^^^ ALMOST A HEROINE. ALMOST A HEROINE. ^i:^ s ^^p^ THE AUTnOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER," "COUNTERPARTS," ETC., ETC. BOSTON: TIOKNOR AND FIELDS M DCCC LX. author's edition. MVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY n. 0. nouaiiTON and company. ALMOST A HEROINE. CHAPTER I. A MARRIAGE NOT MADE IN HEAVEN, AND ITS RESULT. My father was an officer,- too late for Waterloo, and whose only campaign was crowned with success in single combat between himself and Love. My mother was a Romagnese lady, and, yielding as gracefully as the god who sometime ruled her, made my father, for a space too brief to reckon, the happiest of men. He, making the grand tour in the days immediately before it became a little one, saw and wor- shipped, wooed and won her, and generously remained by her side, instead of rooting her from her own soil for trans- plantation — a process ever deteriorative to the physical com- fort and moral energy of the Southern and the Oriental. Self-sacrifice — the dearest offering of life to life — crowned devotion on his part with that strange, peaceful destiny, an early death. He died of malaria fever before I had learned to know, although I had seen, his face. For the vivid imagination with which my enemies deem me accursed, and which ray best friends regard with a certain pity more akin to fear than love (I verily beUeve the imaginative are shunned by the unimaginative, as ghost- less graveyards are shunned by the ghost-ridden), for this same positive but incommunicable gift, perhaps my cradle- 1 2 ALMOST A HEROINE. breeding sliould be blamed as much as my birthright. Four years of the prime of infancy, and four more of child- hood's morning, spent in the soft breast of nature, where she has it all her own way, and is a gorgeous queen the while a tender mother, must predispose a delicate and ardent mind for ideas, as it prepares the eye for colors, and moulds taste before its birth, instead of remodelling its too crude shape from primitive and ruder formation. The passionate current — not fitful, while impetuous, but profound and rush- ing — of my blood, and the eager, while intense, creativeness which informs every image with a soul, each soul with a correspondent image, alike charge their strength and weak- ness, defects and ecstasies upon Nature irresistible as Doom. My mother married again — I believe she thought for my own advantage rather than her own gratification, for, not richly endowed herself, and her se^cond husband being wealthy in the possession of very large estates, very eloquent in gen- erous promises referring to me, and old enough to be my grandfather, she concluded I should stand towards him in the light of an only or eldest son. But on near and constant acquaintance, he and I never suited each other. He was obstinate and indolent ; I inflexible and nervous ; he parent- ally patronized, I unfilially condescended, even in accepting his attentions. We never came to an open breach ; he ad- mired, and I loved my mother too much so to disturb her life and peace. But the awful politeness which inwrapt us as an atmosphere, made the natural relation between us as elderly man and precocious child at once unpleasant and ab- surd. My mother soon became conscious of this fact, which we, however, all three duly concealed from each other as a matter of fact, substituting a mutual complacent compliment- ariness for it, as is the custom of society in wider and stronger instances. At last when I had endured the luxurious annoy- ance of this existence — it was steeped in luxury — for two of the years of latter infancy, nature, stronger than custom, as the master than the slave, interposed, dissolving the tie for ALMOST A HEROINE. 3 US witliout riulc sliock or intimation, anil saved us from that dismallest catastrophe, a family colHsion. My step-brother was born at tlie conjuncture, two yeai's after I entered the pahace where I had never felt myself, nor been, a child at home. I loved this baby dearly, readily ; my heart responded to all the blood that Avas of mine in his, from its first little quick pulsation ; yet, strange to say — say rather natural — ■ my fraternal instinct, so sweet and unembarrassed, divided more than ever our house against itself. The hour, almost the moment, my mother was out of her bed, I presented my- self before her. The babe lay on her lap, a lovely Roman- limbed, ivory-tinted infant, substance of all the child-Christ shadows on Raphael's canvas. I bent over him ; my kisses went deep and soft into his swelling cheeks and firm white forehead — soft, not