A,tr, l/f (1C - '*" Av ,-- ^ 1 -.8 Len BeeK, Cat THE OPAL QUEEN. BY ELIZA B. SWAN, AUTHOR OF "ONCE A YEAR; OR, THE DOCTORS' PUZZLE." 'Rising from the barely good to the better and the best." -DR. JUDSON. CINCINNATI: EGBERT CLARKE & CO. 1892. COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY ELIZA B. SWAN. IN MEMORY OF MY SAINTED MOTHEE, WHOSE LIFE WAS A CONSTANT INSPIRATION TO HOLY LIVING, AND FOR THE SAKE OF THE MASTER, " Whose I am and Whom I serve," " The great fad is that life is a service; the only question is whom will we serve." FABER. (iii) 2046431 AUTHOR'S NOTE. The author finds some embarrassment between the desire of presenting the character of Mr. Earle in the stronger lights which his letters would reveal, and the danger of clogging the narrative with irrelevant matter and thus weaken the interest in Miss Archer's career. A correspondence between Mr. Earle and a college friend, Mr. Arthur Doane, is in the author's hands, and the temptation is strong to introduce these letters. But as they treat mainly of his connection with the " Mon- boddo School," and the literary development through which he was passing at that period, it is necessary to content our-' selves with an extract, here and there, from these letters. For this same reason (preserving the unities of the story), the history of the eccentricities of the noted teacher, his deal- ings with his pupils, his discussions of the principles of the " literary art," and his methods and suggestions as to the work of teaching, are detached from the story proper, although syn- chronously belonging to it. Those interested in the "Monboddo School " will find the lectures ("examinations") of the Professor, as well as the let- ters of Mr. Earle, in Part Second at the close of the volume. It-is thought best to reserve the essays referred to in the Preface for another work. (iv) PREFACE. DTJKING the author's career as an educator, gradu- ated pupils would come to her for some programme of mental work. After the debut into society (which event as anticipated in school-life was set in a halo of unique, rosy charm) and the "round" of accom- panying excitements, there would come a reaction in which majesty of soul would assert its priority, and the intellect would cry aloud for " something to do ! " Their skilled powers, equipped for earnest endeavor, pleaded for an opportunity to exercise them- selves upon some aim worthy of their devotion. It has been a great pleasure to be a guiding-hand to these aspiring ones, who in the auld lang syne were wont to follow whither she led, and to accept with an "abandon" of trust, beautiful to see in gifted youth her estimate of their capacity for every un- dertaking. Thus it has been her high privilege to still aid the dear pupils, when separated from their Alma Mater. It is with some such intent that is, a continuance of instruction to those seeking new avenues of intel- lectual exploit, that the present story has been writ- ten. In the composition-course outlined by " Professor Monboddo," and illustrated in part by his pupil, Mr. Channing Earle (in the essays at the close of the volume), they will recognize the old landmarks set up for their direction. In addition to exercises in narration, description (first of animate, then of inanimate objects), and imagination including both description and narra- (v) v i PREFACE. the class was drilled for one year in argumen- tative discourse this also including fact and fancy profound questions in ethics, science, politics, and practicalities, or the lighter queries of humor and imagination. After discussions, came dialogues, colloquies, and then the essay proper, the student being now in a condition to handle a subject more in accordance with the approved methods and better able to ap- proximate that high standard with its divisions, sub- divisions, and elaborate inferences and conclusions. Reviews of short, choice works in prose and poetry were next in order, after which came the biography. When the class-material would justify the experiment there would be a short excursion into the fields of poetry. History, requiring the utmost fidelity to truth and fact, unwearied patience of research, and the wise discrimination of mature powers as well as a full garner of rich imagery and thought, was the last in the series. Such is a brief outline of the course successfully carried out through a period of twelve years. " Professor Monboddo" now attempts, in this vol- ume, to open the way to the ambitious scholar into the broader fields of " design in literature " whose outcome is the story and the novel. The Professor is an enthusiast some might say, a crack-brained enthusiast : but it is only they who are possessed of a vitality equally intense at the seat of capillary action, whose blood is valuable for transfusion ! Let us hope that the soundness of the Professor's methods and their successful development by those whom he attracts, may excuse his eccentricity in imparting the information, and that his fervor may at least produce this one good result, viz. : that of satisfying the restless, tormenting craving for "some- thing to do ! " CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Letter 9 II. A Peep at Brentville - 16 III. The Tableau 28 IV. " Gran " - 37 V. The " Season " Opens 51 VI. Letter to Art on Opal 62 VII. Letter to Arthur Doane - 74 VIII. Otto Bresson's Success - - 82 IX. The Jewels 88 X. What Did She Mean? - 97 XI. Sketch I. Childhood's Days 103 XII. The First Greek Festival - - 126 XIII. WJiat the " New Era" Said - 141 XIV. Doubts - 147 XV. Summer Touring - 153 XVI. October's Lesson - - 162 XVII. The Withdrawal 169 XVIII. The Legacy - 179 XIX. Voices from the Village 186 XX. The Opal League - 197 XXI. Arthur's Letter and Channing's Confession - 200 XXII. Channing Reviews the Situation - - 208 XXIII. Gate of the Saints' Rest - 213 XXIV. The Surprise - 219 XXV. Channing's Fortune - 228 XXVI. Elise Returns - 240 XXVII. Elise Crosses the Last Threshold - 2. r >0 XXVIII. The Pestilence- --259 XXIX. The Explanation - - 267 (vii) viii CONTENDS. PART SECOND CHAPTER PAGE I. Letter to Arthur Donne - - 275 II. Professor Moliboddo's First ' Examination " Dis- cussion of the Phrase "Ladies and Gentle- men" School for Authors and Journalists - 279 III. Letter to Arthur Donne - - 290 IV. Second " Examination "Genius, and Hindrances to Its Development - 295 V. Third " Examination "The Spirit of the Author 305 VI. Letter to Arthur Doane - 312 VII. Letter to Arthur Doane - - 314 VIII. Fourth " Examination "Plots and Development of the Novel Study of Character Drawing - 322 IX. Letter to Arthur Doane - 337 X Fiftli " Examination " Novels The Hero and the Heroine - 343 XI. Letter to Arthur Doane - - 353 XII. Sixth " Examination ' Cultivation of a Good Style - - 362 XIII. Letter to Arthur Doane -307 XIV. Seventh "Examination " Lack of Incident in the Novel - - - 37:1 XV. Letter to Arthur Doane - 379 XVI. Eiirhth "Examination" Time and Place for Writing Steadiness to Finish Work - 384 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER I. THE LETTER. " GOOD news for you, darling ! " said Mrs. Healey, folding the letter that she had been reading, and replacing it in the envelope. The Doctor's eyes brightened as he replied, good- naturedly, "Well, let's have it." " But you must guess," his wife replied. " Who do you think is coining to this very town, and going wait, let me see," she said, reopening the letter " yes, going to spend the whole winter here; and perhaps why, can that be possible ? " she inquired of herself dubiously, and turned again to the letter. Having satisfied herself of the truth of the announcement she was about to make, she exclaimed, with a burst of enthusiasm, "Yes, Doctor, perhaps remain." " Coming to visit us, Lily, is this incognitum is it so writ in the bond ?" Mrs. Healey again referred to the letter. " Why, my dear, your memory needs refreshing very often such good news ought to sink deeper than that." " I was going to read you the very words," Mrs. Healey explained. " But first enlighten me as to the writer of that much-handled epistle ; perhaps I shall not care for it verbatim et literatim when I find out who he or she really is." (iz) 10 THE OPAL QUEEN. " But you haven't guessed," replied his wife. " Well, you seem elated ; I guess it's your aunt Esther I think she has most of the 'remaining' qualities of any of your friends excuse me, dear, our friends, I meant to say," he quickly added as he perceived the rising blush on Mrs. Healey 's face. "But seriously, Lily, you do not think of adding her to the family permanently, I hope. I'm fond of my relations, you know," he continued with quizzical gravity, "but there's nothing like keeping each species separate and distinct. Now, in vegetable life, you cannot even mix varieties of the same -species with- out accumulating so much heat that some of the plants suffer." Mrs. Healey did not reply. Neither her face nor her manner gave the least clue to her thoughts, and the Doctor was baffled. But he had learned how best to humor his wife, and went on with his mono- logue. u But perhaps you are not in a mood to relish botanical metaphors this morning, Mrs. Healey, and, as I am reminded by the garments fluttering in the breeze of an ancient but not forgotten art of housewifery, permit me to quote to you the old adage, * Every tub must stand on its own bottom ' with my amendment, and in its own laundry." Mrs. Henley's face had shown signs of increasing mirth, and now she exclaimed, laughing : " Well, dear, that homily is lost, for it isn't Aunt Esther, at all. It is an ardent admirer of mine." " Aha ! so blows the wind ! All the more reason for my homily, then ; for as master of this domicile, Mrs. Healey, I cannot give my consent to any per- manent arrangement for your old suitors," observed the Doctor with mock gravity. " But, dear, you advance too rapidly. I thought only women jumped at conclusions," she added archly, placing herself on a low chair by his side. " But I will release you from Doubting Castle now, as I am sure you would never guess. It is my sweet, THE LETTER. 11 darling friend, and your old pet" the Doctor's eyes grew bigger " Elise Archer, who is coming. Don't you. know, she always called herself my devoted admirer ? " " And mine too, eh, Lily ? " the Doctor replied with a laugh of satisfaction. "You have indeed good news, wife kin ; it acts like a tonic on me. I shall be invigorated for all day." " Just as though you needed any extra stimulant," Lily said, slyly putting her hand in his, "when you have me all prescribed and regulated and labeled according to your own order ; " and she turned a face full of confiding love up to her husband. " That's a fact, Lily," the Doctor said, leaning over the curly head and imprinting a kiss upon the fair cheek. " You are my elixir, but she well, you know she is my El-i-za. There is a difference, I admit; and I concede further that the personal pro- noun preceding that proper noun is out of place, for I have no investment in her whatever, and, further- more, renounce what little I ever had. She shall be yours exclusively, Lily, and I will have my Chan- ning how will that arrangement suit?" "Channing Eaiie? Why, yes, dear, if you like; but " " But what? I did not dream that there could be a negative hypothesis or a doubt where Channing was in question." " But I never knew that he had taken a striking fancy to you " "Pshaw! What matters that? Likes and dislikes are not so much fruits of fancy as you think. We men don't look at it that way. He is a fine, sensible fellow we are mutually pleased with each other ; now if I conclude to yoke him into a closer d la Damon and Pythias bond of union, it is easy enough to entice him into it. Be lovely to him, and he flies right into my arms, just as the iron filings fly to the magnetized ore." " Don't be nonsensical, dear ! Channing is every 12 THE OPAL QUEEN. i inch a man, young as he is, and not one, you'll find, to go at every one's beck and call." "Then I'll pass him over to Elise ; how will that please you?" " Why, dear ! " Mrs. Healey exclaimed, in a remon- strating tone, "why do we introduce him at -all into this talk ? Elise is coming, and that is all my heart and mind can hold to-day." "Your voice sounds as though your 'foot was down,' Mrs. Healey, so I must even acquiesce like the model husband I am. We will drop Channing. Be- hold him non est! He shall remain in his domicile, and we in ours. Is that right ? Isn't my little woman finical this morning ? " " You know that is not what I mean, Doctor. I mean Elise absorbs me, and I don't care about any- body else at present. And there's something practi- cal connected with this subject," she added, seeing the Doctor about to leave the room. " Elise will arrive this evening at " consulting the letter again "at half-past nine ; can you arrange to meet her?" " Yes, yes; count on me to serve you and Elise," lie replied, mischievously. " By the way, is she French or German?" Lily shook her head, and, without waiting for her to speak, he said, " Why don't they preserve English forms and call her plain Eliza?" " Because that is not her name, dear." " Are you prepared to avouch in the presence of this assembled witness, Mrs. Healey, that on the christening roll the name stands Elise Archer ? I'll venture a penny that all this Frenchifying is an after-thought, conjured out of the teeming brains of young misses at boarding-school. How I hate affec- tations ! " he exclaimed, vehemently. " Well, even if it should be so, dear, " Mrs. Healey said, soothingly, "you will forgive that little piece of vanity in your old pet, will you not? She is so nearly perfect that a little blemish will only be an acceptable proof that she comes from the same fallen THE LETTER. 13 angel-stock as the rest of us. She is our charming friend, there is no gainsaying that ; and don't forget to be at the depot promptly at half-past nine." The day had been cold for October, and, as the curtains of evening shut out the sun's last ray, the wind whistling through the chimney attracted Mrs. Healey's attention to the fire of bright pine-knots burning low upon the hearth. She drew a chair before it, reopened her letter, and read it once more by the blazing light. And so her chosen friend was coming to her own home this snug little home, that she had often tried to picture to her in letters. It was too much joy she hardly knew how to contain it all ; in the excess of her transport and desire to do everything and have everything in perfect order about her little household, she could do nothing only sit there in the fading twilight and review the old scenes during the years of her happy authority in her brother's family, when Elise was one of the children that occupied her mind and heart. The vivacity that was always triumphant ; the pitiful remorse when condemned by conscience for misdoing; the pleading sweetness of her voice when she cried, "Please forgive me, Lil; indeed I didn't mean to hurt your feelings ! " if in her impetuosity she spoke with the least sharpness ; her winning, caressing fondness during all those years of her blindness ; the meek acquiescence which this mis- fortune developed in her, and the gentler patience which was the very breath of her life during those days at M Springs when Death stood waiting for his victim all swept like a panorama across her vision. Oh, that happy summer! was there ever such another ? That sanctified spot where she was set the lesson of love, and her heart at last acknowledged that she could learn it from only that master; the adventure at the oriole's nest, when the master came and claimed the poor fluttering heart that had been sadly fretting and pining in a self-imposed imprison- 14 THE OPAL QUEEN. ment; the betrothal, and the wedding at Mrs. Gray's, her brother's wife and Elise's aunt no shadows darkened the bright picture, and the flitting spirits thronged around her and filled her soul with the soft dreamy languor of a forgotten bliss. And that was the last she had seen of Elise. Nine years had folded away their draperies in peaceful silence nine happy years of wedlock. Would Elise think her old and faded ? Would she be as " devoted " as ever to her Lil? And Elise, the bright young girl of seventeen, fragile, willowy, delicate, must now be with light let in to those long-darkened eyes, and with the matured development of body and mind which -she learned from a constant correspondence Elise must be all that heart could wish, both to look at and to love. And she was coming ! Oh, the magic of those words ! The kindly engine was fast lessening the distance between the long-parted friends. In Mrs. Healey's mood, everything that contributed to bring about this desirable result became an object of spon- taneous gratitude. Would she be changed ? In some respects she knew she must be ; for with her restored sight, there came an eager awakening to all that was beautiful in nature and art, and a rapturous plunging into all the accom- plishments of the modern belle. She had written of her course in the School of Design, and subsequent progress under private masters in drawing and paint- ing of her instructions in the Kensington School in finished embroidery ; and had, indeed, sent Lily dainty specimens of her perfected workmanship. " And so," Mrs. Healey mused, "she is no doubt a young lady ' of the period,' with all the isms and fantasies overlaid with bric-a-brac, aesthetics, and Kensington stitches. Ah me ! shall I ever be able to find my Elise?" Then she thought, despairingly, " Will she find me out of the period ? I think mine has only been a dog-trot in this progressive age, while THE LETTER. 15 she has been on a full-blootled racer. Well, she must teach me. Ah, it will be glorious ! " And Mrs. Healey rose, satisfied with her specula- tions and her conclusion, whispering to herself, " How sweet it is to reverse the process of learning and teaching even at thirty-four ! " Now as she began calmly to view the situation, she knew that all was in readiness for her guest's arrival, for, this was Friday, and the whole house had been put to rights ; the guest-room was not only swept and garnished, but scented with the breath of sweet flowers, that curiosity mingled with a zeal for pic- turesque effects had led her to place in some new vases that very morning. " Dear, precious Elise ! " she said to herself, as she rang to order a supper for her friend; "poor or- phaned one, you shall never know the want of a mother while Lily Healey breathes the breath of life. My precious child ! " She stood motionless for a moment with a far-away look in her soft gray eyes, and then, with a subdued rapture, exclaimed : " Yes, you will remain ! " THE OPAL QUEEN, CHAPTER II. A PEEP AT BRENTVILLE. " QUICK ! Lily, quick ! " cried Elise, standing at the window, and gazing into the street. Lily, who was just vanishing through the door, turned to answer the summons ; but the Doctor, being in the immediate neighborhood of the ejaculator, sprang to her side with the subdued alacrity of a veteran of forty, and exclaimed, when he saw the direction of her eyes : " Why, that's our Adonis! posing for your special benefit, Elise, I doubt not. What's the fellow doing?" he added, regarding him a little more narrowly, and then, as he spied his glass, exclaiming, "All, yes! He is in a cometic state this evening possibly cos- metic, eh, Lil ? I declare ! if he keeps that rigid, statuesque pose much longer, I shall begin to think he is comatose." "Quite up in aesthetics, you see, Elise !" chimed in Lily, now grouped with the others in the bay-win- dow. Lily did not know Elise's predilection for aesthetics, and, being herself only slightly tinged, felt at liberty to get what fun out of it she could. "It's a handsome bit of humanity, anyway," said Elise, turning now, as she saw the young man slowly recover his walking posture, and with easy self-pos- session saunter down the street. "Got your matrimonial cap ready, Elise?" inquired the Doctor. " Set it, if you have ; but I warn you that lie won't deign to look at it unless it 'is high- toned: it must be of neutral tint, gray softly shading A PEEP AT BRENTVILLE. 17 into well I don't know exactly what pale, rich, limpid goose-breath ! I guess that's it and lined with old gold of course ! " The girls laughed, and he added, " Something amazingly like that, anyhow, isn't it, dear ? " Lily, thus invited to supplement her husband's ignorance of his theme, checked her laughter. " That will do for a simile, dear. But don't, pray, talk about setting hymeneal caps till we have set our heads together for a little space. Why, we have not seen each other at all yet." " Talked from ten till three," said the Doctor, " to my certain knowledge long enough, I should say, to catch a slight glimpse, unless you talked in the dark; and if you did that, you had the mental vision to scan each other's souls, with time enough to ex- amine every square inch of your bodies outside and in." " Oh, Doctor ! " they protested. " It's a fact ; I have dissected larger " Horrible ! For shame ! " they cried in concert. The Doctor began a hasty retreat from the impend- ing assault-and-battery gleaming in the eyes of the fair but irate Philistines, running at him with their mighty weapons of warfare; but just as they were close upon him, he turned suddenly and squared himself for the attack they recoiled as if shot. " Why don't you. come on?" he cried. " Quite a strong posse of you ! " And then, catching sight of arms bared to the elbow, of the delicate, aesthetic type " What a magnificent stand of arms!" he ex- claimed in a tone of mock surprise and admiration ; "4 humeri, 4 ulnse, 4 radii, 32 carpals, 20 metacarpals, 56 phalanges, appear to my astonished vision,. Prodigious!" -' You forget to curve your phalanges," he called 18 THE OPAL QUEEN. out, as they, having plucked up courage, started to renew the attack. u I'll come back and let you practice some day," he observed blandly, and pretended to make a frightened exit to escape the damage of their mimic warfare. The young man thus introduced to Miss Archer's notice was a cousin of Mrs. Stilz- a young married lady of the village who had stopped to visit her before making his fourth tour abroad. At the precise moment when he was sighted by the window-gazers, he was standing, looking through an opera-glass into the space just above the horizon, judging from the altitude of his glass, which was poised a trifle too high for earth-vistas. He was of rather striking physique, on account of broad, square shoulders set in a frame proportion ably heavier in its upper part, and of picturesque nglig costume, which hung about him with an easy grace that defied most drapers' arts and measurements for only a choice few had yet been instructed in the con- trasts and correspondencies and curves with sufficient mathematical accuracy to fashion such aesthetic dra- peries. Although visiting his cousin, he boarded at the hotel, where, without intrusion or questioning, lie could have his valet and the comforts and luxuries that belonged to his estate as a private gentleman of means, who understood to perfection the high art, the fine art, of living. He had been in town just two weeks, and had set it by the ears the day after his arrival. The young ladies who were eligible were in a craze of generous and ingenious rivalry for his favors. Little Miss Tete was sure she had just the one thing needful to attract the lion, in her limp, petite figure sucli a dainty bit for a capricious, refined, high-toned appetite. Miss St. John prided herself on her Greek profile and bust ; while Miss Stemm knew that her willowy grace would make all his thoughts run to verse, and A PEEP AT BEENTVILLE. 19 if of the silent, "blank" kind, so much the better; for then she could do all the chatting. Violet Love's complexion, with its creamy tint blushing into the luscious hue of the peach, never failed to enchant the most indifferent and bind them as captives to her train. Virginia Smart expected much from her naivete and sparkling humor ; and Gabrielle Bunce was not only a blonde belle, but an heiress who had been pre- sented at court. He seemed to have money in abundance and spent it lavishly upon his pleasures and the girls. When Mrs. Stilz was questioned'as to his finances, she re- plied in ambiguous phrases, or gave mysterious hints of a large patrimony received only two years ago, and left the young man and time to settle, or clear, or cloud the mystery. But this much was assured: he had "enough for any man." Lily rehearsed this on dit to Elise, and wound up by saying : " He puts on airs I think, but is never offensive, and is, I must say profoundly polite and agreeable." Elise found the subject of sufficient interest to ask several questions. " Does he consider himself an apostle of the Beau- tiful, Lily?" " I think he does, Elise." "Does he believe that Nature gives us the true in- timations of true beauty and just principles in Art? " " No doubt he does, if that is what a genuine aesthete ought to belie-ve ; he goes the whole figure," Lilian replied laughing. " If lie burns with a desire to convert others, that shows a certain greatness of mind I do wonder if he belongs to the most pronounced type, and believes that the pursuit of the Beautiful regenerates the soul," she continued meditatively. " I hope not," Lilian declared with a severe earnest- ness. " I certainly do not, Lil, so dismiss your fears, 20 THE OPAL QUEEN. please. But you will grant that it is a necessary means of improvement in society." " I grant that it occupies the restless activity of some people to some ends of decoration, but that it will ever do for anybody's sole nourishment I can never believe, Elise," Lilian replied with emphasis. " Oh, of course not," Elise said absently. " But what is his solution of the mystery of life ? the strife of necessity against the will, like Sohlegel's, or " " Indeed, Elise, you will have to make your own soundings in those deep waters," Lilian answered smiling. " Well, how does he get on in the world, anyhow ? do you think," she said archly, "he manages to get all his humors out as he goes along, Lil? " " What a saucy girl you are, Elise, to give me such a sly thrust ! Don't be so impatient for the study* of our Adonis ; for I promise you that you shall find out all about him for yourself. I shall invite him to call, and he will surely be here on your recep- tion evening, if not before." Elise thought with some secret satisfaction, that it would be a little stimulating to exercise her charms in the field where such imposing rivals had already a fine start in the game. She had not had that kind of excitement in her social life. Travelling and study- ing so much of her time, the company was limited to a few, or swelled to the host of an audience of which she formed not an inconspicuous but a fractional part ; and when in the exceptional periods of social gayety she had been surrounded by her peers among women, the tide of applause and favorable verdict had set in such a strong current towards her, without a thought of hers in the matter by a kind of irre- pressible surging of the male part of humanity, con- sciously or unconsciously driven on to their fate that she had never stopped to question whence it came nor whither it went. She accepted the offerings laid upon her shrine, with an artless composure that be- A PEEP AT BUENTVILLE. 21 wilclered the conceited and daunted the daring ; a frank unreserve and direct simplicity that confounded the adventurous and baffled the intriguing ; and a pretty grace and unaffected sweetness that disarmed criticism and conquered all hearts. Possessed of the ore-magnet that attracted all filings, she had also the purity which instantly re- pelled all baseness. She did not acknowledge or recognize any feeling of rivalry in this new field, in herself. She was only wondering how, under the circumstances, her own personal charms would be rated, and felt a curiosity never before aroused in her bosom, to discover if she would prove a match for this incorrigible, much sought, much coveted Adonis. " Let us get our work, Elise, and have a long talk of old times to begin the ' season ' with ; after that I shall be willing to deliver you up to the voracious appetites of the outside world." " Dear me ! " cried Elise, " will they eat my hymn- book too, like the cannibals of Timbuctoo?" "They will monopolize you, I foresee, and so I don't mean to let them in until I can make up my mind to be contented with a fragment of you now and then. We have a very choice circle here, Elise. I am sure you. will be pleased with the society. For one thing pronouncedly distingue, we have The Mon- boddo School, you know." Elise dropped her work, and looked up inquiringly. " You must have heard of the new school of design in literature, Elise ? Why, there was. a great talk in the papers about it." "Oh! about a year ago? Yes, I remember some- thing about it. Professor came from London, did he not? brought unexceptionable credentials from men in high standing, etc., etc. ? Oh, yes ! I remember it all now; but there wasn't any excitement in the city, only a little evanescent whirr as it passed through." " Well, Professor Monboddo settled here, and has 22 THE OPAL QUEEN. attracted about him a pupilage of sixty as fine young men as ever you saw. This in turn has brought a good many young lady visitors into the village, and some men of culture drop in occasionally, out of curi- osity. That was one thing that attracted Otto Dres- son, the gentleman we saw sighting the comet." " All ! " said Elise. " Did he join the class ? " " No ; upon my word, I believe he is too lazy, for there is a deal of hard work in it, the students say ; and then he is opinionated and cesthetic " she pro- nounced this word with a laugh and a sly glance at Elise. " Oh ! I don't mind your ridicule one bit. Lil. I rather like it and to tell the truth, that part quite predisposes me towards our street hero." "Well, I must not prejudice you; he is clever enough, and a finished gentleman." " The Professor himself is quite an original study," she continued, "and succeeds in exciting an enthusi- asm and devotion among his pupils second to no master since the time of Socrates. He is simple, calm, direct in his speech and manner, and of so un- tarnished an integrity that it comes out in rays all over him, and you absorb it while with him, like a vapor or an electricity ! " " Say what you may, Lily, it is just that fine feel- ing that I have been telling you about that makes the finished gentleman, and puts society upon its highest plane of refinement. Carlyle well expresses it when he says that it is bringing the individual up to his best level that makes refined society." " I agree with you perfectly there, and so does the Professor, only he thinks the foundation should be truth and. love instead of art. But as I was saying, to go on with the current history he requires attendance upon his course for three terms of three months each: after that it is voluntary. He encour- ages the Greek dress it was adopted in fact from his suggestion, taken up with a perfect furore but he does not make it obligatory." A PEEP A T BRENTVILLE. 23 " Do they wear the Greek costume ? " exclaimed Elise in a tumult of delight. " Oui, ma che're! behold our classic antiques!" " Why, I am in the seventh, heaven," cried Elise, rapturously. " And have I lived to see the day the blessed Evangel of art has "No, no; Professor Monboddo wouldn't hear a word about its being art's doings ; it's all Truth with him." " Well, they are sisters, Lil not consanguineous perhaps in the same family maybe : step-sisters ? adopted ? I haven't worked that out yet," she said with dubious meditation. " But," she continued with eargerness, " there is one thing that I have worked out, or rather a flash of conviction has just shot through my brain I'm going to adopt the Greek costume, Lil." " The Monboddoes will be charmed to have such an. advocate, Elise." " You see I am already an all-over-dyed-in-the- wool Jaegerite, and " "A what!" Lily interrupted. "Why, you know I dress entirely in woolen gar- ments, cap-a-pie," she added, indicating with a wave motion of the arm the length of her figure, "and this and this and this," touching each article of dress even to the filmy handkerchief " is pilfered from the sheep and from the camel, and woven. The sheep's robe despoiled and fashioned for me." " And you don't look a bit sheepish about it either," Lily slyly interjected. " Lily," she continued without noticing the inter- ruption, " why, haven't you heard of Dr. Jaeger, the great inventor and advocate of the sanitary normal clothing for man ? He is a German, a scientist and a physician. He spent years in the investigation of this subject, and at last convinced of the truth of his theory, adopted the dress of woolen clothing and introduced it into his family with the best results." " Oh ! yes, I have heard something about it it's a 24 THE OPAL QUEEN. kind of mania with him, don't you think? Stock- ings with toes, and night dresses with caps, and all sorts of disfigurations of our established costumes and conventional modes of dress what's the good of it all?" " Health, Lily, God's best gift to man. If we were dressed in woolen from our births, we would be as little subject to disease as the animals are." " That remains to be proved," and she mentally thought, ''Dear me ! here's another ism.''' " Why, don't you know what splendid health the fishermen have? Clad in their woolen garb, they endure sunshine and storm without risk of colds, such a good conductor of moisture and bad conductor of heat is the wool. And look at me, too, Lil. I am a living example of the virtues of the system. Ever since I emancipated myself in Stuttgart and donned the Jaeger costume, I have been in splendid health. I like the camel's hair the best ; and posi- tively, Lil, when I feel its indescribable texture next to my skin, it seems to be a part of my muscular integument, so I am literally the lady that sits in the wool." " Well, Elise, I shall not throw cold water on this pet vagary of yours, for your clothes are exquisite, 3 r our health is perfect, and so I shall let well enough alone ; mayhap I may^even join you in the innovation only I am afraid it is dreadfully expensive," she said ruefully. " But how charming for the Greek draping," said Elise, who had not lost thought of her sudden im- pulse. " I shall get some models at once and set an artiste to work on my dresses." " Very well, Elise, but listen to my programme, please, and tell me how you like it. First the 6lite will call upon you ; then there will be parties made for you. Then I wish to wind up with a grand fete *. Greek festival ! " * Charming ! " cried Elise, "all of us in Greek cos- A PEEP A T liRENTVILLE. 25 tume ? Then I will write to Worth immediately for mine but first I must choose my character.." " Yes. Make haste slowly, dear. I want it to be a success, and there's a good deal to study up but Channing will help me," she said meditatively. " Such a paragon village ! " exclaimed Elise. " Almost ideal ! Why, the girls in W- would just go wild. One pre-Raphaelite and how many Mon- boddoes, Lil ? " "I think Channing said sixty altogether," replied Lily. " One pre-Raphaelite and sixty post-Greeks?" Lily laughed. " It doesn't sound quite right; you haven't reached the uttermost title yet, Elise ; rack your brain again." " Well, Posto-classi co-Greek o ! No? You are fas- tidious, Mrs. Healey. I ghall make but one more attempt to please your critical taste. Post-Socra- tiqnes ! There you have it." " Why," laughed Lil)*, "you are getting further and further off! There wouldn't be a young lady left in the village if sixty healthy youths costumed a la Socrates were let loose upon us. My dear, I sup- pose he wasn't a bit more stylish in his dress than they say Greeley was with his imperishable white hat and blue cotton umbrella and slouchy coat. And yon must own that our Monboddoes are up to the highest models of classic art in their dress." " I haven't seen them, yon know, but I will take your word for it. But I am not up to it yet, Lil, that's the point." Lily looked surprised that one with such decided artistic tendencies should look askance, or with the least disfavor upon the Greek dress. "Oh, I admire it vastly of course, Lil, that goes without saying. But what does it typify? Now the costume we uphold has a language. The shortened -i- O O breeches mean removal of close contact with the dust of earth, the overlying dSbrix gathered here and there that one must rub more or less against, but for this 26 TIIR OPAL QUEEN. abbreviation. You see the symbol in that? the withdrawal from low associations in social life. "The buckled slippers or pumps and knee-buckles illustrate the girding of oneself for the conflict with all forces arrayed against art. Then, with the right choice of colors in kerchief, necktie, etc., and by blending them in such a manner in the apparel that you feel the charm and the force of harmonious negatives, le tout ensemble is full of the symbolic, and permeated with the mystic. And if there is anything that I am devoted to as a basis for art, it is the com- bination of wisdom and mystery," she exclaimed with ardor. " Why, you've got away up in the metaphysics of it, Elise ! The atmosphere is a little too rare for me, and you'll grow thin on it. Better come down from the clouds while you are J^ere with me, dear, and re- establish the old fellow-feeling, my pet," Lilian said fondly. " Why ! this cultivates the feeling, Lily. You don't understand. It is just because you do ' feel ' things all through and through you that you become so dreadfully in earnest about aesthetics: it comes from the Greek word meaning ' I feel,' and the thrill and the transport fill you with a delicious music. And after your artistic perceptions and tastes are highly cultivated, you can grade unerringly the rank of objects in the scale of beauty by this nerve-meter test the corresponding intensitj^ of nerve-vibrations that are set quivering in an imper- ceptible, but conscious dance." " Are you quite given up to it, Elise ? " Lil} r said in mock despair (for she was now the practical wife and housekeeper), " this sky-soaring and star- sweeping?" "I can descend from heaven to earth in no time, Lil or next to none and sweep a room for you this minute, if necessary ! " And she threw herself upon a hassock at Lily's feet, and leaning upon her lap, said, looking tenderly into her face. A PEEP AT imENTVILLE. 27 "Don't be discouraged, Lil, there's nothing so very bad in it. I ;un only a student in this science of the beautiful, and love to philosophize and speculate. There is a great deal of real good in it, Lily. Shall we study it together?" " We'll see about it, dear. J>ut we must have a play-time first, Elise. There's a whole batch of fun to be kneaded out while you are here. Doctor and I are growing quite prosaic, and you must stir us up into a jingle of some kind, metrical or unmetrical, it matters not; but, for sweet pity's sake, don't have any nerves in it! Let the nerves stay quietly at home in their "own tiny little batteries, and* just answer when we press the knob ! that will be their best service." "'They also serve who only stand and wait'' laughed Elise. "Very well, Lily; here's a whole bundle of nerves at your service, ' differentiated ' into a female form known in the species and among its relations as " and she dropped a profound courtesy, "your humble servant, Elise Archer." "Complaisant as ever!" said Lily, kissing the satin cheek. 28 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER III. THE TABLEAU. " A maid so lovely that to see, Her smile is to know Italy, Her hair was like a coronet Upon her Grecian forehead set, Where one gem glistened sunnily, Like Venice when first seen at sea." T. B. Aldrich. IN some respects Elise and Lily had changed places. Elise, while she had lost none of her pliant sweetness, had a gracious dignity worked in by aesthetics that was wanting in her younger days ; which trait, Lily, by the force of circumstances in early life, had been compelled to cultivate and had acquired in excess. But when there were no more children to manage and find in her their pattern of propriety, in the free- dom of her new life with Dr. Healey she had an op- posite side of her nature developed, under the influ- ence of his sunny, contagious mirthful ness. Elise had brought a Meissonier gem for Lily, and one morning, in the absence of the Doctor, the t\\<> were seized with a desire to locate it. With the im- pulsiveness of youthful confidence in a compliant strength good /or small emergencies, they agreed to take the matter in hand themselves and not wait the Doctor's opportunity. "It may stand here for a month, if we wait, and you know we have no convenient artisans within call here, as you have in the cities. With Bertha's aid I think we can manage the affair nicely," ex- plained Mrs. Healey. It was not to be placed very high, and a circular stand for plants that stood on the veranda would make the altitude easilv accessible. THE TABLEAU. 29 Elise assured Mrs. Healey that she had an unerring instinct for soft spots in walls and the skill of a smith in wielding the hammer, and declared, moreover, that she was possessed with a frantic longing to climb to that particular pinnacle and "view the landscape o'er." Mrs. Healey was at length persuaded. Elise mounted readily, and began a brisk tapping with her hammer here and there upon the wall, found the stud- ding, and with a few vigorous strokes fastened the nail. Just as she had adjusted the wire and was wait- ing for Lily's verdict as to whether the picture hung straight, the bell rang. It was a remote sound, only discernible by ears accustomed to it. Mrs. Healey had sent for the Professor and Mr. Earle for consultation on the subject of her Greek Festival; and perceiving through the corner of the window a gentleman's figure, she glanced at Elise and meditated a coup d'etat. She had informed the Earle household that Elise was coming, but had not sent word of her arrival, neither had she hinted it in the note requesting Mr. Earle to escort the Professor to her house. She was desirous of bringing her two young friends together in some informal way which should prevent embarrassment to Mr. Earle'; for this young gentleman combined with solid worth intel- lectual force and great acquirements a certain re- straint in the presence of ladies that easily grew into stiffness, unless the surrounding conditions were un- characterized by conventionalism or superficiality. She had often wondered at this peculiarity in him. He had a reserve power that she had never exhausted, but she was at the same time conscious that it was not always available to others. Alone with herself he would be bright, communicative, even confidential upon occasion, talking with a gay instruct! veness upon all subjects that never degenerated into twaddle. But in the midst of such easy discourse she had seen him grow as passive and indifferent, in the pres- ence of an incoming beauty or chatty, fascinating young lady, as if he could not recognize, or had no 30 THE OPAL QUEEN. susceptibility to, her charms nay indeed, sometimes as frigid as if he had been caught in a sudden polar wave. She had tried to account for this metamor- phosis, and thought she saw a cause in incessant study unrelieved by amusement, combined with youth and natural sensitiveness. Lack of knowledge or con- sciousness of developed strength she knew it could not be ; for she considered him an unusually rounded and developed character for his years, and she could never quite reconcile his full, robust manhood with this seeming weakness and apparent contradiction of it. This shy reserve, mingled with a lofty politeness that mocked the idea of embarrassment, would come over him instantaneously, and never be entirely dis- pelled in the presence of any fair young woman with whom she had yet seen him. She recognized the fact that her ruse might be a slight disadvantage to Elise ; but counted upon her natural tact to master the situation and reconcile dis- cordances, and argued that on account of the hap- hazard character of the introduction, Mr. Earle would be at his best, and would get a start in the acquaint- ance which would be likely to push him on success- fully in the race. For these reasons she had not apprised him of Elise's arrival, and now as she stood on the rustic pedestal, her long white cashmere robe falling down in folds that might evoke the ad miration of a sculptor, its cascading lace enveloping her in a dainty airy foam from throat to tiny slipper, her half raised ana in the long flowing angel-sleeve that bared it to the elbow, and the graceful unconsciousness of her dig- nified pose her eye took in the artistic completeness of the picture, and she quickly seized it as the strategic basis of her plot. "Stand quite still, Elise dear," she said upon hear- ing the bell. " I am going to have your picture taken just as you are," and left the room. Elise, who was herself fond of photography, sup- posed that Mrs. Ilealey had gone for her instrument, THE TABLEAU. 