as you would 
 have thought of the Dryad yesterday, if she had stepped 
 from the tree and stepped back again ? " 
 
 " Are you going to Martinique ? " he asked, with a 
 total change of face and manner. 
 
 " I don't know. I am tired of this ; and I cannot live 
 on an ice-field. I had such life at the South ! It is ' as 
 if a rose should shut and be a bud again.' I need my 
 native weather, heat and sea." 
 
 " How can you go to Martinique ? " 
 
 Oh, I forgot!" 
 
 Mr. Raleigh did not reply, and they both sat listening 
 to the faint night-side noises of the world. 
 16 
 
362 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 " You are very quiet," he said at last, ceasing to fling 
 waifs upon the stream. 
 
 " And you could be very gay, I believe." 
 
 " Yes. I am full of exuberant spirits. Do you know 
 what day it is ? " 
 
 " It is my birthday." 
 
 " It is my birthday ! " 
 
 " How strange ! The Jews would tell you that this 
 sweet first of August was the birthday of the world. 
 4 'T is like the birthday of the world, 
 When earth was born in bloom,' " 
 
 she sang, but paused before her voice should become 
 hoarse in tears. 
 
 " Do you know what you promised me on my birthday ? 
 I am going to claim it." 
 
 "The present. You shall have a cast which I had 
 made from one of my mother's fancies or bass-reliefs, 
 she only does the front of anything, a group of fleurs- 
 de-lis whose outlines make a child's face, my face." 
 
 " It is more than any likeness in stone or pencil that I 
 shall ask of you." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " You cannot imagine ? " 
 
 " Monsieur" she whispered, turning toward him, and 
 blushing in the twilight, " est ce que c'est moi ? " 
 
 There came out the low west-wind singing to itself 
 through the leaves, the drone of a late-carousing honey 
 bee, the lapping of the water on the shore, the song of the 
 wood-thrush replete with the sweetness of its half-melody ; 
 and. ever and anon the pensive cry of the whippoorwill 
 fluted across the deepening silence that summoned all 
 these murmurs into hearing. A rustle like the breeze 
 in the birches passed, and Mrs. Purcell retarded her 
 
MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 363 
 
 rapid step to survey the woods-people who rose out of 
 the shade and now went on together with her. It seemed 
 as if the loons and whippoorwills grew wild with sorrow 
 that night, and after a while Mrs. Purcell ceased her 
 lively soliloquy, and as they walked they listened. Sud 
 denly Mr. Raleigh turned. Mrs. Purcell was not beside 
 him. They had been walking on the brook-edge ; the 
 path was full of gaps and cuts. With a fierce shudder 
 and misgiving, he hurriedly retraced his steps, and 
 searched and called ; then, with the same haste, rejoin 
 ing Marguerite, gained the house, for lanterns and assist 
 ance. Mrs. Purcell sat at the drawing-room window. 
 
 " Comment ? " cried Marguerite, breathlessly. 
 
 " Oh, I had no idea of walking in fog up to my chin," 
 said Mrs. Purcell ; " so I took the short cut." 
 
 " You give me credit for the tragic element," she con 
 tinued, under her breath, as Mr. Raleigh quietly passed 
 her. " That is old style. To be sure, I might as well 
 die there as in the swamps of Florida. Purcell is' or 
 dered to Florida. Of course, I am ordered too ! " And 
 she whirled him the letter which she held. 
 
 Other letters had been received with the evening mail, 
 and one that made Mr. Raleigh's return in September 
 imperative occasioned some discussion in the House of 
 Laudersdale. The result was that that gentleman secured 
 one passage more than he had intended in the spring ; and 
 if you ever watch the shipping-list, the arrival of the 
 Spray-Plough at Calcutta, with Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh 
 among the passengers, will be seen by you as soon as me. 
 
 Later in the evening of this same eventful day, as Mr. 
 Raleigh and Marguerite sat together in the moonlight that 
 flooded the great window, Mrs. Laudersdale passed them 
 and went down the garden to the lake. She wore some 
 
364 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 white garment, as in her youth, and there was a dreamy 
 sweetness in her eye and an unspoken joy about her lips. 
 Mr. Raleigh could not help thinking it was a singular hap 
 piness, this that opened before her ; it seemed to be like a 
 fruit plucked from the stem and left to mature in the sun 
 shine by itself, late and lingering, never sound at heart. 
 She floated on, with the light in her dusky eyes and the 
 seldom rose on her cheek, floated on from moonbeam to 
 moonbeam, and the lovers brought back their glances 
 and gave them to each other. For one, life opened a 
 labyrinth of warmth and light and joy ; for the other, 
 youth was passed, destiny not to be appeased: if his 
 affection enriched her, the best he could do was to be 
 stow it; in his love there would yet be silent reserva 
 tions. 
 
 "Mr Raleigh," said Marguerite, "did you ever love 
 my mother ? " 
 
 " Once I thought I did." 
 
 " And now ? " 
 
 " Whereas I was blind, now I see." 
 
 " Listen ! Mrs. Purcell is singing in the drawing- 
 room." 
 
 " Through lonely summers, where the roses blow 
 
 Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets, 
 I sit and hark, or in the starry dark, 
 
 Or when the night-rain on the hill-side beats. 
 
 " Alone ! But when the eternal summers flow 
 
 And refluent drown in song all moan, 
 Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and haste 
 Through heaven. And I shall be no more alone ! " 
 
 " What a voice she sings with to-night ! " said Mar 
 guerite. " It is stripped of all its ornamental disguises, 
 so slender, yet piercing ! " 
 
MIDSUMMEE AND MAY. 365 
 
 " A needle can pain like a sword-blade. There goes 
 the moon in clouds. Hark ! What was that ? A cry ? " 
 And he started to his feet. 
 
 " No," she said, " it is only the wild music of the 
 lake, the voices of shadows calling to shadows." 
 
 " There it is again, but fainter ; the wind carries it the 
 other way." 
 
 " It is a desolating wind." 
 
 " And the light on the land is like that of eclipse ! " 
 
 He stooped and raised her and folded her in his arms. 
 
 " I have a strange, terrible sense of calamity, Mig- 
 nonne ! " he said. " Let it strike, so it spare you ! " 
 
 " Nothing can harm us," she replied, clinging to him. 
 " Even death cannot come .between us ! " 
 
 " Marguerite ! " said Mr. Laudersdale, entering, " where 
 is your mother ? " 
 
 " She went down to the lake, sir." 
 
 " She cannot possibly have gone out upon it ! " 
 
 " Oh, she frequently does ; and so do we all." 
 
 " But this high wind has risen since. The flaws " 
 And he went out hastily. 
 
 There flashed on Mr. Raleigh's mental sight a vision of 
 the moonlit lake, one instant. A boat, upon its side, bend 
 ing its white sail down the depths ; a lifted arm wound in 
 the fatal rope ; a woman's form, hanging by that arm, 
 sustained in the dark transparent tide of death ; the wild 
 wind blowing over, the moonlight glazing ah 1 . For that 
 instant he remained still as stone ; the next, he strode 
 away, and dashed down to the lake-shore. It seemed as 
 if his vision yet continued. They had already put out in 
 boats ; he was too late. He waited in ghastly suspense 
 till they rowed home with their slow freight. And then 
 his arm supported the head with its long, uncoiling, heavy 
 
366 MIDSUMMER AND MAY. 
 
 hair, and lifted the limbs, round which the drapery flowed 
 like a pall on sculpture, till another man took the burden 
 from him and went up to the house with his own. 
 
 When Mr. Kaleigh entered the house again, it was at 
 break of dawn. Some one opened the library-door and 
 beckoned him in. Marguerite sprang into his arms. 
 
 What if she had died ? " said Mrs. Purcell, with her 
 swift satiric breath, and folding a web of muslin over her 
 arm. " See ! I had got out the shroud. As it is, we 
 drink skal and say grace at breakfast. The funeral 
 baked-meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-feast. 
 You men are all alike. Le JKoi est mortf Vive la 
 Seine/" 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 UST a capful of wind, and Dan shook loose 
 the linen, and a straight shining streak with 
 specks of foam shot after us. The mast bent 
 like eel-grass, and our keel was half out of the 
 water. Faith belied her name, and clung to the sides 
 with her ten finger-nails ; but as for me, I liked it. 
 
 "Take the stick, Georgie," said Dan, suddenly, his 
 cheeks white. " Head her up the wind Steady. Sight 
 the figure-head on Pearson's loft. Here 's too much sail 
 for a frigate." 
 
 But before the words were well uttered, the mast 
 doubled up and coiled like a whip-lash, there was a 
 report like the crack of doom, and half of the thing 
 crashed short over the bows, dragging the heavy sail 
 in the waves. 
 
 Then there came a great laugh of thunder close above, 
 and the black cloud dropped like a curtain round us : 
 the squall had broken. 
 
 " Cut it off, Dan ! quick ! " I cried. 
 " Let it alone," said he, snapping together his jack- 
 knife ; " it 's as good as a best bower-anchor. Now I '11 
 take the tiller, Georgie. Strong little hand," said he, 
 bending so that I did n't see his face. "And lucky it's 
 16* x 
 
370 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 good as strong. It's saved us all. My God, Georgie ! 
 where 's Faith ? " 
 
 I turned. There was no Faith in the boat. We both 
 sprang to- our feet, and so the tiller swung round and 
 threw us broadside to the wind, and between the dragging 
 mast and the centre-board drowning seemed too good 
 for us. 
 
 " You '11 have to cut it off," I cried again ; but he had 
 already ripped half through the canvas, and was casting 
 it loose. 
 
 At length he gave his arm a toss. With the next mo 
 ment, I never shall forget the look of horror that froze 
 Dan's face. 
 
 " I Ve thrown her off ! " he exclaimed. " I 've thrown 
 her off!" 
 
 He reached his whole length over the boat, I ran to his 
 side, and perhaps our motion impelled it, or perhaps some 
 unseen hand ; for he caught at an end of rope, drew it in 
 a second, let go and clutched at a handful of the sail, and 
 then I saw how it had twisted round and swept poor little 
 Faith over, and she had swung there in it, like a dead 
 butterfly in a chrysalis. The lightnings were slipping 
 clown into the water like blades of fire everywhere around 
 us, with short, sharp volleys of thunder, and the waves 
 were more than I ever rode this side of the bar before or 
 since, and we took in water every time our hearts beat ; 
 but we never once thought of our own danger while we 
 bent to pull dear little Faith out of hers ; and that done, 
 Dan broke into a great hearty fit of crying that I 'm sure 
 he 'd no need to be ashamed of. But it did n't last long ; 
 he just up and dashed off the tears and set himself at 
 work again, while I was down on the floor rubbing Faith. 
 There she lay like a broken lily, with no life in her little 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 371 
 
 white face, and no breath, and maybe a pulse and maybe 
 not. I could n't hear a word Dan said, for the wind ; and 
 the rain was pouring through us. I saw him take out 
 the oars, but I knew they 'd do no good in such a chop, 
 even if they did n't break ; and pretty soon he found it 
 so, for he drew them, in and begun to untie the anchor- 
 rope and wind it round his waist. I sprang to him. 
 
 " What are you doing, Dan ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 " I can swim, at least," he answered. 
 
 " And tow us ? a mile ? You know you can't ! It 's 
 madness ! " 
 
 "I must try. Little Faith will die, if we don't get 
 ashore." 
 
 " She 's dead now, Dan." 
 
 " What ! No, no, she is n't. Faith is n't dead. But 
 we must get ashore." 
 
 " Dan," I cried, ch'nging to his arm, " Faith 's only 
 one. But if you die so, and you will ! I shall die 
 too." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes ; because, if it had n't been for me, you would n't 
 have been here at all." 
 
 "And is that all the reason ? " he asked, still at work. 
 
 " Reason enough," said I. 
 
 " Not quite," said he. 
 
 " Dan, for my sake " 
 
 " I can't, Georgie. Don't ask me. I must n't " 
 and here he stopped short, with the coil of rope in his 
 hand, and fixed me with his eye, and his look was ter 
 rible " we must n't let Faith die." 
 
 " Well," I said, " try it, if you dare, and as true as 
 there 's a Lord in heaven, I '11 cut the rope ! " 
 
 He hesitated, for he saw I was resolute ; and I would, 
 
372 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 I declare I would have done it ; for, do you know, at the 
 moment, I hated the little dead thing in the bottom of 
 the boat there. 
 
 Just then there came a streak of sunshine through the 
 gloom where we 'd been plunging between wind and wa 
 ter, and then a patch of blue sky, and the great cloud 
 went blowing down river. Dan threw away the rope 
 and took out the oars again. 
 
 " Give me one, Dan," said I ; but he shook his head. 
 " O Dan, because I 'm so sorry ! " 
 
 " See to her, then, fetch Faith to," he replied, not 
 looking at me, and making up with great sturdy pulls. 
 
 So I busied myself, though I could n't do a bit of good. 
 The instant we touched bottom, Dan snatched her, sprang 
 through the water and up the landing. I stayed behind ; 
 as the boat recoiled, pushed in a little, fastened the anchor 
 and threw it over, and then followed. 
 
 Our house was next the landing, and there Dan had 
 carried Faith ; and when I reached it, a great fire was 
 roaring up the chimney, and the tea-kettle hung over it, 
 and he was rubbing Faith's feet hard enough to strike 
 sparks. I could n't understand exactly what made Dan 
 so fiercely earnest, for I thought I knew just how he felt 
 about Faith ; but suddenly, when nothing seemed to an 
 swer, and he stood up and our eyes met, I saw such a 
 haggard, conscience-stricken face that it all rushed over 
 me. But now we had done what we could, and then I 
 felt all at once as if every moment that I effected nothing 
 was drawing out murder. Something flashed by the win 
 dow, I tore out of the house and threw up my arms, I 
 don't know whether I screamed or not, but I caught the 
 doctor's eye, and he jumped from his gig and followed me 
 in. We had a siege of it. But at length, with hot blank- 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 373 
 
 ets, and hot water, and hot brandy dribbled down her 
 throat, a little pulse began to play upon Faith's temple, 
 and a little pink to beat up and down her cheek, and she 
 opened her pretty dark eyes and lifted herself and wrung 
 the water out of her braids ; then she sank back. 
 