to awaken him, for he slept. Then I stretched up to kiss my mother. How beautiful she looked, and was ! I have ever preserved the liveliest pride, while the purest vanity (if vanity can be pure) in the beauty of my mother. Methinks such a memory incites to chivalry in youth — the youth of manhood. My mother was of the ancient Roman beauty, rare now, if still remembered, with hair to her knees, wrapping her form in a veil vivid as woven gold, with the emerald eyes of Dante's Beatrice, a skin of yellow whiteness, and that mould of figure in which undulat- ing softness quenches majesty — the mould of the mystical Lucretia. As I kissed l^ir this day — unusual demonstra- tion on my part — she pressed her lips to mine more fondly than before my brother's birth — unusual demonstration, too, on the part of a mother with a late-born babe, besides an older child. Her fondness, and my own unwonted affection- ate temerity, emboldened me. " Mamma mine," I began, confidentially and steadfastly, then paused and inly shrank. She was ever anxious to grant, beyond the letter, my few and far-between requests, and I suppose my tone bespoke the accent of solicitation. « Well, my darling Ernesto ! " 4 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Mamma mine, I wish you to allow me to travel ; I think I am now old enough." And I stared downwards signifi- cantly at my feet, clad in proper socks and shoes ; it had been my standing heterodoxy since I ran alone, to get rid of these incumbrances, and shed them anywhere all over the house and garden. " Mamma mine," I proceeded, " men ought to wear shoes in going up the burning mountain, or they must scorch their feet." Children rarely connect, in communicating, their ideas, however affluent in them. My mother was plunged straightway into that soft cloud of wonderment which is the highest development of the organ " marvel- lousness " in a purely southern intelligence. But she re- plied rightly, directed so by the true maternal instinct : — " Where would you travel therefore, Ernesto ? " " First to Vesuvius, mamma mine, then take a boat, and go to England, and stay with my uncle Loft us." My mother gave the gesture the nearest to a start that so soft a creature could. " What made you think of your uncle, my Ernesto ? Do you remember anything about a letter ? " " A letter from papa's uncle ; oh yes, mamma." That letter was four years old, yet I remembered it ; it had been addressed to my mother by her first husband's nearest relation, who held him the most dear. He had decided to adopt me then, as he would have adopted my father — indeed he had adopted my father — and would have made him his heir, but for his early death. When the cold, courteous intimation had reached my mother, that such a paternal connection of mine desired to prove himself with me connected, she had indignantly repudiated the possibility of my leaving her. Then I had been a veri- table, if precocious baby ; I was now a precocious child. — Ask mothers and nurses the difference between the two ! " Mamma, my uncle has a very great deal of money ; ALMOST A HEROINE. O and he is quite, all English. My little history with pictures that he sent me says English are the richest men in all the world. Mamma mine, I should like to be rich, and perhaps, if I was very good indeed to my uncle, he would give me all his money." The letter had been read to me before I knew either the meaning or value of — words. " Ernesto, do you want to go away in a boat, and leave mamma ? " " Yes, yes ! indeed I do ! That is why I asked you, and put on my shoes ; for I could have gone alone, without asking you, or kissing you ; but then you would have cried perhaps, and so should I, thinking of you a great way off." " But what made you think of it just now, Ernesto ? " " Because of my brother ; he ought to have everything, because he is the Count's son. And if he had everything, you would not like it that I should have nothing, because I am papa's." 'f The Count is very kind to you, too." " He was ; I didn't like him to be ; but now I won't have him, and I won't take any more presents from him, and all he gave me I'll leave here for my little brother. Papa would like that, I know." " But why did you never tell me so before ? Ernesto, if I had known you felt so — child, you should have told your mother — I would never have married, but have only lived for you." "I didn't feel it, mamma — I never did feel it, really, until the baby was born. So, when may I go to my uncle in England, mamma ? " The result of this little conversation and my predetermina- tion was, that I Avent. My mother wrote to my uncle, and until she heard from him I kept out of my false father's way, though I loved the baby, and kissed my mother and it more than ever. My uncle duly responded to my appeal. 