31 and amused herself with the thought of playing a statue. Siie practiced one or two expressions of countenance, but did not change the approved posi- tion. She heard an unusual movement across the hall, and then Mrs. Healey opened the door saying: "Don't change ! they are coming to take it, Miss Archer," and ushered in Professor Monboddo and Mr. Channing Earle. At Elise's first glance, a shade of annoyance passed over her face at the ruse, but she made a pretty obeisance, and said, "I shake hands when I'm on earth," and made a motion of descent. " That is just where she belongs, gentlemen," laughed Lily, "up in the clouds." " I shall be happy to assist so fair a divinity out of cloudland into the land of realities," remarked the Professor, gallantly advancing to her side, and prof- fering the assistance ot his hand and arm in alighting. "No! No!" exclaimed Lily, springing forward and detaining him. "She cannot come down until she makes her peace with Mr. Earle." Elise blushed like a convicted criminal ; but Mr. Earle struck by this precipitous charge in an unknown tongue, and recognizing its unfairness, grew chival- rous, and quickly covered her confusion, remarking : "But, Mrs. Healey, begging your pardon, I object to the ground upon which my opponent stands. Her high plane forbids even the consideration of terms of peace. If you insist upon it, I shall lose my cause. If we are to meet as adversaries, let it be on a com- mon level, I beg, where we can discuss pros and cons and faces, as well as peccadilloes, without an opera glass." Then, with an easy self-possession that more than justified Mrs. Healey for her coup d'etat, he ex- tended his hand to the fair culprit, saying: "Pray, what is your transgression, Miss Archer? Come down and settle it, will you not? I'm not an implacable monster in Rhadamanthine gear." "If the price of my release is peccavi, I fear I ought to stay," she said laughing, but put one fair ;{-J THE OPAL liaiul in that of each gentleman, and descended the steps to the music of Lily's chant, "See the conquering hero conies ! " " You have acquitted yourself with credit, my dear, in this picture, which I shall name, The Descent of the Sibyl. Oh ! that Otto had been here ! " she cried with mock enthusiasm, and then deliberately captured the Professor, and bore him off to the library to dis- cuss plans for the Festival. " Too bad, Mr. Earle, to enroll me as a foe at the very beginning of our acquaintance," declared Elise, the rich blood glowing in her cheeks "isn't she ag- gravating? " and she turned to him with such a look of amused distress that he said, laughing, " That depends, Miss Archer. But if we are to be foes, let us be honest ones. Pray, how have yon offended me? I am anxious to be propitiated, I assure .you." She hesitated, and he added : " I won't press it. Yes, she is aggravating, if her little plot has caused you embarrassment ; but allow me to say that you were perfect mistress of the mis- chance." " May I tell you some other time?" she asked, with nervous sweetness, " and you will not lay it up as some terrible thing? Then," extending her hand, "I am your good friend, Mr. Earle." At this very little act, impulsively done, simple as a child's and as natural, Mr. Earle drew back into the reflective shell of whose existence Elise could have had no suspicion from his frank gallantry up to this moment. Me took the hand mechanically and expressed thanks for the honor, tlnen inquired gravely how long she had been in the village. Elise was as sensitive as a mimosa ; she felt the change instantly, answered him absently, for she was^con founded by this precipitous descent from the temperate to the frigid zone but quickly rallied and gave an amusing account of her journey and her first view of the pre-Raphaelite of THE TABLEAU. 33 the village, which was intermingled with short ques- tions and polite but encouraging remarks on the part of Mr. Earle. " I don't take any stock in him," he said, abruptly. ' Perhaps he is no more following an ism than we are," he continued, glancing at his robe; "but by just so much as the Good is superior to the Beauti- ful I rank our views above his." Elise had touched upon her esthetic views in the 'captivating style all her own, and naturally waited now for a fuller exposition of the sentiments of her gnest. He perceived the drift of her thought. " You would call me a bore as well as a heretic," he said, laughing, u if I should wheel my platoons into line for that charge, and, as this is my first appearance to Miss Archer, I may be pardoned the wish to escape deserving the titles." lie had recovered his balance, and with it his buoy- ancy and fluent tongue. Elise inquired archlv, " Shall we postpone this, too, Mr. Earle?" " By all means," he replied. " I am now in the de- structive, controversial age of life when one lets old maxims die an easy death. Never put off until to- morrow what you can do to-day, is productive of many an indigestion and night vigil. We Monbod- does, Miss Archer, believe in thorough, not rash work. Pull out the underpinning of every rotten fabric, dig deep for the true foundation, strike sturdy blows while you wield the hummer yes, all this ; but with a tentative purpose that looks ahead grandly, and for the time when the creative spirit of Truth shall im- press and permeate the whole structure." And he paused with an inecstatic, devastating con- sciousness sweeping through and through him, that he was a goose ! He knew that while these glit- tering generalities had a breadth and significance to him as representative truths, germs of great possibili- ties, they were as far from Miss Archer's comprehen- 34 THE OPAL QUEEN. sion as the sundered poles. He mistook her some- what; but while she did not fathom the depth of his meaning, she understood human nature, and had a woman's tact better sometimes than knowledge and did not hesitate to change a subject upon which she had no thoughts, and into which according to her .surmise which .was wrong he would be likely to sink so deep she could not extricate him. She dropped the flower that she had plucked from her belt and had been absently studying during this burst of enthusiasm, and in the diversion produced by the new direction given to his thoughts, she said playfully : " Well, there is one thing I don't mean to put off much longer." He looked at her inquiringly, for her voice still lingered in a kind of cesural pause. "And that is," she continued, " going to see that blessed nonogenarian they tell me you have at your house. Is she really ninety-three years of. age ? What a marvel of preservation she must be ! Will she see company? Can she talk much?" and for the first time in her interrogatories, Elise paused for a reply. Mr. Earle was relieved and mentally thankful for the change. Not so much for fear of himself, for he knew that he could explain so clearly that she would understand; but he knew equally that this was not the time nor the place for a disquisition, and feared that he had even now by a false move forestalled the favorable judgment of this bewildering creature, who, though he would not have been willing to confess it, aroused in him a new class of emotions, and stimu- lated a desire for their repetition emotions sweet but vague, and so illusory that they rose and fell with the light of her eye. His thoughts could not have been invited to a more inspiring theme. " That blessed gran dam ," he replied, with a min- gling of thankful alacrity and pathetic reverence in his tone, " is one of my idols, tKat I wear right here." THE TABLEAU. 35 His hand was near his heart, and if his manner had been less serious, Elise would have suspected a hidden miniature. " That is to say," he added, " 1 honor her only on this side idolatry ; as Ben Jonsoii said of Shakspeare. I have grown up under her, you know," he ex- plained, "and she has impressed her personality so strongly upon me that sometimes 1 surprise myself thinking her thoughts and acting her ways. The little woman lias a strong hold on me more than a life-lease I am sure. She stands between the points of a century, Miss Archer, just think of that! talks of the time when the British impressed her husband into their service in the war of 1812. By Dox! but it paralyzes the assumed importance of youth to try to comprehend such a life to confront such an accu- mulation of years ! " He understood Elise's little surprised laugh, and hastened to explain. " Now that very exclamation which excites your smile illustrates my aforetime speecli about dear old Gran that's what I call her," he said, apologetically, " it's my pet name from babyhood that I shall never outgrow Gran was opposed to my using any sort of exclamation, even Zounds or By George, or Dickens, or any of the so-called harmless ejaculations. Well, I compromised" with her on Dox, having explained to her satisfaction that it was the meaning or name of nothing under the sun, and served as a vent for ex- citement which, if repressed, might burst out in some less commendable form, perhaps a flagrant violation of etiquette. It wasn't so much of etiquette that Gran was thinking, though, as morals. I said to her, ' Dux means a leader, and of course you don't wish me to acknowledge any leadership, or call upon any visible entity or nonentity, so I'll make it Dox* and speak it strong, and the steam will all escape through that safety-valve.' Gran shook her head dubiously and chuckled low, but she has countenanced me in it 36 THE OPAL QUEEN. ever since, at least by her profound silence on the subject." Mrs. Healey entered with -the Professor, and Mr. Earle rose to join him in leaving. " Have you arranged the complicated affair, and brought order out of chaos so soon ? " said Elise to the Professor. "The Greek movements and draperies are still models of symmetrical order, Miss Archer," he said, kindly. "Time passes swiftly to the young, and looking at his watch, " we have tarried one good hour, which is not to say " and he turned with an easy grace to Mrs. Healey, "that we would not will- ingly make it two. But each duty must have a frag- ment of attention and I must bid you a happy good- inorning." "You will come soon again?" Mrs. Healey said. "But, Channing, why need you go now ?" " Miss Archer and myself have still some unfinished business postponed to future meetings, and 1 promise myself a renewal of this visit and perhaps soon, if you will kindly permit me to take Miss Archer to- morrow evening to pay her respects to Gran, who receives visitors between six and eight." " We will both go, Channing, that's just the plan. Ask your mother to call to-morrow, and we will go around in the evening. You old folks," she said laughing, "can talk together, and Mrs. Earle and myself will have some matters to discuss that will take up nearly the whole time." To the surprise and chagrin of Mr. Earle, when he was fairly on his way down street, he discovered the rose that he had unconsciously raised, all wilting in the unrelaxed grasp of his fingers. " GRAN." 37 CHAPTER IV. "Years and sorrow had only worn the noble texture of her heing into greater fineness, the color and tissue still all complete." T. Carlyle, THE thought of that purloined flower which he could not return without insult, or keep without hypocrisy, sufficed to impart that tinge of dignified reserve to Mr. Eaiie's manner that was Mrs. Henley's bete noire, when he next met Miss Archer, and ac- companied the ladies to his home. It indicated an admiring interest in its owner, he thought at least that was legitimate inference and laid him open to the charge of being a flirt, or a lady's-man, or a chivalrous knight offices which he had never as- sumed or aspired to. He could not but recognize the fact that Miss Archer's vanity (if she had any, and that he took for the natural inheritance of a beautiful woman) would attribute almost every rea- son but accident for the abstraction of her flower. But in the serene presence of Grandma Earle his restraint disappeared like the snowflake in the sun. There was in Mrs. Earle an habitually tranquil superiority of manner, caused by the accumulation of years and ripened wisdom, that would have rebuked familiar address by the outside world. But her favorite grandson had inaugurated the title "Gran" in the village, and it Avas lovingly adopted b}" all, who were glad of this opportunity of combining their affection with their reverence, and of escaping the Scylla and Charybdis whirlpool always swirling between the " Young Mrs." and the " Old Mrs." of a partnership household. 38 THE OPAL QUEEN. She was a pretty, quaint, faded picture, in her high straight-backed chair, on this her reception-evening, as the ladies entered to pay their respects. She had adopted the plain style of dress worn by the Quakers, in early life, and had never changed it. A petite figure etbe realized by ;ige was robed in a drab costume and white kerchief, with a pure white lace cap. She wore no glasses, having her "second sight," and her eyes were black, keen, and even bril- liant. Her features were regular, and her face " the very sweetest old one that eyes ever looked upon," Elise told Channing afterwards. Her language was choice, with the best pronunciation. No peculiarities of diction, no provincialisms, modern slang, or col- loquialisms marred its high tone of refined elegance. She used her hands and particularly her arms in gesturing as she talked. Elise drew very near to hear every word. She had a vague feeling that she was sitting in the shadow of the great pyramid, in the presence of these venerable years of which she was quite sure when the voice with its fine, far-away tone broke upon her ear: " I have lived in the administration of every pres- ident of the United States, Miss Archer, beginning with Washington." She waited a moment for the effect of this declara- tion to subside, as Elise was overawed with a speech- less wonder. " He was inaugurated when I was an infant, he had two terms of office, and then I was nine years old. I remember very well the talk about Adams for the next president." "Why you must have been born in 1788,". said Elise, who had been silently making a computation. " Yes," she replied, "and I was married at seven- teen, and have had eleven children now all married and with their grandchildren," she added with an inimitably quaint chuckle. " I travel to see them once in a while ; but there is one who was in Wis- consin I used to go there who has gone to Colo- ." 39 rado ; wasn't- far enough west ! " she said with an- other smudge of laughter "but I don't go there ! " Elise was regarding her just now as a veritable historical relic, and felt curious to hear something from an actor in the tragedy of what seemed to her a mythical war, so she said : " Then you must remember the war of 1812?" "Oli, yes; I had a part in that," she replied. "We were in Canada then, and my husband was impressed into the British service " " Your husband was .drafted into their service ! " exclaimed Elise, to whom the romance of history be- came suddenly an astounding fact. " You see we had the War of Independence" Gran believed in completeness of outline and pa- tiently began at the beginning "and we whipped the British ; but they weren't willing to acknowledge it altogether, and they insisted upon the right of search when our vessels were on the high sea they would board them to see if there were not some Brit- ish sailors on board," she explained with the simplic- ity of great age that assumes ignorance in youths under sixty, "and sometimes they would make mis- takes and take our men and impress them into their service, and so our people determined to fight them again. Then there was some dispute about the boundary line " How strange," said Elise, "that I hear this from one of the dramatis personce, and not as a conned lesson in history ! I cannot realize it, it seems so many hundred years ago ; for one hundred is just as much as two to me." " We are indeed," said Channing, " connecting widely-severed links of time ; but with Gran's mem- ory for a viaduct, I take many a run into those old fields which are all a wonderland to me, because of her footprints." " And my husband ran away," continued Gran, who wished to preserve the unity of the narrative, and whose powers of concentration were still in vig- 40 THE OPAL QUEEN. orous action, "because he wouldn't fight against his country. Yes," she went on, reflectively, "lie left his British equipments with me, and took a boat on the lake to try to get into the United States. I watched him until the boat wasn't larger than a sugar-trough. I afterwards put in a petition for a permit to go through the lines ; there was a good deal of trouble about it, and finally I had to present myself at court." " Do tell me about it ! " cried Elise, all enthusiasm, and to Channing, sotto voee, " Oh, isn't she just lovely!" Elise had become exclusively absorbed in Gran, whose minutest expression she was carefully watch- ing; and Channing, in the absence of talk of a newer flavor Gran's history to him being an oft-told tale fell quite inadvertently into a study of the picture she presented to him on her low seat, her profile standing out with great clearness in the softened light. The creamy, silken tissue of her dress rose in the back into a high stiff collar, whose edge was beaded witli pearls, and it was cut square in the corsage, over which a pearled illusion lay in voluminous folds. He noticed this, because it struck him as a novelty in style which narrowly escaped being Elizabethan, and because it exposed in full relief a throat whose ex- quisite curve from. chin to bust would have enchanted a Hogarth or a Tintoretto. It was the changeful beauty of this miraculous curve that he was studying in every varying attitude Elise unconsciously made, when she turned and asked her question. In the confusion of ideas, for one vague moment he thought it was the banter of ridicule, so much was it the echo of his own thought, and then was glad that it was one of those purposeless questions carrying with it its own affirmation and consent. He could answer it with his eyes and resume his contemplative study. " I went up along flight of stairs," Gran continued, "G-B^JV." 41 "and went into the court-room. It was full of men, and I had to walk all alone up to the bar. There was a counter there just like a merchant's counter, and I didn't dare to raise my eyes, for I was the only female, and knew they were all looking at me ; and when General Vincent he was the presiding officer of the military court read out the name, 'Lydia Earle,' and asked me if I came to represent that petitioner, I raised my eyes and said, 'Yes'; and then I was so frightened when he asked me the next question I couldn't answer a word," she looked up here for Elise's vocal sympathy "but I plucked up courage, and I answered him correctly every question he asked, for I knew that if my husband was not engulfed in the waves he was far enough out of their reach on the glorious soil of liberty!" And she joined in the laugh which the triumph in her voice had raised. " Considerable altercation took place between the officers of the board upon the propriety of granting my petition, when finally another General stepped up and said low to General Vincent, 'Mr. Earle was a Freemason, General, and this pass must be granted.' " She joined in the laugh, with her musical "smudge," and said, " There's been a great deal of talk about the Freemasons, but I always venerate the name." "That was the pivotal aot upon which my destiny turned," laughed Channing ; "I much prefer Ameri- can citizenship to Canadian." " My husband served all through our war, Miss Elise, to the close. He was in the battle of Sackett's Harbor; I leaned on the door-yard fence and saw the battle, and knew that- my husband was in the fight." "But how did you get away from Canada without your husband ?" said Eiise. "I put my trust in the Lord, Miss Elise. 'Some trust in chariots and some in horses,' but He furnishes the chariots and horses when they are needed." " Gran has a diary of those days which she might 42 THE OPAL QUEEN. let you see some time, Miss Archer; she keeps up that journal practice to this day," Charming said absently. "Why, can you write?" said Elise to her in astonishment, looking at the wrinkled hand with its attenuated lingers. " I used to knit, for I had a family of children, but I gave it up long ago, for I am getting so old that I was afraid it would stiffen my lingers so that I couldn't write" and here she bent the joints of her fingers freely, to prove to Elise that they were still pliable. " If I couldn't write," she said" with emphasis, " it would be a great depriva- tion. There is no use in knitting now-a-davs, when you can buy stockings so cheap, but it wasn't so seventy years ago" and she looked up at Elise with a twinkle in her eye, and laughed her pretty laugh, for she was conscious of the humor by which she seemed to belittle old Father Time, whom every body was expected to venerate. "Can you sew, too?" Elise inquired. "I make every article of clothing I wear," she replied, "and I 'have my grave clothes all ready." Gran spoke of this last sad ceremonial with an easy naturalness that inspired her listener to re- gard it in the same light; she thcM-efore felt no quiver of pain, only a feeling of wonder how she had gained her sublime confidence. She had looked forward so long to the probable event of death that it had the significance but not the terror which it has to the young. She had famil- iarized herself with the thought of it, and spoke of it as freely as she would of going into the next room. To her chastened spirit, that had borne the burden of the flesh for ninety-three years, Death would be but the usher into eternal glory. " I have made," she said, " a great many gar- ments, oh ! enough to last a number of years, and I keep them on hand in case I should get old"- here she looked up and smiled " and "feeble, and " GRAN." 43 couldn't do it. Nobody will have to do any sewing for me." Channing was still engrossed in the inobtrusive study of his fair guest. From the triumphant curve which first attracted him, and which failed to reward his persistent inspection with the minutest hint of angularity, he advanced to the higher stage of physiognomy. He was noting the air of superior breeding, the beautiful, delicate blending of dignity and benignity, and the touch of a true, rare inde- pendence when again lie was startled with the mocking echo of his thought, as Elise turned to him impetuously : " What a pride she has in being independent, the dear soul ! " Elise was looking at her cap, so fine and dainty " You don't make your caps?" she affirmed inter- rogatively. "Oh, yes; I wanted my grave-cap made in a par-, ticular way a little different from this," and she instantly removed her cap, showing the white, white silver of her hair. The material was a very fine, stiff bobbinet, with a single border of rufile, hemmed and very prettily crimped. " You see I wanted a double lias border here," she said, showing Elise, " not hemmed and plaited on the sides and 'not on the top, so I made it myself to be sure to have it right." " But the bonnet, Miss Archer, is the chefcCceuvre ! '' said Channing, who now found his model profile of too elusive a nature to pursue his study with advantage, and condescended to assist in the inven- tory of Gran's wardrobe. " Can I get it, Gran? " She consented, and he returned in a few moments with a drab satin, large, very large, Quaker bonnet. "No neuralgia in this!" he said, playfully insert- ing Miss Archer's head into the deep crown. "That I made forty years ago!" Gran explained. 44 THE OPAL (IUEEN. Elise exclaimed (with a sudden, silent accusation of extravagance) "And during half that time I have had at least one hundred and twenty ! " She turned it over and over in her hand. " Why, it is quite as good as new! I guess no one ever sat on it," she added, laughing. " This is one of Gran's earthly treasures, Miss Archer ; she has but few ' " I suppose you are another," laughingly inter- rupted Elise. " And having that distinguished claim," he said, bowing in reply to her supposition, "it would, you must know, have no such common depository as a bandbox! A purified, much-lettered, zinc-lined tea- chest lias been set apart for its especial sanctuary, and so this stray little bit of ' illeganze ' (turning it back and forth upon his hand in ironical admiration) " has come down to us from the remote past un- crushed and undefiled ! " Gran never contradicted anyone; and when her grandson tried to beguile the time with a little play- ful talk, she listened with a sweet, silent toleration, regarding it as the foam of the lighter waves which would disappear in deep seas. She had never thought it necessary to apologize for her style of dress, but she was willing to explain why she assumed it. " I adopted the plain costume, Miss Elise, because I was a minister's wife, and I ought to dress plainly. This covering" she said, pointing to the bonnet, "is not forty years old, I covered it last about ten years ago. At one of our parishes, once they were talking about our coming among them, and they said, k When they had a new minister's wife, she always brought them some new fashion, and they didn't know as they wanted Sister Earle, she dressed so plainly.' They had heard about me you see," she added with another arch look and pleasant chuckle. " Gran is one of those pictorial characters, Miss Archer, that have 'claims on the government.' She " GRAN." 45 has quite a voluminous correspondence with presi- dents, and secretaries and high officials." " Well," replied Elise, " I think the government and every private individual ought to give her a pension for taking the trouble to live so long. I am sure I should want some recompense," she said, with a little weary sigh "neither would gold tempt me to prolong life," she added, after an instant's pause. " But to me, this picture of old age is the per- fection of beauty," Channing observed. " Yes, this picture," said Elise, reflectively, and left him to surmise that she had been thinking of a desolate old age. " Yes," said Gran, " I have a claim of seventy dollars, with the accumulated interest of many years, against the government, on account of the military service of my husband during the war of 1812. I wrote first to the Adjutant-General of this State, and he replied that Congress must settle that claim ; then I wrote to the President, and lie replied through his private secretary, that it had been sent to the Treasurer's office. Then the Secretary wrote me that the State must settle that matter; then I sent the Secretary's letter (I kept a copy of it myself," she remarked with a shy playfulness) " to the Adjutant-General. So it goes back and forth like a shuttle-cock. I told the Adjutant-General that I was now in my ninety-third year, and if I was to get any benefit from it, it must not be much longer delayed ! " Elise, amused at her humor, inquired why they didn't want to pay it. "They just want to let it slip along until I am gone most all of the old ones who had claims are gone now, soon none will be left. They are making a new State-house in Albany, and I guess they want all the money. That is the only reason I can-think of," she said, whimsically. Gran made the last remark in such a manner as to show that she was convinced of the absurdity of it, 4C THE OPAL QUEEX. but would try to justify the ''powers that be " in their mighty stretches after economy. The more Elise talked with this remarkable old lady, "The more the wonder grew That one small head could carry all she knew." " A budget of nearly one hundred years' gathering ! " she exclaimed. " Oh, dear, how did you preserve yourself so exquisitely? There I must say it," she said, with a little blush of apology. " Do you drink tea or coffee ? " " When I used to go visiting with my husband they thought they must do something nice for the minix- ter's wife, so they gave me very strong te;i, and I just made up my mind that / wouldn't drink tea ! " "Cayenne pepper is Gran's favorite beverage," Chan n ing interposed, laughing. " There's no disease about me, Miss Archer no infirmity but this slight difficulty of hearing; nothing but the weakness of old age." She turned around, and looking Elise fully in the face, said earnestly : "Cayenne pepper is the only natural stimulant that is beneficial to the human system, Miss Archer," and laughed with Elise because slfe knew it was funny. "I will recommend cayenne pepper to every woman catnip-tea, too.< catnip is good good for everything good for biibies as well as for old age ; catnip for the nerves and cayenne for the stimulant ; don't forget that, Miss Archer." They had a good laugh at Gran's playful assump- tion of medical skill, and Elise declared she must commence the new regime at once, and begged Mrs. Ilealev, who just then entered with Mrs. Earle, to be sure to furnish her with the desirable article for her breakfast. Elise kissed the dear old face, and Gran said, hold- ing her off and looking at her intently : . " ^ ou are very beautiful, dear, but don't forget that natural graces adorn the character, but they don't redeem it." "G/M \." 47 "I knew you would go into raptures, Elise, over our valuable relic of the past, and Chan's idol," re- marked Mrs. Healey as they were walking home. "I don't wonder you idolize her," Elise said to Channing; " why, I should oh! I feel as though I could eat her up ! That's shockingly common," she laughed, "but I have said it now, and gained my equilibrium." " Why don't you say that she sinks into the mar- row of your being?" said Lily, who often encroached upon the doctor's metaphorical preserves when hunt- ing for illustrations. "Do you know she looks exactly like one of those little nut figures that we dress up in chairs?" said Elise. " What a charming antique! How I would like to have her in my chimney-corner, close to my spinning-wheel, where I could run in and give her a good hug every few minutes ! and then her voice sounds so distant, so high and strained., you try to key yours up to it. But oh ! such a dear, cheerful, beautiful old face, and such an arch expression when she is saying funny tilings about herself!" " Yes, she has a keen sense of the humorous," Channing interrupted. "She is now in the deep tranquillity of a serene old age nothing jars or moves her. And her vitality is amazing; she got up at six, and had not rested all day, and yet was talk- ing with you brightly to-night at eight that is her retiring hour." " The mellow beauty of the dear old face is the quiet work of a century. ' Earth's winter flowers are sweeter far Than all spring's dewy posies,' " quoted Elise. "Do you believe it? " he asked. "Don't you?" she inquired for answer, with a little look of surprise. "If I may make one exception," he answered, looking at her steadily. 48 THE OPAL QUEEN. This might be a delicate compliment to herself, and then it might not be ; and as he made an awk- ward pause, and her hand was in his 'for the good- night touch, she said earnestly : "How much I thank 3*011, Mr. Earle, for this alto- gether unrivalled evening! It will be the ideal classic of memory, an Iliad in prose ! " As soon as the door closed upon the fair enchan- tress, Channing had a vexatious cense of his indis- creet admiration. It was not like him, he mused on his homeward way ; was he bewitched, that he must imperil truth upon the quicksands of beauty? And he looked with alarm upon himself that he could for one instant have degenerated into a flatterer. It had besides a deeper significance than would ordinarily attach to it; for had he not only twenty- four hours ago declared Gran to be the chief object of his regard? and now, forsooth, under the spell of a belle's fascinations, he must coolly divide the honors of idolship wiih a comparative stranger! He was jealous of this love; why had he dishonored it? Why had he belittled it by appearing to rank with it the whim or fleeting preference of a day? Should this ephemeral gust of feeling, even if it did transiently take him off his feet and sweep him silently along, be compared for one instant with the deep and steady tide of love that had been swelling and surging for twenty-three years in his breast? In this access of renewed devotion to his Gran, he felt as though he must make instant confession to her of disloyalty, and hear his pardon from her own lips. He had desecrated her image he had disparaged her claims upon him and, above all, he had again given Miss Archer cause to think that she had made a conquest ! And then he was forced to meet that question squarely: "Was she anything more to him than other girls had been ? " With a nervous thrill of suppressed emotion, he was obliged to confess that no other being had so " GRAN.' 1 ' 1 49 touched, so moved him that she had set chords vi- brating in his soul of whose existence he had never dreamed. Then he. said calmly to himself : " If this be so, my fine fellow, there is a double reason for your playing quits ; for you have a career to make, and the possessor of millions is not likely to consider such trifles when she wants a husband. Yes," he thought on, " a career of five good stead } r years of work, before 1 secure that complement of my being they call a wife and during those five years would be sure to find her a superfluous and wordy- supplement." He smiled at this tacit, covert disparagement of Miss Archer's merits, as an adroit if accidental be- ginning of the levelling process that he meant to pursue; felt gratified at his responsive will-power; congratulated himself on his victory, and playfully gave himself an approving nod for putting Gran's rival so quickly to flight. And he turned the key on his resolutions, and pocketed it. But there were others whose pleasure had to be consulted in the matter of his proposed course of renunciation. His mother had fallen in heartily with all Mrs. Healey's plans, and promised co-operation to the extent of her ability. She had even gone so far as to sign away Channing's freedom and free agency by prom- ising his unfailing support. 44 It is only for a little while, dear," she said coax- ingly to him ; 4 ' I feared you might refuse, and tried to excuse you ; told her you were head and ears in work, but she was quite incorrigible, I assure you; insisted upon it that no one in the village could take your place as her counsellor and escort for Miss Archer, You know the Doctor is too much engaged to be counted on ; so I told her at last, after innumer- able dissents, you would not fail them I would vouch for you." Channing perceived that he was a victim of social 50 TlIK OPAL necessities, and withdrew further opposition, but reserved to himself the right of controlling his own feelings. In submitting to these necessities lie felt a secret triumph in the thought that no one had a prescriptive right over his heart ; he promised him- self the closest surveillance there, and felt securely entrenched for either a siege or a bombardment. T11E "SEASON" OPENS. 51 CHAPTER V. THE "SEASON" OPEXS. " There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless hand ; She ha 1 youth and she had gold, she had jewels all untold, And many a lover hold wooed the Lady of the Land." T. B. A PARTY in the village was always a unique affair, on account of the conspicuous absence of bipeds of the heavenly-stork order. The Greek costume witii its colored tunic of flowing folds gave to an assemblage the fantastic appearance of moving statuary, or an antique picture with contemporary types and acces- sories. The anachronisms in dress were too sflarino- . to cause one to mistake it for a veritable scene in Greece and gave it an air wholly original and exclu- sive. A few, very few gentlemen in the tight-legged trousers and conventional swallo \v-tail, the costume which has been the despair of the -sculptor for so man v centuries, were sprinkled among them. Elise had per- suaded most of the ladies to adopt the Greek dress for the occasion and the rest had greatly modified their styles for a better harmony with it; and the sump- tuous fabrics, glittering and gorgeous, which decorated their fair forms, gave an aspect of oriental brilliance- to the scene. Mrs. Earle led off ia the evening entertainments, and very happy was Elise, whose daily visits had won Gran's heart, to make her f>ntre<> into the village circle under the roof that sheltered ihe venerable dame. Gran could not be persuaded to appear during the reception, saying, when Chan urged it: " 'The world is a good thing to have under your 52 THE OPAL QUEEN. feet, my child ; but if you try to put it on your back or in your pocket it will make even a saint groan.' " When Elise arrived in her elegant toilette, Hashing with her opal gems, Mrs. Earle carried her in triumph to her mother's room, exclaiming: " See, Grandma, if she hasn't just stepped out of Fairy-land!" kw We thought we would bring you some bits of our brightness," Elise said, taking Mrs. Earle's arm and turning her towards Gran. " Isn't this a superbly dressed figure of a woman ! all in satin and point lace, Gran ! Doesn't she set it off regally?" Mrs. Earle was blessed with a superabundance of embonpoint, and upon this point (or mass of points) she was extremely sensitive. Although the good- natured adipose had been her constant attendant for twenty years, still she looked upon it in the light of an intruder, pathetically referring to the time when she had .a form that was a form, comparing herself with every new figure of unusual proportions, and en- deavoring to extract whiffs of comfort from the mem- bers of the family by exclaiming, "Now, look! Chau- ning, look! Grandma, am I as large as she?" in so pitiful a tone that their judgment would be perforce strained through mercy's sieve. A neighbor said of her that she had "a considerable carriage," which might have been intended for im- pressive or imposing, if you did not know that the pun- ster was a malicious cynic. Hhe wore a head-gear that was not large enough for a cap, nor small enough for a head-dress, of a species between the two. It had no strings and did not come far upon the front hair ; was set back upon her head, and extended at the back around her knot. It was either black or white lace with some becoming color to harmonize with the dress. To-night it was white lace with pink rose-buds mixed with delicate lavender knots of clustered velvet, and made her look charming. But Gran's admiration, however fervent, was mute : THE "SEASON" OPA'.VX. 53 her eyes glistened, but she only said to Elise : ' Not with gold or pearls or costly array, but as becometh a woman professing godliness, with good works. I think you have that adornment, rny child, but take care ! take care ! Gran must sound her warning note once in a while, when the World and the Flesh are blowing their trumpets all the time." And she disposed herself for her peaceful sleep. " Good-night, dear angel," Elise said softly on leav- ing. " The air is full of them, Mrs. Earle. I know they are hovering around this aged saint." The inhabitants of this quiet village had made an- other innovation upon the customs of society. Their cards of invitation read from eight to twelve: this was done with the spontaneous consent of all, and the hours were rarely extended beyond the announced limit. " With even such slight restrictions," they said, "our girls will be robbed of their beauty-sleep: but our seasons are short, and our receptions are separated by recuperating, breathing intervals." Now the company was for the most part assembled. On account of this voluntary observance of the rules of their established etiquette, the rooms had not been long in filling. They came in shoals not in straggling ones and twos and bevies, gay, bright, airy, chatting, laughing. The presentation-scene was a drama spectacular in itself, so full was it of bright pictures of youth and vivacity, which are syn- onymous terms it" youth is at its highest level. " Upon my word," said Otto Dresson to Elise as they were watching the glittering array, and adding bits of criticism and poetry " Upon my word, Miss Archer, I think I have found my Utopia; all it needed w;is a Queen, and the gods have lent us that treasure," he said with an unblushing admiration visible on his face as he surveyed her radiant beauty from head to foot. Elise showed no signs of pleasure at tins gross flat- tery. There was a little touch of defiance and injured nrtdesty in her tone as she said : 54 THE OPAL QUEEN. u A nursery rhyme long since forgotten comes to my mind just now, Mr. Dresson " ' Praise to the face Is open disgrace.' " " Your rebuke is merited," he said, with downcast eyes ; and then beaming upon her " If it would not make you such a conspicuous figure in an unusual, though perhaps effective, tableau, I would kneel at your feet and wait until I was shriven suing in terms of fiery eloquence for your distinguished par- don." The inimitable audacity of the contradictions in this speech, arch flattery under the guise of humble words in a lo\v, pleading tone, did not escape Elise; she was much amused, however, and said gayly for there was about her a breezy freshness as well as radiant light ' You are granted absolution, Mr. Dresson ; rise from your metaphorical stool of penance ! Perhaps we may yet find some talk upon which we can agree. You know the company, Mr. Dresson ?" " Not perfectly, but with the scope of an aesthete who has been studying it for about four weeks, don't you know. My prints, if new, have been favorable, and my study altogether charming. This novel fea- ture of the Greek dress captivated me at the start, and other interesting accessories have filled up a' picture quite unique and creditable to the designers. Not to say that there are not flaws striking ones, too, which," he said benignly, "I shall lend my youth to the eradication of for I am devoted to the interests of art, you know." lie noticed the quick look of intelligent sympathy that swept over Elise's face, and quietly decided that he had discovered an assailable spot in this appar- ently impregnable fortress. 'Art is a divinity of such charming mien, To be courted it noeils only to be seen ; It can't be seen too oft or become too familiar to our face, If at first we endure, we next worship, then embrace.' THE " SEASON" OPENS. 55 " That is my parody on orthodoxy." " But I am orthodox," Elise pleaded who yet clung 1 to the tenets of her faith with a pertinacity mourn- ful to see, because for practical purposes she was only dragging a skeleton by her side. " And I, also, in your sense," he quickly added. " Soundness of belief, by all means, don't you know; why should we take a rotten carcass of dead formula} " This was a rather startling metaphor for the time and place, which Dresson realized by a scarcely percep- tible shrinking from him on the part of Elise ; but he knew, too, that for his tactics vigorous battle in the line he had entered upon was better than inglorious retreat. " I speak against the effete notions of the dead ages," he said. " The orthodoxy of 'cant,' and tight- jacket and screw. The stiff-kneed orthodoxy that can never walk inside a theatre or opera, that would not lend its listening ears to the beauties of the drama or the opera, or enjoy the free air of heaven in a Sab- bath drive, or watch the lyric paces of a noble steed fast flying in the very poetry of motion round the artistic curves of the course because it is a wicked race ! We are on a higher plane of existence now, Miss Archer. Those limitations fitted very well the nar- row creeds of their believers, and perhaps were useful in their generation in the development of muscle ; for it must be clear to you, that in a new country like ours when the Pilgrims landed, the first problem to be met was how best to develop the resources of the country so as to establish a proportion in that old maxim : k Live and let live.' Art was unborn ; com- mercial industries must pave the way for successful art. Narrow creeds made good diggers of granite hills and pine-locked woods, but they culminated artistically in the ' Blue Book' and the Witches !" Elise laughed at this iconoclastic outburst, and said : " But here is something that is not a ' dead issue,' but a living personification of truth and loveliness, I am 56 THE OPAL QUEEN. sure! Who is she? She lias been introduced, I kno\v, but so many have confused my memory " At this instant, there floated by the draperied nook into which Dresson had led Elise from the dance, a petite damsel in fawn-colored satin and creamy roses, with a mysterious suggestion of pink here and there, in obscure plaits and ruffling lace ; having an oval face like a pearl in its purity and sweetness. Dresson talked in a low, mellifluous tone that de- spoiled language of its harshness, and Elise found her- self losing sight of the sentiment in the rich, delicious languor that steeped his manhood so that she was impregnated with the vapors. His voice was pure and without resonance, like a distant flute, and yet the enunciation was so clear and distinct that its message was artistically complete ; a greater volume of sound, Elise thought, would have been superfluous and oppressive. " Miss Tete's figure," he said, " is quite up to the standard of aesthetic perfection slender and grace- ful, like the sapling, and costumed with a plainness that is the elegance of simplicity always some soft and limp fabric with just a suspicion of train a single piece of jewels. To-night I observed she had " ' A green tourmaline in a pale turquoise border, On her delicate wrist, just maintaining its hold By the slenderest band of the palest gold.' " " And her face was like Raphael's 'Madonna with the Goldfinch,'" said Elise. "How I love to study faces ! " " There is Miss St. John," he said. " Her face and form are undeniably fine, you know ; but when you look for the corresponding investment of the 'splen- dor of a deepened poetry,' it isn't there, don't you know. Quite sad, really now, when you look at it " Miss Love's face is pretty," Elise said. " And when I gaze upon that face," he said pen- sively, " I feel ' flooded with the solemn rapture of a sunset.' " THE " SEASON'' OPENS. 57 He paused. Elise was silent, and he continued: " There goes Miss Bunce ; her dress is unrivalled in grace of composition and richness of tone, but she -well she is simply idiotic, don't you know." "And Miss Smart?" asked Elise. "Has unmistakable talent," lie replied, "but lacks sincerity, is full of mannerism, and her dress is always marred by false and sickly coloring; and my cousin Marie Stilz falls little behind in sensational coloring and violent contrasts 'from which I pray daily for deliverance. Those beastly dresses, Miss Archer, are like a horrible nightmare by day and by night." His tone was calm and languid, giving no indication of turbid pools of passion, and in fact they were non- existent. He had learned to express himself strongly without imperilling the serenity of his being. But there could only be sketchy glimpses of this ravishing "art of dressing," at a feast, where the guest was at once the nucleus and cause of the shining array, and others claimed a share of her attention. Dresson was immensely sought, she thought, as she saw him captured and led into her presence during the pauses of the dance by every pretty girl in the room, and they were all pretty in their furbelows and fussings and saw how eagerly they listened to his aesthetic criticisms on the passing show. " For the charm of sweet girlhood hung over it still, And no polar wave of conventional chill." She found him attentive to a charm, and so ex- quisitely polite, that, in spite of herself, the image of a devotee offering incense upon the shrine of his favorite divinity was constantly recurring to her mind. She confessed that there was a magnetism about him that she could scarcely resist; whether owing to his superb physique in its rococo costume or his calm indifference to persons and their opinions, (a manner that had always a strange fascination for her), or a keen and subtle perception of all refinement and 58 THE OPAL QUEEN, beauty which allied itself so strongly with her own aesthetic sense she could not tell. " But where was Channing? "she asked herself once during the evening. She had seen him flitting about here and there, but always as the polite host or the attentive escort to some matronly lady. Charming had not intended on this evening, when inattention might be conspicuous, to be wanting in his devoirs to Miss Archer. His .position as host would justify, if it did not demand, the careful study of her pleasure. But when with set purpose he turned to join her, and found her surrounded, or apart in quiet tete-d-tete and apparently happy, he resigned his pro- tectorate in Dresson's favor, and devoted himself to neglected wall-flowers of which species there were indeed very few specimens where Superba was mis- tress of ceremonies. She was ubiquitous with her magnificent, inspiring presence, cheerful, bright good- nature and thoughtful kindness to the gay young party, when in the merry pauses of the German she could catch them and hold them long enough to be the recipients of it. Channing had not contemplated this probable item in his abnegation of his own desires, and was not pre- pared for the disrelish of its flavor. Without positive ill-will, he had 'always maintained towards Dresson an attitude of lofty indifference mingled with a moiety of contempt, that, because indefinable, he meant to be imperceptible; but he was not always success- ful in concealing it. But since he had voluntarily abjured his own privileges in this race, he asked him- self why he should be surprised, or perplexed, or an- noyed, at the entry of other names on the list; and if the race was open to all competitors of fair and hon- orable deportment, why should a secret and unex- plained antipathy prejudice the cause of any con- testant-. " If Dresson can win her," he said, "I must congratulate him like a man, and have done with this miserable feeling, which, I suspect, is the newly-blos- somed flower of a seed that until now I have not THE "SEASON" OPENS. 