 " Faith ! Faith ! speak to me ! " said Dan, close in her 
 ear. " Don't you know me ? " 
 
 " Go away," she said, hoarsely, pushing his face with 
 her flat wet palm. " You let the sail take me over and 
 drown me, while you kissed Georgie's hand." 
 
 I flung my hand before her eyes. 
 
 " Is there a kiss on those fingers ? " I cried, in a blaze. 
 " He never kissed my hands or my lips. Dan is your 
 husband, Faith ! " 
 
 For all answer Faith hid her head and gave a little 
 moan. Somehow I could n't stand that ; so I ran and put 
 my arms round her neck and lifted her face and kissed it, 
 and then we cried together. And Dan, walking the floor, 
 took up his hat and went out, while she never cast a look 
 after him. To think of such a great strong nature and 
 such a powerful depth of feeling being wasted on such a 
 little limp rag ! I cried as much for that as anything. 
 Then I helped Faith into my bedroom, and running home, 
 I got her some dry clothes, after rummaging enough, 
 dear knows ! for you 'd be more like to find her nightcap 
 in the tea-caddy than elsewhere, and I made her a cor 
 ner on the settle, for she was afraid to stay in the bed 
 room, and when she was comfortably covered there she 
 fell asleep. Dan came in soon and sat down beside her, 
 his eyes on the floor, never glancing aside nor smiling, but 
 gloomier than the grave. As for me, I felt at ease now, 
 so I went and laid my hand on the back of his chair and 
 made him look up. I wanted he should know the same 
 
374 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 rest that I had, and perhaps he did, for, still looking 
 up, the quiet smile came floating round his lips, and his 
 eyes grew steady and sweet as they used to be before he 
 married Faith. Then I went bustling lightly about the 
 kitchen again. 
 
 "Dan," I said, "if you'd just bring me in a couple 
 of those chickens stalking out there like two gentlemen 
 from Spain." 
 
 While he. was gone I flew round and got a cake into 
 the bake-kettle, and a pan of biscuit down before the 
 fire ; and I set the tea to steep on the coals, because 
 father always likes his tea strong enough to bear up an 
 egg, after a hard day's work, and he 'd had that to-day ; 
 and I put on the coffee to boil, for I knew Dan never 
 had it at home, because Faith liked it and it did n't agree 
 with her. And then he brought me in the chickens all 
 ready for the pot, and so at last I sat down, but at the 
 opposite side of the chimney. Then he rose, and, with 
 out exactly touching me, swept me back to the other 
 side, where lay the great net I was making for father ; 
 and I took the little stool by the settle, and not far from 
 him, and went to work. 
 
 " Georgie," said Dan, at length, after he 'd watched 
 me a considerable time, " if any word I may have said 
 to-day disturbed you a moment, I want you to know that 
 it hurt me first, and just as much." 
 
 " Yes, Dan," said I. 
 
 I've always thought there was something real noble 
 between Dan and me then. There was I, well, I don't 
 mind telling you. And he, yes, I 'm sure he loved me 
 perfectly, you must n't be startled, I '11 tell you how it 
 was, and always had, only may be he had n't known 
 it; but it was deep down in his heart just the same, 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 375 
 
 and by and by it stirred. There we were, both of us 
 thoroughly conscious, yet neither of us expressing it by 
 a word, and trying not to by a look, both of us content 
 to wait for the next life, when we could belong to one 
 another. In those days I contrived to have it always 
 pleasure enough for me just to know that Dan was in 
 the room ; and though that was n't often, I never grudged 
 Faith her right in him, perhaps because I knew she did 
 n't care anything about it. You see, this is how it was. 
 When Dan was a lad of sixteen, and took care of His 
 mother, a ship went to pieces down there on the island. 
 It was one of the worst storms that ever whistled, and 
 though crowds were on the shore, it was impossible to 
 reach her. They could see the poor wretches hanging 
 in the rigging, and dropping one by one, and they could 
 only stay and sicken, for the surf stove the boats, and 
 they did n't know then how to send out ropes on rockets 
 or on cannon-balls, and so the night fell, and the people 
 wrung their hands and left the sea to its prey, and felt 
 as if blue sky could never come again. And with the 
 bright, keen morning not a vestige of the ship, but here 
 a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill 
 a great dog watching over a little child that he'd kept 
 warm all night. Dan, he 'd got up at turn of tide, and 
 walked down, the sea running over the road knee- 
 deep, for there was too much swell for boats ; and 
 when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her 
 up to town. He did n't take her home, for he saw that 
 what clothes she had were the very finest, made as 
 delicately, with seams like the hair-strokes on that 
 heart's-ease there; and he concluded that he couldn't 
 bring her up as she ought to be. So he took her round 
 to the rich men, and represented that she was the child 
 
376 THE SOUTH BKEAKEK. 
 
 of a lady, and that a poor fellow like himself for Dan 
 was older than his years, you see could n't do her 
 justice : she was a slight little thing, and needed dainty 
 training and fancy food, may be a matter of seven years 
 old, and she spoke some foreign language, and perhaps 
 she did n't speak it plain, for nobody knew what it was. 
 However, everybody was very much interested, and 
 everybody was willing to give and to help, but nobody 
 wanted to take her, and the upshot of it was that Dan 
 refused all their offers and took her himself. 
 
 His mother 'd been in to our house all the afternoon 
 before, and she 'd kept taking her pipe out of her mouth, 
 she had the asthma, and smoked, and kept sighing. 
 
 " This storm '& going to bring me something," says 
 she, in a mighty miserable tone. " I 'm sure of it ! " 
 
 " No harm, I hope, Miss Devereux," said mother. 
 
 " Well, Rhody," mother's father, he was a queer 
 kind, called his girls all after the thirteen States, and 
 there being none left for Uncle Mat, he called him after 
 the state of matrimony, " Well, Rhody," she replied, 
 rather dismally, and knocking the ashes out of the bowl, 
 " I don't know ; but I '11 have faith to believe that the 
 Lord won't send me no ill without distincter warning. 
 And that it 's good I have faith to believe." 
 
 And so when the child appeared, and had no name, 
 and could n't answer for herself, Mrs. Devereux called 
 her Faith. 
 
 We 're a people of presentiments down here on the 
 Flats, and well we may be. You 'd own up yourself, 
 maybe, if in the dark of the night, you locked in sleep, 
 there's a knock on the door enough to wake the dead, 
 and you start up and listen and nothing follows; and 
 falling back, you 're just dozing off, and there it is once 
 
THE SOUTH BEEAKEK. 377 
 
 more, so that the lad in the next room cries out, " Who 's 
 that, mother ? " No one answering, you 're half lost 
 again, when rap comes the hand again, the loudest of 
 the three, and you spring to the door and open it, and 
 there 's naught there but a wind from the graves blow 
 ing in your face ; and after a while you learn that in 
 that hour of that same night your husband was lost at 
 sea. Well, that happened to Mrs. Devereux. And I 
 have n't time to tell you the warnings I 've known of. 
 As for Faith, I mind that she said herself, as we were 
 in the boat for that clear midnight sail, that the sea had 
 a spite against her, but third time was trying time. 
 
 So Faith grew up, and Dan sent her to school what he 
 could, for he set store by her. She was always ailing, 
 a little, wilful, pettish thing, but pretty as a flower ; 
 and folks put things into her head, and she began to think 
 she was some great shakes; and she may have been a 
 matter of seventeen years old when Mrs. Devereux died. 
 Dan, as simple at twenty-six as he had been ten years 
 before, thought to go on just in the old way, but the 
 neighbors were one too many for him ; and they all rep 
 resented that it would never do, and so on, till the poor 
 fellow got perplexed and vexed and half beside himself. 
 There was n't the first thing she could do for herself, and 
 he could n't afford to board her out, for Dan was only a 
 laboring-man, mackerelling all summer and shoemaking 
 all winter, less the dreadful times when he stayed out 
 on the Georges ; and then he could n't afford, either, to 
 keep her there and ruin the poor girl's reputation ; 
 and what did Dan do but come to me with it all ? 
 
 Now for a number of years I 'd been up in the other 
 part of the town with Aunt Netty, who kept a shop that 
 I tended between schools and before and after, and I 'd 
 
378 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 almost forgotten there was such a soul on earth as Dan 
 Devereux, though he 'd not forgotten me. I 'd got 
 through the Grammar and had a year in the High, and 
 suppose I should have finished with an education and 
 gone off teaching somewhere, instead of being here now, 
 cheerful as heart could wish, with a little black-haired 
 hussy tiltering on the back of my chair. Roily, get 
 down ! Her name 's Laura, for his mother. I mean 
 I might have done all this, if at that time mother had n't 
 been thrown on her back, and been bedridden ever since. 
 I have n't said much about mother yet, but there all the 
 time she was, just as she is to-day, in her little tidy bed 
 in one corner of the great kitchen, sweet as a saint, and 
 as patient ; and I had to come and keep house for 
 father. He never meant that I should lose by it, father 
 did n't ; begged, borrowed, or stolen, bought or hired, I 
 should have my books, he said : he 's mighty proud of my 
 learning, though between you and me it 's little enough 
 to be proud of; but the neighbors think I know 'most 
 as much as the minister, and I let 'em think. Well, 
 while Mrs. Devereux was sick I was over there a good 
 deal, for if Faith had one talent, it was total incapa 
 city, and there had a chance of knowing the stuff that 
 Dan was made of; and I declare to man 't would have 
 touched a heart of stone to see the love between the two. 
 She thought Dan held up the sky, and Dan thought she 
 was the sky. It 's no wonder, the risks our men lead 
 can't make common-sized women out of their wives and 
 mothers. But I had n't been coming in and out, busying 
 about where Dan was, all that time, without making any 
 mark ; though he was so lost in grief about his mother 
 that he did n't take notice of his other feelings, or think 
 of himself at all. And who could care the less about 
 
THE SOUTH BKEAKER. 379 
 
 him for that ? It always brings down a woman to see 
 a man wrapt in some sorrow that 's lawful and tender as 
 it is large. And when he came and told me what the 
 neighbors said he must do with Faith, the blood stood 
 still in my heart. 
 
 " Ask mother, Dan," says I, for I could n't have ad 
 vised him. " She knows best about everything." 
 
 So he asked her. 
 
 " I think, I 'm sorry to think, for I fear she '11 not 
 make you a good wife," said mother, " but that perhaps 
 her love for you will teach her to be, you 'd best marry 
 Faith." 
 
 " But I can't marry her ! " said Dan, half choking ; " I 
 don't want to marry her, it it makes me uncomfort- 
 able-like to think of such a thing. I care for the child 
 plenty Besides," said Dan, catching at a bright hope, 
 " I 'm not sure that she 'd have me." 
 
 " Have you, poor boy ! What else can she do ? " 
 
 Dan groaned. 
 
 " Poor little Faith ! " said mother. " She 's so pretty, 
 Dan, and she 's so young, and she 's pliant. And then 
 how can we tell what may turn up about her some day ? 
 She may be a duke's daughter yet, who knows ? 
 Think of the stroke of good-fortune she may give you ! " 
 
 " But I don't love her," said Dan, as a finality. 
 
 " Perhaps It is n't You don't love any one 
 else ? " 
 
 " No," said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all 
 with reflection. And then, as his eyes went wandering, 
 there came over them a misty look, just as the haze 
 creeps between you and some object away out at sea, and 
 he seemed to be sifting his very soul. Suddenly the 
 look swept off them, and his eyes struck mine, and he 
 
380 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 turned, not having meant to, and faced me entirely, and 
 there came such a light into his countenance, such a smile 
 round his lips, such a red stamped his cheek, and he bent 
 a little, and it was just as if the angel of the Lord had 
 shaken his wings over us in passing, and we both of us 
 knew that here was a man and here was a woman, each 
 for the other, in life and death ; and I just hid my head 
 in my apron, and mother turned on her pillow with a lit 
 tle moan. How long that lasted I can't say, but by and 
 by I heard mother's voice, clear and sweet as a tolling 
 bell far away on some fair Sunday morning, 
 
 " The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is 
 in heaven : his eyes behold, his eyelids try the children 
 of men." 
 
 And nobody spoke. 
 
 " Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my 
 salvation. Thou wilt light my candle : the Lord my God 
 will enlighten my darkness. For with thee is the foun 
 tain of life : in thy light shall we see light." 
 
 Then came the hush again, and Dan started to his 
 feet, and began to walk up and down the room as if 
 something drove him ; but wearying, he stood and leaned 
 his head on the chimney there. And mother's voice 
 broke the stillness anew, and she said, 
 
 " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? His mercy 
 endureth forever. And none of them that trust in him 
 shall be desolate." 
 
 There was something in mother's tone that made me 
 forget myself and my sorrow, and look ; and there she 
 was, as she had n't been before for six months, half risen 
 from the bed, one hand up, and her whole face white and 
 shining with confident faith. "Well, when I see all that 
 such trust has buoyed mother over, I wish to goodness I 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 381 
 
 had it: I take more after Martha. But never mind, 
 do well here and you '11 do well there, say I. Perhaps 
 you think it was n't much, the quiet and the few texts 
 breathed through it ; but sometimes when one's soul 's at 
 a white heat, it may be moulded like wax with a finger. 
 As for me, maybe God hardened Pharaoh's heart, 
 though how that was Pharaoh's fault I never could see ; 
 but Dan, he felt what it was to have a refuge in 
 trouble, to have a great love always extending over him 
 like a wing ; he longed for it ; he could n't believe it was 
 his now, he was so suddenly convicted of all sin and 
 wickedness ; and something sprang up in his heart, a 
 kind of holy passion that he felt to be possible for this 
 great and tender Divine Being ; and he came and fell on 
 his knees by the side of the bed, crying out for mother to 
 show him the way ; and mother, she put her hand on his 
 head and prayed, prayed, O so beautifully, that it 
 makes the water stand in my eyes now to remember 
 what she said. But I did n't feel so then, my heart and 
 my soul were rebellious, and love for Dan alone, kept me 
 under, not love for God. And in fact, if ever I 'd got to 
 heaven then, love for Dan 'd have been my only saving 
 grace ; for I was mighty high-spirited, as a girl. Well, 
 Dan he never made open profession; but when he left 
 the house, he went and asked Faith to marry him. 
 