6 ALMOST A HEROINE. My mother made manifest that it was my own, and he pro- fessed himself gratified I had chosen his parentship of my own accord. The messenger — his servant — who brought his letter to my mother, was to take me with him back to England. CHAPTER II. UGLYVILLE. Mr uncle Loftas — great uncle I should rightly name him, but have never done so — lived at Uglyville, in Kent. Happy those, who deigning to read, skip, or skim this my page, may fail to recognize Uglyville ; whether cheated of its hideous association by dwelling at Hyde Park, or being buried while alive in a salt mine, blest be they ! Yet Uglyville — I cannot call it town — it is the strong- hold of villas, and of those who are enraptured so to register their temporal habitations, — Uglyville has encroached, in developing upon as fair a site as any in this cold island. And its encroachment has indeed been rapid, — rapid as a royal progress ; it is a convenient distance from the city ; it twists shopkeepers into gentlemen by six minutes of railroad transposition, allegro, not ■prestissimo, and before it was a convenient, nay, when it was a singularly inconvenient dis- tance from the city, on account of the steep hill approach- ing it, and before trains had passed into popular fables, it bore a reputation for healthiness, founded on, and solely sustained — as far as my experience weighs — by the almost exclusive prevalence of its easterly winds. I little appreciated at the moment my uncle's considerate- ness in sending the round-bodied, glossy-faced mortal — his only personal attendant — to take me to England. He could not speak a word of Italian, nor I of English, and at this distance of date, I often wonder how we ever reached these 8 ALMOST A HEROINE. shores under the circumstance?. The man, whose name was John, had brought with him a little fat gold watch and slim gold chain from my uncle, to beguile me in the parting from my mother, and — on his own account and responsibility — a hamper of eatables, and enough wraps to smother both himself and me. As for the watch, I dropped it, in one of the first lurches of the steamer, into the sea ; and John's face fell longer when I turned with disgust from the dainties dear- est loved of British school-boys — cakes dark with plums and greasy with butter, clammy gingerbread, brown sugar " boiled goods," and English shortbread worthy of the walls of Troy. Despite the cloaks and furs to which I took very kindly in the Channel, although they muffled me up to all but the eyes, they prevented not nor moderated my first English realiza- tion — Uglyville itself. I came upon Ugly ville in April ; but as in England the months often play at each other's games, there was a true March wind sweeping everything dry, and leaving an inch of dead white dust upon the wide brown arid plain. Of that heath, that dream of dreariness, shall I ever forget my first glance and instant-enduring hatred ? The tumulus-hke centi*al hillock, crowned with stunted skeletons of firs, the scant sprinkle of starveling daisies on the worn-out grass, the dismal gravel-pits, the foetid stirless ponds, where, under a green canojiy of duck- weed frogs croaked eternally, the cold low line of hills east- ward, in the eyes of Ugly villians a delightful " view," — all these monotonous items of a prospect totally unbeautiful, fell upon me like a solid shadow, an unchildlike and almost hysterical sense of woe. Nor did the fii'st sight of my uncle's house tend to counter- act this mournful spell. On its outside front, and side facing the road, there was not a single window ; it looked like a square monument of stone, such an erection as a Saxon might have perpetrated from ignorance of the Greek mauso- leum, in emulation of that celebrated crown of man's selfish- ness in death, a palace to contain his ashes, l^ut witliin, ALMOST A HEROINE. 