59 recognized in my heart's soil the bitter seed of jeal- ousy ! " and set himself to play the part of a mag- nanimous hero, but did not find it an agreeable role. He escorted Elise to supper as a gentlemanly host should. He had never seen her so brilliant, so happy, so queenly, and he had never been so miserable. He met all her light pleasantries and bright raillery with awkward gallantry and subdued pauses. He knew he was not himself, and the deeper this convic- tion grew, the less he was able to better himself. " For a man who is two years beyond his majority," lie said to himself, " this is babyish pusillanimity." But even this cutting rebuke failed to put him en rapport with this iridescent spirit sitting beside him, whose shimmering lights were too dazzling for him to-night. He made a desperate effort when he saw her vainly trying to fasten the little boutonniere that came with her satin-painted menu, to a tress of her hair. "Can't I help you?" he said ; and then instantly felt the delicate gold wire change in his blundering fingers to a horrid instrument of barbaric torture, and was dumb with surprise when she said, giving her head a little shake to see if it was securely lodged " Done with the skill of a lady's maid, Mr. Earle ; can't I engage your artistic services ? " "A pre-engage ment to a more arbitrary and exact- ing mistress, Miss Archer, \\i\\ furnish my excuse for declining the honor to enter into any new ones and he felt that he told her a truth, and that under the jest lay his heart -all bare. Ah ! could she but have known it then ! "Many a fallen spark is quenched, or lives only as a spark which could have been flamed into a cheerful light and flame." " Books and things ? " she queried playfully inter- preting his words only according to the surface-mean- ing. He laughed at her comprehensive suggestion and was amazed that he laughed. 60 THE OPAL QUEEN. " Libri et al." he affirmed, "and that includes the height and depth, length and breadth solid contents in other words of Monboddoism and a career!" "lam just dying for a career! "she said. " It sounds so grand and autocratic. What could 1 be, I won- der?" She sat tapping her pretty foot on the velvet moss, and shaded her eyes, and thought "A Florence Nightingale with them all kissing my shadow a doc tress with a charity-hospital all my own ! " and she raised her head and spread wide her eyes with a spasm of delight as if she had found the coveted wish. She resumed her thinking. " Build a model town, a Utopia for the honest poor" again her eyes grew big. k ' Yes," she said, "on the whole, 1 think 1 like that the best. Then I would -study architecture so as to devise the very best plans for sewerage and drainage and ventilage none of my colony should be swept away by terrible epi- demics and arrange for picturesque effects as well as comfortable lodgings. I have a painter's innate faculty for arrangement," she explained, laughing. She did not tell him that she was already the patroness of a society of Decorative Art, where the children from nine to fifteen years of age could be trained in industries both useful and pleasant. What he said he never knew but in his heart he gave a great gasp, as he thought look on this picture and on that ! all and none ! But there was a reaction of noblemindedness, and he said : " With one hundredth part of all that outlay, you couldn't make one man that must be here," lie said striking his breast with unconscious, dramatic fervor; "exoteric, it grows from within outwardly like the woody fibre, and if the germ is not there, the develop- ment of that particular kind is impossible. You may get a flabby array of muscles or even a consolidated muscular integument and the various complex tissues appertaining to the outward form, but the true life will be missing." T11E "SEASON" OPENS. 61 "But," said Elise, archly, "I would transplant only those gen n.s into my Utopia . "Aii! dreamer: " lie said with a perceptible modu- lation of hi.s voice, "'if I mistake not, you were born for another mission." He was looking at her intently but vacantly, and for the life of him could not have translated his own enigmatical words for he was crushing down with a mighty effort the thought of sweet, domestic life brightened by the "splendor of the angel-smile that makes a paradise in the face we love," and whatever else he might have meant, that in the face of his prearranged conduct he could by no possibility have even surmised. So he reasoned; and she why she took it very simply. " Something happy and useful and artistic, I hope," she said, "my seer. Does it look variegated like my opals, or tame and sweet like pearls?" How they flashed ! how they danced on neck and hair and snowy arms ! " Yes, yes," he said, hastily, " both and all. But they are calling you." And sure enough, Super ba, who had looked every- where, but in the deep embrasured window, came to the portiere and called Elise to receive the parting salutations of her guests. 62 Til E OPAL (JUEEN. CHAPTER VT. LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. DEAR AUT: "Changes will befall and friends must part, But absence only cannot change the heart; And were I called to prove the assertion true, One proof should serve a reference to you." It is just possible that you may not accept Cow per as a mediator between us or his verses, rather, as a peace-offering to. your neglected virtues ; and that you think I assume too much when I count upon the indivisibility and eternity of our friendship. It is also within the range of possibilities, that you are saying, at this very moment, that this same compact (though unwritten and unformulated) implies mutual obligations, one of which is a seemly interest in the daily life of the bondsmen's fraternity, and another, a certain activity in unfolding the part each one acts in this life drama not without, also, certain gushes of confidence, if not a steady stream. Do I worry you by even the suspicion of lukewarmness or resent- ment, because I have failed to put my customary weekly appearance into your Diggery? Know, most beloved of chums and most forgiving of friends, that 1 am not without excuse: my attention has been en- grossed, my spare time monopolized by recreative pursuits. "Superba" declared that I was " paling, and thinning, and thinking the social fluid out of me into driblets," so she served an injunction upon me to set aside all writing except what was positively necessary. " There's enough of that, Heaven knows," LETTKR TO ART ON OPAL. 63 she said, " and I will myself apprise Arthur of your intention and explain your silence " (this when I rather emphatically declined to include you in this embargo programme), " a mother's own signature will convince the most skeptical," she added complacently, and but pardon me, I will not reopen the argu- ment so long decided against me. 1 let her have her way, mindful of the adage, " A woman's advice isn't worth much, but you'd better take it." So "Superba" immediately set up a new dynasty; not that she in any wise relinquished the sceptre, but she gathered about her privy counsellors of wisdom and renown, and inaugurated a brilliant season of merry-making. Mrs. Healey was her principal coad- jutor in this new departure, having a young friend visiting her for whom she wished to do the honors of hospitality. And a famous bout they made of it dances, teas, kettle-drums, fetes, stag-parties, dove- coteries, Bohemians, art-receptions, musicales, soirees, and even breakfasts swung us round in a circle of gay ety, that might not inaptly be called a maelstrom. Having dared to enter the vortex, I was swallowed up in no time I was much in request and there was never quite enough of me to go round. I wished a hundred, yes, a thousand times, that Arthur Doane was here to piece me out. And not for that, alone, dear chum, but that I might confess to you how ut- terly frivolous and unworthy the whole show seemed to me. Illusory I knew it was in my heart of hearts, false, cheaty, and demoralizing; but why should I try to stem the popular current with my shell of a boat, or set myself up for a standard of Pharisaical morality, and raise the howl of reform, when I wasn't so much set against all the tinselry and whirlagigary, as I was profoundly indifferent? But now, having run the race, I am wiser. I have jumped my last " Jack-in- the-box " dance ; henceforth I shall leave the stage to other and more willing puppets. Do not imagine from this conclusion that I am soured, disappointed, 64 THE OPAL QUEEN. or about to take holy orders. I expected nothing in the beginning never having had a drawing towards the dissipations of fashionable life, not even the smallest fraction of a "-hanker" and so had no false dreams to burst in the air ; and secondly, acids were at a discount, sweets were " all the go " that is it. I am clogged with the sweetmeats in the market of Vanity Fair ! and all dealt out by the fair hands of lovely forms dwelling there. I feel like the crystal- lized essence of honey, and am thirsting for a good, acidulous drink ! " Superba " was in her element planning, devis- ing, conjuring (one almost thought with a magician's wand, so much beauty and order did she bring to light esthetics, they call it), now in a craze for antique furniture, now for keramics, now for deco- rating, and lastly for crewel-work. She has run through them all, and is a devotee of each and all to this minute; has smartened up these old walls, rooms and halls (corridors we call them now having ampli- fied and extended them somewhat), and one can hardly stir in the drawing-room or library for fear of knocking down some bric-a-brac, or damaging some bijou, just finished by the dear maternal fingers. I attempt to read the paper by the student-light in the library and it is as much as my life is worth. "Su- perba" has a dainty rug of her own skill, just before my easy-chair which gets all in a heap, or caught in a leg of the chair, and I cannot find a spot upon the art-heaped table, for so much as my wallet, to say nothing of my arms, which I would enjoy resting there ; then unless I move at just the right angle, some table or other with fancy-ware and fairy gim- cracks gets a tilt, and there's a smash-up! It's Vatican all about so I leave them in their royal grandeur and come up here where I can have room and freedom. Ha ! there's nothing like that, in this planet of ours ! To be cramped, crowded, cornered, how it rouses the internal lion ! Of course during the " season " I had no such furloughs given me this room was haunted LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. 65 by my ghost during all the hours that I was not sleeping or dressing. Now, however, there is an end or a lull, and I am taking advantage of it. Dear Gran has been sorely exercised during the new reign and the revolution which preceded it ; she cannot quite understand the necessity for changes and innovations, nor see clearly why what has been goud enough for her and her ancestors, is not the thing for her descendants. And yet she does see clearly and sublimely the sic transit yloria mundi, written on all these passing humors. "It won't last long, dear/' she said to me more as a quietus to her own misgivings, than to any objections of mine ; for, as before subscribed, I was supremely indifferent "it will run about seventeen years, and then there'll be something else or a quarter of a century, perhaps." Dear Gran ! to her ninety-three years, a quarter of a century is hardly worth mentioning a mere bagatelle. When she sat one day at the window and watched the elite of the village drive up in their elegant vehicles with liveried servants, and they sitting in rich draperies like queens of beauty (as they were), Gran turned her eyes away, and sighing said: u Well, they have their carriages ! " " Why, Gran ! " I said (not quite up to her thought, and unwilling to admit even to myself, that my beloved Gran could harbor envy and desirous, too, of correcting what I thought was false logic of the dear old purified mind that is guiltless of an ism, and of eradicating the notion- if that had slyly crept into her that carriages were incompatible with good- ness), " Why, Gran, can they not have carriages and heaven too ? " She shook her head sadly. "It's the symbol, dear; it stands for wealth and pomp and parade and self. ' How hardly shall they that have riches enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' ' Solemn as was this view of life, I could not refrain from laughing, and catching 66 THE OPAL QUEEN. up the wise little philosopher, I seated her on my lap, holding her in a fond embrace which the old lady's dignity could stand only for one second, even if the transgressor was her grandson. She gently but firmly withdrew to her rocking-chair, and resumed her knitting as tranquilly as if 1 had not burst like a volcano upon her. Yes, here was this little Christian anti-gig-man ! without ever having read a line of Carlyle, her spirit- ual insight coincided with his. How it all came to me as I sat here reflecting upon her sage exposition of that truth, " Griymanity" " Gran, then, sees it as Carlyle did," I thought and yet, Art, I will not. conceal from you that her utter- ance bears more weight with rne, because, she is a Christian taught by the Saviour whose words they are, the Christ whom Carlyle ignored in those days when this expression, gigmanity^ was the epitome of his convictions on the falseness, hollowness, deceits and shams of fashionable society, and the excuse for his anathemas on its devotees. And you should have seen a few moments after. Gran's placid, heavenly look, as, resting her head on the top of her straight-backed Gothic chair, and with folded hands and shut eyes, she said softly (which in her fine far-away treble, sounded like musical breath- ings of her disrobed spirit), " From low delights and mortal toys, I soar to reach eternal joys." Carlyle thought he was ready to soar at thirty- nine in moments of depression, but he never counted upon imyjoys for with all his trust in God as a wise Father who ruled his destiny, he was not then much of a saint. There's a difference, Art, in the spirit of the two ; Gran's is not so much denunciation ;is Carlyle's, more of the "How often would I have gathered you and ye would not!" because Gran's conviction is founded on principle ; for the Saviour, whose declaration this is (Carlyle coined the word but the truth is our .Great LETTER TO ART tLV OPAL. 67 Master's), is her model of life in faith and practice. The Devil has many arrows in his quiver; and when one is not possessed of the Holy Ghost, he can easily be deceived as to his own motives. So many are mis- understood, even by ourselves as when tin indiges- tion makes us crabbed and out-of-sorts with the world, there is no sympathy with even its harmless frolics ; and if we have a natural disinclination for society, how apt we are to underrate its forces ; and if, when we do mingle in it, our vanity is not sufficiently ministered to by attentions and salaams and little worshipries, how easy to renounce it, and curse it by hurling defiance at its double-dealing,inconsistencies, and enormities. But I must cease moralizing and divulge the rest of the bulletin. Long silence has not rusted the edge of my prolixity, an art in which I take pride in excelling when Doane is the listener. I babble away to you every thought that comes uppermost, trusting in the friendship heretofore mentioned, for the weed- ing out of that which cumbereth the letter. A few items of secondary importance remain to be com- municated. As I have hinted before, you will antici- pate, perhaps, that they centre around the beautiful stranger who has been the cynosure of all eyes and the magnet of all hearts, during our "season" I refer to our friend, Mrs. Healey's guest. The fame of her beauty and enormous wealth pre- ceded her, but although expectation was roused to a fabulous pitch, the Opal Queen has not disappointed the majority of the curious. This title appears to have dropped, like herself, from the clouds, for altho' the christening occasion was patent to all, no one of us can discover who was the christener. But the name once caught was so palpably fit, that by spontaneousand universal assent it was echoed and re-echoed until set in its die. It came like a flash into existence, and like a flash may go out. Nous verrons. For the sake of convenience, she shall be known 68 THE OPAL QUEEN. as Belinda (a name by which she has appeared be- fore in this correspondence) a name euphonious and with an air. As it has also the advantage of being a favorite with both of us and standard for our Dul* cineas, it will serve an admirable foil for the over- curious (who, like the " Marchioness," are reduced to key-holes and surreptitious methods of education), and prevent any little awkwardness which might arise in case of unknown and unsuspected contingen- cies. Void mon prudence! Such an amount of caution has not been portioned out to me for many a day. You have been told that Belinda is beautiful and a millionairess, almost a billionairess for the present let that sufh'ce as to her personal charms and means of supporting them, while I sketch her from other points of view. For, like every star of the first mag- nitude, she has her phases. Belinda attends to her nails. Each nail rises out of its crescent cradle into an almond shaped tissue, glistening with ivory and mother-of-pearl. Belinda understands the requirements of the toilet to perfection. She does not believe in being recog- nized by her odor. She does not announce her pres- ence by messengers which enter the penetralia of the olfactories, nor can she be followed through a long line of rooms by the suffocating sweetness of the im- pinging atmosphere. Foxes may be traced in some such way, but Belinda is not a fox, and maintains that the human organism should not be tainted with dead odors. Animals carry them in a bag; nature h;is not provided humanity with such distinctive fur- nishing. If the human wishes to imitate the brute, let him also carry his in something as close an estopped bottle. But I digress. Belinda is so delicately scented that you catch only the occasional inspiration of violet or wild rose, now minutely palpable, now caught as in a dream, now vanishing altogether. Belinda does not perfume herself at all for the LETTER TO AUT ON OPAL. 69 public assemblage, where a sitting audience is con- fined for hours in an ill-ventilated room. She thinks the air foul enough without adding to it the stale and artificial compounds of chemical art, thereby driving her nearest neighbor into a. sick headache or an incessant wielding of the fan (in winter !) in order to blow away the disease-laden atmosphere, and catch a little breath of heaven's pure elixir. This matter of fanning, Art, ought to be regulated by sumptuary law it has often been a source of amusement to me, and sometimes, I confess, of vexa- tion. Mrs. Bluster is hale, hearty, and fifty. She has an immense palm-leaf under the cushion, and as soon as she is comfortably seated (sometimes before) she makes a dive for it, and the battle begins. To one not acquainted with her tactics, the sole object of the vigorous and wide-spreading charges which she incessantly keeps up, seems to be a bold, vicious attack upon the spinal column of the unsuspecting victim in the ranks just in front of her. Just here at the base of the brain where the fine tissue makes its first development into that delicate, creamy or- ganism with its arbor vltce markings, just here, where exposure to sudden draughts endangers the whole fabric of the nervous system, just here the deadly weapon is plied with scarcely a halt or a break, during the two hours' service. But she does not know ! the Lord will forgive her and so will I. But Belinda knows. Her fanning is a fine art a o hand motion, and confined to the small circumfer- ence of her own face. When she wishes to benefit others, she extends the privilege of her fan, and courageously endures the heat, not so much from a spirit of charity as because she is proper all her actions are en regie. She knows what the correct adjustments of society demand of her she is just, she is high-toned ; she would not let finish in the social structure suffer through lack of her acqui- escence in carrvino- out the minutest detail. 70 THE OPAL QUEEN. Belinda is fond of contrasts and correspondencies of tone and color. One bright autumn day a day when Nature puts "on her regalia robes in the North, Belinda put on hers (to remind herself, she said, of the dear up- country) and sitting under a many-branched oak, became a part of the landscape. The cardinal and gray and gold of her draperies vied in richness and brilliancy with nature's own pigments. She was writing on a pencil tablet. Her eyes fairly danced with delight as she said : "Isn't this a perfect day?" and every word had a soul in it, as she breathed it. "I. love to sit here, where the sky is so blue " (here she looked up with a face full of rapture) "and all nature seems so sweet around me, my foot pressing the sod " (here my attention was directed to the daintiest of chaussure in the way of many-buckled slipper and carmine hose in terraces between the bands), " and my lungs drink- ing in this rich nectar for what so fills the spirit must in a measure nourish this poor clay is it not so?" I bowed a quiet assent. " But I am disturbing you you are writing." With the sweetest of smiles she replied: " Not in the least, I assure you. I just thought I would scribble a little with a pencil to my friend, right here on this rustic seat, with the canopy of clouds overhead, to imprison a breath of the freshness the aroma," she said with emphasis, " of this de- licious autumn day on this sheet of paper. I am aware that a pencil is not d la mode for the paragon letter, but my friend will excuse it, T know, under the circumstances, for the sake of the aroma," she added, laughing. " Beauty is better than precision, and an easy flow of utterance in such a presence" (and she looked like a priestess of nature, so devout was her expression) " than all the stilted eloquence of the schools !" Belinda is so transparent that what is the perfect LETTER TO ART ON OPAL. 71 simplicity of nature passes for the perfect finish of art; without the least diplomacy she would be brusque if she were not steeped in conventionalism and dyed in etiquette. Like the uranium glass she is both iridescent and transparent. Belinda is a good etymologist, entomologist, naturalist, philologist, physicist, etc. In the city where she has been for a time, she was president of the society for the introduction of smoke-consuming chimneys, was untiring in her efforls to discover some practical way of removing this blot upon large manufacturing towns this nuisance to housekeepers and had unearthed the man who had invented an arrangement which she bought and patented and set to work before she left. Oh! Belinda! If you could only be as interested in the eternal verities, and have as supreme a sense of the eternal fitness of things what a superb woman you would be! Belinda is all sweetness, always in equipoise I would like to see her once fairly aroused. She is literarv and she walks! In my next I will try to satisfy the curiosity which I know is literally consuming 3-011, with regard to the action of this new star in our little improvised dramas. Don't let it. keep 3*011 awake nights or spoil your case in court. Affectionately, CHANNING. P. S. T may not have told 3^011 that one feature of the advanced education inaugurated by Professor Monboddo, is a revival of the ancient Greek festival, to be held at the close of each term. There will be contests in oratory, music, ami athletic sports.. The subject of the oration will be announced in advance, and the field will be open to competition to all in the state the prize, to be as of old, only the simple wreaths of laurel, bay, and olive. 72 THE OPAL QUEEtf. The ladies desired to supplement the festival with a supper and dauce in the evening, at the home of one of their number, and as their contribution to the neAV scheme, grace the scene in the antique cos- mmes of the high-born Grecian ladies. Mrs. Healey leads off', Mrs. Stilz will follow, and Belinda hopes to be able to give the third, in her elegant palace now building. She has had special reference to such entertain- ments in its construction, and has secured all that is valuable in the plan of an ancient Greek mansion. But "contractors are a slippery genus," and the house, judging from the present rate of progress, will be at that time a magnificent pile of tantalizing u.se- lessness, in which case Belinda has the recognized right to extend her claim to the first term of the next year. There is a picturesque arcade built chiefly of stained and pictured glass bridging the distance of seventy feet between this mansion and Doctor Healey's, which secures the privacy of the visiting inmates the Mon- boddoes have mimed it La Q-alerie de la Heine. C. E. P. S. No. 2. If the "cherub" is not in possession of unadulterated happiness, the "saints" are enjoy- ing an unclouded bliss in the rosy visions conjured out of their fancies it must be, although they affect to see them in the atmosphere that surrounds their "cherub." Perhaps I have not informed 3-011 that this is the coferie-sprache home vernacular of Su- perba. The "cherub," you, who are so Raphaelistic, will recognize without the aid of number or catalogue, as your humble servant, and the "saints" comprise naturally "Superba," "Pater," and "Gran" the first being rigidly excluded by "Superba" herself, but embraced in her son's canonized list. It follows as conclusively as that two and one make three, that the home which shelters their saintships- should be called the " Saints' Rest" to which, old fellow, you are now, as ever, most cordially welcome. LETTER TO AHT ON OPAL. 73 When are 3*011 to be temporarily released from your devotion to the "jealous science of the law," soasto give me a happening in propria pers.ona? I am per- suaded that even our little village will afford yoti recreation more healthful and useful than you get not than you could find in the small circle of your life, barren of anything But legal incidents, and en- closed by a circumference of judges, juries and clients. Your legal ability and attainments will, I am con- fident, conquer a success for 3*011, but take care you don't *' vanish into thin air" before you get your laurel chaplet. I will close with Burns's animating words " God send you speed Still daily to grow wiser, And may you better reck the rede Than ever did the adviser." Affectionately, CHANNINGo ?4 THE OPAL CHAPTER VII. LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. DEAR ART: 1 have been studying carefully the subject of Fashion, which seems such an engrossing topic in these days and for that matter in what days has it not been a controlling force in public and private life, and a controlling factor in shaping public opinion ? I have come to the conclusion that the fashion that has no intelligible principle in it must inevitably change with the caprices and covetousness of the people. If we had sumptuary laws to regulate our dress, as do the Chinese, or some fixed tradition with the authority of law, there would be some hope of a reform in the right direction ; for then all classes would unite in choosing that style representing the maximum of comfort and convenience giving play to their fancy for display, in the richness of material and splendor of the decorations. You have not our soft, genial climate, it is true, and it might be doubtful whether in your northern latitude the present weight of the male attire could be wisely diminished but it is also true that the fashion that would simplify ladies' dress by reducing the number of pieces, would be an immense advance. The weight of her clothing is enough in many cases to account for nervous prostration and impaired constitutions. Fancy one of our modern belles, with her draperies all loaded with sewing-machine work and jet trimmings, practising in the gymnasium or contending in the games as the Spartan women did ! With fewer and combined garments, ease of move- ment and healthier, because freer, action of the vital LETTER TO ARTllUlt bOANE. 75 organs would be secured. Exercise would become us pleasurable and as indispensable as the bath, and the lack of the superabundant clothing would be supplied by the increased activity of the circulatory organs. Woman's color would be inside, in good, rich carmine globules, instead of many voluptuous folds of. the cardinal drapery true, she might have both, but should make sure of the inside first. I have a mind to revive your recollection of your college days with an apt quotation. Do }'ou remem- ber, in Aristophanes, how Lys.i.->trate complimented Lam |>i tn, the Spartan lady ? " My beloved Lampito, how handsome you are ! Your completion. is so fine and your person so full and health}- ; why, you could strangle a bull." "Yes," replies Lampito, u l fancy I could, for I exercise myself in jumping until my heels touch my back." Imagine such personal vigor let loose upon the dis- reputable class of bachelors (you may thank your stars, Arthur, that you don't live in Greece !) whom Lycurgus obliged to march in ignominious procession, subject to chastisement by these female gymnasts, because they refused to enter married lii'e. I am irot sure, however, but that it would be a useful indict- ment, resulting in the building of more homes and fewer inebriate asylums. By the way, speaking of the costume of women, I come by easy gradation to that of man but with no generalizing intent I wish to hold up to your in- spection an individual specimen of the genus homo, another man who has dared. Did you see him? He arrived in your streets fresh from Europe yesterday, so the paper says. He wore trousers fitting like a stocking down to the ankle, of a light green color, with dark green stripes, a very short, light colored vest, and a bottle-green cut-away, snug as a jersey, with long tails reaching to the knees ; black striped shoes with un tanned leather tops, atas- seled cane, and a big English Derby surmounting the 76 THE OPAL QUEEN. whole, with a curling brim and heavy crown. Void quelque chose de nouveau I This looks as though Fashion, like most everything else, moves in a circle. Earnest spirits dart off in a tangent from the ca- nonical curve in pursuit of truth to a proud and safe distance, and there evolve and formulate their creeds. The untiring, restless wheel spins round and round, generating sparks that establish a current to draw them in again, with their new variations of the -old thought ; round and round it spins, and casts them out iu the heat of newer sensations ; round and round it whirls, throwing off one after another its faded lumi- naries, that revolve in their own circles in fair view of the parent light, waiting patiently the electric cur- rent upon whose glowing bosom they shall trium- phantly flow back into the old rim of thought ; new no\v to the travellers of the fleeting day. So all ideas of beauty and philosophy have come from the ancient Greeks. Other generations and people demolish or modify as suits their whims. A destructive but equally corrective age like ours ex- tracts the germ and gives it its simple, original pre- eminence once more. For example (be patient, Arthur, I am almost through), our ancestors in Britain wore the Greek costume as introduced by the Romans the tunic, the toga which was the Greek himala, and the brac- ca> from which comes our word breeches. Then these modified by the Teutonic genius and afterward by the Normans, produced the trunk-hose. These be- came shortened into petticoat-hose, which again were supplanted by the knee-breeches ; the latter holding their own until the sans culottes inaugurated the modern dress of our generation, intending it as a political stroke in contempt of court usages after the French Revolution. The Pre-Raphaelites have made a struggle for the knee breeches, and no one will complain if the sense- less petticoat-hose are deservedly skipped in the re- LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 77 trograde series, and the trunk-hose taken up next in order (as exemplified by the preceding pen portrait). There would then be but one step intervening before you reach the ancient Greek again. There is already a breaking up of formality in costume, which is a good sign. We Monboddoes are anticipating a little, 1 know, and have made a prodigious somersault into the past, but if we can give it eclat, we shall forestall public opinion and win the day. And now, old fellow, let me close this branch of my subject with a quotation from our beloved humorist and poet-doctor even if you have seen it you will enjoy its reperusal in this connection. "Fashions will change the new costume allures. Unfading still the better type endures; While the slashed doublet of the cavalier Gave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer, Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and stick Recalls the semblance of a new-born chick; (To match the model he is aiming at He ought to wear an egg-shell for a hat) ; Which of these objects would a painter choose, And which Velasquez or Van Dyke refuse ?" Some one has said that the degree of civilization to which a country has attained is indicated by the quality and quantity of its fashions. I know not whether yon will accept the principle that fashion is the exponent of progress, but is not the reflex action of an educational process markedly observable in the costuming art? This was illustrated in the case of Wagner, whose musical education and instincts forced him into the velvet coat and breeches, black silk stock- ings and fine lace at neck and wrist, that he might be a living symbol of the dramatic power of music. Styles for both sexes are devised, published, hailed with delight by the ardent votary of Fashion or im- posed upon the one who follows her afar off by the artful and autocratic costumer. There is no longer any sncji thing as individuality of taste in dress , the professional designer and the designing costumer combine to cheat us out of our birthright privilege 78 THE OPAL QUEEN. in a monopoly of the field. They are the " Master " and " Mistress of the Wardrobe " of the nineteenth century ; but when I think of the willing slaves and cheerful imitators of their highnesses, I am inclined to the belief that there is more monkey than man in the most of us. " Belinda," of all her companions, dares not "to be a Daniel," for I fear she is far from considering that standard worthy of her imitation but to be true to her refined instincts in her apparel. She has a rare perception of fitness and harmony, and although she does not for a moment consider herself independent of her dressmaker, I know to a certainty that she designs her own styles and is guiltless of the posses- sion of a Revue du Monde, or any of its companions. But while she has the culture-craze in its various departments of art and literature, she spends little thought on the artistic decoration of her person. But this is no virtue in Belinda, for if she had not an in- fallible instinct to guide her in the selection of the required draperies this power of psychologizing dress, as it were she would be among the foremost in cultivating it, for she is a born aesthete. And now I hear you howling with despair, that I, the sagacious youth whom you have dubbed a severely practical and unsusceptible mortal, should have one word to say about anything so heavenly but so unfit for earth's needs, as a modern aesthete ! But wait a moment. Give yourself time to cool off ; or better, I will benevolently waive the subject until you are at regulation heat. Dr. Healey made a fly ing business-trip to the Queen City of the West last week, and by his invitation a select party of us accompanied himself and wife. We had a rare time. For one thing the foliage was in the height of its autumnal glory, and gave us views of nature not obtainable in our more uniform climate. I tell you what it is, Art, if the mystery of spring with its rich freshness and delicate tones thrills me LETTER TO ARTHUR DOANE. 79 with delight, these autumnal masses of iridescent splendor quadrille me through and through. Perhaps, now, you are inclined to criticise the verb by which I have expressed this seasonable sensation ; but reflect before you commit yourself so rashly, that 1 am nothing if not etymological, and be content when I assure you, on the authority of Earle's latest edition, that it is not necessary to lay instant and challenging hands on the "Unabridged" at your elbow. For oh ! my astute law-grubber, is not the word derived from quadrus, and am I not dissected, as it were, into four pieces and scattered to the four winds of heaven, in my effort to take in the whole of my horizon of prismatic loveliness ? Or, again, Nature provides a sea of color to entrance my eyes ; she also distils from her alembics a narcotic, which steeps my senses while I am gazing, in a delicious languor, and I am in a maze compared with which the airy motions of the fleet-footed dancers, as they thread their way through the windings of the quadrille, are but a feeble imitation ! I repeat it, sir. I was quadrilled through and through ! And with it all, I had a feeling of rapturous gratitude that I was alive to take it all in ! This one thing may be said in poor Eve's favor, that we owe the autumnal decorations of nature to her misconduct under the apple-tree. Decay, in this one instance, is a garment of beauty. Without the death of vegetation, we could have no autumnal glories, and we must take our fill of them here, as there are none in the promised land witness the lines: " Sweet fields stand dressed in living green." This suggests a conundrum which you may puzzle over at your leisure. Why is England like heaven ? But as you are a proverbially bad guesser, I beg you not to postpone your reply to this letter until you have solved it, or you may find in the insane asylum, Yours faithfully, CHAN. 80 THE OPAL QUEEN. DHAR CHAN: Here is a go! A most contemptibly cool piece of business, I Ciill it, in my once sagacious friend to as- sume "heat" in his auditor, because, forsooth, he is in a flame himself, when that auditor has heard noth- ing, as yet, in the recital of dressmaking to start his pulse one beat beyond its normal action and then summarily to leave him, ostensibly to recover, but really to find a cure for his own frightful disorder and feverish pulse ! I will accept your letter with all its palaver, if you give me the privilege of an amendment. Strike out " quadrilled " and substitute grilled. Pray who is the syren that is cooking your heart on her red-hot gridiron ? For seriously, Chan, you have never be- fore given such positive proofs of love-sickness. Roaming the streets and woods, idly sauntering and losing yourself in dreams and vagaries, talking about " seas of color," while, no doubt, your face takes on a chameleon hue. Now you stand by the ocean and reflect its blue, now by a mountain in crimson and gold and you are colored like a lobster, now upon the emerald grass and you grow every mo- ment more verdant! Pia}^ who is the fair creature? Have you addressed a sonnet to her fairy nails? "A guilty conscience needs no accuser," my dear Chan, and now since you have (perhaps uncon- sciously) defined your position, can't you let a fellow still farther into the secret? Is she a blonde, and do you lof her? as saith our Italian friend. Haf you yet make her acquaintance, or haf you just met her on the Rialto? Those asseverations, " Iknow to a certainty" etc., do not by any means deceive me as to your intimacy. 1 know to a certainty that my transparent chum has not been holding this secret in the recesses of his being, until he is hand in glove with the fair damsel. There are other avenues of information open to a man who possesses a charming Superba, and a chatty, LETTER TO CH ANN ING. 81 bewitching grandma, the delight of all the girls in the village. And glad enough I am that you are only near the precincts of the enchanted land ; for, as your best friend and counsellor, I warn you not to cross the border-! Beware ! Beware ! She is fooling thee, even thee, Charming Earle ! with which poetical alarum I, too, will beat a hasty retreat and go to a more serious " courting affair.'' Yours affectionately (but, candor compels me to say, not sympathetically^), ARTHUR. 82 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER VIII. OTTO DRESSON'S SUCCESS. " Art became the shadow Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes." E. llulwcr Lytton. OTTO DKESSON was not slow to avail himself of the privilege of cultivating con amore so charming a. per- son, and one so altogether to his taste as Miss Archer. And he saw now in the idle life hitherto tolerated with dignified impassive calm, the cradle of a new bliss. Mr. Dresson was never ecstatic ; but the soft, lunar atmosphere that had suffused his being was now heightened by brilliant auroral flashes that dazzled his nights and gave a new and richer tone to his life. And he knew secret avenues to Cupid's most en- trenched citadel. "It is a dangerous thing to be courted you know," he had often said, to the young girls, to whom his attentions were not ministered in quantities sufficient to suit their appetites, and who were constantly outlining an array of special induce- ments as a decoy for his visits, insinuating by this superlative egotism that they would die of broken hearts if he did not marry them. It soon became apparent that the dangerous ground had Miss Archer for its very luminous center, who, by no means so unsophisticated as to be unconscious of the danger, deliberately chose to ignore it and take what the gods sent without question or hindrance, especially when the gift came in the shape of a culti- vated young man of imposing personal appearance, refined taste, and a " patrimony sufficient for any one." This might be great or small according to the point OTTO DBESSOlfS SUCCESS.. 83 of view, bat Elise had a magic faculty, happy but illusory, of resolving the unknowable into the definite shape of her desires, and so swam smoothly along on the rosy breakers of what would sometimes prove a swamping sea; and with an easy-going confidence in those who made her little world, the thought of dis- puting, questioning, or investigating other people's concerns never came into her happy head. It seemed so natural to be supplied with a sufficiency of life's wherewithal, that she never discounted the so-called fortunes of rumor. Doubting was foreign to her nature on all subjects. She believed heartily in people and things, and this was the culminating charm of her presence. Having a freshness of faith, a "stainless trust" which the years had not been able to impair, it was never necessary to assume that deference to the wish or opinion of others upon which hangs all the skill of genial converse, and which preserves from friction the wheels of the social universe. It was not so much what she said, it never is with a charming woman, as the way in which she said it, that attracted and mag- netized her listeners and gave her the imperishable title to their favor. But with all her iridescence, her sweet depreciation of self and flexibility of tempera- ment, she never compromised the truth. Dresson soon rose from his self-appointed position of tutor extraordinary in the art and science of aes- thetics to the successive ranks of admirer and suitor for her hand. He saw the diminishing force of as- pirants with unkindling eye and unabated compo- sure ; but with something akin to a sensation of the narrow delight of a refined triumph, he noted the re- doubtable Channing slowly vanishing to the rear. The contest had not been sharp there was a show of crossing swords, but no real encounter. Chan- ning did not for a time abandon his promised duty as escort, and faithfully conducted Elise to the pro- gressive entertainments. He had acquired a brave mastery over the little initial temptations to fall in 84 THE OPAL QUEEN. love with his fair protege", " which," he said to him- self, "even if it should prove temporary is useful, and may he renewed in the same furnace where it was forged." If he had miseries, lie veiled them, and maintained the noble and frank bearing for which he had been distinguished. He was never more fe- licitous in the exhibition of scholarly attainments and manly virtues than when measuring lances with Dresson in argument, or in the social banter called forth in the frequent meetings at the house of their mutual friend. Dresson, who really had art ideas, was tenacious of them to a degree which he called worship, and as far as he was capable of an enthusiasm, was enthusiastic for their popularization, He had been a devout student of Schiller and Goethe, Ruskin, and the pre-Raphaelites, and classified himself in that illustrious division of mankind's bene- factors. Charming thought him a kind of dreamer with as- pirations for reform, but with a disgust for the minu- tiae of practical development and a disposition to be satisfied with the outward show of things while pro- posing only vague remedies for the evil. Mrs. Earle declared laughing that the best thing she could think of for him was a good dose of arti- chokes and she believed she would send him a bushel, and even Grandma said that nothing much better than weeds ever came out of the hot-bed of idleness. Mrs. Healey found his conduct irreproachable, but was yet secretly alarmed lest Elise, who was too ami- able to discourage an agreeable visitor, might in the end prove too amiable to resist his fascinations. Meantime Elise was in the vortex. There were drives and promenades, nosegays, bil- let-doux, and all the paraphernalia of small arms and ammunition available to the love-warrior. Elise would scarcely have been human if she had not felt a certain pride in the new grant of monopoly thus voluntarily surrendered by Dresson. OTTO BRESSON'S SUCCESS. 