 Now Faith did n't care anything about Dan, except 
 the quiet attachment that she could n't help, from living 
 in the house with him, and he 'd always petted and made 
 much of her, and dressed her like a doll, he was n't 
 the kind of man to take her fancy : she 'd have maybe 
 liked some slender, smooth-faced chap ; but Dan was a 
 black, shaggy fellow, with shoulders like the cross-tree, 
 and a length of limb like Saul's, and eyes set deep, like 
 
382 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 lamps in caverns. And he had a great, powerful heart, 
 and, O how it was lost ! for she might have won it, 
 she might have made him love her, since I would have 
 stood wide away and aside for the sake of seeing him 
 happy. But Faith was one of those that, if they can't 
 get what they want, have n't any idea of putting up with 
 what they have, God forgive me, if I 'm hard on the 
 child ! And she could n't give Dan an answer right off, 
 but was loath to think of it, and went flirting about 
 among the other boys ; and Dan, when he saw she was 
 n't so easily gotten, perhaps set more value on her. For 
 Faith, she grew prettier every day; her great brown 
 eyes were so soft and clear, and had a wide, sorrowful 
 way of looking at you ; and her cheeks, that were usually 
 pale, blossomed to roses when you spoke to her, her hair 
 drooping over them dark and silky ; and though she was 
 slack and untidy and at loose ends about her dress, she 
 somehow always seemed like a princess in disguise ; and 
 when she had on anything new, a sprigged calico and 
 her little straw bonnet with the pink ribbons and Mrs. 
 Devereux's black scarf, for instance, you 'd have al 
 lowed that she might have been daughter to the Queen 
 of Sheba. I don't know, but I rather think Dan would 
 n't have said any more to Faith, from various motives, 
 you see, notwithstanding the neighbors were still remon 
 strating with him, if it had n't been that Miss Brown 
 she that lived round the corner there ; the town 's well 
 quit of her now, poor thing ! went to saying the same 
 stuff to Faith, and telling her all that other folks said. 
 And Faith went home in a passion, some of your timid 
 kind nothing ever abashes, and nobody gets to the wind 
 ward of them, and, being perfectly furious, fell to ac 
 cusing Dan of having brought her to this, so that Dan 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 383 
 
 actually believed he had, and was cut to the quick with 
 contrition, and told her that all the reparation he could 
 make he was waiting and wishing to make, and then 
 there came floods of tears. Some women seem to have 
 set out with the idea that life's a desert for them to cross, 
 and they Ve laid in a supply of water-bags accordingly, 
 
 but it 's the meanest weapon ! And then again, there 's 
 men that are iron, and not to be bent under calamities, 
 that these tears can twist round your little finger. Well, 
 I suppose Faith concluded 't was no use to go hungry be 
 cause her bread was n't buttered on both sides, but she 
 always acted as if she 'd condescended ninety degrees in 
 marrying Dan, and Dan always seemed to feel that he 'd 
 done her a great injury ; and there it was. 
 
 I kept in the house for a time ; mother was worse, 
 and I thought the less Dan saw of me the better ; I kind 
 of hoped he'd forget, and find his happiness where it 
 ought to be. But the first time I saw him, when Faith had 
 been his wife all the spring, there was the look in his eyes 
 that told of the ache in his heart. Faith was n't very 
 happy herself, of course, though she was careless ; and 
 she gave him trouble, keeping company with the young 
 men just as before ; and she got into a way of flying 
 straight to me, if Dan ventured to reprove her ever so 
 lightly ; and stormy nights, when he was gone, and in his 
 long trips, she always locked up her doors and came over 
 and got into my bed ; and she was one of those that never 
 listened to reason, and it was none so easy for me, you 
 may suppose. 
 
 Things had gone on now for some three years, and I 'd 
 about lived in my books, I 'd tried to teach Faith some, 
 but she would n't go any further than newspaper stories, 
 
 when one day Dan took her and me to sail, and we 
 
384 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 were to have had a clam-chowder on the Point, if the 
 squall had n't come. As it was, we 'd got to put up with 
 chicken-broth, and it could n't have been better, consider 
 ing who made it. It was getting on toward the cool of 
 the May evening, the sunset was round on the other side 
 of the house, but all the east looked as if the sky had been 
 stirred up with currant-juice, till it grew purple and dark, 
 and then the two light-houses flared out and showed us 
 the lip of froth lapping the shadowy shore beyond, and I 
 heard father's voice, and he came in. 
 
 There was nothing but the fire-light in the room, and it 
 threw about great shadows, so that at first entering all was 
 indistinct ; but I heard a foot behind father's, and then a 
 form appeared, and something, I never could tell what, 
 made a great shiver rush down my back, just as when a 
 creature is frightened in the dark at what you don't see, 
 and so, though my soul was unconscious, my body felt that 
 there was danger in the air. Dan had risen and. lighted 
 the lamp that swings in the chimney, and father first of 
 all had gone up and kissed mother, and left the stranger 
 standing ; then he turned round, saying, 
 
 " A tough day, it 's been a tough day ; and here 's 
 some un to prove it. Georgie, hope that pot's steam don't 
 belie it, for Mr. Gabriel Verelay and I want a good sup 
 per and a good bed." 
 
 At this, the stranger, still standing, bowed. 
 
 " Here 's the one, father," said I. " But about the bed, 
 Faith '11 have to stay here, and I don't see unless 
 Dan takes him over " 
 
 " That I '11 do," said Dan. 
 
 "All right," said the stranger, in a voice that you did n't 
 seem to notice while he was speaking, but that you remem 
 bered afterwards like the ring of any silver thing that has 
 

 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 385 
 
 been thrown down ; and he dropped his hat on the floor 
 and drew near the fireplace, warming hands that were 
 slender and brown, but shapely as a woman's. I was 
 taking up the supper ; so I only gave him a glance or 
 two, and saw him standing there, his left hand extended 
 to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and then earnestly 
 on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning away much as 
 one turns from a picture. At length I came to ask him 
 to sit by, and at that moment Faith's eyes opened. 
 
 Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and 
 bewildered, and the fire had flushed her cheeks, and her 
 hair was disordered, and she fixed her gaze on him as if 
 he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half parted and 
 then curling in a smile, but in a second he moved off 
 with me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bed 
 room. 
 
 Well, we did n't waste many words until father 'd lost 
 the edge of his appetite, and then I told about Faith. 
 
 " 'F that don't beat the Dutch ! " said father. "Here 's 
 Mr. Mr. " 
 
 " Gabriel," said the stranger. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Gabriel Verelay been served the same 
 trick by the same squall, only worse and more of it, 
 knocked off the yacht What 's that you call her ? " 
 
 " La belle Louise." 
 
 " And left for drowned, if they see him go at all. 
 But he could n't 'a' sinked in that sea, if he 'd tried. He 
 kep' afloat ; we blundered into him ; and here he is." 
 
 Dan and I looked round in considerable surprise, for 
 he was dry as an August leaf. 
 
 " Oh," said the stranger, coloring, and with the least 
 little turn of his words, as if he did n't always speak Eng 
 lish, " the good capitain reached shore, and, finding sticks, 
 17 Y 
 
386 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 he kindled a fire, and we did dry our clothes until it made 
 fine weather once more." 
 
 " Yes," said father ; " but 't would n't been quite such 
 fine weather, I reckon, if this 'd gone to the fishes ! " And 
 he pushed something across the table. 
 
 It was a pouch with steel snaps, and well stuffed. The 
 stranger colored again, and held his hand for it, and the 
 snap burst, and great gold pieces, English coin and very 
 old French ones, rolled about the table, and father shut 
 his eyes tight ; and just then Faith came back and slip 
 ped into her chair. I saw her eyes sparkle as we all 
 reached, laughing and joking, to gather them ; and Mr. 
 Gabriel, we got into the way of calling him so, he 
 liked it best, hurried to get them out of sight as if he 'd 
 committed some act of ostentation. And then, to make 
 amends, he threw off what constraint he had worn in this 
 new atmosphere of ours, and was so gay, so full of ques 
 tions and quips and conceits, all spoken in his strange 
 way, his voice was so sweet, and he laughed so much 
 and so like a boy, and his words had so much point 
 and brightness, that I could think of nothing but the 
 showers of colored stars in fireworks. Dan felt it like 
 a play, sat quiet, but enjoying, and I saw he liked it ; 
 the fellow had a way of attaching every one. Father was 
 uproarious, and kept calling out, " Mother, do you hear ? 
 d' you hear that, mother ? " And Faith, she was near, 
 taking it all in as a flower does sunshine, only smiling a 
 little, and looking utterly happy. Then I hurried to clear 
 up, and Faith sat in the great arm-chair, and father got 
 out the pipes, and you could hardly see across the room 
 for the wide tobacco-wreaths ; and then it was father's 
 turn, and he told story after story of the hardships and 
 the dangers and the charms of our way of living. And I 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 387 
 
 could see Mr. Gabriel's cheek blanch, and he would bend 
 forward, forgetting to smoke, and his breath coming short, 
 and then right himself like a boat after lurching, he had 
 such natural ways, and except that he 'd maybe been a 
 spoiled child, he would have had a good heart, as hearts go. 
 And nothing would do at last but he must stay and live 
 the same scenes for a little; and father told him't would n't 
 pay, they were n't so much to go through with as to 
 tell of, there was too much prose in the daily life, and 
 too much dirt, and 't wa'n't fit for gentlemen. Oh, he 
 said, he 'd been used to roughing it, woodsing, camping 
 and gunning and yachting, ever since he 'd been a free 
 man. He was a Canadian, and had been cruising from 
 the St. Lawrence to Florida, and now, as his compan 
 ions would go on without him, he had a mind to try a bit 
 of coast-life. And could he board here ? or was there 
 any handy place ? And father said, there was Dan, 
 Dan Devereux, a man that had n't his match at par or 
 helm. And Mr. Gabriel turned his keen eye and bowed 
 again, and could n't Dan take Mr. Gabriel ? And 
 before Dan could answer, for he 'd referred it to Faith, 
 Mr. Gabriel had forgotten all about it, and was humming 
 a little French song and stirring the coals with the tongs. 
 And that put father off in a fresh remembrance ; and as 
 the hours lengthened, the stories grew fearful, and he 
 told them deep into the midnight, till at last Mr. Gabriel 
 stood up. 
 
 " No more, good friend," said he. " But I will have a 
 taste of this life perilous. And now where is it that 
 I go?" 
 
 Dan also stood up. 
 
 " My little woman," said he, glancing at Faith, " thinks 
 there 's a corner for you, sir." 
 
388 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 " I beg your pardon " And Mr. Gabriel paused, 
 with a shadow skimming over his clear dark face. 
 
 Dan wondered what he was begging pardon for, but 
 thought perhaps he had n't heard him, so he repeated, 
 
 " My wife," nodding over his shoulder at Faith, 
 " she 's my wife, thinks there 's a " 
 
 " She 's your wife ? " said Mr. Gabriel, his eyes open 
 ing and brightening the way an aurora runs up the sky, 
 and looking first at one and then at the other, as if he 
 could n't understand how so delicate a flower grew on so 
 thorny a stem. 
 
 The red flushed up Dan's face, and up mine, too, for 
 the matter of that, but in a minute the stranger had 
 dropped his glance. 
 
 " And why did you not tell me," he said, " that I might 
 have found her less beautiful ? " 
 
 Then he raised his shoulders, gave her a saucy bow, 
 with his hand on Dan's arm, Dan, who was now too 
 well pleased at having Faith made happy by a compli 
 ment to sift it, and they went out. 
 
 But I was angry enough ; and you may imagine I 
 was n't much soothed by seeing Faith, who 'd been so 
 die-away all the evening, sitting up before my scrap of 
 looking-glass, trying in my old coral ear-rings, bowing up 
 my ribbons, and plaiting and prinking till the clock 
 frightened her into bed. 
 
 The next morning, mother, who was n't used to such dis 
 turbance, was ill, 'and I was kept pretty busy tending on her 
 for two or three days. Faith had insisted on going home 
 the first thing after breakfast, and in that time I heard no 
 more of anybody, for father was out with the night- 
 tides, and, except to ask how mother did, and if I 'd seen 
 the stray from the Lobblelyese again, was too tired for 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKEK. 389 
 
 talking when he came back. That had been let me 
 see on a Monday, I think, yes, on a Monday ; and 
 Thursday evening, as in-doors had begun to tell on me, 
 and mother was so much improved, I thought I 'd run out 
 for a walk along the sea-wall. The sunset was creeping 
 round everything, and lying in great sheets on the broad, 
 still river, the children were frolicking in the water, and 
 all was so gay, and the air was so sweet, that I went lin 
 gering along farther than I 'd meant, and by and by who 
 should I see but a couple sauntering toward me at my 
 own gait, and one of them was Faith. She had on a 
 muslin with little roses blushing all over it, and she floated 
 along in it as if she were in a pink cloud, and she 'd 
 snatched a vine of the tender young woodbine as she 
 went, and, throwing it round her shoulders, held the two 
 ends in one hand like a ribbon, while with the other she 
 swung her white sun-bonnet. She laughed, and shook 
 her head at me, and there, large as life, under the dark 
 braids dangled my coral ear-rings, that she 'd adopted 
 without leave or license. She 'd been down to the lower 
 landing to meet Dan, a thing she' d done before I 
 don't know when, and was walking up with Mr. Gabriel 
 while Dan stayed behind to see to things. I kept them 
 talking, and Mr. Gabriel was sparkling with fun, for he 'd 
 got to feeling acquainted, and it had put him in high 
 spirits to get ashore at this hour, though he liked the sea, 
 and we were all laughing, when Dan came up. Now I 
 must confess I hadn't fancied Mr. Gabriel over and 
 above ; I suppose my first impression had hardened into 
 a prejudice ; and after I 'd fathomed the meaning of 
 Faith's fine feathers I liked him less than ever. But 
 when Dan came up, he joined right in, gay and hearty, 
 and liking his new acquaintance so much, that, thinks I, 
 
390 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 he must know best, and I '11 let him look out for his 
 interests himself. It would 'a' been no use, though, 
 for Dan to pretend to beat the Frenchman at his own 
 weapons, and I don't know that I should have cared to 
 have him. The older I grow, the less I think of your 
 mere intellect ; throw learning out of the scales, and give 
 me a great, warm heart, like Dan's. 
 
 Well, it was getting on in the evening, when the latch 
 lifted, and in ran Faith. She twisted my ear-rings out 
 of her hair, exclaiming, 
 
 " Oh, Georgie, are you busy ? Can't you perse my 
 ears now ? " 
 
 " Pierce them yourself, Faith." 
 
 " Well, pierce, then. But I can't, you know I can't. 
 Won't you now, Georgie ? " and she tossed the ear-rings 
 into my lap. 
 
 " Why, Faith," said I, " how 'd you contrive to wear 
 these, if your ears are n't " 
 
 " Oh, I tied them on. Come now, Georgie ! " 
 
 So I got the ball of yarn and the darning-needle. 
 
 "Oh, not such a big one ! " cried she. 
 
 " Perhaps you 'd like a cambric needle," said I. 
 
 " I don't want a winch," she pouted. 
 
 " Well, here 's a smaller one. Now kneel down." 
 
 "Yes, but you wait a moment, till I screw up my 
 courage." 
 
 u No need. You can talk, and I '11 take you at una 
 wares." 
 
 So Faith knelt down, and I got all ready. 
 
 " And what shall I talk about ? " said she. " About 
 Aunt Rhody, or Mr. Gabriel, or I'll tell you the 
 queerest thing, Georgie ! Going to now ? " 
 
 u Do be quiet, Faith, and not keep your head flirting 
 
THE SOUTH BEEAKER. 391 
 
 about so ! " for she 'd started up to speak. Then she 
 composed herself once more. 
 
 " What was I saying ? Oh, about that. Yes, Georgie, 
 the queerest thing ! You see, this evening, when Dan 
 was out, I was sitting talkin' with Mr. Gabriel, and he 
 was wondering how I came to be dropped down here, so 
 I told him all about it. And he was so interested that I 
 went and showed him the things I had on when Dan 
 found me, you know they 've been kept real nice. And 
 he took them, and looked them over, close, admiring them, 
 and and admiring me, and finally he started, and 
 then held the frock to the light, and then lifted a little 
 plait, and in the under side of the belt lining there was a 
 name very finely wrought, Virginie des Violets ; and 
 he looked at all the others, and in some hidden corner of 
 every one was the initials of the same name, V. des V. 
 
 "'That should be your name, Mrs. Devereux,' says 
 he. 
 
 " ' Oh, no ! ' says I. * My name 's Faith.' 
 
 " Well, and on that he asked, was there no more ; and 
 so I took off the little chain that I 've always worn and 
 showed him that, and he asked if there was a face in it, 
 in what we thought was a coin, you know ; and I said, 
 oh, it did n't open ; and he turned it over and over, and 
 finally something snapped, and there was a face, here, 
 you shall see it, Georgie." 
 
 And Faith drew it from her bosom, and opened and 
 held if before me ; for I 'd sat with my needle poised, and 
 forgetting to strike. And there was the face indeed, a 
 sad, serious face, dark and sweet, yet the image of Faith, 
 and with the same mouth, that so lovely in a woman 
 becomes weak in a man, and on the other side there 
 were a few threads of hair, with the same darkness and 
 
392 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 fineness as Faith's hair, and under them a little picture 
 chased in the gold and enamelled, which, from what I 've 
 read since, I suppose must have been the crest of the 
 Des Violets. 
 
 "And what did Mr. Gabriel say then ? " I asked, giving 
 it back to Faith, who put her head into the old position 
 again. 
 
 " Oh, he acted real queer. Talked French, too, O, so 
 fast ! l The very man ! ' then he cried out. ' The man 
 himself! His portrait, I have seen it a hundred times !' 
 And then he told me that about a dozen years ago or 
 more, a ship sailed from from I forget the place ex 
 actly, somewhere up there where he came from, Mr. 
 Gabriel, I mean, and among the passengers was this 
 man and his wife, and his little daughter, whose name 
 was Virginie des Violets, and the ship was never heard 
 from again. But he says that without a doubt I 'm the 
 little daughter and my name is Virginie, though I sup 
 pose every one '11 call me Faith. Oh, and that is n't the 
 queerest. The queerest is, this gentleman," and Faith 
 lifted her head, " was very rich. I can't tell you how 
 much he owned. Lands that you can walk on a whole 
 day and not come to the end, and ships, and gold. And 
 the whole of it 's lying idle and waiting for an heir, 
 and I, Georgie, am the heir." 
 
 And Faith told it with cheeks burning and eyes shining, 
 but yet quite as if she 'd been born and brought up in the 
 knowledge. 
 
 " It don't seem to move you much, Faith," said I, per 
 fectly amazed, although I 'd frequently expected something 
 of the kind. 
 
 " Well, I may never get it, and so on. If I do, I '11 
 give you a silk dress and set you up in a bookstore. But 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 393 
 
 here 's a queerer thing yet. Des Violets is the way Mr. 
 Gabriel's own name is spelt, and his father and mine 
 his mother and Well, some way or other we 're sort 
 of cousins. Only think, Georgie ! is n't that I thought, 
 to be sure, when he quartered at our house, Dan 'd begin 
 to take me to do, if I looked at him sideways, make 
 the same fuss that he does if I nod to any of the other 
 young men." 
 
 " I don't think Dan speaks before he should, Faith." 
 
 " Why don't you say Virginie ? " says she, laughing. 
 
 " Because Faith you 've always been, and Faith you '11 
 have to remain, with us, to the end of the chapter." 
 
 " Well, that 's as it may be. But Dan can't object now 
 to my going where I 'm a mind to with my own cousin ! " 
 And here Faith laid her ear on the ball of yarn again. 
 
 " Hasten, headsman ! " said she, out of a novel, " or 
 they '11 wonder where I am." 
 
 " Well," I answered, "just let me run the needle through 
 the emery." 
 
 " Yes, Georgie," said Faith, going back with her mem 
 ories while I sharpened my steel, " Mr. Gabriel and I are 
 kin. And he said that the moment he laid eyes on me 
 he knew I was of different blood from the rest of the peo 
 ple " 
 
 " What people ? " asked I. 
 
 " Why, you, and Dan, and all these. And he said he 
 was struck to stone when he heard I was married to Dan, 
 I must have been entrapped, the courts would annul 
 it, any one could see the difference between us " 
 
 Here was my moment, and I did n't spare it, but jabbed 
 the needle into the ball of yarn, if her ear did lie be 
 tween them. 
 
 " Yes ! " says I, " anybody with half an eye can see 
 17* 
 
394 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 the difference between you, and that 's a fact ! Nobody 'd 
 ever imagine for a breath that you were deserving of 
 Dan, Dan, who 's so noble he 'd die for what he thought 
 was right, you, who are so selfish and idle and fickle 
 and " 
 
 And at that Faith burst out crying. 
 
 " Oh, I never expected you 'd talk about me so, Geor- 
 gie ! " said she between her sobs. " How could / tell you 
 were such a mighty friend of Dan's ? And besides, if 
 ever I was Virginie des Violets, I 'm Faith Devereux 
 now, and Dan '11 resent any one's speaking so about his 
 wife ! " 
 
 And she stood up, the tears sparkling like diamonds in 
 her flashing dark eyes, her cheeks red, and her little fist 
 clenched. 
 
 " That 's the right spirit, Faith," says I, " and I 'm glad 
 to see you show it. And as for this young Canadian, the 
 best thing to do with him is to send him packing. I don't 
 believe a word he says ; it 's more than likely nothing 
 but to get into your good graces." 
 
 " But there 's the names," said she, so astonished that 
 she did n't remember she was angry. 
 
 " Happened so." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! ' Happened so ' ! A likely story ! It 's 
 nothing but your envy, and that 's all ! " 
 
 " Faith ! " says I, for I forgot she did n't know how 
 close she struck. 
 
 " Well, I mean There, don't let 's talk about it 
 any more ! How under the sun am I going to get these 
 ends tied ? " 
 
 " Come here. There ! Now for the other one." 
 
 " No, I sha'n't let you do that ; you hurt me dreadfully, 
 and you got angry, and took the big needle." 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 395 
 
 
 
 " I thought you expected to be hurt." 
 
 " I did n't expect to be stabbed." 
 
 " Well, just as you please. I suppose you '11 go round 
 with one ear-ring." 
 
 " Like a little pig with his ear cropped ? No, I shall 
 do it myself. See there, Georgie ! " and she threw a bit 
 of a box into my hands. 
 
 I opened it, and there lay inside, on their velvet cush 
 ion, a pair of the prettiest things you ever saw, a tiny 
 bunch of white grapes, and every grape a round pearl, 
 and all hung so that they would tinkle together on their 
 golden stems every time Faith shook her head, and 
 she had a cunning little way of shaking it often enough. 
 
 " THese must have cost a penny, Faith," said I. 
 Where 'd you get them ? " 
 
 " Mr. Gabriel gave them to me just now. He went 
 up-town and bought them. And I don't want him to 
 know that my ears were n't bored." 
 
 " Mr. Gabriel ? And you took them ? " 
 
 " Of course I took them, and mighty glad to get them." 
 
 " Faith, dear," said I, " don't you know that you 
 should n't accept presents from gentlemen, and especially 
 now you 're a married woman, and especially from those 
 of higher station ? " 
 
 " But he is n't higher." 
 
 " You know what I mean. And then, too, he is ; for 
 one always takes rank from one's husband." 
 
 Faith looked rather downcast at this. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " and pearls and calico " 
 
 "Just because you haven't got a pair yourself! 
 There, be still ! I don't want any of your instructions 
 in duty ! " 
 
 " You ought to put up with a word from a friend, 
 
396 THE SOUTH BREAKEK. 
 
 * 
 
 Faith," said I. " You always come to me with your 
 grievances. And I '11 tell you what I '11 do. You used 
 to like these coral branches of mine ; and if you '11 give 
 those back to Mr. Gabriel, you shall have the coral." 
 
 Well, Faith she hesitated, standing there trying to mus 
 ter her mind to the needle, and it ended by her taking 
 the coral, though I don't believe she returned the pearls, 
 but we none of us ever saw them afterwards. 
 
 We 'd been talking in a pretty low tone, because mother 
 was asleep ; and just as she 'd finished the other ear, and 
 a little drop of blood stood up on it like a live ruby, the 
 door opened and Dan and Mr. Gabriel came in. There 
 never was a prettier picture than Faith at that moment, 
 and so the young stranger thought, for he stared at her, 
 smiling and at ease, just as if she 'd been hung in a gal 
 lery and he 'd bought a ticket. So then he sat down and 
 repeated to Dan and mother what she 'd told me, and he 
 promised to send for the papers to prove it all. But he 
 never did send for them, delaying and delaying, till the 
 summer wore away ; and perhaps there were such papers 
 and perhaps there were n't. I 've always thought he 
 did n't want his own friends to know where he was. Dan 
 might be a rich man to-day, if he chose to look them up ; 
 but he 'd scorch at a slow fire before he 'd touch a copper 
 of it. Father never believed a word about it, when we 
 recited it again to him. 
 
 " So Faith 's come into her fortune, has she ? " said he. 
 " Pretty child ! She 'a'n't had so much before sence she 
 fell heir to old Miss Devereux's best chany, her six silver 
 spoons, and her surname." 
 
 So the days passed, and the greater part of every one 
 Mr. Gabriel was dabbling in the water somewhere. 
 There was n't a brook within ten miles that he did n't 
 
THE SOUTH BEEAKER. 397 
 
 empty of trout, for Dan knew the woods as well as the 
 shores, and he knew the clear nights when the insects can 
 keep free from the water so that next day the fish rise 
 hungry to the surface ; and so sometimes in the brightest 
 of May noons they 'd bring home a string of those beau 
 ties, speckled with little tongues -"of flame ; and Mr. 
 Gabriel would have them cooked, and make us all taste 
 them, for we don't care much for that sort, down here 
 on the Flats ; we should think we were famished if we 
 had to eat fish. And then they 'd lie in wait all day for 
 the darting pickerel in the little Stream of Shadows above ; 
 and when it came June, up the river he went trolling for 
 bass, and he used a different sort of bait from the rest, 
 bass won't bite much at clams, and he hauled in great 
 forty-pounders. And sometimes in the afternoons, he 
 took out Faith and me, for, as Faith would go, whether 
 or no, I always made it a point to put by everything and 
 go too ; and I used to try and get some of the other girls 
 in, but Mr. Gabriel never would take them, though he 
 was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, and was every 
 body's favorite, and it was known all round how he found 
 out Faith, and that alone made him so popular, that I do 
 believe, if he 'd only taken out naturalization papers, we 
 'd have sent him to General Court. And then it grew 
 time for the river mackerel, and they used to bring in at 
 sunset two or three hundred in a shining heap, together 
 with great lobsters, that looked as if they 'd been carved 
 out of heliotrope-stone, and so old that they were barna 
 cled. And it was so novel to Mr. Gabriel, that he used 
 to act as if he 'd fallen in fairy-land. 
 
 After all, I don't know what we should have done with 
 out him that summer : he always paid Dan or father a dol 
 lar a day and the hire of the boat ; and the times were so 
 
398 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 hard, and there was so little doing, that, but for this, and 
 packing the barrels of clam-bait, they 'd have been idle 
 and fared sorely. But we 'd rather have starved : though, 
 as for that, I 've heard father say there never was a time 
 when he could n't go out and catch some sort of fish and 
 sell it for enough to get us something to eat. And then 
 this Mr. Gabriel, he had such a winning way with him, 
 he was as quick at wit as a bird on the wing, he had a 
 story or a song for every point, he seemed to take to our 
 simple life as if he 'd been born to it, and he was as much 
 interested in all our trifles as we were ourselves. Then, 
 he was so sympathetic, he felt everybody's troubles, he 
 went to the city and brought down a wonderful doctor to 
 see mother, and he got her queer things that helped her 
 more than you 'd have thought anything could, and he 
 went himself and set honeysuckles out all round Dan's 
 house, so that before summer was over it was a bower of 
 great sweet blows, and he had an alms for every beggar, 
 and a kind word for every urchin, and he followed Dan 
 about as a child would follow some big shaggy dog. He 
 introduced, too, a lot of new-fangled games ; he was what 
 they called a gymnast, and in feats of rassling there 
 was n't a man among them all but he could stretch as fiat 
 as a flounder. And then he always treated. Everybody 
 had a place for him soon, even / did ; and as for Dan, 
 he 'd have cut his own heart out of his body, if Mr. Ga 
 briel 'd had occasion to use it. He was a different man from 
 any Dan 'd ever met before, something finer, and he might 
 have been better, and Dan's loyal soul was glad to ac 
 knowledge him master, and I declare I believe he felt 
 just as the Jacobites in the old songs used to feel for 
 royal Charlie. There are some men born to rule with a 
 haughty, careless sweetness, and others born to die for 
 them with stern and dogged devotion. 
 