85 It gradually became a settled thing that Dresson should accompany her everywhere; and while there was still a random and desultory pursuit by numbers of the Alonboddoes, it was with the prima facie evi- dence of being nonsuited. Dresson was in possession of one commodity that gave him unrivalled possession of the field, and that was time in its bulk, in its es- sence, in its purity ; they had but fragments for rec- reation and found, or rather could not find the little dents they made in the fortress the elastic walls under Dresson's skilled generalship having resumed their natural shape before they got around again with their battering-rams. But Elise's triumph, if triumph it was, was to be measured by the disappointment' of her sex at the loss of their conventional beau, the handsome knight of the fanciful figure. Triumph it certainly was not in the sense that she had worked for it, planned for it, or even heartily desired it and it would have been less had it not been the signal defeat of so many of the beautiful girls of the village. And it is not strange that, whirled along as she was by the excitements of days and weeks, she should give this a prominence which added zest to her conquest. It was really noth- ing new to be admired and to be sought, but she had never before been pitted against so many rivals never before felt the fascinating ambition of outri- valling her competitors. Not that she acknowledged this openly to herself, but somehow, without word or comment, or wish to analyze or care to know, down deep in her heart, under all the hubbub and the glare, she felt the hidden glow of this invisible force. She was always happy she was happy now in her choice because she idealized her lover, and thus uncon- sciously supplied his every lack. He called her, " My Queen," with a tender grace, discoursed charmingly on keramics and archaeology and Grecian art. As a lover, Elise thought him quite Japanese and distingue, because he preserved always that supreme 86 THE OPAL QUEEN, deference to etiquette that did not venture beyond her finger-tips for a kiss, or nearer than her hand for a caress. He was minute in hie attentions and antici- pations of her most feathery wish. He sat, enthralled, by her music, and pronounced every u bit of por- celain " that she decorated " a gem, and quite the correct thing you know," in his languid, mellifluous flow of complimentary torrent. He gratified her vanity and it was "so nice" to be adored, and her heart filled with such a gracious pity when she found him likely to be "the most collapsed of men" at the prospect of losing her, that she finally granted his petition ; saying to herself " a feeling so akin to Love will not be long in reaching its stature." " I have alwftys had a feeling," she said to Lily, " that my chevalier should make a brave onset and cap- ture me in spite of myself; there is something very fascinating about 'dash' in this matter." " But what if the wrong knight should make a brilliant, desperate charge, Elise?" " But I think, Lil, Otto is the true knight," she replied demurely. Lily made an exclamation of astonish me-nt. " I just couldn't bear to see him in such dispirit- ment so wan and prostrate the grand pre-Ra- phaelite at my feet in tears ! Why, Lil, you know I am not an icicle, and if I had been, was not that enough to dissolve me into penitence and recan- tation ? Any how, like the early martyrs, I did re- cant and like Cranmer what a pathetic antique that scene makes, Lil I said, bending over him, "'This right hand hath offended, take it and do what you will, my lord!" Lilian was gazing at her in mute surprise, and Elise went on : "I don't always use such stilted language, you know, but somehow at the very sight of Otto my thoughts march into pre-Raphaelite file, and I ad- vance on that line without budging to right or left." OTTO fiEESSON'S SUCCESS. 87 " Oh, fie ! Elise, to cany your dramatics into such a reality ! What a useless sacrifice ! What an in- fatuation for you to be oblivious of the outcome of all this! " then she realized her harshness, and be- sides, that in her disappointment she was over-step- ping her bounds " There is something besides aesthetics in marriage, you must know, Elise," she continued kindly, "and you better commence with the* practical, the common sense now *' Common-sense is at a discount, dear. Every stupid that comes along claims an over-stock of it." " Elise," said Lily, feeling that now, if ever, she must speak a deciding word, and }"et shrinking lest by an unguarded speech she should lose the influence she now possessed, "do you know that there are depths in your heart that have never been stirred, no, not so much ;is ruffled?" " Then why don't my hero come along and stir them ? " she replied gayly. " Haven't I been wait- ing here like a harp well strung and bright, all ready tuned, for, lo ! these many years, only waiting, waiting for somebody to get the music out of me ! Some master-hand, Lil, that can sweep over the chords and captivate me, body and soul! There's music in me, I think, deep, deep down in the recesses of my being. I hear its low, sweet singing sometimes in the dark, and it sounds like far-away marriage-bells." She paused and then said with a sigh, " But maybe after all it's only a dirge a sad, soulful dirge, Lil ! " They were silent a moment, and then Elise said abruptly: "But what are we talking about? The man is ac- cepted I I can't repudiate that contract, you know, and I am ready for congratulations, Lily, not remon- strances ! If you were not just my very, very dearest friend," she said, twining her arms about her, " I think I should scold you a little, for so disregarding ' the proprieties,' and for putting me out of tune with my self. I hate discords! But never mind, Lil," she went on in her old coaxing way, "I'll forgive you, for you know I am devoted to you ! " 88 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER IX. THE JEWELS. "This southern climate's quare, Biddy, A quare and bastely thing, Wid winter absent all the year, And summer in the spring." O. C. Kerr. THE river upon which Brentville is situated is from a mile to two mites wide, and runs its majestic course through two degrees of latitude, and then through several " narrows " enters the mighty deep. Or rather, as it is properly only an estuary, the sea has worn its way through these " narrows" and swept northward. A narrow peninsula in one place only thirty yards wide divides it from old ocean's raging billows on the east, and ministers to the health and comfort of the river residents. The invigorating salt air sweeps across this narrow belt and comes to them softened and laden with the healing balsam of the spruce and pine. The seasons lose their count, the months forget their names, in this climate of perpetual spring. They do indeed come and go after a fashion ; but Dame Nature lias withdrawn the barriers in production that fence it around in the " up-country," and the sowing is fol- lowed by the reaping, the planting by the fruition, without discrimination of times and seasons. To be sure, there are some best times for all kinds of hus- bandry ; but Nature begins her work at an}' time that the husbandman chooses to confide lus treasures to her keeping. Villas scattered all along the banks of the river form THE JEWELS. 89 a continuous suburb to the villages that lie between. Doctor Henley's residence enclosed ten acres and was a quarter of a mile from the village. He called it Bay Terrace, for the "sea has taken a bite right out of the land here," he said. The mode of transit is Venetian ; yachts are the carriages and sails the horses that conduct the inhabit- ants from point to point ; and it is as easy to step from the beautiful white beach or the private pier into one of these aquatic carry alls, as from Fifth Avenue steps to the wheeled landau. Marine sports give vigor to the frames of girls and boys, as well as to the manly Monboddoes training for. their regattas or trolling for their bass. The silvery mullet, those agile gymnasts of the deep, are the vic- tims of gun or cast-net, and the remarkable variety of crabs kindly end (or begin, perhaps) in the propitious horse-shoe. The evenings on the river, when its waves were hushed into a mirrored stillness, and great floods of gold and crimson mantled the boundless horizon, or deep belts of pale, blending mauves and pinks and salmons rilled air and rigging with a softened splendor, or a rosy flame with its pulsing, fading shades suf- fused the sky and was repeated in the water such evenings, melting into a fleeting twilight and then into bright starlight or moonlight, were the pride and the delight of the denizens on the glorious river. Bresson had fitted up a yacht right royally for his " Queen," and here, with the sunset calm sinking into her soul and his melodious voice hushing every dis- cord into peace, Elise felt as if she had indeed found her paradise, and gave herself wholly to the happy present and bright anticipations for a future as serene. Excursions by day and by night were frequent on this tideless sea ; sometimes there were picnics suddenly extemporized, and these generally proved more enjoyable than those planned to order. The Doctor's practice was in two villages and up ' and down the river for twenty miles. He had a fast 90 THE OPAL QUEEN. sailing craft, and with a fair wind could make the distance in easy time. This morning there came a call from Nassamee, ten miles away, and Mrs. Healey, who always ac- companied her husband on his long trips, sent out messages to her/riencls to form a fleet for a moonlight excursion. They gathered from near and from far. "See, Elise," she cried, as they were descending the flowery terrace to the beach, and spied through the vistas the white sails glistening, " what a fine convoy I have ! The Dove, the Idler, the Eagle, the Nonsense, the Arrow, the North-Star, and the Cleo- patra. What a gay time we will have ! " Bat Elise did not respond. She had grim fore- bodings from the fractious condition of her head that the " gay time," was not for her. Dresson had gone for Miss Love, and was the last to arrive, coming up to the pier just as they stepped upon the beach. Elise sank upon the cushioned bench, overcome with what she thought a momentary sharpness of pain. Dr. Healey led off in the Dove, and the others, soon following scattered wide or in pairs dotted the blue with their snowy rigging. They had made but a short distance when Elise said faintly : " You must take me back, Otto ; this dancing water makes me sick." " 'Pon my word, Elise, that is too bad ! Can't do it very well, you know Miss Love here, and the party expecting us. Take that distant palmetto, now, for a point of view, and just balance like this, you know " I am afraid I can't, Otto," Elise interrupted, mak- ing a desperate effort to smile. "Can't I give you some brandy now?" he asked, bringing out a flask from the locker. " Won't hurt you one bit, you know improve your tone and color " But she shook her head despairingly. THE JEWELS. 91 "Well, it is a pity, you know, but if you say so, we'll head for shore." Dresson .sounded his couch, and Bertha soon ap- peared. " But you are not to stay with me, Otto ! " Elise protested, as he proceeded to anchor. " No, Otto, I beg ! " she said, as he still persisted. " You must go on with Miss Love I would not for anything disap- point you of your pleasure." " But don't you need help, Miss Archer?" asked Miss Love ; " do let me stay." " Oh, no, dear, thank you. Bertha i.3 here and I feel better even now away from that giddy water," she replied, smiling. They demurred, but Elise at last persuaded them to rejoin the fleet. She sat on the beach and watched them out of sight. The increasing coolness of the ah* renerved her, and the comforting steadiness of old Mother Earth's bosom was never so prized before. Under these influences, she soon became herself again. " Well, Bertha, I must make out an evening some how," she said as they stood upon the verandah to- gether. ' I guess I will have a jewel night. Bring me all my jewels, Bertha," she added, fumbling for her key in the deepening twilight as she entered the library door. It was her favorite room, quaint and cozy, with a mullioned bay-window in front. The drapery of the plush-embroidered cover hung over the center-table in rich folds to the floor. There would be ample space upon it, she thought, for her treasures, and she would sit here and examine and rearrange them. Some stones were lost, some were loose, some needed polish- ing, others were out of repair, and for some she de- signed new settings. "I will give them a careful scrutiny, "she observed, as Bertha returned, "and shall not need you for some time. The butler has this evening out, and James must take this note for me to Widow Herman, two 92 THE OPAL QUEEN. miles on the road to Dumfrey. Cook begged so hard to go and see her old-country cousin, just ' come over,' tliiit Mrs. Ilealey gave her permission ; so you remain within call, Bertha, and if you feel like it, go on with your portiere, as I am anxious to have it finished for the fete. Now draw down the shades and bring lights, Bertha,; you may illuminate, to-night, sconces and all, to give me full blaze on the stones." She was thinking of what Otto had said to her that morning, and automatically opening every casket only partly conscious of the movements of her fingers extracted the shining gems and placed them in a glittering heap before her. Even then, as they lay there throbbing with prismatic hues, she did not cease her reverie. She leaned her head upon her elbow. It was a rich, warm night in April, and "the breeze gently dallied with the window-hangings in satin and lace which Otto had called a nocturne in color and softly touched her fair cheek. She caught np a diamond aigrette and held it listlessly before her, but her eyes were not on it, and her mind was far away in the sweet, illusive dreamland. The rising wind came with a delicious freshness to her brow, as she sat there pondering on those words full of a vague mystery and sweet significance. Now the curtains gently flapped with monotonous regular- ity, and Elise lazily glanced from them into the mir- ror opposite the table. Her attention was arrested for an instant lay the brilliant picture of herself and surroundings, but on swift wing it flew away and left her still " in maiden meditation fancy free," until a sharp swirl lifted the table cover, and oh! horror! was she mistaken? Could it be the crouched form of a man that for one vanishing instant crossed her retina ? All the color fled from her face then she thought : "What a silly fear! My imagination is vivid to- night, I know, and my fancy lias conjured out of these antique carvings a human figure." She made an effort to feel gay, but was now thor- THE JEWELS. 93 oughly aroused and sensible of the danger of her position. " Come, O friendly JEolus ! lift up these heavy draperies once more blow this phantasm away, and prove to me that I have a bewildered vision to-night." Still, although she assumed nonchalance, she did not, could not, stir her eyes were riveted on the mirror. " Oh ! will it never rise again ? Why did I let Bertha go ? " She was paralyzed, although clear- headed and outwardly calm. Now there came a great gust, and yes, her worst fears were realized. " Cover him up O friendly ^Eolus ! G^ve her time to think to think ! Cease your whirling dance, disturb not one more fold, and give her time to think ! " She plucked up a desperate courage and deliberated with palpitating heart, while she lightly fingered the precious stones. If she rang for her maid, the robber might spring upon her, or snatch some of the jewels and flee through the open window. Even if lie did not in- terfere with her summons, how could Bertha help her? If she pleaded indisposition, postponed the ex- amination, and sent the jewels back to her room and followed Bertha, he might secrete himself in some . other part of the house ; or, suspicious of discovery, this might precipitate an attack upon them for that robbers make light of murder she well knew and if he did not hurt them, with the stern logic of pistol and oaths, he might hold them there while he gath- ered up the jewels and fled. She had herself communicated the intelligence of the absence of her household staff, and if the robber was not apprised of this before, and sought the oppor- tunity, he certainly knew it now, and the tremendous advantage of acting at once. Now she remembered,' too, that she had mad vert- 04 THE OPAL QUEEN. eutly mentioned to Bertha in the robber's hearing that her linest set, the opals, were at the jeweller's and if they allowed him to escape, he might make the jeweller his point of attack. Every second was precious, for it was not likely that the bold intruder would hesitate to use violence, and two timid females could be easily silenced. "Two are better than one," she gasped mentally. " Something must be done ! " Hardly knowing her own purpose, she arose from her chair, she walked to the bell and summoned her maid. That Rubicon was safely passed the robber did not stir. Bertha came promptly good Bertha. "Bertha!" she said with a forced calm that per- mitted no visible agitation, and the data for a plan that instant flashed into her mind. " My finest set i.->, you know I told you, at the jeweller's I have a fancy for seeing my jewels all together to-night. Suppose you run over there it will not take more than fifteen minutes at the most, will it? and no one will disturb me in that time. But stop ! I will write him a note, for they are very precious, you know, and he would not give them to anyone, he told me, without an order. Bring my escritoire, Bertha ! " She hastily wrote : MR. BARTON, My maid, Bertha, will hand you this note and ask you for my jewels, but do not give them to her. For Heaven's sake, send help instantly to my house I A robber has entered my dwelling is at my feet, this moment, under the table as I write ! Not a soul but myself in the house ! Say nothing to the maid of the robber. If I fall a victim to his greed in her absence, God have mercy upon me ! Heaven speed you to the rescue. ELISE ARCHER. "I will be back in ten minutes, my iady, for I am fearing to leave you alone." THE JEWELS. $o Elise tried to smile and said " Fly, then, my good Bertha love lends wings, you know." Now indeed was the crisis of her fate. She had not stopped to consider the wisdom of the action, but followed the guiding impulse as it rose and fell, for thought and execution had been simultaneous pro- cesses-. Now, however, in this interval, he had time for reflection. She questioned whether her course had been prudent, for now she was completely at the mercy of the wretch at her feet, should he seize this opportunity to snatch his prize. She knew that her motive had been to tempt him with a larger bait, although at the moment she did not recognize it, and she still hoped that on Ids part he was meditating no violence, no denouement, but quietly waiting for the midnight hour, when, as they were hushed in sleep, he might secure and make way with his booty. " Or perhaps, after all," she reasoned, " his ambi- tion is only for the table silver. Oh ! how gladly I would give it ! " and debated whether she should not make the proposition to him. But her courage did not rise to tjie occasion, and she doubted, too, its pro- priety. Her nerves were now wrought up to the highest pitch, and it seemed as though she should die with the strain. Every moment was an age, every breath of wind sent the stagnant blood back in great floods to her heart, every sound beat upon her ear like a trumpet yet still she sat there like a marble statue, idly fingering her gems, with a show of ab- sorbed occupation. Her head became dizzy, her brain numb " Oh God ! " she thought, "if I faint I am ruined, for then I will be in his power ! Why does she tarry so long?" She glanced at her watch three minutes more to wait could she endure the suspense, the crushing strain? But now she heard the cheery sound of steps in the distance, and felt that her deliverance was at hand. "But oh, they must be so cautious ! " she thought, "for he might fire and kill us all," She heard Bertha mount the steps 96 THE OPAL QUEEN. "Mr. Burton brought them himself, my lady, and he is just outside waiting your permission to enter." " Very well, Bertha," Elise tried to say calmly, but her voice was so low and indistinct that Bertha hesitated. Fearing that her agitation might have been perceived, she spoke again, with a sharp reso- nance. " Certainly, Bertha, I am very glad he came, as I wish to consult him about some work he is doing for me." Mr. Barton entered, and now Elise felt assured that there was no escape for the robber. She did not know what plan Mr. Barton had set on foot to arrest him ; she felt so relieved to shift the responsi- bility of the capture upon stronger and abler hands that she could let him take his own time. So they chatted of her jewels and the necessary repairs and readjustments, cleansing and polishing, and Mr. Barton discovered so many irregularities that he concluded to take most of them back with him. Elise assented to, everything, satisfied .that he was playing his game wisely, which " assurance became doubly sure " when two gens cTarmes entered the room and quickly and adroitly dragged the prisoner from his snug shelter, before the blazing lights. " This is the first tramp, Miss Archer, that has ever been seen upon our river," Mr. Barton whispered as he gently led her from the room. But Elise mused, " This is my April happening ! " DID Silt! MEAN? 9? CHAPTER X. WHAT DID SHE MEAN ? "WlLL you wear your opals with it, Elise?" in- quired Mrs. Healey as they were examining the Greek costume just arrived from Paris. " They will fit it beautifully, unless," she said thoughtfully, "you think the effect would be a little too prononce for the fond Alcestis character. But I am not very familiar with her history, and leave it to you entirely. I would not wish to decide." " But there was also a royal dignity about her that thought itself not unworthy every personal adorn- ment. The opals are in antique settings, I suppose you have observed, and of a style that belongs to this very period of Grecian art so at least Cesnola in- formed me, after a careful examination." " Charming ! How well they will complete the cos- tume! They are becoming, too," Lily said, clasping on the necklace, to catch the effect upon the face. " I am never so happy as when wearing the dear, precious stones," Elise, said gathering them into a confused heap and pressing them to her bosom, while gently passing her fingers over their polished faces. "To me, Lily, they are the epitome of love, parents, home, and sisters. I never look into their dancing eyes without feeling a new devotion to the memory of the lost ones. Every hue reflects a joy, every diamond-flash a past exhilaration, every sparkle a love-message. It is a veritable rosary quite ortho- dox, Lil, don't look so alarmed for here are strung in a shining row all the blessings of my childhood, chief of which I count my mother's blessing and 98 THE OPAL QUEEN. prayers, and these, I assure you, are more sacred to me than those of any long-robed priest with his mum- bles and genuflections." She shook the folds out of the lace and satin and finest cashmere mystery (chiton, peplum, and veil all complete) held it out at arm's iength and mechani- cally set it a-going in the motions of the Greek dance but her thoughts were not on the dress. Stopping abruptly, she exclaimed : " What could that creature have meant who accosted me at the station just before I went to Europe?" And she stood in deep thought. " Beg pardon," said Lily, after a suitable interval had elapsed for the speaker to throw a little more light on the subject, "did y^ii ask me a question?" And then, as there was no response from Elise, she rat- tled on : "I couldn't think of telling you until I knew whether the creature was savage or civilized, male or female, black or white, or have at least a few acces- sories to the picture." " And you are wiser than I think, if you interpret her then, for it was a female, Lil, a nondescript, gypsy- like somebody with a baby. A select party of my friends made up an escort to the station, and as we waited there, we chatted idly on this and that, for- getful or rather indifferent to the secret or spoken comment of on-lookers. You know how it is at such times ; you fancy that there is a security in numbers, which will disarm criticism, and that buoyancy of animal spirits is as propitiatory as it is contagious. Well, I suppose that my opals must have been men- tioned, and I know that I told Helen Fronde that I was born in October, for she and I were discussing our ages, and had to come out with the records to settle the question. "The bell rang, the door opened, and the buttoned and Libelled official who takes the responsibility of 'speeding the parting guest' popped his head in the door, and called out: ' All aboa.rd for New York ! ' and we started. WHAT DID SUE MEAN? 99 " I had made just two steps forward, when some one pushed hard against me, and on turning 1 to look at the transgressor, I heard, coming from the mouth of this same fantastic and uncouth compound I was telling you about, with an expression all aghast as she said it, and the poor, pitiful baby with its face all drawn up just ready for chromatics: " ' You were born in October ? And you wear opals ! ' " Of course I simply stared at her for a second, and then turned my head away. She did not speak loud, just in a tone between a hiss and a groan. "Mr. Elvard, perceiving me trembling on his arm, inquired if I was ill. I assured him that nothing was the matter, and in the pleasant excitements of our travel abroad I forgot the incident for a long time, and then all at once it came to me with fright- ful distinctness, and ever since those two apparently chance interrogatories lie down deep within me like a weird, n^sterious melody to which all my life is the accompaniment." What could she have meant, and what business had anybody to insinuate danger or impropriety? You needn't laugh, Lily. I am sorry if there's anything bad about it, but I am as helpless in the one case as the other. I vowed the night mamma put the opals on my neck that I would defy the superstition, and so impatient was I with ignorance and folly, when this incident that I have been relating came to me again that day in Nice, I declared I would defy the October business, too! " " Bravo ! " shouted Lilian. "Yon will 'live above it,' I suppose, .as Doctor in the easy cant of health sublimely advises me to do with my headaches, and 'break up the chain of morbid action ! '' "That shaft was well aimed, Lil, and hurts more than you think." Lily protested. "Of course you are surprised, and you will be still more so when I tell you that I actually closeted my- self with the Sisters for six months to try and ' break 100 THE OPAL QUEEN. up that chain of morbid action ' you so jestingly allude to, totally unsuspicious that your Elise ever had any of its links around her was indeed fast in the stocks !" kk Oh ! Elise ! " cried Lily in a tone of pitiful con- demnation. " Well, that is hyperbole I admit, but perhaps you will not wonder or think me weak when you have heard the whole story." " Poor darling ! " said Lilian, quickly relenting ' why should I doubt your courage ! " " Yes, poor me ! to be involved in such a mysterious net. If I were a Mahommedan heathen, I should say '/ate,' Lil." " Where is the mystery? Are you then a convert to the superstition?" " Not at all. I am fighting it, battling with it still, and I am not discouraged or daunted, much less crushed but I am bewildered mystified ! the seasons come and go so fast that I seem to be perpetually dodg- ing, but I never avert my fate ! My life so far has been an enigma, and I verily believe now mark me, for I am speaking deliberately that the up and down beats in its music will strike hardest in the future just as in the past, in the months of October and April ! I cannot explain it, Lily, but you will see that it will inevitably be so. Sometimes I feel like the old Greeks in the Trojan horse, girt about with sworn enemies with glittering swords and fiery tongues, and I dare not so much as peep out for fear a plot may burst upon me. Of course that is an exaggerated figure, and you must make allowances for my vivid imagination," she added, laughing. ' '* It is a pretty, blue-vaulted, star-gemmed canopy inside that ' horse ' then, you dear child, or you could never be so sunnjV interrupted Lilian. "But there are times and times you know, Lil." Lily was quiet for a moment and then added, reflectively, " Isn't there just a tinge of superstition, Elise, that it is your duty to uproot? " WHAT DID SHE MEAN ? 101 " You cannot be more imperative in your advice, Lily, than I have been with myself, and I have been faithful to duty, but I have also been observant of providences and times and seasons. It does not fos- ter doubt in me, because I seem to see this plan as a part of a harmonious whole although it is not in accord with my sensibilities and what comes to others irregularly comes to me with the stated pre- cision of the equinoxes. It is no doubt very beauti- ful in its absolute design, but not in harmony with my personal predilections, and so cannot be very beau- tiful to me. " Channing said, when I was telling him about it, that it gave my life the ' air of a perpetual romance' he did not seem to blame me." " And what remark did Dresson make?" inquired Lily, who had noticed of late a tendency in Elise to quote Channing. "Otto! Why, I don't think I have said anything to Otto about it," she answered slowly, paused, and then added with a gay nonchalance as though she had taught herself to think his indifference quite the correct thing: " Oh, I don't believe Otto cares how the heart of me goes, he is abundantly content with the surface ripples ! " " Well, dear. I know just the thing for our nerves noiv, and that is a good, brisk, breezy walk to Sun- set Hill so no more moody fancies for the present." " But I am not moody, Lil." " But the fancies are, Elise. I admit that you seem to soar above them and from a serene height look down upon them as belongings that ought to be foreign to you, but for all that, such thoughts are not nourishing to healthv purpose you will acknowl- edge that, Elise ? " " I agree with you now, and always, Lily, dear," she said, embracing her. " Command me for a walk or what not be my sweet mentor and guardian as you were in the auld lang syne I'm twent} r -six, 102 THE OPAL QUEEN. Lil, but I need as much as then your sisterly over- sight; this time for my mind, Lil, which sometimes gets on the ' rampage,' " she added, brightly. She referred to the time when Lily had been eyes to her and feet for her, in the days when she had only that little pitiful vision. CHILDHOOD DAYS. 103 CHAPTER XL SKETCH I CHILDHOOD DAYS. THAT the reader may better appreciate Miss Arch- er's feelings and understand her idiosyncrasy with regard to there being two pivotal months upon which her destiny turned, it will be necessary to relate some incidents in her previous history. In " Once a Year" there is an account of. one summer of her life, and a few sketches will now be added. These few marked incidents are naturally impressive, but would not of themselves have been sufficient to give color to the theory, had she not observed, as time went on, that semi-annually in her history there was a climax to some more or less important event. And yet at this stage of her life she could not be said to be in any sort on the watch or making calculations, either with desire or dread, upon this unique regularity in the distribution of her life epochs. For the most part the coincidence would come to her retrospectively, and it was with a certain shy curiosity mingled with an inward protest and some vague misgivings not fear, for that was alien to her nature that she grad- ually noted these singular markings, and began at last to yield a kind of tacit, reluctant consent to the idea that there was such an arrangement in the order- ing of her life-plan. A little group sat by the fireside listening to the father's pleasant stories of travel, after several months' absence from home. Among other events of interest Avas the account of his visit to an astrologer, who at Mr. Archer's request had cast the horoscopes of each member of the family. Mary and Belle were bending 104 THE OPAL QUEEN. over these papers, and regarding with curious inter- est the singular characters traced so delicately and precisely in red and black ink, and covered with mys- terious symbols, while the lather explained the differ- ent " houses," and when they would enter each in their journey through life. To their comprehension, it was little more than a jargon of familiar astronomi- cal terms, combined with some that were very abstruse or to them unknown, in which were confusedly blended "conjunction," "aspect" of the planet (now "sextile," now " trine"), " astrolabe," " e ccentricity," " aphelion " and " opposition " ; only this was clear to them, that, according to astrology, their destiny depended upon the relative position of the planets at their birth. With an equal obscurity was the life itself pre- sented. The girls were anxious to know when they were to be married, every other wish was subordinate to that. But the father seemed not to heed their eagerness ; either desirous of expounding the art in a methodical way, or for some special reason unwilling to gratify their curiosity, he continued to delineate their passage through the different " houses," gravely spoke of wealth and rank, sickness, friends, enemies, and the " upper portal." " ' Upper portal ? ' That's death, is it, papa ? Well, we don't care about that, but when am /to be mar- ried ?" inquired a bright, rosy girl, the pet and joy of the household, looking up from the saucer of beads over which her head was bent while busying herself with a fringe for her toilet-cushion. And as her papa did not immediately reply, she repeated, "Say, papa, when am I to be married?" The father turned over his paper, muttered some- thing half audible, about " conjunction with Mars in October and April," and replied, drawing his daughter fondly to him and laying her head upon his breast, "You, my daughter, are to be a great traveller." The child clapped her hands with delight, and cry- ing, " Oh ! I'm so glad," slipped down again to her work. CHILDHOOD DA YS. 105 She did not notice in her childish innocence that her father had not answered her question, or perhaps quietly took the declaration as the alternative of marriage subject to her own choice and convenience ; to her mind, as she was in the midst of the institution and surrounded by its benefits and delights, marriage was as much a fiat as birth itself not one of the possibilities, but one of the inevitables. It seemed reasonable that she should also be a great traveller and go alone if she wished, but lying in shadowy vagueness was the outline of a protect- ing husband, as a matter of course and of necessity. Young as she was, she put no faith in the prophecy, for her religious convictions were strong, and she knew that there was no truth in astrology that it was all foolish conjecture, jumbles of ancient lore and possible or probable futurities, the fruit, in this age, of some mercenary mind. Her mother had so taught her ; had explained to her that it was once cultivated with the honest belief that there was some connection between the position and movements of the planets and the habits and pursuits of those born under them, but that nothing had been really accom- plished by it, even in its palmiest days, in the way of divination, and that astronomical discoveries had ex- ploded its notions and reduced it to the level of a delusive aiwl forgotten science. Her father did not contradict this, but while he acknowledged it to be nonsense, it had a strange fascination for him, and he permitted himself the weak indulgence of gratifying his curiosity for the mysteries of the future, by studying it when a good opportunity presented. The little interlocutor, still stringing her beads, was called " Sunbeam," on account of her win- some sprightliness and uniform elasticity of spirits. The day had yet to be marked in the calendar that did not shine with her vivacity and sweet amiability, and the family thought no group complete without the bright presence of their fairy " Sunbeam." 106 THE OPAL QUEEN. And so when later in the evening the mother brought in her casket of magnificent opals (embrac- ing a complete set of those brilliant stones interlaced with diamonds, including the tiara and necklace), de- claring that for some reason she felt inclined to make an assignment of the valuable heirloom, this very even- ing, to one of her daughters, the unanimous choice fell upon " Sunbeam." "But, Mary," remonstrated " Sunbeam," "you are the oldest." " But you are the brightest, little witch, and they will become your iridescence," interrupted Mary. "But Belle is brilliant ; see her red cheeks and flashing eyes !" said "Sunbeam." "I am sure she would set them off." " Thank you, dear, but I want you to have them because they are in harmony with your birth. October is the opal month, you know, and so they naturally belong to you; Mother Nature must have designed them for you ; and then, to tell the truth, if you wished to give me a bushel of the finest opals in the world I would not accept them as a gift ! " " Why, my daughter ! " exclaimed the mother, " are you so tinctured with superstition? These opals have been in our family for four generations, and a more happy and honorable family in all its connec- tions than the Merediths it would be difficult to find." "What is it, mamma?" inquired "Sunbeam," " what is the superstition ? " The mother glanced at the horoscopes on the cen- ter-table and then said, "Why, father! did you show the girls these?" Having entered with the fixed purpose in her mind of parting with the jewels, she had not observed the occupation of the group, and seemed for a moment bewildered ; then she said calmly : " It is a little strange that two superstitions should cross each other to-night. I thought you had forgot- ten or given up all your astrological predilections and CHILDHOOD DAYS. 107 fancies, Gerald, I hope you have not been inoculat- ing these girls with any of that foolish venom." Upon the general and spontaneous outcry from the children, that the father had insisted upon it that no credence must be placed in it, she said: " I should have known it, but the surprise of this conjunction of affairs, bewildered me, unsettled my confidence for an instant. They say, 'Sunbeam' (and this is that ubiquitous and omniscient they that never makes mistakes, you know) that the opal is the harbinger of an unequal fortune to its possessor ; her life will not be enriched with a calm, steady flow of blessings, but with leapings like a cascade from ledge to ledge ; and sometimes it will be stagnant like a pond without an outlet ; that the one who wears them will be subject to great vicissitudes in life, trials some great trials, and heavy disasters with only flashes here and there of the rosy life that young girls love to picture as their natural inheritance and un- disputed destiny." " Oh ! 1 am not afraid ! " said the brave child. "If Mary and Belle really don't want them, and you really wish to dispose of them, mamma, I will take them ; but don't you think you'll be sorry, mamma dear?" she said twining 'her arms about her mother's neck. " Then I'll take the opals and I'll wear them too I Just as if any mischief could be in these" beauti- ful gems ! " she said, gently caressing the long pen- dants that lay in dazzling beauty upon her snowy neck. " Mamma, won't you be proud of me if I defy the superstition ? " " More than proud, my brave daughter, because it will prove that yon have what I trust you will show in your life, a well regulated faith in Christian prin- ciples; and these teach that there is a loving Father who orders the events of our lives, and never yet has He intrusted that oversight to the Opal!" But the father did not smile. 108 THE OPAL QUEEN. Two.weeks from that hour, the family were gathered around the bedside of the dying " Sunbeam." The light was fading, flickering it must soon go, the despairing ones said. Malignant scarlet fever raging in epidemic form through the town was taking for its first victim the beautiful young child. But when the morning dawned, life was still feebly holding on, and fluttering hope was in flattering as- cendancy once more in their hearts. The days wore on in anxious vigilance while every hour was weighted with tender solicitude and earnest pra}-er for the loved one's life. And their prayer was answered. Life conquered at last in that supreme struggle, but when the crisis was past and the throbbings of a new vitality quickened her pulse, she could not see the opal splendors of that glorious October day " Sun- beam " was blind ! The months glided on, and Elise, pale and fragile she was too wan for a sunbeam now and had crept back into her christened name was still the pet of the house, tenderly cared for by all, living in the midst of a generous rivalry of ministry to her wants and pleasures. When the cold March winds were gone, and the bursting buds of a new creation gladdened all hearts with the hope of an early spring, when Nature shook off the thraldom of winter began her music in the air and her painting in the fields and, renouncing her monochrome, resumed her art decorations in variegated colors, Elise was invigorated by its balm and nourished by its sunshine ; the rose returned to her cheek and the ruby to her lip, and with a faint vision, just one step beyond blank darkness, she grad- ually assumed her wonted cheerfulness. But now the mother's overtaxed powers began to droop. Always delicate, the feeble constitution could not resist the strain of many months, and she faded and fell in the beautiful spring time died clasping Elise in her arms and tenderly moaning as if in clari- SCENE OX LAKE ERIE. 109 fied vision the brilliant darkness of the child's future burst upon her " My Opal ! Oh ! may God help my poor, blind Opal ! " A thrill of terror ran through her frame, convulsed with sobs and tears. The opals ! the last gift of love to innocence ! they were lying in forgotten grandeur in the drawer to which she had consigned them the night of the bestowal ! What recalled them to the mother's memory in the dying hour? And wh} r , in i he baptism of the cold, cold flood, did she drop the new name upon her darling? In the year following this crushing sorrow, the father and both daughters followed the mother to an untimely grave, and Elise, stricken and helpless, but with a boundless fortune, stood alone in the world. Oh ! the brilliant darkness ! Poor, blind Opal ! After the summer at M Springs, where Elise's vision was restored, she went with her Uncle and Aunt Gray, on a western tour. They returned by the way of the lakes en route for Canada. Leaving their steamer at Cleveland, they tarried a few days in that umbrageous city, resplendent with the gorgeous hues of the late October, and then re- sumed their passage by water to St. Catharines and other Canadian cities. The captain of the propeller in which they secured places was especially recom- mended to them as a skilful navigator a model captain with twenty years' service in a well ordered career for his record. The evening was spent on deck pleasantly chatting and laughing, for the captain had a fund of anecdotes of a refreshing hydraulic type quite novel to the ladies of the part}'-. They sat there in the bright starlight until nearly midnight and then went to their state- rooms. Elise had previously discovered a queer bit of mechanism, composed of square pieces of cork en- 110 THE OPAL QUEEN. closed in canvass, with bands and strings attached, which answered fairly well to her preconceived ideas of a life-preserver. Without attempting to adjust it upon her person (being in that state of easy indiffer- ence to imaginary dangers and fears, which she cul- tivated as part of the aesthetics of her being), for all it looked so enigmatical, she concluded it " would work," and no doubt be highly satisfactory in case of need, trusting probably to instinct or direct revela- tion for the management of it. She had just removed her hat and was about to un- fasten her dress, when there came a tremendous crash which shook the vessel from stem to stern, jarring and overturning every movable object on board, in- cluding .Elise, who was violently pitched against the window. It was something like an electric shock in its effect upon the nerves she was jarred but not hurt. The next instant Mrs. Gray came to the door, and in a voice with a death-ring in it, hoarsely whispered, " Elise, they say we'll go down in five minutes ! " and then, above the confusion and uproar of the shouting crew, frantically rushing hither and thither and drag- ging ropes over the deck, flying from point to point to try to stem the flood above all, rose that fearful, soul-thrilling cry, appalling in the stricken hour when life hangs in the balance " To the life-preservers ! " Elise had grasped hers with an involuntary motion when her aunt first spoke, and now rushed with it under the spell of that instinctive dread of meeting death alone, which simultaneously moved all the pas- sengers- -into the cabin. Oh ! the trembling group collected there ! Pale faces, and ashen lips tightly compressed, deep breath- ings, nervously hurried and spasmodic movements, as each one essayed to panoply himself with the armor he hoped would float him on the watery deep but not a sound ! It was a crushing, momentous stillness, big with hollow whispers from the grave. And when SCENE OX LAKE ERIE. Ill Mr. Gray, in a voice clear, but vibrating with an emotion just perceptible under the strong control, dared to break the silence, it seemed sacrilegious boldness, " I will arrange yours for yon, Emily." he said, see- ing his wife's helplessness, "in a moment, as soon as I get this string tied." "Ah, me! who will adjust mine?" Elise was thinking, for in that supreme hour another instinct, that of self-preservation, was uppermost in each mind when there came floating in to them a cheery sound "The immediate danger is over! " But they were not so easily satisfied, and knew that this message was designed to quiet their fears. It did relieve the tremendous pressure of the thought that their next step would be a plunge into the cold wave, and they gathered a little courage to ascertain the extent of their danger and damage. The cause was patent to the senses without proclamation they had collided with another vessel. All night long every man on board worked dili- gently at the pumps, and in calking and bailing a night between two eternities the boundless over- arching heavens above and the boundless waters beneath, fitting symbols of their vastness and incom- prehensibility ! All night long Mrs. Gray and Elise watched and waited and hoped and feared. What an agony of suspense ! They were told that they were not far from the canal, and if they could hold their own until morning, might see some friendly craft that would assist them. They were at last persuaded to take a little rest, if not sleep, and when after a few uneasy snatches of slumber, they opened their eyes upon the gray mist of the morning, they discovered that they were being towed along by a staunch vessel, and fast approaching the canal. " We can't sink in the canal, you know," the cap- tain said, by way of encouragement. 112 THE OPAL QUEEN. But they were puzzled to know how it was possible for such an accident to have occurred on a bright starlight night. It seemed incredible that any hu- man being could be so hardened as to deliberately initiate and recklessly execute a diabolical plan, in which the lives of a hundred fellow beings would be jeopardized and yet it was rumored among the pas- sengers that jealousy was the cause of the disaster. The first-mate was a fine, stalwart fellow, the ad- miration of the crew. The second-mate was also of commanding physique, but of an ugly, vicious tem- per that had provoked many enemies, and he was justly disliked by all. It was his watch, and with consummate baseness and malice prepense, he, when close beside the oncoming vessel, gave an order which would inevitably produce collision and engulf one or both vessels, in the boiling waves ! But a blessed Providence averted such a calamity. On the instant preceding the shock, the captain, all unconscious of danger, was moved to cross the threshold of his cabin door ; he arrived upon the deck in the perilous moment, countermanded the fatal words, and prevented the horrors of death amid the ruins of a drowning wreck. "If," said he, "the point of collision had been three feet farther away from the stem, nothing under heaven could have saved us." The second-mate should have been discharged on the instant, but his villainy was not then quite ap- parent there was to be another revelation. But the saddest thing of all, after the rescue was tolerably assured, was the face of the poor captain. He looked death-struck-- so haggard, so pale, so taci- turn, so rigid were the muscles of his face sternly saying, while they endeavored to vindicate him, "It was his watch, but I was responsible" The passengers tried to convince him that no com- pany would convict him, when the fault was so pal- pably another's, and that he would be exonerated from blame. But again and again the dejected man SCENE ON LAKE ERIE. 113 would reply with a shake of the old head, grown gray in the service, " I was responsible" As he was making up his log next day, Elise said, " Is that the first accident it has been your misfor- tune to record, captain ? " " The first, Miss Archer, in twenty-five years." "Surely they (the owners) will consider all that in making their decision in the case, and give you compensatory justice justice tempered with mercy." But a silent shake of the head was his only reply. Slowly they floated along until they entered, with thankful hearts, the safe waters of the Welland. Elise and her aunt, scarcely recovered from the nervous anxiety attending the collision, and the long strain of suspense before reaching the canal, were in that excited state of apprehension that exaggerated every danger, and made it possible to their fears to sink even in twelve feet of water. But there was a diversion in the hubbub into which they were now precipitated, that Mr. Gray declared equal in dramatic interest to the best features of the Stock Exchange. A crowd of steamers and swarms of smaller craft were moving, snail-like, in the same or opposite direc- tions, to the accompaniment of vociferatory, yelling, tangled voices, the clatter of dragging ropes and clanking irons, the rushing of many impetuous feet hither and yon, in what to the uninitiated seemed dire confusion each vessel struggling like a sentient being to make its passage with next to no space to do it in ! They were sitting on deck near the pilot-house, curiously observant of the novel scene. " ' The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse ! ' " said Elise. u What a contradiction of ex- pectation ! With all the fuss and flurry and the, no doubt, purposeful activity of this whole crew, we do not make one step in the advance." " Do see the steamers pass right by us and go through ! " she cried to her uncle. " What does it mean? Are we on a- sandbar?" Mr. Gray smiled at 114 THE OPAL QUEEN. this ignorance, but confessed himself unable to solve the enigma. Upon arriving at the entrance of the canal, the captain had pushed on, by land, to make arrange- ments for repairs at St. Catharines. ' The first-mate, now acting-captain, issued and reissued a certain command with a wearisome repetition : " Throw out that stern line ! " Hearing his order so often reiterated, their thoughts began to center with a certain lively interest upon the trifling item of a stern line, for apparently either the order was not heeded although the running and hauling were sufficiently vocal to float a hundred stern lines, one would think or an indefinite number were required for their transit. But then again the emphasis of the singular that, precluded that suppo- sition ; so they gave it up and sat silent and per- plexed. But now the patience of the temporary captain was exhausted. They had indeed caught angry mut- te rings, at intervals, slightly flavored with impreca- tions, but now there came a fearful oath, coupled with the threat "I'll go down and pick the head right off him ! " " It's that second mate again," whispered Mr. Gray. And the man started, with the tiger in his eye, and the springing motion of a wild beast about to leap upon his prey. He rushed past them to the gang- way. Elise was at that moment so impressed by the mag- netism of a justly indignant human rage, that pick- ing oft 7 people's heads seemed as logical and easy as in the days of the mythical Hercules, and indeed quite a natural and proper thing to do under the provocation ; but at the same time so criminal and ghastly with its accompanying terrors, that moved by a sudden impulse born of heaven to try to pre- vent bloodshed by her puny voice or she knew not how she sped on irresistibly after the infuriated man. And as if to stamp the act with the sanction SCENE AT ALPNACH. 115 of wisdom and authority, Mrs. Gray, following equally her benevolent instincts, cried out with wild unreasoning fervor. " Don't let him go, Elise ! Don't let him kill him ! " Girded with superhuman nerve, Elise just reached the gangway as the mate was at the bottom of the steps. She instantly stooped, and reaching low, laid her hand upon his shoulder. The gentle touch ar- rested him he turned and confronted the pleading face. " Look here ! We think too much of you to have you do that /" she said in a voice of thrilling earnestness. " To have you do that ! " Soul searches soul at such pregnant moments, and the ireful man well knew the forceful meaning of the enigmatical word. He glanced again at the pure sweet shining in her eyes, and one shade of anger lifted from his brow but he rushed on. The suspense was terrible. Intently listening for direful sounds, they heard no scuffling, no uproar, and when in a few moments he returned, he said quietly in passing them the face all calm now "I discharged him." " He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city," commented Mr. Gray. " What a beautiful control ! " Elise whispered to her aunt. And the stern line was thrown out. There were no more tugging and higgling and useless veerings ; order was restored, and they passed on through the lock. The Grays and Elise were abroad. England had been a microcosm of quaint and happy surprises, France a whirl of aesthetic delight, Brussels an instructive chapter in Renaissance, the Rhine an exquisite storied panorama, but to Elise, in the novitiate of foreign travel, Switzerland was nourishment. 116 THE OPAL ( i- f ' J mother and grandmother, it keeps the familiar name before them " But how does that account'for the newcomers?" " The newcomers, I opine, have probably been gay young girls, not standing much on dignity or etiquette, who fell easily into the prevailing mode. Perhaps, Mr. Earle, I have the advantage of those giddy girls in a few steadying years. I may not be as young as I appear." She was looking at him with a polite, simple composure. "Just as you sit there," he remarked, with a strange irrelevancy, "the deepening blue above you, the background of the fading sunset splendors, and the foreground of the pink and white lilies, you make an ideal picture. May I take it for the figure-head to my life-boat, Miss Archer ? " His voice betrayed a depth of meaning apart from the simple words, by its rich intonation of respect- ful heart-full deference and longing, and Elise was puzzled by his thoughtful manner for a suitable reply. Had he dashed it off with a brisk cordiality and offhand, careless air, she would have replied on the 158 THE OPAL QUEEN. instant in the same vein. She was unaccountably sobered, almost frightened, with his grave eyes fast- ened upon her so patiently and yet so abstractedly, as though he was saying one thing and thinking of something quite remote. " But you need not reply," he said in another moment. " I perhaps have transcended my limits in the request." But Elise hesitated to take advantage of a release which might wound her friend. It was with an im- perceptible nervous agitation that she said presently : " I sometimes take pictures without as much as saying ' By your leave.' r " Thank you for the suggestion," he said mildly, and then with a certain reckless defiance : " I intend to prove myself a lawless renegade and smuggle my pictures into memory's storehouse. I shall doubtless enjoy them more than if I was pro- tected by license, for I can gloat over them with all the satisfaction of a privateer who knows their full cost." The party left the camping field together, but Channing was first on the home ground, and Doctor and Mrs. Healey followed. Elise with her uncle and aunt made their way leisurely toward the East, stopping at the noted watering places en route. After their arrival, Mrs. Gray pre-empted a visit, and then they were involved in the whirl of shop- ping for Elise's new home. There was so much to see, so much to buy, so much elegant bric-a-brac to be collected from miscellaneous and widely separated quarters, to give the charm of individual taste to her new dominions, that Mrs. Healey found it necessary to write several importunate letters to bring her to her own threshold. And it was sweet to rest under her own roof-tree her very own. She enjoyed the thought of what was equally her strong tower of refuge and her flowery bower of peace a bower, too, it proved to be, where, unlike Bunyan's typical Chris- tian, she re-read her " roll," and got from it a new meaning. SUMMER TOURING. 159 Built in a conglomerate style for there were bits of so many " orders " that Elise considered indispen- sable it was yet a marvel of beauty and skill. Some of the furniture had been made expressly for her in Paris, but an eminent New York firm took the lead in the furnishing and decorations, and when she looked around upon the finished work, she was abundantly compensated for the outlay. " Otto will pronounce it a gem," she said thought- fully, " for I have carried out some of his suggestions and he will recognize them, and, perhaps (this, a little doubtfully), give me credit for some originality of design and executive talent." Her Greek room was her bijou, her pride and delight. And Dresson came. " Upon my word, you have made a distinguished success," he said, with so much emphasis that Elise was in a transport of renewed affection. " Your color scheme is faultless delicate in sentiment and effect- ively carried out." " And how is my color scheme?" inquired Elise, holding up her sun-browned, rose-tinted face to his, with eyes that glowed with the rapturous meeting. " I cannot say fair, and I am loth to say rich. It is full of freshness and charm, that goes without saying, but it is a trifle overdone gives it an appear- ance of trickiness and chic not quite the correct thing, you know. You couldn't tone it with a fine powder? Too deucedly bright! you see." He had never ventured that expression in Elise's hearing before, and when she looked up at him with a' little surprise, he said: " That's what a fellow gets from mingling with those English cockneys but it wears off soon, you know." " How do you like your Jason ?" he inquired, as they were viewing the frescoed walls. I saw Wil- liam himself in London, and told him of your chef d'ceuvre, and he volunteered to work up the designs himself from scenes in his poems, you know. lie- 1GO THE OPAL QUEEN. chercht ! I must say," he continued, as he stood off looking through his single eyeglass "minute in detail but broad in touch ! By thunder, that man is a genius !" " Why, dear," said Elise, laughing in spite of her- self, in a slightly remonstrating tone ; "is that only fruit-bloom too?" " Oh, nonsense," he replied, " you must get over these little affectations of prudery ; " then laughing, " Thunder never hurts, you know, and the atmosphere is always clearer after the shock ; " but secretly con~ scious that he must recover his ground, he drew her lightly to him in a fond embrace. " And you are sure there won't any lightning come with it?" she asked with playful seriousness, cling- ing to his arm in a gentle confidence. " The light- ning scorches, you know, and it is sure to be around about when there's thunder, even if it doesn't show." Dresson had the easy swagger of a hunter that has bagged his game, as they sauntered leisurely through the sumptuous apartments of which he was the pro- spective master. He had dismissed, as henceforth useless, the habitual caution and prudence of speech which the unrestraint of her absence had gradually but unconsciously diminished during the period of his irresponsible^existence abroad, and made what to Elise was a swift descent, as he reassumed the part that by nature he most relished. Parrying skillfully her question, " I haven't an overstock of admiration for lightning myself," he re- marked with adroit reticence, "it's a trifle too too deuced alert, you know, for a modern SGsthete ! " and indulged in the solace of light whistling as they con- tinued the grand tour of the rooms. " It appears to me, Elise, that yon have superfluous closet-room. Now, here," he said, " should have been a niche for landscape-views, curtained and warmed, where one might lounge and get sky-effects." " Oh !" said Elise, " we have views all over the house, and Just glory in closets. I wanted oh ! a houseful of them." SUMMER TOURING. 161 " There is nothing that so mars the effect of a room as one or two useless closets," he continued gravely, looking desperately at the inoffensive doors of the condemned apartments. " They impair the symmetry of the wall, and the unity of the design, and are so many avenues for draughts and stale odors. Their doors interfere with the harmonious arrangement of furniture, and they are suggestive of disorder and uncleanliness." " But what would you do ? " said Elise, falling from her seventh heaven of glory into the icono- clastic arms of her lover. " Furnish with wardrobes for the immediate neces- sities of the occupant, and arrange the closets outside, in some less privileged space." "Would you block them up?" she asked, with rueful sweetness. "It seems a pity. They are so nice. I am sure I shall enjoy them ever so much. See here ! " and she persuaded him to look while she opened the various drawers and explained the patent or hidden mission of each. Dresson had an abstracted gaze during the process. " Now a wardrobe," he said, turning away, " is a thing of beauty with its antique carvings and mirrored door " But do see the mirrors, dear, " she interrupted. " ' All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace Self to right hand, self to left hand, self in every place.' " "And its cosy compactness," he continued without change of posture or notice of the interruption. " Yes, upon reflection, I think you would better remove this blemish upon your artistic work." 162 TUE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XVI. . OCTOBER'S LESSON. " October! Heaven's delicious breath, When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek sun grows brief, And the year smiles as drawing near its death." Bryant. " A GENTLEMAN wishes to see you, my lady." " Ah. yes," said Elise, glancing at the card ; " he is my lawyer." " He is in the old-gold reception room, my lady, and he says he will wait your convenience," said Bertha. " Well, Bertha, that puts an end to my ' coaching ' the screen decoration this morning," said Elise, as she pushed away the framed golden-rod and spikes of the cardinal flower. " Mortgages and bonds are not much to my fancy, but nevertheless they must be attended to." Bertha had been well trained in the harmony of colors, and chose a receiving-room for the guest which would suit her mistress' toilet. The cardinal silk robe, daisy-painted, would have a fine setting in the old-gold tapestries, and was of charming effect any- where tin's bright October morning, when art had such a brilliant rival in nature. " Mr. Drew is very fond of daisies, Bertha. I am sorry not to have the real ones," Elise observed, fasten- ing an artificial bunch in her belt. Mr. Drew, although past sixty, was still susceptible to the charms of a beautiful young woman, whose only fault seemed to be that she had nothing to do'. Blessed with a flourishing family, Mr. Drew and wife OCTOBER'S LESSON. 163 found the days too short for the manifold activities required for its upbringing. And so when lie en- tered this Palace Beautiful, where art reigned trium- phant and the priestess of it was the hostess sacrificing her beauty and her time to learn its mysteries, he felt it to be a veritable " Castle of Indolence " which acted like an anaesthetic on his whole frame, narco- tizing his vitality. But he was ready to forgive many things more glaring and heinous than supreme devotion to art in the daughter of his old friend, Mr. Archer. And although she was now a radical and ultra-cult devotee, she never quite lost in his eyes the na'ivet e and sweetness which had characterized her girlhood, and even a professional visit to her left him in a glow of renewed youth and quickened sensibility; the fine charm of her delicate grace penetrated his soul as a subtle odor does the senses, filling him with a diffusive warmth and exaggerated notion of the importance of trifling courtesies and social overtures. He did not under- stand the secret of her charm, but was conscious that it touched a spring in him that set all the music in him going as an accompaniment to the melody of her presence. Since her travels abroad, while he could complain of nothing in her treatment of him for it was friendly in the last degree and while she was more attractive than ever in her full-blossomed beauty, he missed the playful banter, the spontaneous vivacity, which had never been constrained by rule, because it was the finished grace of nature acting through gen- erous and loyal instincts of the laws of truth and kindness; and found her weighted with a superin- cumbent stratum of formulae a stratification founded, no doubt,' on absolute mathematical laws of symmetry and proportion, but too complicated, too compact and rigid for his unrestrained nature, and presenting social features to which he had not found it necessary to adjust his own environment. His periodical visits to Elise were, however, beginning the education of his 164 THE OPAL QUEEN. culture in that direction, and he recognized with a wondering amusement that the more he saw of her the more reconciled he became to her superlatives and heavenly harmonies, her aerial career midway between heaven and earth, with its sky-glancing, cloud-envel- oping possibilities.- She was always gracious, always winning, and he always yielded to her unsuspecting blandishments in spite of himself, and then shook it off in the outer air or in the realistic abode over which Mrs. Drew presided, where order was discounted and free and easy manners prevailed au naturel. The heaven of the "Palace Beautiful" required too great a stretch of wing, and the earth of Mrs. Drew's mansion, was, he confessed, a spice too grovelling somewhere midway between these extremes would have been thoroughly acceptable to him were it only in the calendar of possibilities; but failing that, among the certainties he could always count on Mrs. Drew and the romp- ing six. But there was more on his mind this morning than life's pomps and vanities, more even than the fright- ful inequalities in rank and fortune. He had not to consider problems in eesthetics or even ethics, but hard, grim mathematics, and, worse than all, the de- pressing fact of loss and failure. It was a sorry task, and the Satsuma vases and Pompeian tripods, the tapestries and laces and lacquer cabinets around him, did not help him any they added so many more figures to the computation. Mr. Gray well knew of the disaster, but had trans- ferred the burden of disclosure to the financial agent of Miss Archer's property the steward who by rights was accountable for its management. Mr. Drew had pondered the subject for several hours this morning without being able to fix upon the exact method of approach. How should he communi- cate the doleful tidings to the charming Miss Archer, the favorite of his youth, the beloved daughter of his tried friend, the petted child of fortune, whose millions OCTOBER' 1 S LESSON. 165 had been entrusted to his care ? Her gossamer-tintings seemed born for an atmosphere of ideal luxury and ease, from which his imagination could not extract her and set her on the hard ground of reality and econ- omy a plane where a moderation so strict would have to be maintained, that to her, he doubted not, it would be the galling chains of poverty. Elise noticed his abstracted manner, and rallied him. " The fact is, Mr. Drew, you have too much on your hands ; my business interests have assumed such large proportions, that for your better fulfilment of them I have decided to establish a special clerkship for your assistance." Here was just the opening wedge for the hard- pressed lawyer. , . "At present, Miss Elise, I am not oppressed with work, and your kindness is appreciated but declined." Contrary to his purpose when he began, he was edging farther from the subject instead of striking the wedge in deeper. He felt that it would be more difficult to retrace than disclose at once, but lie dreaded the effect of abruptness, and looked away from Elise to the hands clasped upon his walking stick. This was a demeanor so unusual for her cordial, bustling friend, that Elise quickly divined some over- hanging trouble. " Are they all well at home, Mr. Drew ? No illness, I hope, in your family disturbs you this morning? " She thought of his friends, of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and of everyone but herself, so securely enthroned upon her pinnacle of wealth and happiness that dislodge- ment was impossible. " Not so, Miss Elise ; my great and only concern at present is the sad fact that I shall no longer be able to serve you." For this ambiguous phrasing there was but one interpretation to the unsuspicious mind, and Elise replied : 166 THE OPAL " But, Mr. Drew, I cannot release you. My father trusted and honored you and confided me to your charge. I am willing to grant you a handsome annuity, Mr. Drew indeed,- 1 am pained that you have been so severely taxed, and would gladly have relieved you had I known it, but that you shall not have the supervision of my affairs I can never, never permit. Can you not secure a sufficient corps of assistants ? " " Money will secure all things, Miss Elise, but " he hesitated and his eyes were dim witli the thought that this spirit of generosity which was the breath of her life must be snuffed out so ignominiously. " And had I but one tithe of my present income, Mr. Drew, no sacrifice would be too great to secure your comfort. The money will hold out, I sup- pose ! " she laughed, with the easy banter of indis- putable assurance. "It is your -money affairs that distress me, Miss Elise." " Are they in such a very bad condition ? " she asked, with the same smiling unsuspicion. This was torture ; would she never surmise the truth ? He looked her keenly, sorrowfully in the face while he said resolutely: " Bad, very bad absolutely and unconditionally bad ! So bad, Miss Elise, that they can be no worse ! ' And he rose abruptly, leaned his elbow upon the mantel, and stood stonily gazing at her. " Am I then a bankrupt, Mr. Drew ? " she said dreamily, with a sweet tenderness, as though she would bestow her fullest sympathy upon so pitiable an object. " Everything has been swept away by the fire, ex- cept this house and lot." " But my bonds and mortgages, Mr. Drew sure- J " Arc in the hands of the defaulting clerk who has robbed the bank and eludes all search." With a white calm that was touching in its lofty serenity, she said gently : OCTOBER'S LESSON. 167 "If there is no hope of arresting the fugitive, Mr. Drew, you are indeed the bearer of heavy tidings." She bowed her head upon her hands, and Mr. Drew stood silently regarding her. " But this house did not burn, Mr. Drew," she said, looking up, " and it is mine still, you say so I am not yet a wanderer upon the face of the earth I Penniless, but not homeless ! " she added, with a kind of cheerful despair. " And shall never want a home or friend, Miss Elise, so long as walls shelter me and hands can earn my daily bread." " My generous, noble friend, I shall go to none sooner than to you, but Uncle Gray will make some arrangement for me, I dare say. But you, what will you do? Have you not given your whole time to my business and lost what practice you might have acquired in all these years ? This is indeed an over- whelming stroke I must help you But she paused. To wish had been to do, but what could she give now! Her charm against all distress had been a bank check, and for a moment she stood bewildered with the thought that the foun- tain had ceased its supplies, and she had not the ready solace for his woes. Other methods had never been appealed to. What available resources were locked up within her? Could her accomplishments be called into the account for real use? Her heart beat, her eyes glowed with a new fire ; she silently rehearsed her stock-in-trade her capital for work. Ah ! here was an idyl ! life would have a new mean- ing ;" the uses of beauty !" she had often thought of that, and now she would adjust the relations between the ideal and the actual, she would put her- self in harmony with her realistic sphere. And she smiled with her conception of this lofty, ideal life the beautiful drama in which, she would play the heroine and be the star. She had not looked so much herself for years since the long ago, Mr. Drew thought as he watched the changing expression of her face, and knew that she was with lightning 1G8 THE OPAL QUEEN. rapidity tracing out a practicable course a career. She had settled it to her satisfaction she beamed upon him now : " We will see what a silly girl can do, who loves her paints and her keys with an artist's true devotion. Ah ! you are incredulous? but wait ; you shall see ! Miles of decorative and resonous art lie right in these fingers-tips ! " and rising as she spoke, she came over to him and folded those hands in loving benediction upon his head. He seized them and pressed them to his lips. "And you are not distracted, crushed ! Look at me, my noble girl, that I may surely know that 3-011 are in possession of your senses that you are not cherishing the delusive freaks of insanity! Dear child ! the mother's endurance and the father's will- power center here," he said, placing his hands upon her head. " You have infused new life into me, Miss Elise; we will see if anything can be saved from the wreck even a moiety would not be scorned now." Though not sanguine as to the results of her ambi- tious designs, Mr. Drew was too wise to sweep away the rosy vision of voluntary self-help and check her enthusiasm for a new career by the hint of failure ; too considerate to discuss what he considered her fallacious theories, or to show any appearance of frustrating her noble purpose. " Keep up good heart, my little girl." Though Elise was taller than he, this was his affectionate diminutive in addressing her. "Your father's old friend isn't dead yet, and the good God is overhead ; " and he hastened from the room that she might not see the tears stealing to his eyes. THE WITHDRAWAL. 169 CHAPTER XVII. THE WITHDRAWAL. " Better the soberest, prosiest life Than a blasted home and a broken heart." J. T. Trowbridge. "WHY should I feel so lonely?" thought Elise, as the door closed upon Mr. Drew, "there is nothing gone but money. What makes it seem so cold and dark?" This consciousness of wealth had been a ubiquitous presence, a kind of rosy sea in which all her powers disported themselves. Her nature in all its ramifica- tions, had found so many points of support in this elastic element that she had been incessantly buoyed up by it. With no outside pressure from social ob- structions or economical exigencies, and with the grave and severe realities of life mostly excluded from her crystal habitation, like the "radiant matter " in a uranium glass tube, life was a spectacular pageant in which there was abundant room for the free play of the unduly expanding and ecstatically brilliant molecular particles; the song, the dance, the stage, the colors, the crayons, the crewels art was luminous, glorified ! If she could live in this exhausted receiver, she mused, with its sea of color, with mind engaged upon artistic work, she might still be happy. But how to keep her establishment without an income to support it? But to work at art unsurrounded by the crea- tions of art, in the cold, hard atmosphere of realism, with nothing but four blank walls to get inspiration from, this would smother all idealistic perceptions and instincts. But how to keep the place ? She was 170 THE OPAL QUEEN. engaged to be married might not this be the time for the consummation of the vows ? But now with startled sensibility she realized that this first thought of Otto since the knowledge of her disaster brought with it no joy his image bewildered instead of re- lieved the thickening embarrassment. She was shocked at this development. The thought of her future husband shoukl have been like a refuge, a strong tower into which to flee from the fury of the storm. But she could extract neither comfort nor help from the thought of Otto. The heart that was still in her, all untouched by his art, pronounced this verdict and her judgment rebelled against the sacrifice. Have I any right to add myself to the man with whom, in such an hour as this, I do not unite, whose spirit does not soothe me, in whom I find no strength to sustain me ? And now while the light was focusing on her lover she began to see signs of indifference in his never ardent nature that had made no impression, upon her in her entrenched position. Perhaps he would be influenced by the change in her fortune ! If she had been pierced by a dagger, the pain of that suspicion could not have been more keen she was stung to the quick in the citadel of her pride. But why should she do him this injustice? She would dismiss the dishonorable imputation. To will was easy, but the haunting ghost kept within tormenting distance. The loss of a friend was more than the loss of fortune, she had always said. What inconsistency was this that found it diffi- cult to recognize even an ardent friendship for her loyer? She had never stopped to examine her heart, had never tested her love; but the undoubted existence of a supposed love in some remote corner of her be- ing she had assumed as a necessary and indisputable fact. But now she was obliged to confess that if her suspicions were true, wiien time had extracted the sting from her pride, she would be the same Elise her heart had not been touched ! On the other hand, THE WITHDRAWAL. 171 if nuclei' his apparent coldness, Otto had a real devo- tion to her, what a cruel blow she would impart if she renounced him ! " No ! no ! " she said, " I will never be so unkind, so heartless ! Better suffer myself and through a long life do penance, than mar his calm by such inhar- monious contradictions of myself ! Better go on in a dull symphony of married life than wake up the allegrettos of his undisturbed soul, now calmly lying in the peaceful nocturne of my supposed love and tenderness." " He shall decide it no word of mine shall betray the discovery I have made. He shall be the arbiter of our destinies." And she was almost gay at the prospect of sacrifice to the high, idealistic impulse of virtue and magna- nimity that had taken possession of her the royal self-abnegation in it won the applause of her aesthetic judgment. " Art is worthy of the sacrifice," she went on musing ; ' ; the harmony of our lives can be rounded out in their separate spheres even in matri- mony. Their orbits will be in concentric but not identical circles, and so we shall secure some variety in union not in unity." There was an unusual glow upon her cheek from this sublime mood as her lover appeared in the door- way. Half concealed by the portiere, he paused a moment, but only a moment, for Elise advanced, cor- dially extending her hand for the usual greeting. " Ah?" said he, with an inquiring glance at the carmiue in her cheek. " Then the savage storm has not prostrated to the ground this blooming rose and scattered its fair petals on the breeze." " And if it had," she replied, in the same playful vein, "might not the delicious odor still linger in the air, and cling to the calyx ? " "But so widely different, Elise. Where would be my ownership? And a lover of the beautiful may be pardoned for wishing for something a little more sub- stantial than a scented calyx." 172 TJtE OPAL QUEEtf. " But that's all I am, Otto, and I am not one bit in the mood to apologize for my attenuated figure, for although my fortune is scattered to the four winds, I am not broken, Otto! There's just as much of me as there was before, and more. My soul never rose to such heights nor glanced into such depths as it has been spanning since I knew my fate." Dresson did not reply. He had heard the rumor of the loss, but was not satisfied without confirmation at the seat of authority. He imagined no failure in his tactics having pre-arranged plans for attack or defense according to the stress of the situation when lie appeared in the field. He had understood Elise's gentle compliance with his slightest wish as her tribute of homage to his superiority, and clearly foresaw a tragedy awaiting him, for with a set purpose to cut the tie, he antici- pated entreaties, plaints, and even tears of remon- strance. He was prepared for paleness and fainting even upbraidings and scorn but not for the ap- pearance of heroic resolve and sublime indifference which his tragedy-queen now exhibited. This had been left out of the data. "I suppose you have heard, Otto, of the loss of all my property ? " Elise, inquired softly. Dresson looked up and bowed ; folded his arms in a placid resignation ; looked up, looked down upon the brown moss-heap decoration in the carpet just touched by a glinting sunbeam ah ! here was his deliverance ! Art should save him ! They could meet on that neutral ground. " Art is long and time is fleeting, And our hearts tho' stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave," he solemnly quoted in musical cadence, leaving her to choose out of its suggestions the interpretation suited to the exigency of the case. Elise, who had been wont to humor his abstractions and try to key herself up to his pitcli of thought and THE WITHDRAWAL. 173 follow on melodiously, did not at this moment relish the chase, and found it impossible to make the effort. " Have you not some warmer tone for me this morning, Otto ? Art seems cold in the face of this black misfortune." " The outline of the thing is so harsh and ragged it lacks color." " What thing, Otto ?" " The thing they term bankruptcy a something that has dared to set -up its horrid front before the eyes that have beamed so bright on me ! " " But I have not lost my eyes, Otto, and they are not dim unto tears, nor dull with headache. Bodily I am all strung and tuned." "Mentally, I am all unstrung," whispered Otto, faintly. " But don't be so disturbed for me, darling," Elise could not help saying, full of her old sympathy now. " I am going to be very brave. Why, you don't know there's no end to things I can do yes, I think we can have a very exalted life." " Sell your art for money, Elise !" for he caught the significance of Elise's unspoken purpose. " Be ranked with the hireling, and work and slave under the mercenary inspiration of gold! Never would I have you prostitute your talent to such base ends ! " "But what shall I do, then?" Elise pleaded. It was a tumultuous moment in her poor heart, waiting for the kiss or the blow. One word would put an ocean of space between them, or link for life incom- patible hearts. " I I cannot exactly see the background of your future, Miss Elise (the formality had begun), the foreground is frightfully clear and barren " The language of the diplomat and not of the lover she thought he might have spared her such a patent disclosure. She felt the blow, and yet because she knew that while she had not been mercenary, she had not been really won, and felt guilty of what she now saw was 174 THE OPAL QUEEN. a masquerade of love on her part she could not be severe upon her recreant lover with a baser motive neither would it have been her nature to recriminate or denounce him for false vows or hypocritical pre- tensions. But she would not convict him hastily he seemed in an abstracted mood ; that little prefix to her name might have been the outcome of a respectful tender- ness, s.o she said kindly: " My uncle, you know, is able to provide for me ; not only will he never- permit me to suffer, but I think he may do something handsome for me." Bnt this awoke no enthusiasm in Dresson ; so she went on : "And after all, money, while I must say it lias made me very happy, because I have so enjoyed giving it away Dresson looked at her with doubtful admiration. ' Yes, that is what 1 have really enjoyed I have taken a satisfaction in gratifying my own wishes for art and luxuries ; but when I wanted a bit of solid joy I built a school-house or set up a milliner in trade," she .said, with an emphasis excited by his distrust. Dresson again regarded her with a pleased and incredulous surprise. " Oh, I am aware that you did not know it. I have not trumpeted my deeds to the world these pictures have been my sacred treasures that I gloated on like a miser by myself. I take true artistic delight in contemplating a family rescued from want, surround- ing a bountiful table, and children gathered from lanes and by-ways into a well-ordered school-room." " Was she a priestess of religion as well as art ? " Dresson thought, and then dangling his watch-chain, he said listlessly : " Your beneficiaries will miss you and and so shall well not the least of whom, Miss Elise, is your humble servant," he remarked, looking her steadily in the eye. "But Otto I have not left you I have yet much to give you." THE WITHDRAWAL. 175 A transient gleam shot across his pale serenity, but he did not speak. " I have myself, Otto, with all my unmined pos- sibilities, all my untried faculties ! I feel them rising within me with the force of a giant like a host for battle ! Something will be heard of me yet, Otto Dres- son, of which you as well as the world will be proud." How regal she looked as she towered above him from her heights of noble planning; she had risen in her ardor and was walking up and down the golden Moquetaire Aubusson tapestry. He caught something of her enthusiasm. " You, of yourself, Miss Elise, are a sufficient dower for any living mortal, but with a suppressed treasury, love would fly out of the window, don't you know." " Such a transient and fugitive love better never enter the window, Otto." she said, with patient calm- ness, and then after a pause she inquired, with gentle dignity : " Are we parted then, Otto ? " While Dresson had premeditated this very act, he had not contemplated such precipitation ; a gradual cessation of his attentions would have been according to his notions of dissolution. After the instant's surprise, which, however, was not observable, he con- cluded to embrace the opportunity thus offered, par- ticularly as in the form now presented he could adroitly assume that it was her own choice. "It disturbs me, Miss Elise, more than I like to acknowledge, to recall the proposition I once made to you, under circumstances more propitious to us both. In doing this, I feel that I am moved by the highest regard for your good the greatest chivalry for your happiness. I should interfere with that life of higher consecration of which you give me glimpses - " "Could you not join me in it?" Elise interrupted. " Such noble purposes are best evolved in silence and solitude fitting scenery must accompany a heroic picture." " Ah, Otto ! I have indeed mistaken you but I will 176 THE OPAL QUEEN. not hold you. To preserve my established values of self-respect and pride, I could not intrust me to your keeping. I thought you were a hero I find you a pigmy ! " Her indignation was becoming, as with sparkling eyes and just a tra'ce of hauteur she seemed to wave him into the distant obscurity. " By Jove! " he said to himself, " she is a queen ! Perhaps I do wrong to drop the game so soon." With more excitement than he had shown, he said : " But do not let us act rashly, Miss Elise. Per- haps there may be some compromise with for- tune " She interrupted him, now fully convinced of his avaricious spirit : " I can never meet you upon your ground, Mr. Dresson it is too much of the earth, earthy ; too shining with the mammon. That is plain, I know it but you have not been equivocal. Have I perhaps misunderstood you ?" she asked, with a voice full of pathos, once more under the strain of her quick sympathy, fearing she had wronged him. Again the sign of weakness on her part and devo- tion to his will aroused the god in him, and he went back to his throne. " My objections," he said, with a deep and tender gravity, " may seem trivial and unphilosophical, but I feel that they are founded on absolute mathemati- cal laws and must ultimately command your assent. There are conventional and arbitrary limitations of my sphere rendering it quite impossible for me to step over the clear and fixed boundary-line between celibacy and matrimony. I put to myself this ques- tion : Are there, or are there not, constant qualities which make what we call matrimony desirable ? Does connubial peace arise from anything inherent in these, or does it depend upon accidents in us, the complex and numberless phenomena of our separate interests? I ask further: Should there not be in a household presided over by worshippers of Art who THE WITHDRAWAL. 177 have susceptibilities touched by artistic arrange- ments, a discernible principle of order and fitness throughout Elise, who had not quite thought of herself as a worshipper of Art, here put in a protest : " 1 worship God, Otto. I have never yet substi- tuted Art as an object of my supreme spiritual de- votion ;" and even while she said it, she felt a sharp cut through her spirit for the neglect of God's wor- ship in its truest sense. "But this is the central point, Miss Elise. Might there not be too often coarse effects, don't you know, resulting from these limitations, so intense and pun- gent as to exhaust our sensibilities and mar our calm ? Abstractly considered, a lily-dinner or a sunflower- dessert may fill one's aesthetic nature ; but such objects, you will permit me to say, while they may enter into the scale of our physical and sensual enjoy- ments as accompaniments, can't furnish blood, brain, and muscle, don't you know ? But beef and eggs and all that class of edibles belonging to the sesthetics of the useful are reached through a commercial ex- change pence and shillings without which neces- sary basis of support, I fear, Miss Elise, it would be impossible to remove the fatiguing accompaniments, tone down the exciting influences, and refine those coarse effects I hinted at." Elise queried inwardly what had become of his "patrimony," but was silent. " I am quite confident that I have an adequate apprehension of the harmony and perfection of your being. I look upon you as the objective embodiment of my idea of physical beauty a beauty which will be to me an eternal aspiration and to which I shall ceaselessly approximate." He arose and offered his hand in parting. Elise silently placed hers in his. He swept the curtains aside, seized his hat and paused, for Elise had followed, and stood resting her elbow upon the newel. 178 THE OPAL The triumph and clear shining purpose on her face bewitched while it puzzled him. Was she indifferent to his charms? Was she consenting with secret pleasure to the dissolution of the bond? Was the spell of his presence lost upon her? For one second there shot a hot gush through his heart. The dart had struck ; he was nearer the edge of the volcano than he relished on the dizzy verge of love's abyss another such glance and he would be utterly submerged. Not an instant must be lost. He was mechanically smoothing his beaver, but now recalled to himself, kept on the line of his pre- arranged movement. " And if, Miss Elise, in after life, sitting among the cold, gray ashes of Memory, as I recall my past sen- sations and sympathies, I shall wish to bind niy thoughts to one firm spot and embody them in a fit- ting memorial suggestive of my devotion to Art, it will be the visible temple of your soul as I see it to- day ; for in this shrine dwells, as I have often said to you, Platonic perfection of sufficiently comprehen- sive design to influence the whole range of Art. And I shall look upon my finished work this artistic form delivered from the cold marble, and I shall gaze and gaze, and yearn " And he was gone. THE LEGACY. 