THE SOUTH BKEAKEK. 399 
 
 Well, and all this while Faith was n't standing still ; 
 she was changing steadily, as much as ever the moon 
 changed in the sky. I noticed it first one day when Mr. 
 Gabriel'd caught every child in the region and given 
 them a picnic in the woods of the Stack- Yard- Gate, and 
 Faith was nowhere to be seen tiptoeing round every one 
 as she used to do, but I found her at last standing at the 
 head of the table, Mr. Gabriel dancing here and there, 
 seeing to it that all should be as gay as he seemed to be, 
 quiet and dignified as you please, and feeling every 
 one of her inches. But it was n't dignity really that was 
 the matter with Faith, it was just gloom. She 'd 
 brighten up for a moment or two, and then down would 
 fall the cloud again ; she took to long fits of dreaming, and 
 sometimes she 'd burst out crying at any careless word, so 
 that my heart fairly bled for the poor child, for one 
 could n't help seeing that she 'd some secret unhappiness 
 or other, and I was as gentle and soothing to her as it 's 
 in my nature to be. She was in to our house a good 
 deal ; she kept it pretty well out of Dan's way, and I 
 hoped she 'd get over it sooner or later, and make up her 
 mind to circumstances. And I talked to her a sight about 
 Dan, praising him constantly before her, though I could n't 
 bear to do it ; and finally, one very confidential evening, 
 I told her that I 'd been in love with Dan myself once a 
 little, but I 'd seen that he would marry her, and so had 
 left off thinking about it ; for, do you know, I thought it 
 might make her set more price on him now, if she knew 
 somebody else had ever cared for him. Well, that did 
 answer awhile : whether she thought she ought to make 
 it up to Dan, or whether he really did grow more in her 
 eyes, Faith got to being very neat and domestic and praise 
 worthy. But still there was the change, and it did n't 
 
400 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 make her any the less lovely. Indeed, if I 'd been a man, 
 I should have cared for her more than ever : it was like 
 turning a child into a woman : and I really think, as Dan 
 saw her going about with such a pleasant gravity, her 
 pretty figure moving so quietly, her pretty face so still 
 and fair, as if she had thoughts and feelings now, he be 
 gan to wonder what had come over Faith, and, if she 
 were really as charming as this, why he had n't felt it be 
 fore ; and then, you know, whether you love a woman or 
 not, the mere fact that she 's your wife, that her life is 
 sunk in yours, that she 's something for you to protect, 
 and that your honor lies in doing so, gives you a certain 
 kindly feeling that might ripen into love any day under 
 sunshine and a south wall. 
 
 Blue-fish were about done with, when one day Dan 
 brought in some mackerel from Boon Island : they had n't 
 been in the harbor for some time, though now there was 
 a probability of their return. So they were going out 
 when the tide served the two boys at midnight for 
 mackerel, and Dan had heard me wish for the experience 
 so often, a long while ago, that he said, Why should n't 
 they take the girls ? and Faith snatched at the idea, and 
 with that Mr. Gabriel agreed to fetch me at the hour, and 
 so we parted. I was kind of sorry, but there was no help 
 for it. 
 
 When we started, it was in that clear crystal dark that 
 looks as if you could see through it forever till you 
 reached infinite things, and we seemed to be in a great 
 hollow sphere, and the stars were like living beings who 
 had the night to themselves. Always, when I 'in up late, 
 I feel as if it were something unlawful, as if affairs were 
 in progress which I had no right to witness, a kind of 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 401 
 
 grand free-masonry. I Ve felt it nights when I Ve been 
 watching with mother, and there has come up across the 
 heavens the great caravan of constellations, and a star 
 that I 'd pulled away the curtain on the east side to see, 
 came by and by and looked in at the south window ; but 
 I never felt it as I did this night. The tide was near the 
 full and so we went slipping down the dark water by the 
 starlight ; and as we saw them shining above us, and then 
 looked down and saw them sparkling up from beneath, 
 the stars, it really seemed as if Dan's oars must be two 
 long wings, as if we swam on them through a motionless 
 air. By and by we were in the island creek, and far 
 ahead, in a streak of wind that did n't reach us, we could 
 see a pointed sail skimming along between the banks, as 
 if some ghost went before to show us the way ; and when 
 the first hush and mystery wore off, Mr. Gabriel was 
 singing little French songs in tunes like the rise and fall 
 of the tide. While he sang he rowed, and Dan was 
 gangeing the hooks. At length Dan took the oars again, 
 and every now and then he paused to let us float along 
 with the tide as it slacked, and take the sense of the night. 
 And all the tall grass that edged the side began to wave 
 in a strange light, and there blew on a little breeze, and 
 over the rim of the world tipped up a waning moon. If 
 there 'd been anything needed to make us feel as if we 
 were going to find the Witch of Endor, it was this. It 
 was such a strange moon, pointing such a strange way, 
 with such a strange color, so remote, and so glassy, it 
 was like a dead moon, or the spirit of one, and was per 
 fectly awful. 
 
 " She has come to look at Faith," said Mr. Gabriel ; 
 for Faith, who once would have been nodding here and 
 there all about the boat, was sitting up pale and sad, like 
 
402 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 another spirit, to confront it. But Dan and I both felt a 
 difference. 
 
 Mr. Gabriel, he stepped across and went and sat down 
 behind Faith, and laid his hand lightly on her arm. Per 
 haps he did n't mind that he touched her, he had a kind 
 of absent air ; but if any one had looked at the nervous 
 pressure of the slender fingers, they would have seen as 
 much meaning in that touch as in many an embrace ; and 
 Faith lifted her face to his, and they forgot that I was 
 looking at them, and into the eyes of both there stole a 
 strange deep smile, and my soul groaned within me. 
 It made no odds to me then that the air blew warm off 
 the land from scented hay-ricks, that the moon hung like 
 some exhumed jewel in the sky, that all the perfect night 
 was widening into dawn. I saw and felt nothing but the 
 wretchedness that must break one day on Dan's head. 
 Should I warn him ? I could n't do that. And what 
 then? 
 
 The sail was up, we had left the head-land and the 
 hills, and when they furled it and cast anchor we were 
 swinging far out on the back of the great monster that 
 was frolicking to itself and thinking no more of us than 
 we do of a mote in the air. Elder Snow, he says that it 's 
 singular we regard day as illumination and night as dark 
 ness, day that really hems us in with narrow light and 
 shuts us upon ourselves, night that sets us free and reveals 
 to us all the secrets of the sky. I thought of that when 
 one by one the stars melted and the moon became a 
 breath, and up over the wide grayness crept color and ra 
 diance and the sun himself, the sky soaring higher and 
 higher, like a great thin bubble of flaky hues, and, all 
 about, nothing but the everlasting wash of waters broke 
 the sacred hush. And it seemed as if God had been with 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 403 
 
 us, and withdrawing we saw the trail of His splendid 
 garments, and I remembered the words mother had 
 spoken to Dan once before, and why could n't I leave him 
 in heavenly hands ? And then it came into my heart to 
 pray. I knew I had n't any right to pray expecting to 
 be heard ; but yet mine would be the prayer of the 
 humble, and was n't Faith of as much consequence as a 
 sparrow ? By and by, as we all sat leaning over the gun 
 wale, the words of a hymn that I 'd heard at camp-meet 
 ings came into my mind, and I sang them out, loud and 
 clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never 
 heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, 
 putting mother to sleep ; but here I had a whole sky to 
 sing in, and the hymns were trumpet-calls. And one 
 after another they kept thronging up, and there was a 
 rush of feeling in them that made you shiver, and as I 
 sang them they thrilled me through and through. Wide 
 as the way before us was, it seemed to widen ; I felt my 
 self journeying with some vast host towards the city of 
 God, and its light poured over us, and there was nothing 
 but joy and love and praise and exulting expectancy in 
 my heart. And when the hymn died on my lips because 
 the words were too faint and the tune was too weak for 
 the ecstasy, and when the silence had soothed me back 
 again, I turned and saw Dan's lips bitten, and his cheek 
 white, and his eyes like stars, and Mr. Gabriel's face 
 fallen forward in his hands, and he shaking with quick 
 sobs ; and as for Faith, Faith, she had dropped asleep, 
 and one arm was thrown above her head, and the other 
 lay where it had slipped from Mr. Gabriel's loosened 
 grasp. There 's a contagion, you know, in such things, 
 but Faith was never of the catching kind. 
 
 Well, this was n't what we 'd come for, turning all 
 
404 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 out-doors into a church, though what 's a church but a 
 place of God's presence ? and for my part, I never see 
 high blue sky and sunshine without feeling that. And all 
 of a sudden there came a school of mackerel splashing 
 and darkening and curling round the boat, after the bait 
 we 'd thrown out on anchoring. 'T would have done you 
 good to see Dan just at that moment ; you 'd have re 
 alized what it was to have a calling. He started up, for 
 getting everything else, his face all flushed, his eyes like 
 coals, his mouth tight and his tongue silent ; and how 
 many hooks he had out I 'm sure I don't know, but he 
 kept jerking them in by twos and threes, and finally they 
 bit at the bare barb and were taken without any bait at 
 all, just as if they 'd come and asked to be caught. Mr. 
 Gabriel, he did n't pay any attention at first, but Dan 
 called to him to stir himself, and so gradually he worked 
 back into his old mood ; but he was more still and some 
 thing sad all the rest of the morning. Well, when we 'd 
 gotten about enough, and they were dying in the boat 
 there, as they cast their scales, like the iris, we put in 
 shore ; and building a fire, we cooked our own dinner and 
 boiled our own coffee. Many 's the icy winter night I 've 
 wrapped up Dan's bottle of hot coffee in rolls on rolls of 
 flannel, that he might drink it hot and strong far out at 
 sea in a wherry at daybreak ! 
 
 But as I was saying, all this time, Mr. Gabriel, he 
 scarcely looked at Faith. At first she did n't compre 
 hend, and then something swam all over her face as if the 
 very blood in her veins had grown darker, and there was 
 such danger in her eye that before we stepped into the 
 boat again I wished to goodness I had a life-preserver. 
 But in the beginning the religious impression lasted and 
 gave him great resolutions ; and then strolling off and 
 
THE SOUTH BEEAKER. 405 
 
 along the beach, he fell in with some men there and did 
 as he always did, scraped acquaintance. I verily believe 
 that these men were total strangers, that he 'd never laid 
 eyes on them before, and after a few words he wheeled 
 about. As he did so, his glance fell on Faith stand 
 ing there alone against the pale sky, for the weather 'd 
 thickened, and watching the surf break at her feet. He 
 was motionless, gazing at her long, and then, when he had 
 turned once or twice irresolutely, he ground his heel into 
 the sand and went back. The men rose and wandered 
 on with him, and they talked together for a while, and I 
 saw money pass ; and pretty soon Mr. Gabriel returned, 
 his face vividly pallid, but smiling, and he had in his hand 
 some little bright shells that you don't often find on these 
 Northern beaches, and he said he had bought them of 
 those men. And all this time he 'd not spoken with Faith, 
 and there was the danger yet in her eye. But nothing 
 came of it, and I had accused myself of nearly every 
 crime in the Decalogue, and on the way back we had put 
 up the lines, and Mr. Gabriel had hauled in the lobster- 
 net for the last time. He liked that branch of the busi 
 ness ; he said it had all the excitement of gambling, the 
 slow settling downwards, the fading of the last ripple, the 
 impenetrable depth and shade and the mystery of the 
 work below, five minutes of expectation, and it might 
 bring up a scale of the sea-serpent, or the king of the 
 crabs might have crept in for a nap in the folds, or it 
 might come up as if you 'd dredged for pearls, or it might 
 hold the great backward-crawling lobsters, or a tangle of 
 sea-weed, or the long yellow locks of some drowned girl, 
 or nothing at all. So he always drew in that net, and 
 it needed muscle, and his was like steel, not good for 
 much in the long pull, but just for a breathing could 
 
406 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 handle the biggest boatman in the harbor. Well, and 
 we 'd hoisted the sail and were in the creek once more, 
 for the creek was only to be used at high-water, and I 'd 
 told Dan I could n't be away from mother over another 
 tide and so we must n't get aground, and he 'd told me not 
 to fret, there was nothing too shallow for us on the coast. 
 " This boat," said Dan, " she '11 float in a heavy dew." 
 And he began singing a song he liked: 
 
 " I cast my line in Largo Bay, 
 
 And fishes I caught nine : 
 There 's three to boil, and three to fry, 
 And three to bait the line." 
 
 And Mr. Gabriel 'd never heard it before, and he made 
 him sing it again and again. 
 
 " The boatie rows, the boatie rows, 
 The boatie rows indeed," 
 
 repeated Mr. Gabriel, and he said it was the only song he 
 knew that held the click of the oar in the rowlock. 
 
 The little birds went skimming by us, as we sailed, 
 their breasts upon the water, and we could see the gun 
 ners creeping through the marshes beside them. 
 
 " The wind changes," said Mr. Gabriel. " The equinox 
 treads close behind us. Sst ! Is it that you do not feel its 
 breath ? And you hear nothing ? " 
 
 " It 's the Soul of the Bar," said Dan ; and he fell to 
 telling us one of the wild stories that fishermen can tell 
 each other by the lantern, rocking outside at night in the 
 dory. 
 
 The wind was dead east, and now we flew before it, 
 and now we tacked in it, up and up the winding stream, 
 and always a little pointed sail came skimming on in suit. 
 
 " What sail is that, Dan ? " asked I. " It looks like 
 the one that flitted ahead this morning." 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 407 
 
 " It is the one," said Dan, for he 'd brought up a 
 whole horde of superstitious memories, and a gloom that 
 had been hovering off and on his face settled there for 
 good. " As much of a one as that was. It 's no sail at 
 all. It 's a death-sign. And I 'v<3 never been down here 
 and seen it but trouble was on its heels. Georgie ! there 's 
 two of them ! " 
 
 We all looked, but it was hidden in a curve, and when 
 it stole in sight again there were two of them, filmy and 
 faint as spirits' wings, and while we gazed they van 
 ished, whether supernaturally or in the mist that was ris 
 ing mast-high I never thought, for my blood was frozen 
 as it ran. 
 
 " You have fear ? " asked Mr. Gabriel, his face per 
 fectly pale, and his eye almost lost in darkness. " If it is 
 a phantom, it can do you no harm." 
 
 Faith's teeth chattered, I saw them. He turned to 
 her, and as their look met, a spot of carnation burned 
 into his cheek almost as a brand would have burned. 
 He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching 
 her and sifting her ; and Faith half rose, proudly, and 
 pale, as if his look pierced her with pain. The look was 
 long, but before it fell, a glow and sparkle filled the 
 eyes, and over his face there curled the deep, strange 
 smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes ' 
 dropped and made it sad. And Faith, she started in a 
 new surprise, the darkness gathered and crept off her 
 face as cream wrinkles from milk, and spleen or venom 
 or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and there 
 was nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness. 
 Some souls are like the white river-lilies, fixed, yet 
 floating ; but Mr. Gabriel had no firm root anywhere, 
 and was blown about with every breeze, like a leaf 
 
408 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 on the flood. His purposes melted and made with his 
 moods. 
 
 The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell 
 upon the waters or blew away over the meadows, and it 
 was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the cloak about Faith 
 and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was 
 so busy handling the boat and it 's rather risky, you 
 have to wriggle up the creek so that he took little 
 notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood up, as if to change 
 his position ; and taking off his hat, he held it aloft, while 
 he passed the other hand across his forehead. And lean 
 ing against the mast, he stood so, many minutes. 
 
 " Dan," I said, " did your spiritual craft ever hang out 
 a purple pennant ? " 
 
 No," said Dan. 
 
 " Well," says I. And we all saw a little purple ribbon 
 running up the rope and streaming on the air behind us. 
 
 " And why do we not hoist our own ? " said Mr. 
 Gabriel, putting on his hat. And suiting the action to 
 the word, a little green signal curled up and flaunted 
 above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the 
 water beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they 
 looked like caves of cool emerald, and wide off and over 
 them the west burned smoulderingly red like a furnace. 
 Many a time since, I 've felt the magical color between 
 those banks and along those meadows, but- then I felt 
 none of it ; every wit I had was too awake and alert and 
 fast-fixed in watching. 
 
 " Is it that the phantoms can be flesh and blood ? " said 
 Mr. Gabriel, laughingly ; and lifting his arm again, he 
 hailed the foremost. 
 
 " Boat ahoy ! What names ? " said he. 
 
 The answer came back on the wind full and round. 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 409 
 
 Speed, and Follow." 
 
 " Where from ? " asked Dan, with just a glint in his 
 eye, for usually he knew every boat on the river, but 
 he did n't know these. 
 
 " From the schooner Flyaway, taking in sand over at 
 Black Rocks." 
 
 Then Mr. Gabriel spoke again, as they drew near, 
 but whether he spoke so fast that I could n't understand, 
 or whether he spoke French, I never knew ; and Dan, 
 with SQme kind of feeling that it was Mr. Gabriel's ac 
 quaintance, suffered the one we spoke to pass us. 
 
 Once or twice Mr. Gabriel had begun some question to 
 Dan about the approaching weather, but had turned it 
 off again before anybody could answer. You see he had 
 some little nobility left, and did n't want the very man he 
 was going to injure to show him how to do it. Now, 
 however, he asked him that was steering the Speed by, 
 if it was going to storm. 
 
 The man thought it was. 
 
 " How is it then, that your schooner prepares to sail ? " 
 
 " Oh, wind 's backed in ; we '11 be on blue water be 
 fore the gale breaks, I reckon, and then beat off where 
 there 's plenty of sea-room." 
 
 " But she shall make shipwreck ! " 
 
 " ' Not if the court know herself, and he think she do,' " 
 was the reply from another, as they passed. 
 
 Somehow I began to hate myself, I was so full of 
 poisonous suspicions. How did Mr. Gabriel know the 
 schooner prepared to sail ? And this man, could he tell 
 boom from bowsprit ? I did n't believe it ; he had the 
 hang of the up-river folks. But there stood Mr. Gabriel, 
 so quiet and easy, his eyelids down, and he humming an 
 underbreath of song ; and there sat Faith, so pale and so 
 18 
 
410 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 pretty, a trifle sad, a trifle that her conscience would 
 brew for her, whether or no. Yet, after all, there was an 
 odd expression" in Mr. Gabriel's face, an eager, restless 
 expectation ; and if his lids were lowered, it was only to 
 hide the spark that flushed and quenched in his eye like 
 a beating pulse. 
 
 We had reached the draw, it was lifted for the Speed, 
 she had passed, and the wind was in her sail once more. 
 Yet, somehow, she hung back. And then I saw that the 
 men in her were of those with whom Mr. Gabriel had 
 spoken at noon. Dan's sail fell slack, and we drifted 
 slowly through, while he poled us along with an oar. 
 
 " Look out, Georgie ! " said Dan, for he thought I was 
 going to graze my shoulder upon the side there. I look 
 ed ; and when I turned again, Mr. Gabriel was rising up 
 from some earnest and hurried sentence to Faith. And 
 Faith, too, was standing, standing and swaying with inde 
 cision, and gazing away out before her, so flushed and 
 so beautiful, so loath and so willing. Poor thing ! 
 poor thing ! as if her rising in itself were not the whole ! 
 
 Mr. Gabriel stepped across the boat, stooped a minute, 
 and then also took an oar. How perfect he was, as he 
 stood there that moment ! perfect like a statue, I mean, 
 so slender, so clean-limbed, his dark face pale to trans 
 parency in the green light that filtered through the draw ! 
 and then a ray from the sunset came creeping over the 
 edge of the high fields and smote his eyes sidelong so 
 that they glowed like jewels, and he with his oar planted 
 firmly hung there bending far back with it, completely 
 full of strength and grace. 
 
 " It is not the bateaux in the rapids," said he. 
 
 " What are you about ? " asked Dan, with sudden 
 hoarseness. " You are pulling the wrong way ! " 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 411 
 
 Mr. Gabriel laughed, and threw down his oar, and 
 stepped back again ; gave his hand to Faith, and half led, 
 half lifted her, over the side, and into the Speed, followed, 
 and never looked behind him. They let go something 
 they had held, the Speed put her nose in the water and 
 sprinkled us with spray, plunged, and dashed off like an 
 arrow. 
 
 It was like him, daring and insolent coolness ! Just 
 like him ! Always the soul of defiance ! None but one 
 so reckless and impetuous as he would have dreamed of 
 flying into the teeth of the tempest in that shell of a 
 schooner. But he was mad with love, and they there 
 was n't a man among them but was the worse for liquor. 
 
 For a moment Dan took it, as Mr. Gabriel had expect 
 ed him to do, as a joke, and went to trim the boat for 
 racing, not meaning they should reach town first. But I 
 I saw it all. 
 
 " Dan ! " I sung out, " save her ! She 's not coming 
 back ! They '11 make for the schooner at Black Rocks ! 
 Oh, Dan, he 's taken her off! " 
 
 Now one whose intelligence has never been trained, 
 who shells his five wits and gets rid of the pods as best 
 he can, may n't be so quick as another, but, like an ani 
 mal, he feels long before he sees ; and a vague sense of 
 this had been upon Dan all day. Yet now he stood 
 thunderstruck; and the thing went on before his very 
 eyes. It was more than he could believe at once, and 
 perhaps his first feeling was, Why should he hinder? 
 And then the flood fell. No thought of his loss, though 
 loss it wa'n't, only of his friend, of such stunning 
 treachery, that, if the sun fell hissing into the sea at noon, 
 it would have mattered less, only of that loss that tore 
 his heart out with it. 
 
412 THE SOUTH BEEAKER. 
 
 " Gabriel ! " lie shouted, " Gabriel ! " And his voice 
 was heart-rending. I know that Mr. Gabriel felt it, for 
 he never turned nor stirred. 
 
 Then I don't know what came over Dan : a blind rage 
 swelling in his heart seemed to make him larger in every 
 limb ; he towered like a flame. He sprang to the tiller, 
 but, as he did so, saw with one flash of his eye that Mr. 
 Gabriel had unshipped the rudder and thrown it away. 
 He seized an oar to steer with in its place ; he saw that 
 they, in their ignorance fast edging on the flats, would 
 shortly be aground ; more fisherman than sailor, he knew 
 a thousand tricks of boat-craft that they had never heard 
 of. We flew, we flew through cloven ridges, we became 
 a wind ourselves, and while I tell it he was beside them, 
 had gathered himself as if to leap the chasm between time 
 and eternity, and had landed among them in the Speed. 
 The wherry careened with the shock and the water poured 
 into her, and she flung headlong and away as his foot 
 spurned her. Heaven knows why she did n't upset, for I 
 thought of nothing but the scene before me as I drifted 
 off from it. I shut the eyes in my soul now, that I 
 may n't see that horrid scuffle twice. Mr. Gabriel, he 
 rose, he turned. If Dan was the giant beside him, he 
 himself was so well-knit, so supple, so adroit, that his 
 power was like the blade in the hand. Dan's strength 
 was lying round loose, but Mr. Gabriel's was trained, it 
 hid like springs of steel between brain and wrist, and 
 from him the clap fell with the bolt. And then, besides, 
 Dan did not love Faith, and he did love Gabriel. Any 
 one could see how it would go. I screamed. I cried, 
 " Faith ! Faith ! " And some natural instinct stirred in 
 Faith's heart, for she clung to Mr. Gabriel's arm to pull 
 him off from Dan. But he shook her away like rain. 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 413 
 
 Then such a mortal weakness took possession of me that 
 I saw everything black, and when it was clean gone, I 
 looked, and they were locked in each other's arms, fierce, 
 fierce and fell, a death-grip. They were staggering to 
 the boat's edge : only this I saw, that Mr. Gabriel was 
 inside : suddenly the helmsman interposed with an oar, 
 and broke their grasps. Mr. Gabriel reeled away, free, 
 for a second ; then, the passion, the fury, the hate in his 
 heart feeding his strength as youth fed the locks of Sam 
 son, he darted, and lifted Dan in his two arms and threw 
 him like a stone into the water. Stiffened to ice, I waited 
 for Dan to rise ; the other craft, the Follow, skimmed 
 between us, and one man managing her that she should n't 
 heel, the rest drew Dan in, it 's not the depth of two 
 foot there, tacked about, and after a minute came along 
 side, seized our painter, and dropped him gently into his 
 own boat. Then for the Speed had got afloat again 
 the thing stretched her two sails wing and wing, and went 
 ploughing up a great furrow of foam before her. 
 
 I sprang to Dan. He was not senseless, but in a kind 
 of stupor : his head had struck the fluke of a half-sunk 
 anchor and it had stunned him, but as the wound bled he 
 recovered slowly and opened his eyes. Ah, what misery 
 was in them ! I turned to the fugitives. They were yet 
 in sight, Mr. Gabriel sitting and seeming to adjure Faith, 
 whose skirts he held ; but she stood, and her arms were 
 outstretched, and, pale as a foam-wreath her face, and 
 piercing as a night-wind her voice, I heard her cry, " Oh, 
 Georgie ! Georgie ! " It was too late for her to cry or to 
 wring her hands now. She should have thought of that 
 before. But Mr. Gabriel rose and drew her down, and 
 hid her face in his arms and bent over it ; and so they 
 fled up the basin and round the long line of sand, and out 
 into the gloom and the curdling mists. 
 
414 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 I bound up Dan's head. I could n't steer with an oar, 
 that was out of the question, but, as luck would have 
 it, could row tolerably ; so I got down the little mast, and 
 at length reached the wharves. The town-lights flickered 
 up in the darkness and flickered back from the black rush 
 ing river, and then out blazed the great mills ; and as I 
 felt along, I remembered times when we 'd put in by the 
 tender sunset, as the rose faded out of the water and the 
 orange ebbed down the west, and one by one the sweet 
 evening-bells chimed forth, so clear and high, and each 
 with a different tone, that it seemed as if the stars must 
 flock, tinkling, into the sky. And here were the bells 
 ringing out again, ringing out of the gray and the gloom, 
 dull and brazen, as if they rang from some cavern of 
 shadows, or from the mouth of hell, but no, that was 
 down river ! Well, I made my way, and the men on the 
 landing took up Dan, and helped him in and got him on 
 my little bed, and no sooner there than the heavy sleep 
 with which he had struggled fell on him like lead. 
 
 The story flew from mouth to mouth, the region rang 
 with it ; nobody had any need to add to it, or to make it 
 out a griffin or a dragon that had gripped Faith and car 
 ried her off in his talons. But everybody declared that 
 those boats could be no ship's yawls at all, but must 
 belong to parties from up river camping out on the beach, 
 and that a parcel of such must have gone sailing with 
 some of the hands of a sand-droger : there was one in the 
 stream now, that had got off with the tide, said the Jerdan 
 boys who 'd been down there that afternoon, though there 
 was no such name as " Flyaway " on her stern, and they 
 were waiting for the master of her, who 'd gone off on a 
 spree, a dare : devil fellow, that used to .run a smuggler 
 between Bordeaux and Bristol, as they 'd heard say : and 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 415 
 
 all agreed that Mr. Gabriel could never have had to do 
 with them before that day, or he 'd have known what a 
 place a sand-droger would be for a woman ; and every 
 body made excuses for Gabriel, and everybody was down 
 on Faith. So there things lay. It was raw and chill 
 when the last neighbor left us, the sky was black as a 
 cloak, not a star to be seen, the wind had edged back to 
 the east again and came in wet and wild from the sea and 
 fringed with its thunder. Oh, poor little Faith, what a 
 night ! what a night for her ! 
 