179 CHAPTER XVIII. THE LEGACY. As Mr. Drew entered the library next morning, his face showed that he ' was greatly encouraged in his view of the situation. " I have a matter of some importance for you to consider, Miss Elise, which I didn't mention yester- day because you were too wrought up. This subject requires clear-headedness, and I staid over night to see what effect a night's rest would have upon you. Not quite up to the standard yet, I see," he said, glancing at her sunken eyes. " Sleep had rather a sorry time in trying to ' knit up the tangled threads of care ' last night. The snarl was too intricate for his lordship but something lias nerved me this morning, for I feel fresh as as any- thing ! " " Good ! Well, then, let's to it. It has been pushed into the background by its specific limitations, and lost sight of, but fortunately just come to my attention," Mr. Drew observed, taking a. long docu- ment from his vest-pocket. "In turning over your legal papers I have brought to light this fragment, which I think," looking keenly at her over his spectacles, " is one of those veritable apples in old-gold that we read about and I hope that you will say that it is a ' fitly spoken word ' for this very time, October eighth, anno Domini eighteen hundred and so forth." And Mr. Drew gave the paper an emphatic slap upon the table. " I know what it must be from your graphic description, Mr. Drew, for only this morning it came 180 THE OPAL QUEEN. into my own mind. You refer to the clause in my grandfather's will settling upon me a marriage portion, do you not?" Elise smiled, but she had not caught his transient enthusiasm, and he thought he recognized an inaud- ible quiver in her voice. She looked pale but resolved, and scarcely knowing why, his ardor was somewhat dampened. " It occurred to me, Miss Elise you will pardon an old man for what looks like pry ing into your love- affairs, since his only object is to put you on your feet again ? " He looked at her with a quizzical bewilderment and paused. Elise gave him a look full of happy trust that dis- armed his fears. " I was thinking, you know, that perhaps you might set an early day for your marriage to Mr. Dresson, and so come into immediate possession of this little fortune ; only a drop in the bucket to be sure, compared w-ith what you've lost, but for a little fortune it is really quite a handsome thing." " I have forgotten the sum, Mr. Drew," Elise re- marked, absently. "Fifty thousand," he replied, briskly, and with a suppressed chuckle, as if in some indefinable way his emphatic alertness would increase its valuation com- mensurate to her needs. " But I am unable to comply with the conditions of the will that is, at present, Mr. Drew." " No special hurry, you know, Miss Elise stay at your Aunt Gray's or here," he said, glancing around, " no one to molest you here, house secured and in- sured, and all quiet and nice here just as you have always had it say four weeks? Wife tells me that a lady can step into New York, and spend a day or two, and leave with a wedding-gear fit for a queen." But he halted in his speech, for Elise was not hear- ing him, he knew, by the bewildering dreaminess in her face and the prolonged gaze of her eyes, centered THE LEGACY. 181 upon her mother's hanging portrait on the opposite wall. The abrupt pause broke her reverie, and she said, with melancholy sweetness : " Mr. Dresson is nothing to me now, Mr. Drew." This was ambiguous, and Mr. Drew, upon the point of exclamation, checked himself, perceiving that Elise might have dismissed her lover, and not have been jilted. She went on in the same quiet vein : " I released him yesterday, just after you left." He started, and she continued, answering his keen glance of inquiry, " at his own implied request." Every word was cut with a clean distinctness of emphasis that carried its deepest meaning. Mr. Drew rose to his feet, and came over to her in a state of irritation and annoyance he tried in vain to conceal. But again he checked the rising indigna- tion to inquire : " Did you not first throw him over, Miss Elise ? " " Not in the least. He withdrew his proposi- tion " ' ; The confounded scoundrel," interrupted Mr. Drew. " How can a man take back that kind of a thing ? Better have withdrawn his own beastly carcass before he ever set foot in this town ! " Mr. Drew was going beyond the bounds of refinement. He felt it and apologized, saying: " You must overlook my roughness, Miss Elise, I am so cut up about this thing. For your sake, to tell the truth, I am glad the man is off your hands, but I thought we had such a fine plan for your comfort. I saw your gold-lined nest just ready for you to step into again. But the presumption of the fool is something enormous to have the audacity condescension, per- haps the snob called it (excuse me, Miss Elise, I know the fellow) to ask for such a prize, and then the cool impudence to hand it back when the gold falls off it ! The contemptible puppy ! Withdrew his proposition, you say? Withdrew his fiddle- sticks ! " 182 THE OPAL QUEEN. Elise could not resist laughing at the blustering denunciations of her quondam lover, and it was con- tagious enough to dissolve the ominous frowns in- creasing to an alarming extent on Mr. Drew's face, but he could not stop. " Playing fast and loose with marriage vows is not to my liking, Miss Elise. A pre-Raphaelite, I think you call him. Humph ! If this is the out- come of aesthetics, deliver me from such whim- whams ! The retreat was no doubt very artistic ; ' withwrawing ' is rather the part of an actor on the stage ; he probably thought no more of breaking this tie than he would of brushing away a cobweb ! I can see him now, with his hat in gloved hand, bow- ing and scraping the cowardly, pusillanimous, dis- honorable, exquisite fop ! " He threw himself into a chair and looked vacantly into the wood fire with its shining andirons. "Perhaps he has not been altogether to blame," said Elise, realizing that while she herself would not have dissolved the bonds of engagement, she had pro- tracted them beyond his wish because she could never fully get her own consent to take the irrevocable step, and knowing now, what she only dimly guessed then, that it was because he did not possess her heart. " I think I entered into the contract a little too hastily." "But you expected to marry him, did you not?" "Yes," replied Elise, with the doubtful accent of the circumflex replying truthfully and yet mislead- ing him without intention ; she knew it was as to the real state of her heart. " But I didn't know when the spirit would move me. And " for Mr. Drew's face was lighting up as with a new revelation " well, the fact is, Mr. Drew, I think I shall come out unscathed," she said, with a bright smile. " Good ! " exclaimed Mr. Drew. " That pleases me, but ' and he once more resumed his study in the polishing of andirons. lie looked up suddenly. " Does Dresson know of this bequest?" THE LEGACY. 183 " I have not mentioned it to a living soul," she re- plied, " and as you and I are its only custodians, he cannot know it." " We'll keep it sacredly trust me there. If that fellow got inkling of this he would march up here double-quick with his countersign his * withdrawal ' would become instantly abbreviated into a d-r-a-w-1 on the woes of the rejected. He would no more mind setting aside that insignificant 'with' than crushing a mosquito, and would probably convince you, before he was through the artful, designing rascal that the whole business was a ruse on his part, an artistic plot, purposely contrived and play- fully executed to test your sincerity ! Ha ! I know him a crack-brained do-nought-in-the-world, into the bargain ! " But Elise looked grave ; she could not so soon un- idealize her lover. " But I am disappointed to lose him, I don't see why we can't be good friends and " Never try that, Miss Elise. Once a lover always a lover, remember that ; and if it is only a sham-love, why, the fewer pretenders you have about you, the better." " Then I confess that I am mortified my pride is hurt, and I am all unstrung." "Never mind all that; with a sound heart you'll string up again in no time ; and a little wounded pride, Miss Elise, may lift up the virtue of humility, and so give you a better balancing, and you'll then be adjusted more according to the heavenly mathe- matics eh ? " " Why, there's no pride in the scales with heavenly weights ! " said Elise in a surprised exclamation. "That's just as you say, Miss Elise," said the old gentleman absently, and then : " Tut ! tut ! What am I saying? Of course not. I'll keep my similes within range of Blackstone, I think, hereafter. I never had the least talent at ser- monizing ; always get lodged in some impossible 184 THE OPAL QUEEN. ethics from which an ox-team can hardly extract me ! " But his face shone as a father's does when caught in an accidental blunder by an astute child. There was a gleam of satisfaction mixed with this benevolent pride, as he said: " I'll pass that field over to you, Miss Elise, and stand ready for the sermon most any day." " But this is far from the subject on my mind. How can we make available the fifty thousand ? that's the proposition for you to tackle now. You know when yon came into possession of your property, and told me as your executor that it was your desire to have me keep to myself that bequest ' Ci Because you know it was for a special purpose, and I didn't care about publishing it it would be like a bait to draw a husband," Elise interrupted. " Quite right. I agreed with you, and have not imparted the secret even to my wife ; women are for- getful, you know, but I beg pardon " And gossipy," laughed Elise, " oh, yes ! very well, anything else ? " " I'll not add one more count to the indictment," he replied. " Let that pass. I am open to discussion only on one subject. You can't very well step up to the man of your choice and say, you are ready for the ring I know that. You can't collar a man and manipulate his knees into the posing, proposing, ador- ing lover's I know that and you wouldn't if you could. You are on the voting side, but you can't ' put the question;' and so you modestly wait for the chairman to put it. Of course, that is right. But meantime the thought is suggested to me that your benevolent ancestor would undoubtedly put this money into your hands to-day, if he were standing on this carpet, and why ought not we to devise some way of putting it there? " " The conditions are unequivocal, are they not, Mr. Drew?" " It reads that the whole sum is to be laid out upon your wedding paraphernalia and accessories. I think THE LEGACY. 185 you are too sensible a girl to spend fifty thousand on your trousseau, and this wording is no doubt wisely chosen to enable you to buy a house and lot if you chose, or some substantial article of which your domestic life should stand in need. A good many things could come under the head ' accessories.' " " I would rather keep to the letter of the will, Mr. Drew. I prefer not to make over or mar the pro- visions in any wise; Grandpa was old enough to know his own mind, and clear-headed enough to make wise provisions for me or at any rate if he erred in his judgment, as many a good man has, he had a particular fancy to have that sum go just in this pre- scribed way. You may call it a freak, and perhaps it was, but it was his freak and it was his money, and he had a right to proportion them as he chose, and I have no right to interfere with the legitimate out- come of his intentions." Mr. Drew rapped his pencil nervously on the table, but said nothing, evidently pondering every word and movement. " And since you say you came to consult me about this, let me tell you now and for always, that if I never marry, I shall never put forth one finger to- wards the fifty thousand. If it were lying at my feet I would not touch it except to replace it where it belongs." " Then it goes to the Grays " " And my grandpa's will is also mine. I should wish to see it go there." "Are you quite inflexible, my little girlie?" he said, putting his hand on her arm as he walked to the door. " I am a Mede on my father's side and a Persian on my mother's," she replied, laughing. " But consider your destitution." Elise's face fell. " Ah ! that is a sad, hard word ! " He bowed his head, and then abruptly raising it, he cried with a pathetic fervor : "God bless my soul, what is left for me to do for you? " and rushed into the street. 186 TlIE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XIX. VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. A QUICK and touching sympathy for the beautiful " Opal Queen " throbbed as with one pulse through the village, when the dire account of her double loss shot from house to house. What would become of her? How did she bear it? What did she say? How did she look ? These and other pertinent in- quiries formed the theme of gossiping discussion in all ranks. Neither did they all stop with specula- tions on the mischance and the probable chances. There were offers of help and cheery words of en- couragement, besides the universal tide of sympathy that set in like a flood. " An' shure, if there is anything I can do for you, Miss, it's not the loikes o' me that'll be a refusin' on't," said old widow Flinn, who had gained an audience with Elise and stood with one corner of her apron wiping her eyes, as she said afterwards to her little circle of friends, " to see her standing there so swate and pale loike, an' zhust as calm, shure, loike no storm had never crossed her bosom, and she knew zhust where to lay her finger on anither gold pile zhust as good foreby. " Ye haven't seen our Opal Queen ? " she asked of one of the company, a stranger. "Will ye be tellin me now what they does be afther callin her the Opal Queen for? Is it some island that ye mane? Wasn't she born in Ameriky ?" rapidly interrogated the stranger. "Why, for shure," replied Bridget "it's the shpar-' kle in them sumpchis orbs and the white an' pank in VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 187 her complexion, shure. Oh, mother ov Moses ! I wish ye'd seen her now I" And here Mrs. Flinn straight- ened herself into rigidity, and looking out into space, outlined with the quick precision of an etcher who is seizing his first impressions of the figure she seemed to see there. " She was tall, an' she was beautiful, an' she was dressed all in white an' the folds hung down, an' she had the look of an angel on her face, an' as though she was say in' her prayers all the time, an' oh ! " here Mrs. Flinn paused to take breath and gave a great gulping sigh "she had such a good shmell on her ! " Mrs. Flinn little realized her precipitate descent from the sublime to the ridiculous, and as her visitors were blessed with the same dull perceptions, the last member of the series formed, to their original minds, the appropriate finish of the climax. " An' shure, didn't she send me all the gowns an' things that the children wears, an' all the mate we wanted iver since she come ? an' wasn't she a'most a-giievin', shure, an' put out wid me, 'cause I was for thankin' of her an' callin' down the blessin's of all the saints on her swate face ? " 'An' shure,' " she sez, 'Bridget, ye knows yerself an' the Lord He knows, an' we won't zhust mind noth- in' about the rest on 'em ; an' the saints are full o' business loike up in the hivvens, so we'll zhust be for kapin' it a bit shly betwixt us. If I was a suffer- in',' sez she, ' its loike enough ye'd be fer comin' round to help, forenenst someo' the grand folk, shure foreby.' " An' shure, Miss, sez I the tears all standin' in the corners o' my eyes ye shall niver want while Bridget Flinn's above ground to put oyes on yer bonny face an' h's got the flesh an' bones to work wid fur ye ! " So far, Bridget had run her train at locomotive speed without breaks. She heaved a deep sigh and sat down, bending over and crossing her arms in her lap. The audience was silent now, but fully in accord 188 THE OPAL QUEEN. with the speaker, as had been proved by the occa- sional sympathetic groans or interjected exclamations of assent and encouragement from the enthusiastic and irrepressible members during the eulogy. They were at this present moment occupied with the prob- lem of how Bridget Flinn, now that the crisis had really come, could make good her promise how she would find the means to take care of her six little ones (who were now comfortably disposed in various laps or squatted on the floor in picturesque rags) and the Opal Queen into the bargain ! But they waited for the solution ; partly from the shock of the tidings, from which ignorant minds do not easily rebound even when they are not the victims of the disaster, partly from a vague suspicion that there was more to come from the same oracular source, and partly from a certain native restraint which stood them for polite- ness. But one buxom dame, a trifle more venturesome than the rest, suggested faintly that Mrs. Flinn could not have been supposed to imagine even that the ca- lamity was so imminent, when she made the uncon- ditional pledge. But Mrs. Flinn was equal to the occasion. "An' shure," she said, with a ring of defiant indig- nation in her voice, rising and standing with arms a- klmbo, "y'er thinkin now that I'll be for goin' back on my promise, an' that shows, faith, that ye don't know Bridget O'Brien Flinn! that's meself, shure, that's come from the dacent shtock o' the O'Briens an' I zhust want ye to know now that the O'Briens is honest ivery one o' them to the marrow, an' niver desayves a friend ! " But without unfolding the exact line of her pro- gramme or disclosing any part of the. benevolent scheme which should prove her true to her ancestry, she turned upon the offender. "An' who got your baste of a man out of the jail last winther an' gave him dacent employment right in her own primises when she was a-buildin' her pal- VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 189 ace, slmre? An' who shingled your shanty whin the rain was comin' in fit to drown ye an' yer brats while yer old man was servin' out his time, arrah! An' was afther givin yerself many a day's job as I'm comin' to know ! It's the Opal Queen that's bin the stickin' friend to ivery one on us," she said glancing around; "some on us would 'a gone clean out into the next world if it hadn't been for the Opal Queen, shure ! " and she sank into her chair, sobbing and crying, all broken down now at the remembrance of her nearly fatal illness after Mr. Flinn's death, when Elise sent good old mother Crady to nurse her. Not one in the company but had experienced some kindness from the Opal Queen, and they were loud now in their protestations of regard and devotion ; they rehearsed these deeds in their hearty vernacular, and descanted glowingly on her merits and her beauty. But Mrs. Flinn had inherited something besides loyalty to friends from the rare O'Brien stock ; a fine streak of diplomatic talent was also imbedded in her composition, and in this interval of rest which the others were loudly vocalizing, she worked out a policy to establish her line of defense adroitly shifting the burden of proof upon an organization, as it were, of her fellow countrywomen, who stood committed now as the acknowledged recipients of a bounty almost if not quite equal to her own. " It's foine open countenances, ye hev," she said, now restored to a tolerable composure, "mebbeit's honest ye air troth, an I don't think ye'd be a desayv- in' of me. An' faith, what air ye goin' to do about it ? Sittin' there a whimperin' an' braggin' an star-in,' when loike as not the swate sowl hasn't a coal in her bin nor a perater in the barrel. An' ye'd zhust best be a thinkin' about it for shure now, pretty lively, an' come in an' acquaint me wid yer intentions for the loikes o' the' brave, beautiful sowl that's loike an angel from hivven ! Och ! is it there ye air, ye ras- cal, a' pokin me in the ribs to make me laugh? 190 THE OPAL QUEEN. what is ye after inniway?" and she snatched up the youngest scion of the noble O'Biien stock, with a series of vigorous gymnastics that set the cherub into the normal and indignant protestations of out- raged babyhood, and at the same time was a signal to the visitors that their conference so far as Mrs. O'Brien Flinn was concerned had come to an end. But Elise's playful and figurative disparagement of her friends, according to Mrs. Flinn's version, was not borne out by the facts. ' The " Saints' Rest " turned out en masse, even dear old Gran feeling that she must give her bit of sympathy to the stricken child ; and Charming was not put to the grim neces- sity of holding more secret councils with himself on the possible and the impossible, the probable and the improbable, as Superba constituted herself a com- mittee to institute the proper ceremonies, and invested herself with arbitrary authority. She was accus- tomed to manage her forces with the skill of a field- marshal without suggestive hints from the male portion of the household who were not expected, according to her view of the relative duties of the sexes, to understand nice points of etiquette and was able to rally them without preliminary argument into an impromptu onset upon the palace to contribute their spoken assurances of cordial fellowship. Others succeeded rapidly as the days of the first week rolled on, with the profuse offers of assistance that fall from ready lips like the worm-eaten fruit before maturity without the remotest conception on their part that promise meant fulfillment, and who would be routed and utterly put to flight should their gilded pledges be rated at full valuations. The airy dew of a false sympathy that is all ! Just a little fragrant so-called moisture to keep the flower from utterly wilting in this Sahara of misfortune! Just to let her see, you know, that we think of her and feel kindly towards her! Heroic little souls ! Well even for such there is a mission ! and sometimes in the squeeze for the one glistening drop, the long- VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 191 pent fountain bursts and sends out a stream of real, active benevolence. But they came and went away disappointed they expected to meet a weeping Niobe, and found a noble Spartan soaring far above the vicissitudes of life in the serene atmosphere of her own sunny content. Conduct so entirely out of rule" must be reprehensible could not be above reproach even if their keenest scrutiny could not detect the flaws ! "She must have other means of support!" or "We'll see her 'flat out' at last I" were the secret comments of these suspicious hypo- crites. This was the crowd. There were still left the ap- preciative few whose speech was standard gold, every sentence of which was a promissory note bearing in- terest for time and running into eternity, if neces- sary. "I will tell you what I have thought of," said Miss St. John to a company of her friends informally gathered in Miss Love's drawing-room. "You know Miss Archer was intending to have the next Festival and all the beautiful plans she carried out in her house to produce it with the best effects. Well, I have quietly ascertained that she has given up the idea. Now why shouldn't we impress herself and her house right into our service for the occasion take the whole management off from her hands, sup- ply the feast the 'goodies,' you know I mean, she said, laughing "ourselves and leave her only (he office of a sinecure and well ? yes ; critic in par- ticular and general mistress extraordinary of the whole affair?" There was a pretty little confusion of enthusiastic admiration of the plot and the plotter, in the midst of which Miss Tete said : " And may I be aide-de-camp to this Mistress Ex- traordinaire ? " " Why, mavoureen !" replied Miss St. John, " we shall need every mother's child of you in the forces of the assaulting brigade." 192 THE OPAL QUEEN. " And there's something else occurs to me," said Virginia Love. " You know Miss Archer was just about to order her dress from Worth's now why couldn't we all combine and make it for her? " "Charming," exclaimed Miss Bunce ; "then we shall prove our love." And the arch-plotters grew merry over their shrewd device, and put their sage young heads together in the planning, contriving and, above all, the vigor- ously discussing of how to apprise Miss Archer of the intended assault. Some were for carrying the whole affair on secretly and then springing it upon her like an old-fashioned surprise party ; but the majority thought this overwhelming generosity might be crushing in its denouement, and they finally settled into the decision of a formal announcement of their plan and a request for her co-operation by consent- ing to its development. Meantime Elise had been visited by her uncle and aunt Gray, who begged her to return with them and share the shelter of their roof and comforts of their home. It grieved Elise to hold out in a seeming obstinacy against their urgent wishes. She had indeed given it some thought, before their arrival, but Mrs. Healey had also extended to her the same privilege, and she could not bear so soon to give up her beautiful home to which she had so long been looking forward as a refuge and bower a "bower of ease" then, but now a bower of independent comfort. " I have thought it all out, dear aunt," she said ; "independence is my life you know I have always been my own chief and if you take that away, you will change my nature : I shall droop and pine and die. You think this wild talk, but wait let me tell you what I have evolved out of the chaos of my brain. Now, listen, this is the oracular response of the Pythia; and true to her dramatic instincts and irrepressible native humor, she seated herself upon a tripod, dishevelled her tresses, and proclaimed : " VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 193 " Elise Archer, the spoiled favorite of the gods and men (that is the generic term for everybody, auntie," she said demurely sotto voce), " by reason of her many unused endowments and accomplishments is hereby decreed to put the same into active use for a space and half a space and six moons ! She shall make use of her new house for this worthy purpose, converting it into halls and studios where the ancient arts of embroidery and painting and carving may be carried on in their beauty and perfection. She shall thus preserve her fingers from stiffening and her mind from rust and her heart from vanity. So saith the Pythia by the order of his most oracular majesty, the Great Apollo ! " Having announced this decree with a " wildly im- pressive look laden with resolution, affection, and prophetic vision," she rushed over to her -aunt's arms who was overcome with mingled grief and laughter at the enthusiastic bravery and undaunted mirthfulness that could enact a scene in the very teeth of Misfortune, and heroically laugh in his face. She was touched with her niece's happy ignorance of the many rebuffs that were awaiting her encounter with the stern, hard world, and her buoyant trust in the virgin untried wares which she was about to offer in its market. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears as she said: "Well, it will keep you busy, and that is more than half of life, and of course your uncle and I will keep an eye on you, and a pretty close one, too, dear," she added with a kiss. Elise sought Gran soon after the blows fell, as be- ing the one person nearest the heaven which seemed all so dark to her now, and best able to open for her rifts of light in the clouds. Standing so near the threshold of that impenetrable mystery, she thought she must have caught glimpses and had messages of the scheme by which the affairs of our little earth were conducted. It seemed so all-mysterious to Elise that everything should go and she found herself 13 194 THE OPAL QUEEN. wondering what she had done to merit such punish- ment. " Oh ! " said she, lifting her head from the dear old lap as she was seated low by G-ran's side, "if I had only known it ! I would like to have done so much more with it made so many people happy but we never know." She paused and mused with her head again down. "But I want to know now, Gran, about present duty so as not to be sorry, when this October-wheel turns round again and lets me out somewhere else, that I have not come up to the standard of my privileges. This is an inscrutable providence, of course ; nobody can comprehend the why or where- fore probably I deserve the punishment.' 1 If Gran heard the allusion to Elise's month-of- mystery, she doubtless thought she misunderstood, as her hearing was slightly defective; when the mean- ing was tolerably clear she never asked for a repeti- tion of speech, but answered according to her com- prehension of it. "But, my child," said Gran, "it isn't always pun- ishment that we require^ but a little discipline now and then, or perhaps a very severe stroke. If it would comfort you any, my child," she said, laying her emaciated fingers on the dear bowed head, "you may think of it as discipline. All children require that, and in eternity we shall think none too severe, if it is the price we must pay for entrance yonder," and she raised her eyes, and pointed with a rapturous look to the upper spheres. " Don't understand me to mean," she continued, "that we are purchasing heaven by submitting with resignation to the discipline, but that we are like the obedient child who fulfills his Father's conditions, while he is waiting with a loving, trusting spirit to be restored to his Father's home knowing that they are working graces in him that will make him meet for that inheritance which his Saviour has already purchased for him. You must talk with your Saviour VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE. 195 about it, dear child ; perhaps you have been neglect- ing Him of late. For you know, DO matter how much you do for Him that is all good, of course, and I don't want to undervalue it but He never wants you to be so busy that you can't come and have some little talk with Him about yourself and what you've been doing and want to do. Would your mother be satisfied, do you suppose, if you were in the same town, and so full of ministries to the poor and destitute, and your own pleasures, that you never even peeped into her chamber to get her counsel as well as her caress and warm expressions of parental love ? " Thin allusion, so full of the tender memories of the past, so choked Elise's utterance that she could not reply. " Perhaps you haven't been to the audience-room the consecrated closet where at the mercy-seat, you may talk with your Divine Master and see Him and hear His gracious voice ? " Elise kissed the dear withered hands, but was be- yond speech. "You believe it is all for the best, my child?" grandma interrogated. " Oh ! I don't care for the money ! " Elise burst out impetuously " I never did care for money in the sense of lovinar it neither do I care for Well, O Gran," she said, looking up into her face with a sweet bewilderment "Oh! I don't care for anything that has happened; that is, I am not oppressed by it, but I don't understand it, and if there is anything wrong about me I want to correct it. And I would like, too," she said, musingly, "to know just what I am going to do. The Lord has a place for me, hasn't he, Gran ? " Gran was looking at her tenderly ; she opened her arms as if to receive her, and then said with a sweet, deep earnestness, so like a heavenly voice in the far- away tone : " ' He will carry the lambs in His bosom ' there's 196 1'titi OPAL no better place on earth or in heaven, my child ; " and she closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair with folded hands and still breathing, broken by an occasional faint, choking sound arising from sup- pressed emotion. A solemn stillness fell upon them, for Gran's pleading soul was committing this helpless one into the arms of Infinite Love with a faith that trusted fully in His infinite tenderness. But to Elise this was not a practical solution of the difficulty; her spiritual apprehension was not yet so quickened as to produce in her .anything more than a dreamy, vague comfort which was not born of a living faith a kind of soothing false rest which she felt she had somehow appropriated because it was so eminently fitting and orthodox. But Elise was not left to her solitary shifts in her undertaking. Indomitable as she appeared, her ex- perienced friends knew that contact with the world in search of the desired avenues for her talent might prove a disheartening and bitter mockery. Good Mr. Drew made another attempt to induce her to accept her grandfather's legacy, but she continued inflexible in her resolution, and he then turned his attention in the direction in which hers was fixed, endeavoring to enlist pupils for her. Bertha would not desert her mistress, and being herself skilled in needle-work, lace-making and em- broidery, immediately set about turning the product of those accomplishments into the common fund. Through Mrs. Gray's agency, a New York firm agreed to take all her work in woolen and fancy goods, so that the outlook was promising, and Elise said cheerfully to Bertha one. day : "We never knew before how valuable we were, Bertha! Surely more than our weight in gold we'll prove to be yetthat ideal phraseology isn't such a fabulous amount after all, for you are only witch's weight and I am not much beyond ! " Elise's ideas were still those of a millionaire. Dr. Healey fully endorsed her plan, and was quietly doing much to further it. THE OPAL LEAGUE. 197 CHAPTER XX. THE OPAL LEAGUE. " Every day A little life, a blank to be inscribed With gentle deeds, such as in after time Console, .rejoice, whene'er you turn the leaf To read them." Rogers. ELISE was much moved when her young friends disclosed to her their plan for conducting the next Greek festival. " Dear, sweet things ! " she said, with eyes all shin- ing as if with tears behind them, and putting her arms around as many as she could enclose, as they were all standing in a bunch in her library. " You know you are our ' Opal Queen ' just as much as ever," said little Miss Tete, stealing her hand around the Queen's waist. " And we are more loyal than ever," declared Miss Smart, " for the greatness of our fallen Queen com- pels our homage." She had commenced bravely, but as she spoke, as though crushed herself with the sudden comprehen- sion of the appalling disaster, she only insinuated her meaning in the rest of her sentence, sunk almost into a whisper, and an instantaneous hush fell upon the silently sympathetic group. "Never mind, dear," said Elise tenderly, "I must learn to talk about it why not? It isn't like a crime, you know, and see what good it has done al- ready, in uniting us into a real sisterhood ! I am not sure," she said, laughing, " but you better reconsider the voluntary service, get absolved from your alle* 198 THE OPAL QUEEN. giance to tins 'fallen Queen,' for I foresee," she said pathetically, " weary wanderings for her followers through untrodden paths ! " " If we take it on a march," said Minnie Love, " and in a body, who's afraid ? not I ! " "Nor I! Nor I ! " echoed jubilantly through the room. "Three cheers for the Opal League!" shouted Miss Smart. " How do you like the christening, Miss Archer?" "I could tell you better if you remembered that I, too, once had a christening," she replied, smiling. The barriers of formality were broken all down now, and a new era began in their friendship. It was the beginning of what proved an effective work- ing organization for contact with the suffering poor of the village. And in their meetings, plannings, discussions, these girls developed faculties all lying dormant and fallen quite useless before. : Elise thought that all their desires could be better realized by postponing "our entertainment," as she called it, until the spring. " Miss Love would like it now," she said. Miss Love protested. "I know you give me the precedence, dear, but you would take it, would you not, if we all agreed it was best ? " " Sans doute" she replied, " as a loyal member of the Opal League is bound to do." " Bien ; attendez, mesdemoiselles de la League Opalique ! " At this impromptu introduction, inspired by Miss Smart's sally into a foreign language, there were shouts of laughter, and a confused mingling of "Bien, beaucoup bien. C'est un bonne chose, ce nomme-ci, si drolle n'est'ce pas ? " etc., etc. " What I was going to say," resumed Elise, after some quiet was obtained, "is just this: My last win- ter's dress will answer for another festival." A blending of voices, ejaculating deprecatingly, THE OPAL LEAGUE. 199 " Oh ! Oh ! No ! No ! No, indeed ! " followed this pro- clamation. Elise touched her bell, and Bertha appeared. She whispered an order, and Bertha vanished, and then reappeared with the rejected costume. Elise shook it out before their eyes, saying gayly : " I mustn't be proud and extravagant as well as poor that is too much for one personality ! I should be immensely ashamed of myself now" she added with a spirited dignity, "if I refuse to wear so good a dress. I know well your feeling for me. You think it might indicate to some weak-headed sister excuse me," she said, " that is harsh, but the plain truth an impoverished wardrobe. That it is such a symbol in this particular case has nothing to do with it. Once, I would not have worn it again, not be- cause I didn't dare, but because getting new ones was easy, and the correct thing, you know, and I liked it. /was one of those (she made a bow over her left shoulder as if to some dismissed parties in the background) I spoke of. There was a gentle murmuring of voices as heads were put together again in consultation, and then Miss Love said : " We quite agree with you, Elise, if we may trans- fer our good intentions to tke spring suit, which is to be for field sports, and made a la Diana, you know." " Your goodness is very touching," Elise said, in a subdued tone, which they interpreted as an unquali- fied assent; and after various bits of talk, in which the new costume was conned from illuminated plates in the library, the Opal League adjourned sine die. 200 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XXI. ARTHURS LETTER AND CHANNING'S CONFESSION. DEAR CHAN, If it is your purpose to serve upon me that forbidden law, lex talionis, or in plain English " tit for tat," I shall cry out for " quarter," for, be the spirit never so willing, the time is absolutely wanting. My case, as you know, is to come off next quarter-sessions, and requires every moment for prep- aration. I have given it the emphasis of the singu- lar, for the importance it assumes in my own mind and is likely to arouse in others will cause it to rank pre-eminently as the case of cases. I have just a moment for a word of warning, which, as you have not written for a long time, may now indeed be inapropos ; for if you have been ensnared by some fair one (as I half suspect), the slight en- chantment may be now outgrown or lost sight of. But nevertheless I must give you the best proof of my friendship by finding a little fault with you. You appear to be manufacturing, of late, a new con- diment for the dish of chat with which you generously favor me. There is a suspicion of sarcasm in your pen-portraits of Belinda, which, as it is foreign to your nature, must have had some recent provoking cause. I cannot, consistently with my theory of love, attribute it to that passion, and am equally at a loss when I hypotheticate a disappointment in love ; for the heavens may fall, but Channing Earle, never, from the grace of the ladies. I confess to being puzzled, and beg you to return to that easy abandon CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 201 of confidence with which you were wont to grace your epistles while opening your heart to, Yours anxiously, ART. P. S. After all, Chan, my perceptions may be overwrought, my digestion at fault, or my eyes hypercritical in which case I plead guilty and am beforehand assured of your pardon. Faithfully, ART. DEAR ART : Nerves, unlike the muscles, cannot be dared, intimidated, or bullied into action. They must be coaxed and flattered ; nourish them, pet them and put them in as good trim as you do your favorite racer, and they will make as good time. Now I confess to you, best of chums, that my nerves have been sadly out of trim, and that may account for the acidulous flavor you mention in my last letters. You are kind enough to say that it is very slight the merest suggestion and to even hint at want of perception or preternatural perception on your own part. I declare in all honesty that I was not aware of it, and must attach the blame, if blame there is, to the out-of-sorts condition of this human machine I am undertaking to run. I am conscious of spasms of a vague good-for- nothingness that subtract much sweetness from me, and the remainder might naturally be a little tart. You refer to an unusual reserve, and beg me to return to my "old abandon of confidence " in our correspondence. I confess to a neglect of this privi- lege, which might have proved a tonic as well as safety-valve. But, as I wrote you, time has been at the highest premium, and I could not buy, beg, or steal any more than my natural allotment, which was not by one quarter enough for my own use. The lectures, the studies, the essays, the social allure- ments " ay, there's the rub ! " The insane attempt to add these to a budget already overfull is the rock 202 THE OPAL QUEEN. upon which I split! But it is over now, and the lesson has not been without its uses, one of which I may truly say is that it has driven me back to you with a purer and warmer friendship, if that were possible. There are reciprocal obligations implied and understood in all true friendships we require of our friends a complete and ready sympathy, we owe them a perfect love and trust. It becomes the duty of the highest friendship to explain mysteries in conduct or language that might legitimately be withheld from the curious and the remote in affection. It is, I think, equally our duty to assume the high- est and purest motives in connection with those mys- teries to us inexplicable it is here that the love that trusts, trusts still in the dark. But you did not expect a homily, and I doubt very much if you are prepared for a confession, notwith- standing your flattering jest about " disappointment in love," etc. ; and I venture to say that you cannot possibly divine it, for while I am not the only living type of the kind of manhood now under considera- tion, as far as my observation goes I am in the glorious minority. Carlyle says :" Life goes all to ravels and tatters where self-denial is not." This, then, is my confession I have been practic- ing the magnanimous art of self-denial and saving my life from those " ravels and tatters." It is un- doubtedly a satisfaction to know that one's life is a whole piece of webbing and not in fragments. I cannot speak with any great degree of confidence of the beauty of the present web, but I think it strong so far as finished. If the colors are grave, we will call it that sober richness of soft grays which is the ambition and the delight of the modern aesthete. But I hear you say, "How you run on without giving a fellow one lucid idea ! " Yes, that is my forte and my necessity when you get me into these fits of "abandon " that you have been clamoring for; more- over the weigh ter the document, the longer the pre- amble, you know. You, who are offering your devo- CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 203 tions at the shrine of Themis, ought to appreciate a little scientific dodging of the point at issue, to gain time to present the case in its most favorable aspects. But my witnesses are all in, the clerk has announced the hearing, the judge eyes me calmly and wisely from the bench, and the prisoner is before you col- lecting evidence, which, as he is his own counsel, he will now present to this high and secret tribunal. Belinda came, she saw, she conquered! old as Csesar and true as gospel and where there is ac- knowledgement of the cause of arraignment there need be no comment.. The case would stand ad- journed sine die, if that were all but there is a slight addendum. With the nerve of a Brutus or a Manlius (who caused his own son to be slain because he disobeyed military tactics), I trained myself to fight the des- perate battle of self-denial. I knew I had a chance, fc/r she was too noble-minded to be influenced by my poverty. I saw that in the beginning but I would not sacrifice my career on the altar of love. I could not stand calmly by and see it burn to ashes, and Pater and Superbaand Gran (either in heaven or on earth) brushing away silent tears incontinently shed, for whose existence I was responsible. I could not im- peril rny manhood by touching a full purse that I had not earned. Golden booty. Perish the thought ! I should abhor myself ! I deliberately chose my bachelorhood and independence. What say you, was I right ? I would rather be rir/ht than the treas- urer of any belle's millions ! But the end's not yet, there is a tale to unfold the sequel has the savor of romance. Light is dawning, hope is rising, the abjured star may yet be my star ! She still lives, and I live and what may come of it, time and God alone can tell. I speak reverently in this juncture, for I must acknowledge the Providence that rules over the destinies of men, and leave all to his supreme arbitration. One crisis in my history I can safely count as past; 204 THE OPAL QUEEN. when the others may come, and how I will acquit myself, the Infinite Judge alone can tell! Why, Art, there were days and nights when life was an intolerable burden, and death would have been a messenger of sweet relief, for not only were the passions of my souls haken, but the foundations of my faith. In that blind chaos I would have been glad to have had Divine Help, for no human help could avail in such a fearful struggle. Theoretically, I w;is a Christian I knew that there was a so-called " mercy-seat "to which sinners and saints and all poor bruised and battered mortals were invited to come and make known their wants ; I knew that there was divine authority for the belief that I would be heard, in the Scripture that said, " Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me." But in the supreme hour of conflict, even the Bible WHS a compendium of " cunningly de- vised fables," and the whole scheme of redemption a mythical fraud. I grew old in a day I seemed to have passed from youth to age, and I shall never again look through a magnifying glass upon this little drama of existence. Pigmies are we all in the light of the infinite, and yet pigmies of value. I admit it, for no spark struck from divinity can be anything less than divine. The flesh succumbed in this wearisome ever-recur- ring, never-ending warfare. My appetite failed, my muscle bolted, my eyes looked hollow, and I joked when I could and prayed when I dared ! " Oh Heavens! " I cried, "if! had a God, I would go to Him." I had always been morally observant, but I lacked the ingrowing principle. Gran often said that I was not far from the kingdom of heaven but I felt that I was just far enough to be shut out ! It was in some such state as this that I went to the breakfast one morning, after a sleepless night. Gran, whose eyes are keen as a hawk's, detected my vigils and whether she had been having her own speculations as to the cause, or whether by direct CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 205 inspiration I know not, but she looked at me and said, with a sweet tenderness and in her far-away tone it sounded like a voice from the throne with bells of heaven all ringing. " Channing, ' He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but he that walk- eth wisely shall be delivered.' I have proved that promise for seventy years my child, do you think it has been tested enough for you to try it? " What a blessed word ! How it dropped like a healing balm on the lacerated wound ! and I tried it. Art, and I found it true, and I took what do you think ? What can an infinite God give that man cannot take away ? I took from that sanctified altar of suffering, peace the " peace of God which passeth all understanding." And then I was on my best level again. But the sequel are you impatient for the denoue- ment ? But it is no such thing as you imagine, in one sense it is full of a pyramidal woe but as I said, there is light in the darkness, and a light whose beams fall on two who are growing very dear to each other but I anticipate. What think you ? The money, the millions, vanished in a night, fire and robbery swallowed them ! And the lover she had taken to herself renounced her next day ! And now I am suddenly conscious that, since you say I have failed to indite my weekly post, you are ignorant of some of my allusions in this letter. There is much incoherence and ellipse about my confession, I know, but have patience, Art ; it is unfair to expect a stream that has been cascading, suddenly to mean- der with the gentle proprieties of a mountain rivulet, or the steady, even flow of the majestic river with pictured banks. The river and banks are all there, but you must wait for the subsidence of the flood. But now for the enlightenment as to the lover. . Otto Dresson is a full-blooded specimen of not overly young manhood my senior by seven years. He is called a young man of fortune, and known to 206 THE OPAL QUEEN. be a fortune-hunter so a quiet rumor affirms. He was the lion of a village already overstocked with rare specimens of that noble beast. The girls petted, the mothers fawned, arid the father acquiesced with a suspicious eye slightly turned outwards. He captured the " Opal Queen," and the world our little one said that it would be a match of ex- ceptional fitness in the harmony of spheres and the aesthetic cosmos " quite the correct thing, you know." They seemed to be very happy. The " Opal Queen " was still every inch a queen, and drew around her a loving train of followers. And now let me say, once for all, that whatever of satire you saw, or thought you saw, must have been caused by my point of view and the green-colored glasses -that were somehow astride my nose. When I say that she is, and has been, as near perfection as frail mortality can reach, you will absolve me from the un- intentional but contemptible sin of slander. The u Opal Queen " has a fearless and independent, genial, loving nature, blended with a refined modesty and rare exuberance of spirits and grace of manner. She is self-reliant, without arrogance ; impulsive, without impetuosity ; and she is all truth, white- souled truth and purity. On account of her social status, beauty, and immense wealth, she has received adulation and homage enough to make rockets of her, if she was of combustible material. She expects it, she receives it, she does not value it, consequently, but this she does not know. She seems invincible by the loss of money, but touched at the loss of friend ; was the victim of a considerable shock when Dresson treacherously deserted her. But she is wonderfully elastic, has a rich vitality of fancy and impulse that makes her almost visionary mind, I say almost, for her sound judgment steps in always, even if at the last moment, to control the purely ideal. Her mind is tinged with a " mild superstition which gives to her life the mystery of a perpetual romance." She belongs to the aristocracy of wealth, CHANNING'S CONFESSION. 