 I went back and sat down by Dan, and tried to keep 
 his head cool. Father was up walking the kitchen-floor 
 till late, but at length he lay down across the foot of 
 mother's bed, as if expecting to be called. The lights 
 were put out, there was no noise in the town, every one 
 slept, every one, except they watched like me, on that 
 terrible night. No noise in the town, did I say ? Ah, 
 but there was ! It came creeping round the corners, it 
 poured rushing up the street, it rose from everywhere, 
 a voice, a voice of woe, the heavy booming rote of the 
 sea. I looked out, but it was pitch-dark, light had for 
 saken the world, we were beleaguered by blackness. It 
 grew colder, as if one felt a fog fall, and the wind, mount 
 ing slowly, now blew a gale. It eddied in clouds of dead 
 and whirling leaves, and sent big torn branches flying 
 aloft ; it took the house by the four corners and shook it 
 to loosening the rafters, and I felt the chair rock under 
 me ; it rumbled down the chimney as if it would tear the 
 life out of us. And with every fresh gust of the gale the 
 rain slapped against the wall, the rain that fell in rivers, 
 and went before the wind in sheets, and sheltered as I 
 was, the torrents seemed to pour over me like cataracts, 
 and every drop pierced me like a needle, and I put my 
 
416 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 fingers in my ears to shut out the howl of the wind and 
 the waves. I could n't keep my thoughts away from 
 Faith. Oh, poor girl, this was n't what she 'd expected ! 
 As plainly as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the 
 hurrying feet, the slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the 
 creaking cordage, the heaving and plunging and strain 
 ing, and the wide wild night. And I was beating off those 
 dreadful lines with them, two dreadful lines of white froth 
 through the blackness, two lines where the horns of 
 breakers guard the harbor, all night long beating off 
 the lee with them, my life in my teeth, and chill, blank, 
 shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my whole 
 being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving 
 on the rocks : it seemed as if a madness took possession 
 of me, I reeled as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, 
 I waited till she should strike. And then I thought I 
 heard cries, and I ran out in the storm, and down upon 
 the causey, but nothing met me but the hollow night and 
 the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried 
 up and down and wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures 
 of summer nights flashed upon me and faded, where 
 out of deep blue vaults the stars hung like lamps, great 
 and golden, or where soft films just hazing heaven 
 caught the rays till all above gleamed like gauze faintly 
 powdered and spangled with silver, or heavy with 
 heat, slipping over silent waters, through scented airs, 
 under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose 
 before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking, 
 such as I 'd seen them from the Shoals in broad daylight, 
 when tempestuous columns scooped themselves up from 
 the green gulfs and shattered in foam on the shuddering 
 rock, ah ! but that was day, and this was midnight and 
 murk ! storms as I 'd heard tell of them off Cape Race, 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 417 
 
 when great steamers went down with but one cry, and the 
 waters crowded them out of sight, storms where, out of 
 the wilderness of waves that far and wide wasted white 
 around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the 
 mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, 
 plunging, and swamping and crashing them into bottom 
 less pits of destruction, storms where waves toss and 
 breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip from 
 under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling 
 to the crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, 
 and the spray, and the sea lashes and beats them with 
 great strokes and sucks them down to death : and right in 
 the midst of it all there burst a gun, one, another, and 
 no more. " Oh, Faith ! Faith ! " I cried again, and I ran 
 and hid my head in the bed. 
 
 How long did I stay so ? An hour, or maybe two. 
 Dan was still dead with sleep, but mother had no more 
 closed an eye than I. There was no rain now, the wind 
 had fallen, the dark had lifted ; I looked out once more, 
 and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the 
 river from bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and 
 bound the cloths cold on Dan's head again. I had n't a 
 thought in my brain, and I fell to counting the meshes in 
 the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was 
 the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew 
 clearer, it got to being a universal gray ; there 'd been 
 no sunrise, but it was day. Dan stirred, he turned 
 over heavily ; then he opened his eyes wide and looked 
 about him. 
 
 " I 've had such a fright ! " he said. " Georgie ! is that 
 you?" 
 
 With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back. 
 In a moment or two he tried to rise, but he was weak as 
 
 18* AA 
 
418 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 a child. He contrived to keep on his elbow a moment, 
 though, and to give a look out of the window. 
 
 " It came on to blow, did n't it ? " he asked ; but there 
 he sank down again. 
 
 " I can't stay so ! " he murmured soon. " I can't stay 
 so ! Here, I must tell you. Georgie, get out the spy 
 glass, and go up on the roof and look over. I 've had a 
 dream, I tell you ! I 've had a dream. Not that either, 
 but it 's just stamped on me ! It was like a storm, 
 and I dreamed that that schooner the Flyaway had 
 parted. And the half of her 's crashed down just as she 
 broke, and Faith and that man are high up on the bows 
 in the middle of the South Breaker ! Make haste, Geor 
 gia ! Christ ! make haste ! " 
 
 I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began 
 to put the spy-glass together. Suddenly he cried out 
 again, 
 
 " Oh, here 's where the fault was ! What right had I 
 ever to marry the child, not loving her ? I bound her ! 
 I crushed her ! I stifled her ! If she lives, it is my sin ; 
 if she dies, I murder her ! " 
 
 He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came 
 thick, and great choking groans rent their way up from 
 his heart. 
 
 All at once, as I looked up, there stood mother, in her 
 long white gown, beside the bed, and bending over and 
 taking Dan's hot head in her two hands. 
 
 " Behold, He cometh with clouds ! " she whispered. 
 
 It always did seem to me as if mother had the imposi 
 tion of hands, perhaps every one feels just so about their 
 mother, but only her touch always lightens an ache for 
 me, whether it 's in the heart or the head. 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Khody," said Dan, looking up in her face 
 with his distracted eyes, " can't you help me ? " 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 419 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence 
 cometh my help," said mother. 
 
 " There 's no help there ! " called Dan. " There 's no 
 God there ! He would n't have let a little child run into 
 her damnation ! " 
 
 " Hush, hush, Dan ! " murmured mother. " Faith 
 never can have been at sea in such a night as this, and 
 not have felt God's hand snatching her out of sin. If she 
 lives, she 's a changed woman ; and if she dies, her soul is 
 whitened and fit to walk with saints. Through much 
 tribulation." 
 
 " Yes, yes," muttered father, in the room beyond, spit 
 ting on his hands, as if he were going to take hold of the 
 truth by the handle, " it 's best to clean up a thing with 
 the first spot, and not wait for it to get all rusty with 
 crime." 
 
 "And he!" said Dan, " and he, that man, 
 Gabriel!" 
 
 " Between the saddle and the ground 
 If mercy 's asked, mercy 's found," 
 
 said I. 
 
 " Are you there yet, Georgia ? " he cried, turning to 
 me. -"Here! I'll go myself!" But he only stumbled 
 and fell on the bed again. 
 
 " In all the terror and the tempest of these long hours, 
 for there 's been a fearful storm, though you have n't 
 felt it," said mother, " in all that, Mr. Gabriel can't 
 have islept. But at first it must have been that great 
 dread appalled him, and he may have been beset with 
 sorrow. He 'd brought her to this. But at last, for he 's 
 no coward, he has looked death in the face and not 
 flinched ; and the danger, and the grandeur there is in 
 despair, have lifted his spirit to great heights, heights 
 
420 THE SOUTH BBEAKER. 
 
 found now in an hour, but which in a whole life long he 
 never would have gained, heights from which he has 
 seen the light of God's face and been transfigured in it, 
 heights where the soul dilates to a stature it can never 
 lose. Oh, Dan, there 's a moment, a moment when the 
 dross strikes off, and the impurities, and the grain sets, 
 and there comes out the great white diamond. For by 
 grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of your 
 selves, it is the gift of God, of Him that maketh the 
 seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death 
 into the morning. Oh, I will believe that Mr. Gabriel 
 had n't any need to grope as we do, but that suddenly he 
 saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp 
 closed round him, and death and hell can have no power 
 over him now. Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the 
 earth with the ore than to be forged in the furnace and 
 beaten to a blade fit for the hands of archangels ? " 
 
 And mother stopped, trembling like a leaf. 
 
 I 'd been wiping and screwing the glass, and I 'd waited 
 a breath, for mother always talked so like a preacher ; 
 but when she 'd finished, after a second or two Dan looked 
 up, and said, as if he 'd just come in, 
 
 " Aunt Rhody, how come you out of bed ? " 
 
 And then mother, she got upon the bed, and she took 
 Dan's head on her breast and fell to stroking his brows, 
 laying her cool palms on his temples and on his eyelids, 
 as once I 'd have given my ears to do, and I slipped out 
 of the room. 
 
 Oh, I hated to go up those stairs, to mount that ladder, 
 to open the scuttle ! And once there, I waited and waited 
 before I dared to look. The night had unnerved me. 
 At length I fixed the glass. I swept the broad swollen 
 stream, to the yellowing woods, and over the meadows, 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 421 
 
 where a pale transient beam crept under and pried up 
 the haycocks, the smoke that began to curl from the 
 chimneys and fall as soon, the mists blowing off from 
 Indian Hill, but brooding blue and dense down the turn 
 pike, and burying the red spark of the moon, that smoth 
 ered like a half-dead coal in her ashes, anywhere, any 
 where but that spot ! I don't know why it was, but I 
 could n't level the glass there, my arm would fall, my 
 eye haze. Finally I brought it round nearer and tried 
 again. Everywhere, as far as your eye could reach, the 
 sea was yeasty and white with froth, and great streaks of 
 it were setting up the inky river, and against it there were 
 the twin light-houses quivering their little yellow rays as 
 if to mock the dawn, and far out on the edge of day the 
 great light at the Isles of Shoals blinked and blinked, 
 crimson and gold, fainter and fainter, and lost at last. It 
 was no use, I did n't dare point it, my hand trembled so I 
 could see nothing plain, when suddenly an engine went 
 thundering over the bridge and startled me into stillness. 
 The tube slung in my hold and steadied against the chim 
 ney, and there What was it in the field ? what ghastly 
 picture ? 
 
 The glass crashed from my hand, and I staggered 
 shrieking down the ladder. 
 
 The sound was n't well through my lips, when the door 
 slammed, and Dan had darted out of the house and to the 
 shore. I after him. There was a knot sitting and stand 
 ing round there in the gray, shivering, with their hands 
 in their pockets and their pipes set in their teeth ; but 
 the gloom was on them as well, and the pipes went out 
 between the puffs. 
 
 " Where 's Dennis's boat ? " Dan demanded, as he 
 strode. 
 
422 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 " The six-oar 's all the one not " 
 
 " The six-oar I want. Who goes with me ? " 
 
 There was n't a soul in the ward but would have fol 
 lowed Dan's lead to the end of the world and jumped off; 
 and before I could tell their names there were three men 
 on the thwarts, six oars in the air, Dan stood in the bows, 
 a word from him, and they shot away. 
 
 I watched while I could see, and then in and up to the 
 attic, forgetting to put mother in her bed, forgetting all 
 things but the one. And there lay the glass broken. I sat 
 awhile with the pieces in my hand, as if I 'd lost a king 
 dom ; then down, and mechanically put things to rights, 
 and made mother comfortable, and she 's never stood on 
 her feet from that day to this. At last I seated myself 
 before the fire, and stared into it to blinding. 
 
 " Won't some one lend you a glass, Georgie ? " said 
 mother. 
 
 " Of course they will ! " I cried, for, you see, I had n't 
 a wit of my own, and I ran out. 
 
 There 's a glass behind every door in the street, you 
 should know, and there 's no day in the year that you '11 
 go by and not see one stretching from some roof where 
 the heart of the house is out on the sea. Oh, sometimes 
 I think all the romance of the town is clustered down here 
 on the Flats and written in pale cheeks and starting eyes. 
 But what 's the use ? After one winter, one, I gave mine 
 away, and never got another. It 's just an emblem of 
 despair. Look,, and look again, and look till your soul 
 sinks, and the thing you want never crosses it ; but you 're 
 down in the kitchen stirring a porridge, or you 're off at a 
 neighbor's asking the news, and somebody shouts at you 
 round the corner, and there, black and dirty and dearer 
 than gold, she lies between the piers. 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 423 
 
 All the world was up on their house-tops spying, that 
 morning, but there was nobody would keep their glass 
 while I had none ; so I went back armed, and part of it 
 all I saw, and part of it father told me. 
 
 I waited till I thought they were 'most across, and then 
 I rubbed the lens. At first I saw nothing, and I began 
 to quake with a greater fear than any that had yet taken 
 root in me. But with the next moment there they were, 
 pulling close up. I shut my eyes for a flash with some 
 kind of a prayer that was most like an imprecation, and 
 when I looked again they had dashed over and dashed 
 over, taking the rise of the long roll, and were in the 
 midst of the South Breaker. O God ! that terrible South 
 Breaker ! The oars bent lithe as willow-switches, a mo 
 ment they skimmed on the caps, a moment were hid in 
 the snow of the spray. Dan, red-shirted, still stood there, 
 his whole soul on the aim before him, like that of some 
 leaper flying through the air ; he swayed to the stroke, 
 he bowed, he rose, perfectly balanced, and flexile as the 
 wave. The boat behaved beneath their hands like a live 
 creature : she bounded so that you almost saw the light 
 under her ; her whole stem lifted itself slowly out of the 
 water, caught the back of a roller and rode over upon the 
 next ; the very things that came rushing in with their 
 white rage to devour her bent their necks and bore her 
 up like a bubble. Constantly she drew nearer that dark 
 and shattered heap up to which the fierce surf raced, and 
 over which it leaped. And there all the time, all the 
 time, they had been clinging, far out on the bowsprit, 
 those two figures, her arms close-knit about him, he clasp 
 ing her with one, the other twisted in the hawser whose 
 harsh thrilling must have filled their ears like an organ- 
 note as it swung them to and fro, clinging to life, 
 
424 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 clinging to each other more than to life. The wreck 
 scarcely heaved with the stoutest blow of the tremendous 
 surge ; here and there, only, a plank shivered off and was 
 bowled on and thrown high upon the beach beside frag 
 ments of beams broken and bruised to a powder ; it 
 seemed to be as firmly planted there as the breaker itself. 
 Great feathers of foam flew across it, great waves shook 
 themselves thin around it and veiled it in shrouds, and 
 with their every breath the smothering sheets dashed over 
 them, the two. And constantly the boat drew nearer, 
 as I said ; they were almost within hail ; Dan saw her 
 hair streaming on the wind ; he waited only for the long 
 wave. On it came, that long wave, oh ! I can see it 
 now ! plunging and rearing and swelling, a monstrous 
 billow, sweeping and swooping and rocking in. Its hol 
 lows gaped with slippery darkness, it towered and sent 
 the scuds before its trembling crest, breaking with a 
 mighty rainbow as the sun burst forth, it fell in a white 
 blindness everywhere, rushed seething up the sand, and 
 the bowsprit was bare ! 
 
 When father came home, the rack had driven down the 
 harbor and left clear sky ; it was near nightfall ; they 'd 
 been searching the shore all day, to no purpose. But 
 that rainbow, I always took it for a sign. Father was 
 worn out, yet he sat in the chimney-side, cutting off great 
 quids and chewing and thinking and sighing. At last he 
 went and wound up the clock, it was the stroke of 
 twelve, and then he turned to me and said, 
 
 " Dan sent you this, Georgie. He hailed a pilot-boat, 
 and 's gone to the Cape to join the fall fleet to the fish- 
 'ries. And he sent you this." 
 
 It was just a great hand-grip to make, your nails pur 
 ple, but there was heart's-blood in it. See, there 's the 
 mark to-day. 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 425 
 
 So there was Dan off in the Bay of Chaleur. 'T was 
 the best place for him. And I went about my work once 
 more. There was a great gap in my life, but I tried not 
 to look at it. I durst n't think of Dan, and I would n't 
 think of them, the two. Always in such times it 's as 
 if a breath had come and blown across the pool and you 
 could see down its dark depths and into the very bottom, 
 but time scums it all over again. And I tell you it 's 
 best to look trouble in the face : if you don't, you '11 have 
 more of it. So I got a lot of shoes to bind, and what 
 part of my spare time I wa'n't at my books the needle 
 flew. But I turned no more to the past than I could 
 help, and the future trembled too much to be seen. 
 
 Well, the two months dragged away, it got to be 
 Thanksgiving-week, and at length the fleet was due. I 
 mind me I made a great baking that week ; and I put 
 brandy into the mince for once, instead of vinegar and 
 dried-apple juice, and there were the fowls stuffed and 
 trussed on the shelf, and the pumpkin-pies like slices 
 of split gold, and the cranberry-tarts, plats of crimson 
 and puffs of snow, and I was brewing in my mind a 
 right-royal red Indian-pudding to come out of the oven 
 smoking hot and be soused with thick clots of yellow 
 cream, when one of the boys ran in and told us the 
 fleet 'd got back, but no Dan with it, he 'd changed 
 over to a fore-and-after, and would n't be home at all, but 
 was to stay dow.n in the Georges all winter, and he 'd 
 sent us'word. Well, the baking went to the dogs, or the 
 Thanksgiving beggars, which is the same thing. 
 
 Then days went by, as days will, and it was well into 
 the New Year. I used to sit there at the window, read 
 ing, but the lines would run together, and I 'd forget 
 what 't was all about, and gather no sense, and the image 
 
426 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 of the little fore-and-after, the " Feather," raked in be 
 tween the leaves, and at last I had to put all that aside ; 
 and then I sat stitching, stitching, but got into a sad habit 
 of looking up and looking out each time I drew the 
 thread. I felt it was a shame of me to be so glum, and 
 mother missed my voice ; but I could no more talk than 
 I could have given conundrums to King Solomon, and as 
 
 for singing Oh, I used to long so for just a word 
 
 from Dan ! 
 
 We 'd had dry fine weeks all along, and father said 
 he 'd known we should have just such a season, because 
 the goose's breast-bone was so white ; but St. Valentine's 
 day the weather broke, broke in a chain of storms that 
 the September gale was a whisper to. Ah, it was a 
 dreadful winter, that! You've surely heard of it. It 
 made forty widows in one town. Of the dead that were 
 found on Prince Edward's Island's shores there were 
 four corpses in the next house yonder, and two in the one 
 behind. And what waiting and watching and cruel pangs 
 of suspense for them that could n't have even the peace 
 of certainty ! And I was one of those. 
 
 The days crept on, I say, and got bright again ; no 
 June days ever stretched themselves to half such length ; 
 there was perfect stillness in the house, it seemed to 
 me that I counted every tick of the clock. In the even 
 ings the neighbors used to drop in and sit mumbling over 
 their fearful memories till the flesh crawled on my bones. 
 Father, then, he wanted cheer, and he 'd get me to sing 
 ing " Caller Herrin'." Once, I 'd sung the first part, but 
 as I teached the lines, 
 
 " When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, 
 Dreamt ye aught o' our puir fellows 
 Darklin' as they face the billows, 
 A' to fill our woven willows," 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 427 
 
 as I reached those lines, my voice trembled so 's to shake 
 the tears out of my eyes, and Jim Jerdan took it up him 
 self and sung it through for me to words of his own 
 invention. He was always a kindly fellow, and he knew 
 a little how the land lay between me and Dan. 
 
 " When I was down in the Georges," said Jim Jer 
 dan - 
 
 " You ? When was you down there ? " asked father. 
 
 " Well, once I was. There 's worse places." 
 
 " Can't tell me nothing about the Georges," said father. 
 " 'T a'n't the rivers of Damascus exactly, but 't a'n't the 
 Marlstrom neither." 
 
 " Ever ben there, Cap'n ? " 
 
 " A few. Spent more nights under cover roundabouts 
 than Georgie '11 have white hairs in her head, for all 
 she 's washing the color out of her eyes now." 
 
 You see, father knew I set by my hair, for in those 
 days I rolled it thick as a cable, almost as long, black as 
 that cat's back, and he thought he 'd touch me up a 
 little. 
 
 a Wash the red from her cheek and the light from her 
 look, and she '11 still have the queen's own tread," said 
 Jim. 
 
 " If Loisy Currier 'd heern that, you 'd wish your cake 
 was dough," says father. 
 
 " I '11 resk it," says Jim. " Loisy knows who 's second 
 choice, as well as if you told her." 
 
 " Bur what about the Georges, Jim ? " I asked ; for 
 though I hated to hear, I could listen to nothing else. 
 
 " Georges ? Oh, not much. Just like any other place." 
 
 " But what do you do down there ? " 
 
 " Do ? Why, we fish, in the pleasant weather." 
 
 " And when it 's not pleasant ? " 
 
428 THE SOUTH BKEAKER. 
 
 " Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the 
 helium into the lee becket, and go below and amuse our 
 selves." 
 
 " How ? " I asked, as if I had n't heard it all a hundred 
 times. 
 
 " One way V another. Pipes, and mugs, and poker, 
 if it a'n't too rough ; and if it is, we just bunk and snooze 
 till it gets smooth." 
 
 " Why, Jim, how do you know when that is ? " 
 
 " Well, you can jedge, 'f the pipe falls out of your 
 pocket and don't light on the ceiling." 
 
 " And who 's on deck ? " 
 
 " There 's no one on deck. There 's no danger, no 
 trouble, no nothing. Can't drive ashore, if you was to 
 try : hundred miles off, in the first place. Hatches are 
 closed, she 's light as a cork, rolls over and over just like 
 any other log in the water, and there can't a drop get 
 into her, if she turns bottom-side up." 
 
 " But she never can right herself ! " 
 . " Can't she ? You just try her. Why, I Ve known 
 'em to keel over and rake bottom and bring up the weed 
 on the topmast. I tell you now ! there was one time we 
 knowed she 'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why ? 
 Because, when it cleared and we come up, there was her 
 two masts broke short off ! " 
 
 And Jim went home thinking he 'd given me a night's 
 sleep. But it was cold comfort ; the Georges seemed to 
 me a worse place than the Hellgate. And mother she 
 kept murmuring, " He layeth the beams of His cham 
 bers in the waters, His pavilion round about Him is dark 
 waters and thick clouds of the skies." And I knew by 
 that she thought it pretty bad. 
 
 So the days went in cloud and wind. The owners of 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKEK. . 429 
 
 the Feather 'd been looking for her a month and more, 
 and there were strange kind of rumors afloat ; and nobody- 
 mentioned Dan's name, unless they tripped. I went glow 
 ering like a wild thing. I knew I 'd never see Dan now 
 nor hear his voice again, but I hated the Lord that had 
 done it, and I made my heart like the nether millstone. I 
 used to try and get out of folks's sight ; and roaming about 
 the back-streets one day, as the snow went off, I stumbled 
 on Miss Catharine. " Old Miss Catharine " everybody 
 called her, though she was but a pauper, and had black 
 blood in her veins. Eighty years had withered her, a 
 little woman at best, and now bent so that her head and 
 shoulders hung forward and she could n't lift them, and 
 she never saw the sky. Her face to the ground as no 
 beast's face is turned even, she walked with a cane, and 
 fixing it every few steps she would throw herself back, 
 and so get a glimpse of her way and go on. I looked 
 after her, and for the first tune in weeks my heart ached 
 for somebody beside myself. The next day mother sent 
 me with a dish to Miss Catharine's room, and I went in 
 and sat down. I did n't like her at first ; she 'd got a 
 way of looking sidelong that gave her an evil air ; but 
 soon she tilted herself backward, and I saw her face, 
 such a happy one ! 
 
 " What 's the matter of ye, honey ? " said she. " D' ye 
 read your Bible ? " 
 
 Read my Bible ! 
 
 " Is that what makes you happy, Miss Catharine ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Well, I can't read much myself, I don't know the 
 letters," says she ; " but I 've got the blessed promises in 
 my heart." 
 
 " Do you want me to read to you ? " 
 
430 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 " No, not to-day. Next time you come, maybe." 
 
 So I sat awhile and listened to her little humming 
 voice, and we fell to talking about mother's ailments, and 
 vshe said how fine it would be, if we could only afford to 
 take mother to Bethesda. 
 
 " There 's no angel there now," said I. 
 
 " I know it, dear, but then there might be, you 
 know. At any rate, there 's always the living waters 
 running to make us whole : I often think of that." 
 
 " And what else do you think of, Miss Catharine ? " 
 
 " Me ? " said she. " Oh, I ha'n't got no husband nor 
 no child to think about and hope for, and so I think of 
 myself, and what I should like, honey. And sometimes 
 I remember them varses, here ! you read 'em now, 
 Luke xiii. 11." 
 
 So I read : 
 
 " And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit 
 of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and 
 could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw 
 her, he called her to him, and said unto her, ' Woman, 
 thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' And he laid his 
 hands on her : and immediately she was made straight, 
 and glorified God." 
 
 " Ay, honey, I see that all as if it was me. And I 
 think, as I 'm setting here, What if the latch should lift, 
 and the gracious stranger should come in, his gown 
 a-sweepin' behind him and a-sweet'nin' the air, and he 
 should look down on me with his heavenly eyes, and he 
 should smile, and lay his hands on my head, warm, and 
 I say to myself, ' Lord, I am not worthy,' and he says, 
 ' Miss Catharine, thou art loosed from thine infirmity ! ' 
 And the latch lifts as I think, and I wait, but it 's not 
 Him." 
 
THE SOUTH BREAKER. 431 
 
 Well, when I went out of that place I was n't the 
 same girl that had gone in. My will gave way ; I came 
 home and took up my burden and was in peace. Still I 
 could n't help my thoughts, and they ran perpetually 
 to the sea. I had n't need to go up on the house-tops, 
 for I did n't shut my eyes but there it stretched before 
 me. I stirred about the rooms and tried to make them 
 glad once more ; but I was thin and blanched as if I 'd 
 been rising from a fever. Father said it was the salt air 
 I wanted ; and one day he was going out for frost-fish, 
 and he took me with him, and left me and my basket on 
 the sands while he was away. It was this side of the 
 South Breaker that he put me out, but I walked there ; 
 and where the surf was breaking in the light, I went and 
 sat down and looked over it. I could do that now. 
 
 There was the Cape sparkling miles and miles across 
 the way, unconcerned that he whose firm foot had rung 
 last on its flints should ring there no more ; there was the 
 beautiful town lying large and warm along the river ; 
 here gay craft went darting about like gulls, and there up 
 the channel sped a larger one, with all her canvas flash 
 ing in the sun, and shivering a little spritsail in the" 
 shadow, as she went ; and fawning in upon my feet came 
 the foam from the South Breaker, that still perhaps 
 cradled Faith and Gabriel. But as I looked, my eye 
 fell, and there came the sea-scenes again, other scenes 
 than this, coves and corners of other coasts, sky-girt 
 regions 'of other waters. The air was soft, that April 
 day, and I thought of the summer calms ; and with that 
 rose long sheets of stillness, far out from any strand, 
 purple beneath the noon ; fields slipping close in-shore, 
 emerald-backed and scaled with sunshine ; long sleepy 
 swells that hid the light in their hollows, and came 
 
432 THE SOUTH BREAKER. 
 
 creaming along the cliffs. And if upon these broke 
 suddenly a wild glimpse of some storm careering over 
 a merciless mid-ocean, of a dear dead face tossing up on 
 the surge and snatched back again into the depths, of 
 mad wastes rushing to tear themselves to fleece above 
 clear shallows and turbid sand-bars, they melted and 
 were lost in peaceful glimmers of the moon on distant 
 flying foam-wreaths, in solemn midnight tides chanting in 
 under hushed heavens, in twilight stretches kissing twi 
 light slopes, in rosy morning waves flocking up the sing 
 ing shores. And sitting so, with my lids still fallen, I 
 heard a quick step on the beach, and a voice that said, 
 " Georgie ! " And I looked, and a figure, red-shirted, 
 towered beside me, and a face, brown and bearded and 
 tender, bent above me. 
 Oh ! it was Dan ! 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (415)642-6233 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 NQV251987 
 
 DEC 13 1997 
 
 CIRCULATION DEPT. 
 
N^ 486032 
 
 Spofford, H.E.P. 
 The amber gods. 
 
 PS2897 
 A6 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 . 
 , 
 . 
 
 . 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 - 
 
 ,