207 while I, me judice, am enrolled in the aristocracy of honor, which includes education, moral principle, and correct manners, according to Pater's definition. Dresson probably claimed both and bore escut- cheons on his shoulder. But now his claims are trailed in the dust of the ground. He preserves a fine affectation of annoyance, and says plaintively, in the words of St. Remis to Clovis : " Henceforth we must burn what we have worshipped and worship what we have burned," but into his heart I have no doubt the motto is seared, Operce pretium non est! (the labor would cost more than it comes to). In- stead of regulating his conduct by his art-divinity, he seems suddenly to have left her for the shrine of mathematics, conforming his actions to the axiom, " The addition of a negative quantity is equivalent to the subtraction of apositive." Carlyle says "A small proportion of intellect will serve a man's turn, if all the rest be right; " but the trouble with Dresson is that all the rest isn't right. Perhaps this pressure may be the indurating agency which will convert the sandstone, mud, and clay of his being into the con- glomerate, but a trifle more substantial, shale! But I am hard on him, and who knows but his egregious blunder (to put it very mildly, for he has undoubtedly committed the crimen falsi) may be my triumph. I say it to myself very softly, just venturing a hope, but. mulier semper mutabilis, and woe unto that man who attempts to predict the end from the beginning in such matters. 208 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XXII. CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. " All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame." Coleridge. IF Charming was in a dilemma before the sudden access of misfortune to Elise in the loss of her mil- lions and the inglorious collapse of her lover, after these disasters, his own peculiar interest in the altered cosmogony of her being seemed complicated four- fold. With all its sinuosities and temptations, the way had hitherto been blocked up. His condition was that of a traveller within sight of the land of his hopes, without the necessary passport to cross its border. But now he hesitated to enter the open way ! A sudden advance might be deemed impertinent to one likely to require a space for readjustment to her new sphere ; and yet now, if ever, her friends should rally around her with sympathetic, encouraging words. The duty of respectful and genial condolence, however, was not the problem that occupied his thoughts, but how to follow up the glittering pros- pect of success opened up by Change, the mighty conjurer, before his dazed, still incredulous eyes ; and it was not so much the how he trusted his practical sagacity for that as the cui bono, the expediency of the pursuit, that perplexed him. He thought himself wound up in the threads of a fate too intricate for disentanglement, for here once more his heart was at CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 209 war with his judgment. Should he be guided by the former, he would rush into her presence with the fervor of an enraptured lover, and while bewailing her loss, beg her to permit him to be her solace evermore, to fill the breach with himself, his heart for the trai- tor's, his prospective life-work, with its capital of brains, for the sunken fortune. But he felt that the rebound of hearts is not always in the direc- tion of easy transfer, and while he trusted in the sustained buoyancy of Elise's nature for his proph- ecy that she would not be crushed, he felt that impetuosity would give it another shock and im- peril the elasticity of its spring for a new object of affection. He doubted, indeed, whether he had made any lasting impresson upon her. And now he fell into lonely, quiet, reviewing moods of their whole parallel history. He could summon it all from the chambers of a tenacious memory furnished with the supplementary aid of a quickened sensibility through a jealous eye. And in the intervals of fragrant musings with friendly cigars, he held up the bygone scenes in retrospec- tion, for study charts they were, by which he could navigate his course on this great sea of a coveted love- possession. Every act, every word, seemed photo- graphed on his heart he lived over again the mo- ments of bliss and of agony, without catching any inspiring gales for launching his craft on the troubled sea. He remembered gentle words of praise or of confidence, but they were the pretty phrases of her polite womanhood the small coin passing current in the jingling show of life to accelerate the nimble- footed dancers. He found most encouragement from her moments of thoughtful silence. But what right, he inquired, had he to infer from these that there was an unguarded spot in her heart's citadel, through which he might enter ? He did not know, he only felt; he had experienced at these times a certain magnetic vibration, that he had not cared to explain because it had no right of birth, and to question 14 210 THE OPAL QUEEN. might encourage a repetition to check was the duty of the moment. He remembered with a thrill of keen delight the unconscious submission of her taste to his on the evening of the first Greek festival the pretty abandon with which she acknowledged her- self compliant to his wishes in the matter of dressing her hair, and the implied renunciation of Dresson as her critical arbiter and adviser, and the temporary enthronement of himself. What did she mean? He did not know. He only knew that for one deli- cious moment she seemed to be in his arms, and he felt the pride of ownership. But that Dresson was not then under an eclipse of her favor or the slightest shadow even, he had indubitable proof, when, later, she sparkled with the unmistakable love-glance that fell upon unanswering eyes and fondly extended her hand to draw him to her side. But if he should prove victorious in the chase, would she be willing to wait? he inquired. Would it be just to her to suffer the lapse of time that must intervene before he could maintain her in accordance with the luxurious tastes and habits now her second nature ? Was she fitted for a poor man's wife -would she be able to endure the strain ? If Channing had not possessed a logical, judicial mind which, originally premature in judgment, had taken a great leap into the thoughtful deliberation of age during his great mental crisis when he was striv- ing to elude his misery, in a life full of a portentous solemnity beneath the shining film he would not now be weighing the pros and cons of the propriety and wisdom of courting a beautiful woman to whom his heart was already heavily mortgaged. He had denounced the transaction and abjured the payment, and yet with unflagging pertinacity the shadowy creditor returned, girded with the power of an in- spiration. But that struggle had also intensified his naturally cautious spirit and made him hesitate, where before he dared. CHANNING REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 211 But introspective inquiry had the customary end- ing. There is a certain fatality about these little private entertainments that a besieged hero, strug- gling to get free, orders up for his refreshment or invigoration in a certain line of pursuit hitherto pretty fairly decided upon. They stimulate like champagne and end as most such suppers do, in put- ting him in rosy conjunction with himself and the object of his desires. And so he found at the end of his much prolonged investigation of les affaires du cceur during which Elise had appeared and reappeared at" least a hundred times in answer to h^s summons, with the same be- witching smile and courtly grace of manner that it was a fixed tiling, of course, that he should address Miss Archer, and then- ? Why then with the easy confidence of youthful ambition backed by indom- itable emergy and marked attainments in scholar- ship somehow, in the near future why should they not marry as thousands of other had done, and live happily, as they perforce would, on what the good providence of God should send them ? And he visited Miss Archer. It was near the time for the graduation of his class at the Accademia della Crusca ; the thesis was all that would claim his attention at present, so there would be time for the cum dulce addition to his daily routine of the utilc. The Professor permitted rather than approved this final exhibition of his pupils, being won over by the associate professors and the prevailing sentiment in the village. He expressed a wish that the Greek impromptu style of eloquence should be closely followed, but did not insist upon this realizing probably the infeasibility of the plan with youths who had been only nine months under training but hoped that they would have such knowledge of their subjects and pursue such an exhaustive treatment in its study 212 THE OPAL QUEEN. that they might closely approach this standard, if they did not re^ch it. The young men concluded to do both to study and write, and also to trust to the inspiration of the moment for those flights of eloquence that often only kindle under the magnetism of an appreciative audience. GATE OP " THE SAINTS* &EST." 213 CHAPTER XXIII. GATE OF " THE SAINTS' REST." "And hope to joy is little less in joy Than hope enjoyed." Shakespeare. CHANNING found occasion to make frequent visits at the palace. Superba became suddenly afflicted with serious misgivings about Elise's health and daily comforts, and discovered that the only relief for her anxious fears was to dispatch Channing with tender messages and solicitous inquiries, or with a summons for her appearance immediately at the Saints' Rest, so that Gran might have the sight of her own eyes as assurance of her well-being. " It's almost worth while to make the plunge from every tiling to nothing, since I have fallen into the arms of so many friends and didn't get the knocks. I have only had a little vigorous shaking up, such as the Freshman used to get in the blanket, and who knows but it may be the making of me }'et,'' Elise said, laughingly, holding up her gloved arm and an indefinite number of buttons for Channing's perusal. " No one but ourselves can compel us to be idle," he observed, gravely, while studying his task. " But something outside of ourselves may compel us to be industrious; and since the inward propelling force was heretofore absent, I suppose I ought to be immensely thankful for my losses." "If you are a student of Christian philosophy, un- doubtedly. 'Diligent in business,' you know, is one of the apostolic maxims." 214 THE OPAL QUEEN. " But I did not use to think I was idle," she said, reflecting doubtfully, and paused. But Channing did not put in an expected dis- claimer or by delicate insinuation imply the reverse. "As far as you were doing good work for eternity, you bear a clear record," he remarked, still bent over his problem. " It might be questionable whether dainty finger- work for personal adornment or home embellishment is fulfilling the great ends of life, or," he continued, thoughtfully, "simplifying the problem of the world's wretchedness. Don't understand me to underrate your benevolences, Miss Archer. I know that they have been wide and judicious " Not always," she interrupted. " But what the world needs most just now is not so much organized benevolence as organized love the one gives money, the other gives heart a lifting up of the degraded or hope-ridden mind to a plane of bright endeavor and active self-support. 4 The destruction of the poor is their poverty.' Did you ever think of that, Miss Archer?" The wise philos- opher who had an inexhaustible treasury must yet have studied pictures of absolute want and squalor, or he could never have written that sentence. It is always a pity when a fashionable furore and a spirit of rivalry combined are -permitted to squander and misdirect energies that the world still needs, and will need so long as poverty and crime hide in cellars or stalk in our streets. " But I beg a thousand pardons," he said, looking up, having run the gauntlet of her arm, "for drop- ping into such a deep veiiu I am not sure," he added, "but it was a subtle suggestion of thrs dark blue one, just here," laughing and outlining the current on her arm. " No, don't change the subject," she pleaded, reso- lutely. " I have often thought about it myself, but I get perplexed with the intricacies of the great question of art as a useful factor in human lives ; GATE OF " THE SAINTS* ItEST." 215 honestly there comes over me, sometimes with over- whelming power, a feeling that nothing is right, no action worthy, but direct immediate contact with human worry and human suffering " " ' How can they sing and paint when they do not see and know?' is the pathetic wail from Carlyle's great, burdened heart," he interrupted. " Perhaps," he added, gracefully, " it will be your mission to be a reformer or philanthropist. There is undoubtedly a good germ within you but the time is not yet," he continued, thoughtfully. "Carlyle's denounced field of painting and singing is just now open for you, and you are just now equipped for the sallying in it and exploring of it. That way Provi- dence leads we must do the duty lying next us, you know the path is clear. Sometime your Leader may open up a nobler field, but, I think " and lie turned as they were walking, drew the arm within his own more closely (attracting her glance), and regarded her steadfastly as he said, with an intensity of meaning in his deep clear gaze: U I think there's something to come first." " Something more ! " Elise gasped in an awe- stricken whisper, for she was unaccountably wrought up by the fascination of his manner. Then rallying: "What more can come? And will it break my heart?" she said, in an arch, airy way. "It seems to me, Mr. Earle, that 1 have gone through everything yes, everything ! " " There remains another threshold to cross," he said, with quiet pathos. Elise was consciously subdued, and they walked on in silence. " I suppose it will come in April then," she said at length demurely. " My destiny hinges on those two points, October and April." "The time is immaterial," he replied, "if one is only ready when the gate swings, so as to step aside and not get jarred." As they were at the moment about to enter the oifl THE OPAL QUEEN. gate of " The Saints' Rest," he gently drew her one side, and she said with winning sweetness, all uncon- scious of the deep significance to him : " If 3'ou are only there to give me the same assist- ance, I may possibly escape." " I expect to be there ! " he replied in the same gravely pathetic tone. There was a fascination in this mystery of language and deportment that gave Channing a new interest to Elise. She wondered if it had not assumed a magnified importance, as she tossed restlessly that night, still under his spell, reviewing his looks and his words, and pushing out vain inquiries of his' probable meaning. What was the solution of the prophetic utterance ? The solemnity of his manner forbade questioning at the time, and led to vague suspicions that in some way it was connected with herself and him. But just how he could be the sanctifying cross to her soul, she failed to comprehend. But while it was not possible to come to a satisfactory conclusion, she was conscious of a quickened pulse when he was asso- ciated with her thoughts, and wondered secretly if she was feeling the buddings of a genuine, ideal love, such as she had dreamed of and still believed attain- able even on this mortal sphere. The sweet thought soothed her, and she forgot for the moment the dread- ful cross that overshadowed it, spreading out baleful arms to enclose her even while the sunlight of love was bathing her head. And when the thought did obtrude itself, she said cheerily: "Ah! lie shall be a false prophet. Nothing any worse can happen, and my buoyancy will survive the perils." Channing's treatment of Elise had been unre- strained and full of a certain cordial sympathy, ever since the reverses; it had intensified at that critical moment, and she conceived it as representing the general feeling towards her, and symbolic of a deep- ened friendship, and when it continued without in- GATE OF " THE SAINTS' REST. 1 " 217 terruption and abatement, she still attributed it to the same motive, and did not look for the larger in- terpretation. He felt the disadvantage of this. He was con- scious that Elise regarded him only as a warm friend and counsellor. Yes, he was glad to admit that she honored him with that proof of regard and he had been vainly hoping, for a time, that some accident might impress upon her the deeper coloring of the tone of his friendship. He found himself wondering if she was perversely blind and then blamed himself for the suspicion, because he knew well her transparent truthfulness. Half the girls in the village would have interpreted his attentions favorably to themselves under the same circumstances, and counted it an implied engagement. But Elise was so intrinsically unsuspicious that he was puzzled to know how to awaken her. Absence, after unremitting attentions, might reveal to her his love, but he was not ready to absent himself without a pledge of her troth. And to precipitate a proposal no\v would be fatal to his hopes. He had gained by this little maneuver, which sprang out of the subject, and was with no intent of his a diplomatic feat, but nevertheless the fruits of a skilful policy accrued to him. He perceived that she was more gently deferent to his wishes, if that were possible, even quietly antici- pated them ; not that there had been any perceptible lack before, but now there was a touch of that inex- pressible something, that mysterious witchery of a softened manner that an awakening love infuses. The elegant deportment steadied a little, the articu- late gayety balanced more evenly in his presence. "Ah ! ' he said, in a transport of happiness as he watched these growing symptoms, "am I indeed her master, and can I give her rest?" and then was in a whirl of alarm, lest the next day or the next might dispel the rosy illusion and leave him a handful of ashes instead of a living love. 218 THE OPAL He had wisely pondered the whole subject in the long period of his discipline ; for more than a year now the weary, rushing strain had been endured, with its ebbs and its flows, audits long, long sinking in a sea so deep he meant to submerge it forever. And he was wisely ready to seize his prize when he could see the white flag of surrender. That it was possible for him to win her had never been admitted to doubt. The sunken fortune re- moved, there could be no barrier to his suit, if there had been one because that Elise was not affected by the visible sign of wealth and pageantry was as clear as the noonday sun ; that she leaned not one iota from the perpendicular of independence in a cringing servility to rank and so-called aristocracy, was equally clear she was as likely to salute with unqualified sweetness of deportment her chimney- sweep, as the Professor, Bridget Flinn, as Her Grace the Countess of Stockbridge. She seemed to see none of those subtle distinctions which create a Chinese wall around the contracted dominions of pigmy upstarts and shoddy Lilliputs. That his chances for her favor were as great before her reverses as now, he well knew, for he was aware that she never sought fortune in a lover but there might be a shade more of embarrassment attending a present suitor, as failure in the one decision would insure more caution in the next. But he was encouraged when he made the quiet discovery, that she would never wed until she felt the deep responsive " Amen " in her heart, and he was absorbed in the all-engrossing pursuit of awaken- ing it by mastering its vibrations. There should be nothing suggestive of a bargain or compact a " just because, you know," motive was all-sufficient to account for this sweet, inevitable happening that comes in perfection but once in a life-time. THE SURPRISE. 219 CHAPTER XXIV\ THE SURPRISE. UNDER her pall of sorrow, Elise was glad to avail herself of the relief which etiquette afforded of escap- ing from miscellaneous visits and the "madding crowd," and the connecting dwellings (with visits to Gain) were the theatre of the winter's quiet social life. In the "palace " there were delightful voluntaries from Lilian, who skipped through La Galerie de la Reine at all hours, "just to break up the train of morbid action," she said ; and melodramatic farces from the doctor, with impromptus from Channing in both houses. Elise was so full of her plans and projects, which were maturing fairly every day, that their talk dur- ing Channing a visits was spiced not unfrequently with business hints and outlooks. Now and then, in the long winter evenings, he would bring a choice bit of reading as an accompaniment to the silent melody of her embroidery-sphere, as she sat in it enthroned. Evenings so full of the rich lights of their fancy on the strong masonry of their enlight- ened knowledge were fitly framing, and silently, mys- teriously perhaps unconsciously enclosing them, in a little ideal home of their own. To Channing there was a recognized sense of a reciprocal joy to Elise, only a vague, bewildering dreaminess. And so with only a qualified security in his coveted situ- ation, he was yet established as a friend than whom none was more welcome, none more prized. But, 220 THE OPAL QIESN. when a passionate impulse would urge him to gain from her the irrevocable "yes," by the avowal of his love, his calmer judgment held him back. " Not yet! Not yet ! " was his cautionary protest. "The guns must be dismantled and i he flag Hying from the staff in a breeze from heaven ! " But it was a delay fraught with peril. Masked foes were still lurking round the fort, his redoubtable enemy priming for a renewed charge. With the situation thus nearly mastered, the vic- tory almost within grasp, judge his mingled feel- ings of chagrin, despair, and horror upon seeing Dres- son one evening in that same library, in the very chair that was his by the right of constant use, by the same table, under the same lights and she in her embroidery-sphere all calm and peaceful! If a thunderbolt had struck him if the earth had opened at his feet, the shock could not have been more keen to his wrenched soul. He stood a moment in the open doorway, partially concealed by the portiere, as if to satisfy himself that it was not an optical illusion, and that his dreaded rival was indeed the veritable flesh-and-blood Dresson. Elise dropped her work and advanced with both hands extended to meet him. The dismal operation of exchanging salutations was concluded between the two rivals with tragic stiffness and brevity. Channing, who had in the whole course of this affair "be'en fitting prudence to principle with won- derful skill and manliiress," was struck with astonish- ment mingled with disdain at the unparalleled impu- dence of this intruder the scandalous traitor who had involved in the hardest of all life's tragedies the woman he loved. He remained standing, outraged at the indecency of the transaction with kindling eye and rigid form, the very picture of calm, indignant protest against cowardly audacity in the peu;on of Dresson. At Elise's renewed invitation, lie took a chair, but TILE SURPRISE. 221 almost bounded with violence to his feet at the inner suggested thought: "She may have called him hither, or granted him the interview in accordance with his expressed wish ! Perhaps I am intruding they may even now be discussing the practicability of a renewed engage- ment." Chami ing's high views of honor precluded the idea of an interview on any grounds lower than confession of wrong and apology for it the possibility of an impromptu social call or visit was not even shadowed in his mind. He to whom existence now would be a long de- spair unshared by Elise could easily admit as a fore- gone conclusion that Dresson had long since regretted the rash termination of the formal engagement whose sudden finale he had himself courted and pre- cipitated and why should he not make an effort to retake the prize? Why not? he repeated in a daze. He felt paralyzed with the thought, for somehow the horrible phantasm that had overshadowed him so long, in the face of this presence became a sudden and terrible reality.' He saw it now as it had been ; and since he had himself secured no exclusive right of entrance here, why should there not be another bold stroke on the part of this quondam suitor that would insure a victory right before his hoping eyes and outstretched hand ? Why not? He was hot and he was cold. He asked himself why he did not go quit the scene forever, and meddle no more with the beautiful but frail and fickle bits of mortality labelled the fair sex. The stroke had fallen first on himself. He sat with averted face and downcast eye, the victim of this swirl of tempestuous upheavals of forebodings and reproaches, thinking only of himself ; but as the hot breath of the sirocco swept by him for an instant, he glanced at Elise. Had she no such thoughts, no implacable feelings of resentment? What she had, she was magnanimously suppressing. He looked 222 THE OPAL QUEEN. again, and perceived a certain timidity gracefully held in check, and a quietly alert look, which had also a "certain victorious character in it as of a long post- poned triumph " that took off the edge of his bitter- ness and challenged him to a division of the misery. It pained while it comforted him, but he suppressed his rapidly forming battalions of inaudible invective, and was no longer exclusively engrossed in him- self. Bresson's monologue, only interrupted by the short and formal episode of greeting, was steadily flowing on, while Channing was silently taking these obser- vations, and a glance now from Elise as she raised her eyes to his, in an abandon of simple, loyal trust, disarmed the critical censures on his lips for utter- ance, gave him an assurance of an unmixed confidence, and pointed an example for his following. If she could so gloriously efface herself and distinguish her visi- tor with heroically courteous, even amiable, treatment, could not he assist in the little drama? She who " rallied so easily and veiled her miseries always," she, his heart's idol, should not be unchampioned in the pitif nl struggle of speech with a treacherous lover. His contribution to the various talk on indifferent matters was choice but sparing. " There's no place like this, you'll find, in our coun- try, in the early spring," Dresson was saying smoothly. " I barely tolerated life with those beastly March winds flying from the caves of all the winds in the dominions of Eolus, don't you know. Now here I dare say 3^011 had it quite charming ; it's really remarkable when you look at it, now isn't it?" "Find me a place untouched by unfriendly March winds, and I'll find you heaven or some place out- side this sphere," said Channing, with a grim smile. " Why, even in Rome," said Elise, " the winds sweep terribly sometimes, and if you happen to be on the Campagna well, you'd wish you hadn't, that's all," she said, laughing. " They play at hide-and-seek around the ruins and your draperies and carriage- THE SUMP RISE. 223 furnishings, without the slightest regard to the pro- prieties or the reputation of the city fur aesthetic elegance par excellence" " I gathered some clerodendron for you to-day, Miss Elise," Channing remarked after a slight, unvo- calized pause, " but stupidly forgot to bring it. You shall have it by the first post in the morning." Elise thought she should sink into the ground or faint away. Only a year ago the sweet petals were all fragrant with what she fancied an undying love, and here sat the perjured giver the love all abjured now and dead had he come to its burial, this airy deceiver who had lightly broken every vow? She paused so long that the gently intoned " thanks " were scarcely heard, as, with head bent low, she kept up the little fiction of industry. " Your Festival is to come off soon, I hear," said Dresson. " Next week," replied Channing, curtly. " My cousin wrote me that the various costumes of Artemis were to be represented, and I thought it quite worth while to take a run down here and see how you handle it. ^Esthetic affair, no doubt," lie said, rising, " with its pictorial character and the pictur- esque sceifrery of grotto and glen. I understand it is to be here ? ' 1 he said, with a rising inflection of in- quiry, turning to Elise. " So the Fairies have kindly decreed, Mr. Dresson," said Elise, with her old composure. k ' The girls have taken it in hand, and the Opal League knows no such word as fail," she continued, with a subdued triumph in her voice and air. " Ha! " he exclaimed, "I heard about that. Quite clever in them, now, to think of it, don't you know." " Will you join our festivities, Mr. Dresson ? Since we are only fictitious Greeks, we may invite our little barbarians," she added, playfully. " A random shot with a poisoned arrow," thought Channing, "if his superabundant conceit would only permit him to see it." 224 THE OPAL QUEEN. Chunning was distracted between doubt and longing. "Not now ! " he said again to himself, when urged by the almost irresistible impulse to settle his fate. " Not now ! when she has been so wrought upon with the strain of this interview." And as she gave him no hint of the meaning of this visit, said no word of the visitor, he interpreted her reticence un- favorably to himself But he forgot that this had always been a forbidden ground by tacit consent, and that it would cost her much, to-night of all times, to step over the border. Ah! could he but have known the quickened throbbings of the heart waiting for the rest after the struggle, he would have put out strong arms to stay its trembling. He waited and was constrained and distant. Elise was nervously polite, daintily sweet, but she gave him no hint of her feelings, and he went away perplexed, mystified, and out of sorts. That night Elise thought : " There is nothing in it. If ever man loved a woman, he would tell her so when she was so hunted and persecuted. I'll rise above the whole thing. He had a chance to take me fairly and he squandered it ! " "Well, it is all right," she said, defensively, "he is too young. If it should come to the point, I should have to refuse him on that very ground. ' r In the home of Elise's childhood, there was a married couple who were a by-word and a reproach, on account of their private and public bickerings. Their life was a travesty upon matrimony patent to all the village. As Elise grew, the childish impres- sion strengthened, that the cause of their unhappiness was due to the fact that the woman had the advan- tage in years. It was a strange freak of her well- balanced mind, that she should accept this youthful decision as infallible, without appealing to the courts of reason. Hence she was filled with a determination, amounting almost to a mania, never to be the senior THE SURPRISE. 225 in years, even, by so much as a mon.th, when she mar- ried. This picture now confronted her, and tormented her with the memory of previous resolutions. Her refined instincts and those keen perceptions which are an unfailing guide in a true woman's heart told her that at last she had found her ideal, and she sighed when she knew that it could never be hers. " Oh, dear ! " she thought. " This has all been so spontaneous that I haven't been thinking about the if s and but's and maybe's but now I must let me see." " May it not have been the same with that couple," she asked herself, "if the years had been reversed? Are there, then, no unhappy marriages, no signs of incompatibility, where the ratio is at the regulation figure?" " Oh ! I don't know ! How my head aches ! " she said, pressing her hands upon her forehead. Still the sweet possibility would return again and again. " I'm glad I didn't let myself love him as much as I wanted to; there's nothing like holding the fort ! " But she threw herself upon the sofa in a kind of desperation. Half reclining, she closed her eyes, and lay dreamily watching the rising glare of the flickering inner lights. A forgotten picture arose in the still- ness. She was in the enchanting vale of Rousely, that classic nook holding two of England's crowning treasure-houses Chatsworlh House and Haddon Hall. She Avas walking with a friend through the streets of the secluded village, pleased Avith the neatly thatched cottages and their trim gardens of flowers. She remembered her visit to one of these cottages, through the introduction of what was to her a novel sight a warming-pan which they descried on the wall as they were passing the open door. She remem- bered well the tableaux presented as they entered : the uncovered stone floor, the scrupulous cleanliness, the 226 THE. OPAL QUEEN. deaf old woman's. sweet, chastened face and manner, as she ironed at her board, or stooped to lift from the oven the rich brown loaves the man's wan and pa- tient look as he lay upon the couch of suffering, and her companion's remark : " Is this your wife ? she looks much older than you." Then she remembered, too, the pathetic reply as he looked fondly, with tears in his eyes, at the bent figure plying the iron, and the tender smile as he said : " She's been a glide wife to me a very gude wife to me." And the repetition sounded like the refrain of some sweet melody to Elise, who thought dreamily : " He might have the sciatica, and that would be lovely, for I could help and comfort him ! But he has been so is, so very deliberate can he truly love me ? But perhaps it is this very problem he is studying over." " Marriage is an apotheosis," she mused, " beauti- ful in its processes if you begin in the twenties. I am not in the thirties, to be sure, but not so very far off. I am afraid it will never do. Could he endure to see me after a while in caps and spectacles? To be sure, old ladies don't wear caps now, and puffs would not be so bad but then there would be the crow's-feet, and the wrinkles, and oh, it would never do! For if he should love me for twenty years, and then look up suddenly some morning at the break- fast-table and think, ' How old and faded she is ! ' and be sorry that he ever did it, I should never get -over it never! I should want to die that minute. Oh ! I don't know," she said, pressing her beating temples. " But I must know! Yes, I think I must settle it for both of us ; " and she felt as though she had dropped into a great, cold, empty gulf. "And perhaps after all men are so variable- he isn't intending to ask me," she mused in the shivering vacuum, and rose through her pride about a foot from the bottom. " Well, let it go. It's all the result of my vivid imagination! (rising still THE SURPRISE. 227 higher). Sic transit gloria mundi! And this is yes, it is April ! So be it. Drop the curtain. Put out the lights ! Write finis at the end of this chapter, for the book is closed. The next will be the autobi- ography of the charming old maid, Elise Archer ! " It seemed long to Bertha, who sat waiting up- stairs and wondering what detained her mistress, since the last footstep had crossed the outer threshold, and she at last decided to steal quietly down and un- ravel the mystery. Elise's arms, bare to her elbow, the rich drapery floating from them, were clasped above her shining head as she lay there, pale and motionless. Struck by the unusual pallor, Bertha softly drew nearer. Kneeling down by the side of the dreamer, she marked her quick, heavy breathing, but was un- certain what to do. "But, somehow, I can't help thinking it is sad so very sad ! " (and dropped again to the bottom of the gulf), Elise was saying at this moment, and her lips moved, but Bertha caught no sound. " And it is also April ! " she still mused. " Well, I must make the best of it ! " And sighing deeply, she opened her eyes, and fixed them upon Bertha, still without moving and without surprise at her presence. " I was afraid you might be sick, my lady, and so I came to see, and to tell you it is very late. I am afraid I disturbed your sleeping." " I was not asleep, Bertha. I was was (rising to her feet) only sky-sweeping, Bertha." Bertha missed the accustomed lightness of tone and manner, and wondered what fresh specks had come over her mistress's sky, that she was so intent on brushing away. 228 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XXV. CHANNING'S FORTUNE. " She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace, And she forgave me that I gazed Too fondly on her face." Coleridge. CHANNING was late to breakfast the next morn- ing. Superba generously indulged him in morning naps, declaring that owls must get a sound sleep Borne time or they'd be blinking all day. This bird was her favorite symbol for Charming when she descended to earth for comparisons whose wisdom was her hourly pride ; and when with garrulous fond- ness she would expatiate on this theme, with Gran's approving nods and smiles as an accompaniment, Pater would declare there was one kind of wisdom that he hadn't even learnt the rudiments of. And when they would each time look at him with a dumb surprise, he would enunciate, deliberately and sagely, " The wisdom of moderation ! " "There seems to be no end to his writing. Last night it was morning several hours before the light was out," asserted the watchful Pater, with a sub- lime disregard of the accepted canons of time. " That's the way to grow famous ! " chuckled Su- perba, in whose mind learning was inseparably con- nected with the midnight oil. " A good way to start a funeral," grunted Pater. " And it is my opinion that he must be interviewed on the subject." The occasions were extremely rare when this mild remedy was even proposed for the son's deviation from Pater's standard of rectitude. CHANNING' S FORTUNE. 229 " Oil ! let him be, dear, it'll all come out right, you'll see ! " Upon this assurance from one of the " saints," Pater would quietly drop into calm toleration of the inevitable, and the "cherub" would pursue his un- biased way, unadmonished. This morning the post had brought them the in- telligence of Mr. Earle's brother's death a bachelor with a handsome fortune, of which Channing was sole heir. They were sitting still at various distances from the partly dismantled board, engaged in a quiet re- view of the solemn circumstances, when Channing appeared. "Sad news, my son," said Mr. Earle, "from Anan- tou ! " "Has anything happened to my uncle?" asked Channing quickly, still standing, consciously affected by the mysterious presence of the unspoken sorrow around him. " A happening that comes to all, my child," said Gran, "but I didn't think he would get it before these old bones." " Ah ! so soon ? " replied Channing, with visibly suppressed emotion, for this was his favorite uncle, for whom he was named. When the first pangs of natural grief had sub- sided, Channing was conscious that this bereavement since it was to come was not to him an unmixed sorrow, for the sweet thought would intrude that now he could be on his coveted footing for a pro- posal to Miss Archer. He beheld the dreary years of waiting (if she should be propitious) vanish into the distant background, forever hidden from sight, and himself in the sunlighted foreground crowned with a glorious hope. " So that's the result of the conspiracy the fair marplots have been hatching in aesthetic boudoirs!" exclaimed Channing, as Elise held up before him the Greek costume the Opal League had finished for her. 230 THE OPAL QUEEN. " That is, one of them," she replied. " The strategy and finesse of women when they undertake a season's campaign of pleasure would be beyond credence," he observed, " if it wasn't so com- mon. What shall I say about it? "he continued, as she still stood as though she was expecting more admiration and enthusiasm. "I am sure it's the correct thing (and he smiled as he thought of Dresson), also very recherch, very distingue, is it not ? probably also very becoming but that we can tell later on." " It is everything lovely ! " Elise admitted, with an accent of affection. " There are eight of them, and each one has left her indelible picture right here," she added, reflec- tively, passing her hands in graceful movement over the dress. " The dear fingers plying the skillful needle for me, isn't it sweet? Why, this suit is a rich treasury of love. When I shook out the folds they sent it in a beautiful box, all ribboned as nicely as if it had came from Worth's I felt for the instant very much as David did, I do believe, when he wouldn't drink the water his chieftains brought, got at the hazard of their lives, from the dear old well of his childhood. It was too precious, too much a part of their sweet lives, with the fragrant sympathy breathing all through it, for common use. It was consecrated by their de- votion, and I just felt like hanging it up, and looking at it for a souvenir and a talisman do you under- stand ?" she asked, looking jip at him. He nodded, and she went on : " Do you wonder that every little daisy is a love message, and every lily-bell holds the gold of true affection ? " " I mean to monopolize you, Miss Archer, on the day you christen it," he said, after having engaged her for the Festival " I give 3 r ou fair warning." Elise laughed. " Have you taken out a patent? " she inquired, archly. " I am about to file my petition," he replied, with a CHANNING' S FORTUNE. 231 delicious gravity, " before the proper court, on or before that day I am at work o-n my papers now." When Channing looked at her just that way, with a deep, tender gaze, Elise never knew quite what to think or say.. It seemed to jostle her mental equi- librium, oppress her, too, with the uncomfortable sense that lie inwardily enjoyed her confusion and even sought to produce it. " Can I assist you ? " she said playfully, and im- mediately knew that it was a very foolish speech, and would gladly have fled from the room. Her heart was beating, her color was rising in great surges from neck to brow. She could not bear the intensity of that gaze it was charming her she would break away from it. "Excuse me, "she said hastily, turning to the door, " wasn't that Bertha calling me ? " But he gently arrested her. " I am calling you now, Miss Elise. Will you listen to me ? " He resumed his seat, and placed a low chair for her opposite his own. She looked up at him with an inquiring smile, and he said : " And first, as preliminary, am I to understand that I have a rival in Dresson ? " Elise instantly felt that he had no right to such inquiry without first apprising her of his own inten- tions and then as confidently recognized it as a tacit avowal of his position. It was hard to push her so close on so sore a theme, and Channing, anxious to save himself the mortification of defeat, had committed the blunder of apparent encroachment upon her secrets. It was direct, it was blunt, it was also crucial in his view of the case. It was a sudden descent from bewildering hope to flat negations, but she could not resent it, with those pleading eyes still fixed upon her and the rich full tone that could not'conceal its inner meaning lingering in her ear. 232 THE OPAL QUEEN. It was but a second that she paused, but to Chan- ning it seemed an eternity. "In failure?" she asked, with a nervous sweet- ness. " I know him in no other role."" But Channing did not speak. " I never intend to know him in any other," she continued, with a mild but lofty decision. " Thank you," he said, inspiring a deep breath. He folded his arms and turned fully around, confronting her with an unflinching gaze. "I have been addressing a certain Miss Archer for some months now," he said meditatively. " 1 wish to ask her if she is willing to be my wife." He spoke witli measured emphasis, every word clear cut, firm, vigorous, palpitating in what seemed an ocean of space. At first Elise had not quailed under the steady blaze of those orbs that seemed to penetrate the secrets of her soul ; but at length, bewildered by their depth and power, she slowly turned her head, her eyes away a sudden paleness swept over her face. She wasiji a tumult of emotion. A master-hand had touched the chords at last, and she was all a-throb with the music's deep vibrations. But she could not speak ; she was distracted too, by the faint low rumblings of the hollow tones of doubt in a deep undertone. " Do you not know that I love you ? " he urged fondly. "Will you not look at me? Will you not speak one word of encouragement?" She knew it all now she felt it all now ! Knew it as in a dream felt it as in a spell. His low, pleading fervor sank into her very soul ; a delicious thrill ran through her frame. She felt the magnetism of that riveted gaze, the magic of that heartfelt utterance, the pathos of that sweet appeal. Her gentle spirit swayed like a struck pendulum ; an all- compelling love was subduing her, was absorbing her. But what could she do? Had she not resolved? Should the struggle of years go for naught ? CHAN N ING'S FORTUNE. 233 While all this was rushing through her brain, she heard Channing's voice once more, for her eyes were cast down, she could neither answer nor receive that maddening gaze. " Oh ! " he said, rising, " I see that you think my wish presumptuous ! " His eyes were fixed upon the moonlight-flooded balcony. He stepped mechani- cally forward outside the open door. Elise irresistibly followed, filled with a strange unrest. She must answer him. Was he offended ? He had honored her above all women. Did he not understand that she prized the gift even it' she could not accept the giver? These were her perplexities as they stood in the moonlight together. But she must answer him. Every moment's delay was a sharp torture. She laid her hand gently on his arm, for he was looking outward, apparently without a thought of the fair being beside him. " Mr. Eaiie," she said, with touching gentleness, "it is my misfortune rather than my fault that com- pels me to refuse "she caught her breath quickly "to grant your wish. I think my meaning is not unknown to you ? " she pleaded, inquiringly. " But shall a few years more or less separate loving hearts? Oh! cannot you see that if the delicate fibers of the spirit intertwine, there is life and peace ? Can yon not understand that love is a passion of the soul a thing of affinities and not of definitions or mathematics? Only say," he added tenderly, "that you love me, and I think I can convince you that your theory is wrong." " You know I have made one mistake," she said sadly. Then observing Channing's pained, puzzled look, she said, with grave simplicity : " Love is not a thing of mathematics, it is true, but ,love enjoys the proper results of the rules of proportion, does he not? Love is not a thing of defini- tions, I acknowledge, and yet Love's vocabulary is 234 THE OPAL QUEEN. full of 'ardor,' 'fire,' ' zeal,' 'enthusiasm,' all choice passions of youth, is it not so ? " Charming did not reply. " Mr. Earle," she said, ' I am not ready to say what it would no doubt please you to hear, but I am willing to say this " She touched his arm to recall his attention to her- self, for he was abstractedly gazing at the moon- lighted shrubbery. " My thought is all for you ; it is for you that I fear ! " While she spoke, the moonbeams were clothing her as with a garment. Her form of airy grace was almost etherealized by her snowy drapery, and their weird silver light, and her face, bathed in their full effulgence as she raised her eyes to his, had an ineffa- ble charm and intensified beauty in the mingled sad- ness and serenity which marked every lineament, that he never, never forgot. Ho\v the fair picture haunted him in one short year ! " And was this last utterance a grain of hope ? this chance bit of negation and did she mean it so ? " he asked himself. With guarded calmness and all his usual studied politeness he said : " I have kept you too long standing, Miss Archer; permit me to seat you and shawl you. " There now ! " he added, placing himself by her side, " let us talk about this thing sensibly. I would not do you the injustice, Miss Archer, of thinking you unwilling to be convinced, and if you will allow me the privilege of trying, I hope to.be able to con- vert you to my views. And I have strong reasons for believing it possible," he added, as he so beheld the rising doubt on her face, " because," he hesitated for the statement would be an admission, "because I have convinced myself." " You think, then," said Elise, quick to discover the assailable point, " that yours is the highest court- CU 'ANN ING'S FORTUNE. 235 of-appeal, and the case having been decided in it, all under-courts must yield to its authority. "But without jesting," for she saw Channing looked pained, " I will certainly grant you both the privilege and the opportunity is it too late to-night?" she said, glancing at the stars "and -I Avill not be at all displeased," she added, archly, " to be con- verted to your views, provided you do not use any unlawful means such as sorcery, magnetism, not even poetry,"she said, smiling, " for that captivates the senses you know but only pure, sound argument." " Very, well," he said, " I am to have the floor, remember " And I am to be both judge and jury," Elise interrupted. " Correct," said Channing, " and also the counsel for the defendant multum in parvo, truly! Behold my chivalry ! But in spite of all fourteen of you, I expect to win my case." Elise laughed at this sally, and assured him that a determination to win was more than half the battle. "But I warn you," she said, gayly, "that we are fourteen very what shall I say ? not obstinate individuals, but a consolidated firm of firmness, as it were." " But now, seriously, Miss Archer, it is my opinion that true love is not affected by age." " I have been accustomed to think of Love as some- thing so much divine as to be perfect from the begin- ning of its existence," she remarked. " Genuine love may be perfect in kind, but not in degree. What passes for love-at-first-sight is often only fascination. " I suppose," he continued meditatively, " I ought to give you some examples of happy married life where there was this disparity of years which is to you such a bugbear. There is no proof better than experience. History furnishes many. In private life you may have known some instances Elise gave a little start, and began to say that un- 236 THE OPAL QUEEN. fortunately she knew one unhappy case, when Chan- ning waved her into silence, saying : " I see I must protect my own rights, for even the judge has no call to speak at present, and certainly not the prisoner or the opposing counsel. " Of course," he continued," there are marriages that will stand for types of the rest. I happen to know one, and well, their fireside happiness is the real, genuine stuff just what ours would be, I 'imagine," lie added, tenderly, " for are not our opinions, tastes, desires and aims, in the main, the same ? And not only so, is there not, in our case, unity of purpose in things spiritual and divine? Is it possible to lay firmer foundation than this for true, deep, all-abiding love?" He -spoke with the fervid eloquence of feeling, and paused from its very intensity. ''If we were only angels " Elise breathed so low that it was scarcely audible " but " Oh ! Elise ! let us have no more buts-f This sense- less doubting maddens me," and he rose in a sort of frenzy. " Have you not reason ? Is it not clear to your comprehension? Cannot But pardon me, I have been rude. What would you say, Miss Archer ? " Elise's color rose at this little whiff of authority, but since it was the impatience of love, she could not resent it, and so as they paced the balcony floor, she replied, doubtfully, naively waiving the but : " Man's love is not considered as lasting as woman's, I think." "It is all a base slander," he replied. "Love is divine and knows no sex. A true man's love for his wife, a true man's love for his child, granting even the exalted character of a mother's love, is as deep, pure, and eternal as a woman's. If a man set his heart on beauty, a fair form, fine features, rich dress, and stylish belongings, he must expect to be disappointed. If a man allows the blandish- ments of the fair sex to ensnare him, lie must ex- pect disappointment. Or if a man thinks only of CHANN ING'S FORTUNE. 237 getting money or position or social influence or business prosperity with a wife, he is sure to be dis- appointed. If he build upon anything -and the motives are legion that induce men to marry but heart attractions, mental worth, and moral graces, he must obviously have a short-lived love. Why, he builds upon the shifting sands. How can he expect permanence ? I find no mixed motive in my love for you ; it is clear, sharp, well defined." " Mr. Eaiie," said Elise, looking upon the floor as they slowly paced along, " I believe I am convinced any way, almost" She looked up at him and seemed about to speak, but paused. " Another dreadful but, I see ! " Channing said, kindly, enjoying her confusion. Thus reassured, she said, timidly : "Don't you think the world will disapprove will laugh at us ? " Instinctively perceiving that this was the last arrow from the quiver of the defense, Channing laughed heartily as he replied, drawing her arm more closely within his own: " Do we marry the world, Elise ? Is the world to feast at our board and lounge in our slippers and sit in our chimney-corner? Is it the world," he added, tenderly, "that will sit beside the evening lamp with me and drone over Tennyson, Keats, and Browning, or flash over Hamilton and Cook? The world has a horny bad finger, that it shakes sometimes in the face of good deeds, but if we care to view our own affairs from the standpoint of the world, we shall in- volve ourselves in perpetual entanglements inextri- cable confusion. It is possible to act in such a way as to compel the world's approval. This .1 expect our mutual devotion will accomplish. But if not, the approval of conscience and the smile of God ought to be enough for any well-regulated mind." He was quietly watching for the white flag of sur- render, but seeing no signs now, he cried with a sudden, fierce emphasis : 238 fttE OPAL QUEEN. " Oh, Elise ! } r our reason is almost upset with your ogres of the world, the flesh, and the devil ! " Elise, startled, withdrew her arm and stood silently legiirding him. " Forgive me," he said, " for my rash speech ; but really," he added with warmth, " I do believe all these temptations are from his Satanic majesty, and the sooner you say, ' Get thee behind me ! ' why, the sooner" he was opposite her now, and looking upon her face with a piercing tenderness "you will be ready to come to your rest," and he folded his arms upon his breast. " But after all, Elise, we do not need argument in such a case as this. I would much prefer to have the answer of your heart. Let your heart answer; I will abide by that issue." If there had been sophistry anywhere in his plead- ings, Elise was in such a sweet, bewildering dream she found it impossible to discover it and what was more, she did not care to be undeceived. She felt like floating away on this delicious sea forever she was among the lotus leaves, and the subtle odor penetrated every fibre of her being. " My darling ! " said Channing, and paused for coming towards them, pale and trembling, was Mrs. Healey with a folded paper in her hands. Elise sprang towards her : " What has happened, Lily?" Airs. Healey handed her the telegram, requesting the Doctor's immediate presence with Mrs. Healey and Elise on account of the sudden and alarming illness of Mr. Gray, Lilian's brother. " We must go at once, Doctor says, Elise. Can I help you in the packing?" " My dear uncle," was all Elise could say, winding her arms about Mrs. Healey. Then, extending her hand to Channing for a good-night's token, they entered the house together. Elise and Mrs. Healey were busy together until long after midnight, and when at last her thoughts CUAXNIN&S FORTUN&. 239 turned to Charming, she remembered that she had given him no definite answer. So she reopened her trunk and withdrew her escritoire. She arranged her materials, she inked her pen, she thought, she waited she could not begin. But at last, after manifold hesitations and multifari- ous condemned scribblings, she indited the following note and left it with Bertha for delivery : "I am sorry to leave without seeing you again, Mr. Eaiie, but this sudden news compels us to fly in the early morning. " The answer from my heart, dearest of friends, which you thought you would like, might be the cause of an endless misery for both of us might be at the expense of your future happiness. I would fain plead for a delay of my decision, until the love you offer me has been tested by time and absence and a wider acquaintance with the charming ones of my sex. " Do not write to me. But if after all, in a year, a month and a day, your heart remains unchanged, come to one who is now and will then be without reserve, " Yours only, " ELISE." 240 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XXVI. ELISE RETURNS. " Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls ; But the dreams depart and the vision falls And the sleeper wakes on the pillow of stone." J. G. Holland. MR. GRAY'S illness proved fatal, and thus one more link in the chain of loving helpfulness was dropped out of Elise's life. After some weeks of soothing ministries to her stricken aunt weeks precious and hallowed with the sweet and oft-spoken memories of the dear departed Elise returned to Brentville. Bertha had preceded her, and the Opal League was waiting in her own house to receive her. How sweet it was, this intertwining of arms and souls in a wel- come whose cordiality was gently subdued by the mute, eloquent appeal of the mourning robes! "It has been an age ! " was Minnie Love's original remark as she nestled close to her Queen. "Say a millennium and include us all," said Miss Smart. Nothing has happened here worth the record ; not a soul of us has dared to love or be loved, flirt or be flirted. The Monboddoes have given us up for invincible stupids, and gone over the ' Border ' for their fun, and Florence Burice is waiting to have you sanction the beau she caught in Shoredam which rapidly announced budget was interrupted by a shyly protesting : " Now, Ginnie ! " from the blonde beauty. " Mr. Earle went to Europe soon after you left did you know it, Elise ? " inquired Miss St. John ELISE RETURNS. 241 Elise changed color and replied in the negative " and has been traveling in Italy and Switzerland ever since. Then perhaps you haven't heard he is going to the school of mines in Freiberg, to perfect himself in civil engineering? He had such a tingling in his bones for a mathematical career, that his father consented at last for him to acquire this profession and then choose between the two." "Authorship or civil engineering, do you mean, Marie?" inquired Elise. "Precisely. I imagine," she said in a confidential tone, "that it cost Mrs. Earle some tears just to con- sent to the mere supposition of an alternative, for you know she has set her heart upon Channing's following in the line of his illustrious ancestors." " And what a pity it would be," said Gene vie ve Tete, " to have a break why, he makes the fifth in the lineage of authors. I am quite sure if I was his mother it would break my heart." " Well," said Miss Smart, consolingly, " there'll be no breaks of any kind; according to my notion. Jn the first place, he has a talent for writing that's everything. And in the next place, lie has acquired the practice that's considerable. And in the third place " "Now just hold on a bit, can't you?" she ex- claimed, as they uttered protesting cries that it wasn't speech-day, and somebody else wanted to talk, and other pretty little aggravations. " I haven't come to sixthly yet ! What a mercurial audience I have, to be sure ! " " In the third place," she continued, " lie has a fortune now, and I don't blame him for wishing to be sure that his career is in the line of his tastes, for he can try both and take his choice. I think he is very wise." "Why, when," said Elise, "did the wheel of Fortune empty something into his lap ? I hadn't heard it. That's good news, I am sure." " Oh, yes," said Miss Bunce, " his uncle died and 242 THE OPAL QVEEN. left him fifty thousand and the old homestead, and Gran says that if they are willing and the Lord is willing, she'd like to die in the house where she was born, so they are going as soon as they can. Mr. Earle is up there now putting the house in order it's a grand old mansion been remodelled several times." "Why! why!" said Elise, "I hadn't heard, I didn't know it," in a confused sort of way. " And will they leave here altogether ? " " It isn't quite decided, but they want to go for Gran's sake now. Mrs. Earle says she hasn't any one to- indulge now but Gran, and she'll make a chocolate- e*claire of her, and the sweets will be laid on thick, you may be sure," replied Ginnie. "You see, Elise, the reason Florence knows so much about all this is because Mr. ahem ! well, Mr. Waiting-her-Mood, you know (looking at Florence quizzically), has been visiting there and kept her posted." " Is it true ? " inquired Elise, fondly stroking the blonde hair. Her tell-tale blush, as she turned her finger with its shining token towards Elise, was her only answer. " Why, surely something has happened, girls," she said, kissing the fair cheek. Ginnie whispered in her ear ; she gave a little start, and exclaimed involuntarily, in a tone of quick sur- prise : " Otto ! " Then putting her arm around her successful rival, she said, looking at her tenderly : " I wish you much joy, and 1 hope you will make each other very happy." "Ah! you rogue," she said, shaking her finger at Miss Smart, " you cheated me, I am going to look at every single finger!" and there was a scrambling and running and hiding of hands in great show of playful mystety, until Elise had proved to her satis- faction that only one of the lambs had thoughts of straying from the pastures of parental love into the fold of a stranger. ELISE RETURNS. 243 " We must set the League a-going," she said, en- thusiastically. "All the signs say it will be a hard winter, and no doubt we shall find enough to do." Elise did not wait for Mrs. Eavle, but went over that very evening to see her and dear old "Gran,"- doubly dear now, she thought, for Channing's sake, whose place she must in a measure try to fill. " I will speak to mother," said Mrs. Earle, coolly, after a few inquiries of Elise about her health and the friends she had left; " I think she would like to see you." Mrs. Earle, whose keen, maternal eyes mistrusted that all was not right with her darling son, after Elise left, had worried his secret out of him, and was loud in her denunciations of the offender. "A girl that puts you off, my son, is not the girl that cares for you or the girl that an Earle wants," she said to him, upon making the discovery. u Carry your head high. I would not give the snap of my ringers for a dozen such. She has been fooling you all the time, just as she did Bresson. I always sus- pected she was at the bottom of that flare-up." But when she found little success in arousing an indignant pride and was haunted by his pale face and the determined look of his sad, deep eye, her motherly heart began to search for and apply the anodyne of encouragement ; assuring him that it was the very best thing they could both do and she hadn't the slightest doubt that they would be married before the year was up. But secretly she was disaffected to- wards Elise she charged her for the rankling wound in her boy's heart. It was unfortunate for Elise, in regard to both Channing's and his mother's estimate of her conduct, that she had not made more of a confident of Mrs. Earle, and secured her championship. But Elise was not a prominent member of the busy, bustling female Heart-Exchange, with its whispered secrets and false quotations and speculations on probable and improb- 244 THE OPAL QUEEN. able chances of matrimony, and had quietly resisted or ignored Mrs. Earle's insinuated efforts to discover the state of her affections. Chan n ing had so long been upon the rack of doubt that when the answer that he had hoped for came to him with guarded conditions, he fell back into the old vein of distrust of himself and doubt of her faith. He assured himself that after Elise's calm denial of any further dealings with Dresson, that source of anxiety ought to be removed. But in spite of all his averments, the old flame was rekindled. He could not doubt her truthfulness, but he also could not quite abolish Dresson or cancel his influence over Elise, and a fugitive doubt, once admitted, continued to linger and haunt him. How could she tell but Dresson might again exercise a magnetism oveu her? And how was it possible for Dresson to be again admitted to intimate terms without the prospect of matrimony ? To go and leave him in possession of the field to be conscious that his place was filled by another and that other a despicable rival, to realize that there would be no time left her to cherish any memories of himself, this made the picture unbearably galling. But for this he might, with a certain courageous stoicism meet the shock and brave the interim of the absence that horrible interregnum when all the powers of his soul would be rising in anarchy. But underneath it all was the whispering of a hope never dead. And after the first mighty convulsions of despair, he listened to the voice. God is still over- head, he said, and best of all, right here in my heart, and calmly bowed to the stroke and waited for the end. So, too, now Superba's words of cheer, whose false ring he could not detect, lightened his sky somewhat they were the eagerly grasped straws of the drowning man. It was the force of this touching calamity so full of an unspoken pathos and eloquence that won Superba's consent to his secretly long cherished plan of accomplishing himself for active life in the field of his predilections-. "Then," he ELISE RETURNS. 245 said, " I shall be equipped for both pursuits and can more wisely make the choice, and shall at least lose nothing by a more thorough drill in an applied science." His anomalous position jarred on him. He was neither an accepted nor a rejected lover, but floating loosely in the mid-heavens, the subtle ether of pos- sibilities. Had he not gone through such a fiery trial andmentalscourging, his nature would have preserved better its elastic rebound. But it was a nature with an inherited doubt of his acceptability with the fair sex a strange blending of a confidence that had never been shaken in his powers for success in the affairs of life, with a stratified and compacted timidity in the lines of approach and consummation of the affairs of the heart. The six months of absence had told somewhat upon Gran, in lines of greater emaciation, but the bright eyes flashed their welcome, as Elise stooped over her to impress her token on the still red lips. "Did you do quite right, my child?" she said in the midst of their conversation after some remark about Channing. Mrs. Earle had not returned, and Elise, who had been stung by her Jtauteur, now realized that she was censured in the house of her friends. She could not reply, although she understood instantly the allusion, and Gran continued : "Such hearts don't grow every day; you might not pick up such another noble one in a century ; and sometimes, if they are very sensitive, disappointment invites defeat. I don't say but what he will be true but it is a hard test, my child, a hard test for one constituted like Channing, and may be the means of " Elise had been trying to master the shock of Gran's disapprobation, but she could not endure further reproaches. " Oh ! Gran, what do you mean ? Do you not support me in this? Then I am miserable indeed," she said, " for it is hard enough to bear it, with all 246 THE OPAL QUEEN. of you loving me, and I see easily that you are es- tranged from me, when I meant only to do the very best, and thought you, Gran, of all others Avould say it was the only prudent, safe thing to do." But she did not know that Channing had not told them the real reason of her postponement. " Don't get so agitated, my child. Old Gran be- lieves it will all come right yet but it was hard on Channing, and I was only going to say that it might be the cause of his being set against all women. There is that danger, you know " "But Gran," interrupted Elise, "I have only post- poned it. I have not, and never mean to give him up it all depends upon himself to consummate it." But Gran, like Superba, could not quite get over the affront of not accepting, on the instant, their im- maculate son, and she could not easily forget the hurt in her darling's face as he bade her good-bye. " Well ! well ! " she said, a little querulously, " it is in the Lord's hands and none of us can take it out. Even you, my child" (and her tone was softened now to its usual sweetness) "even you cannot hinder him of God's providence ; and then again, nothing can touch a hair of your head if you are appointed his." Elise kissed the dear hand she was holding. "It seems very dark and very cold to me now, Gran, if you are all blaming me. My heart has been buried under what seemed a load of ashes ever since " and she paused and choked down the sobs "ever since I told him and then you know Uncle Gray's gone too the lights are burning low, dear Gran I came home for comfort." " And you shall have it, my child," said Grari, all softened at the sight of this beautiful, high-spirited girl subdued and tender as a child. " And there's One that can give it to you better than old Gran. Tell it all to Jesus, He won't be so exacting as Gran ; there's no selfishness in His love, mine is all mixed up with Channing's grief. ELISE KETURNS. 247 " Listen, my child," she said, solemnly. "All this talk is born of Gran's fears" She looked keenly at Elise with those brilliant black eyes, and then said : " But I am going to dismiss my fears for your sake and mine, and because it isn't the way of peace to a soul just going out." " Oh ! don't say that, dear Gran," said Elise. " I may not live to see it," Gran continued, "but I expect it will be! Do you understand?" she asked, looking at her searchingly. "It will be," said Elise, calmly and steadily answer- ing her look, " if it is left with me to decide." "It is all written down up yonder," she said, "and what's there is all for the best. " You believe," she asked, affirmatively, "that your name is written in the Book of Remembrance that the Lord keeps, my child ? " Elise hesitated a moment. " Why, I suppose so," she answered at length. "When 1 was about sixty getting old, they called it," Gran said, smiling, " I lost a precious friend, a lady who had been as intimate as a sister. She died suddenly, and her afflicted husband sent me word of his bereavement, and in the same note begged me to come to the funeral. I was a very dear friend, you remember ? ' : Elise assented "and I was feeble so that I could not have walked to the grave, neither were the friends expected to walk. The surviving partner of my friend was a minister, and of course all the congregation would wish to' come ; then her relatives and his from a distance were another throng. " They held private services first at the house and it was to that I was invited specially to be pres- ent and afterwards the funeral ceremonial at the church. To insure the attendance at the grave of their especial friends, the names were called off as the carriages drove up to the door to take them to the church, and that would secure the carriage to 248 THE OPAL QUEEN. the same occupants when the funeral procession was made up. " There were several rooms, and a man stood at the head of the stairs in the hall, as the most central point for all to hear' when lie called off the names. I crowded my way to a door where I could hear when my name was called, so as to be ready to go. " He read through a long list of the relatives, and then commenced 'on friends. I wanted to go, you know," she said, looking at Elise, "to see the last sad ceremonies, and I couldn't go, you see, unless there was a place provided for me. I listened very carefully, for now I knew my name must come very soon. But still I did not hear it, and my heart began to beat fast, very fast, with the grave apprehension that possibly he might not call it. And yet I expected to hear it, for I was a chosen friend, known to be such by all. Still the man read on, and I thought, is it possible that they have left me out ? And then I began to fear that my name was indeed left out, for it could never be so far down on the list as that, and my anxious heart was throbbing so vio- lently I thought those standing next me would hear it, "And then, in an instant, in the hushed stillness of that assembly, for there was tlmt sort of eager breathlessness of suspense that tells you that all minds are full of the same unspoken thought- it was as solemn as the judgment-day the thought flashed across me in the words of the hymn, 'What if my name should be left out! ' on that great day, the day of assizes, when the Lord shall open his Book of Remembrance and call off the names of his friends? " The man finished but my name had not been called. I sank down in a chair, overcome with the strain of intense desire and doubt, and wept bitterly to think I had been left out. I never wish to experi- ence any deeper pain than I had at the moment, when I knew I was not one of the chosen ones, but oh ! " and Gran clasped her hands and raised her ELISE RETURNS: 249 eyes to heaven "what untold agony will strike like a fiery dart through the soul whose name is 'left out' of that great Book of Remembrance kept by our Lord I " Better have no 'supposes,' my child, where such an entry as that is concerned. ' Make your calling and election sure ; ' lay up your treasure in heaven. Isn't your mind a little off from your crown?" she said, touchingly. Elise was much affected. " I thank you, dear Gran," she said, "for your interest in the motherless one. May I come again soon ? " "Gran sees it all clear now," she said, with her old fondness, putting her arms around Elise. "Keep up good heart. You my be sure of Gran's sympathy, living or dying. Come soon come in the morning." 250 THE OPAL QUEEN. CHAPTER XXVII. ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. THE next morning, as Elise and Lilian were still lingering at the breakfast-table, the Doctor, who was standing by a window in the dining-room that com- manded a view of Elise's house and grounds, called out summarily : " Come here, Elise ! You see I am getting on in years, and not always taking my full share of the good things going, because I am so confoundedly busy. Last spring as I had my eye out on a pros- pecting expedition while standing at this window, I made up my mind to have clumps of fruit trees the peen-to peach, Japanese plum, custard-apple, with the double-flowering ornamental peach, away down there in the burn, do you see? I mean by the brook at the foot of your slope, on your premises?" " And who has a better right ? " she said, laughing. " My Doctor shall pre-empt any spot he pleases for his charitable designs." "Now there you are all wrong it isn't for sweet charity at all. It is because I'm a growing aesthete. Smell my breath isn't it like new milk, and my nose like a pomegranate, and my hair like the roe on the mountains? Oh ! I am blossoming out, I can tell you!" "Why, my dear," said Lilian "you are delineating calfhood ! " "I am surprised, Mrs. Healey, that, with all your literary cultivation you show such profound ignorance of the Bible. " Now that chimp or those clumps, Elise," he said, ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 251 resuming, " are my picturesque facts that is all under heaven I want of them. The birds, or who- ever you say, Elise," he said with a flourish, " may have the fruit, so I have my fill of that tender ex- quisite pink and white bloom that crowns the spring mornings with a fresh and budding beauty. "What do you think of that, Mrs. Healey, for rhetoric ? " " Brilliant, of course. It makes me forget what season this is. Why, isn't it spring?" she said with mock surprise, shading her eyes and looking down the burn, " I think I can see the bloom ! " " That will do, you arch hypocrite," he said, snatch- ing a kiss. " But why don't you go on ?" she asked. " That is much my intention, Mrs. Healey, after the murmurs of an applauding audience have fully subsided. Of course, Elise, a scientific man like my- self found it expedient to call in a husbandman, eh, Lily?" " Yes," she laughed, " that's correct." " One who attends to such little agricultural mat- ters for a small consideration, you know ; and having secured him for that, it was inevitable that he, being a man of aesthetic perceptions, should fix his eye on this waste land between us, and desire to give us a little taste of what Wordsworth calls the 'cultivated pomp of nature,' and so I turned him in here and let him loose." " Oh ! you are a blessed man ! I have been looking out of my window ail the morning in a perfect daze of bewildered enchantment. Why, it was real magic to me to see such triumphs of landscape-gardening where all was wild nature before." " Yes, I am a downright blessing, when it comes so much in the line of my own pleasure, you see. Well, then of course Car-Michael that's the artist of husbandly, that clumped the tre-es and gardened the landscape, you knows seemed to find no end of matters that must be attended to in the Paradise he 252 THE OPAL QUEEN. had created (odds and ends that must be fixed up to keep his Paradise in order), and the upshot of it is, that he's settled for the winter. Bertha and he mess to- gether in the kitchen, and you over here, and so he'll be with you this winter for your odd jobs and chores about the house." " Oh, Lily ! " said Elise, throwing her arms around Lily's neck, " isn't he good and sweet and kind? " "Better think it over, before you make any rash speeches," said Doctor, vanishing through the door. " And lie has two classes engaged for you, my pet," said Lily, enfolding the lone one, " one for paint- ing and one for carving." " Oh ! I am so glad ! " Elise cried, " the dear good man ! " " Every inch of him ! " said Lily, " but don't you think we have hearts ? And what are hearts for, I should like to know, if they can't do a little extra throbbing for our neighbor-over-the-way ! " " Well, the one that went to Jericho and fell among thieves, he wasn't picked up any more tenderly and cared for any more generously than I, and I only fell from fortune." " Well, that was a dizzy height, and would have killed most any one but my own brave darling," re- plied Lilian. The shortening days were filled with a new and busy life for Elise, who WHS feeding on the sweet hope of a reunion in the beautiful springtime with a tried friend and lover. Superba's haughty air did not change towards her, but Elise encouraged herself to believe that soon Channing's presence would dissipate all clouds. Gran had been a never-failing comfort as long as they remained, which was only until just before Thanksgiving ; they spent that day under the roof where Gran and her son were born. Elise missed sadly this only tie between her loved and absent one, but struggled on bravely in her austere life of work. ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 253 March came with its tyrannizing bluster of wind and dust, and as she sat in her lonely boudoir, she thought of the critical evening upon which she had so nearly compromised her fair name as hostess by re- fusing to see Dresson when in that spasm of sublime audacity he had suddenly crossed her threshold. The blossoms had come forth in late February, the resurrection month, and were fast shedding their petals and setting their fruit during the early reign of this coquettish month. Siie watched the calendar with a feverish, nervous dread, and yet with a hope that would not be suppressed. Bright-eyed, dancing, singing April festooned gar- den and walls with her floral tributes, and as she glanced at her calendar she saw that there was but one more day. "I cannot work to-day," she said, "I am too ex- cited and unstrung. We must all have a holiday. I will tell the girls so when they come." But as she tore off the slip from her illuminated record and read Best is not quitting the busy career, . Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere," she remembered that Channing had said to her on that eventful night when her heart first awoke to its love, " We must do the duty that lies nearest, you know ; " and she quietly picked up the threads of her life's web, and carried it on in the same old monotonous measure, with an imprisoned hope, hum- ming a low, sweet melody. A year, a month, and a day ! How long it seemed since they stood in the moon- light together, on this same balcony, where now she was straining eager eyes for a familiar object that surely must soon appear. All day long she had been buoyed by a strong, though trembling hope, but now her heart was filled with a wild, tumultuous yearn- ing, mingled with spasms of tormenting doubt. 254 THE OPAL QUEEN. v Lily was with her, and they each stifled the rising fears as the hours of the evening passed on and on ; at first chatting in a lively vein in the sweet antici- pation, then soberly calculating the chances and times of steamer and car from Annatoo, then at last seriously speculating upon the mischance ; with yet a feeble, ghostly hope, until the knell of despair to Elise's soul struck in the hour of twelve. It was a night of bitter agony and self-reproach, but it curtained her misery from curious eyes. None in the village but Lily knew of her crushed hopes, so that with dull, aching heart, but serene face, she as- sumed her responsibilities when the morning sum- moned her unrefreshed powers to another contest with the practical life of which she was the centre. She was not prepared for the disappointment ; her heart had not for one moment lost its trust in Chan- ning's iidelity. She regarded him as a man of such iron determination that he would even conquer im- possibilities to compass his object, and join her on the appointed night. Her faith had surmounted the temptations of his absence, and why should not his ? It had been harder than she knew when she fixed the condition, not to hear one word of him during the weary circling of the months, but she had borne up under the load, and it helped her to think of him in the same patient attitude day by day waiting for time to release them. She had pictured him to her imagination, since she knew of his Italian tour, as still traveling, and drinking in deep draughts from the old world's fountains of artistic beauty for when the Earles left the village he had not gone to Freiburg. But that was six months ago ! She began to awaken to the flight of time, and ask herself with a wild, irrepressible longing, where in the wide world was her heart of hearts? But that did not bring him, nor any tidings of him, and when in a few days Lily came in with an open letter from Mr. Earle, in answer to an inquiry from Doctor as to the where- ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 255 abouts of his son, she read in a firm, legible hand, every word underlined : " We have not heard from my son for three months, and do not know whether he is dead or alive. The last we knew of him he was in Heidelberg." She felt paralyzed ; a deep misery took possession of her tears were a mockery and life a delusive bauble. Now she knew, in the plenitude and bitterness of this sorrow, that she had " crossed that last thresh- old " entered the unspeakable chamber of mourning ! And Chauning was not here ! Had he not promised to be with her in the infinite crisis? "Oh, my God ! " she cried from the depths of her prostrate soul, " Have pity ! Spare me ! " And Gran's words flashed upon her with a new meaning. " Hold your blessings lightly, my child, then it won't be so hard to let them go ! " She had grasped hard, clung tightly to this hope she would not part with it; the dismemberment of her body even could not sever its vital relation with her soul. Lily tried to comfort her. "Oh! Lily, if you only knew," she exclaimed to the dear friend to whom she could pour out her an- guish, " what a dull, heavy ache lies right here " and she placed her hand upon her heart. " Such a suffo- cating feeling of oppression these stifling emotions sometimes they almost choke me ! I go over and over the same weary round of thoughts until T am nearly wild with the monotonous repetition. How useless a piece of mechanism is all the delicate con- trivances of the brain, when the nervous force is all centered upon one idea! how unbalanced all the powers become ! Am I going crazy ?" she exclaimed, and her tone had in it such a thrill of desperation that Lily was alarmed. "Oh ! Elise, it is so hard, I know, but do try to control yourself you cannot tell what may happen unless you do." " It is useless advice, Lily dear," she said, shaking 256 THE OPAL QUEEN. her head sadly. " So I say to myself, I will not give up to it but it comes and comes and conies when will it end ? All my deep emotions, all my truth, all my purity, have been consecrated here and here it is a holocaust all in vain. I can pray all the good prayers, and I try to take to myself all the good prom- ises but I cannot help feeling I cannot forget! If I could only get rid of the nights. Lily ! In the agonizing silence thoughts come trooping out like living spirits, that I never dreamed were in my heart. I have found myself dissecting my very soul the brain has been whirling, whirling, and I have searched and analyzed all my past, and shaped into actual phrases of meaning everything vague and un- determined. I dream, and I am so restless, and wake so early, and think, and think when I don't want to think!' 1 '' she exclaimed, 'with a passionate bitterness. " Only have patience, Elise, and time and God's good Providence, which is over us all, will reconcile you to the inevitable. Why, you know even the ocean requires months of rest to recover from its equinoctial tossings ; and the heart, the living heart so delicate that it is moved by the tiniest zephyr of feeling when surcharged with restlessness by such a tremendous upheaval as yours, my dear must have time to fall gradually into its accustomed pul- sations." " I suppose," she answered, " I shall get more and more reconciled to what you consider ' inevitable,' and as you say, time and God's wonderful grace must do the healing work. And I think I must not talk about it any more, Lily, and try to forget it." Lily had the abundant words of a smooth philos- ophy, unsavored by an experience of the riches of divine grace, and could not administer the comfort she needed ; but her heart bled for her darling friend, and such talks were of great use to Elise. Gran had said to her once in those opulently shining days : " ' He that is down needs fear no fall,' the poet says, ELISE CROSSES THE LAST THRESHOLD. 257 my child, If you ever get really down, lying at the foot of the cross, God may so penetrate your soul with Himself, that life and all eternity will seem too short to tell the wonders you beheld there." " Dear Gran," Elise thought, " how little she knew of this trial then." And now she had a letter from her venerable friend, with no word of Charming, but full of sweet comfort penned by the dear old fingers. Elise kissed it and wept over it, as she read : " Do you know what Christ's legacies were, my child did you ever read His will? He gave His Spirit to His Father, His body to Joseph, His Mother to John, and to His disciples peace. ' My peace I give unto you! ' Oh ! invaluable inheritance! It is yours, my child ; seek it at the cross." But would God hear her prayer? She had for- gotten Him in the days of her prosperity ; were not His depths of mercy sealed against her? She had thought again and again, since Gran had repeated that little incident in her life, she ought not to have any "supposes" about her heavenly birth. She had lived a moral life, but she had not lived up to her Christian privileges, she knew, and now, when her need was sorest, and her soul in its crucial test, she found no refuge, no solace in her religion. As the days wore on, under the pangs of a quick- ened conscience, this dull, hard load of unassured citizenship in the heavenly kingdom became a sharp, penetrating agony, measurably displacing the grief of her selfish love. She thought of the hour when she had consecrated herself to God ages ago it seemed, although it was only eleven years of the little darkened chamber where, with her renewed earthly vision, her Heavenly Father illumined her soul with His presence, and took her to Himself. Her life was in processional review before her. She saw that she had used all God's good things, and that her heart had been "lifted up" like Hezekiah's, and like him, too, she had no