9 certainly within, the funei-al impression existed not. With- out staircase, all the rooms on a floor, and all lighted from the back, it was, if singularly, most perfectly built, and my uncle, in fact, had chosen it to isolate himself the more com- pletely from his neighbors, and to conserve more safely his innumerable treasures, for it would have been next to impos- sible for a housebreaker to enter it. When I arrived at the entrance with John, he pulled a bell, and the house door opened, as it seemed, of itself, but actually by a spring touched in the dominions of the kitchen by the cook. My uncle, among other trifles, could not bear to hear footsteps on the stone pavement of the hall. Then John, holding my hand, a little lump of human ice inside my glove, marched me straight into a room where sat my uncle. John's footsteps did not annoy him at any time or under any circumstances. That quaint, dim, priceless library, with all its dark rich windows and volumes redolent of Russia leather, ■and carpet like many-colored moss, and velvet rocking-chairs ; I noticed none of these things then ; the inhabitant of the room alone enticed me, and it was well for me that the sus- ceptibility to fascination, which has ever been at the same time my blessing and my bane, was at that moment touched, for it annihilated my design, formed the moment I mounted the hill of Uglyville, of running away. As my uncle held out his left hand to me without rising from his seat, I as decidedly made up my mind to stop. He did not kiss me. I doubt that he ever kissed any one in his life, but he ad- dressed a word to John, who pulled off my cap, and then he laid his right hand on my head, spanned my brow's breadth with his thumb and little finger, touched the back of my neck, then laid himself back in his chair and laughed. Not accustomed to be laughed at, I might possibly have resented it, but for an instinct, if possessed at any age, which is strong in childhood. I knew the laugh carried with it no contempt- uous verdict. I admired, too, my uncle's fixce, because, though infinitely more fine and interesting, it had the type 1* 10 ALMOST A HEROINE. of mine. I ever admired countenances of my own order, but only in proportion as they approached the perfection of that order, and ever in proportion was I conscious of the short-comings of my own personal apparition. However, my uncle's inspection of me at that time did not extend beyond the laugh ; he bade me good-night in Italian, (though it was the middle of the afternoon,) and, I suppose, told John in English, to take me to bed, as, though his words were in an unknown tongue, I was straightway conveyed into a room close by, undressed, and put into a huge and high four-poster, so vast to my apprehension, that when, on being left alone to go to sleep, I crawled to the side and looked over, there seemed to be an awful precipice between myself and the car- pet. I did not sleep, but I rested, and I dreamed. More like the life of the angels, than any phase of mortal being, are the dreams of an imaginative child. None, save such a one only, has dreamt, or can understand them, with their vague, sweet marvellousness, their unex-. hausting excitement. And imaginative children are as rare as full-grown poets, as blissfully endowed, and, alas, as un- happy. When I was fetched out of bed and dressed, and put down at table opposite my uncle, to dinner, a few hours afterwai'ds, I knew perfectly by his shake of the head, half comic, half complacent, and yet altogether compassionate, that he knew I had not been to sleep. That tacit knowledge of me, so con- veyed, was balm to the fatigue, which, now my wild bright visions were dispersed, weighed down my eyes and heart. I ate very little — scarcely more than a bird at any time — and again I marked the furtive unexpressed approval in my uncle's brilhant eyes. In fact, he not only liked, but -^ dan- gerous fate for a child at once strong-headed and sensitive- hearted — I felt he adnaired me. This admiration strength- ened my desire to acquaint him with myself, and myself with him, by means of language, and I pass over the phase of my learning English, and many points besides, totally unnecessary to my tale. ALMOST A IIEROINK. 11 My uncle was a thorough-bred eccentrician ; but this defi- nition of him should perhaps be deferred. He was some- thing else, and better ; whether more useful, it is not in me to decide. A dilettante-virtuoso^ I must name him, for want of a correspondent home-phrase ; and besides, an antiquarian, and the king of connoisseurs, whose exchequer set no need- ful limit to the indulgence of his whims, or the perfecting of his vast-schemed and minutely-complete collection. This consisted of precious duplicates, priceless uniques, and crown- ing relics, of high, low, medium art. To its full glory I re- mained, I fear, forever impervious ; and its first impression upon me was rather dull than dazzling. Those mediaeval cabinets of costly carving, close-packed with riches of unwearable ornaments — with ancient rings and signets, Egyptian necklaces, strange bracelets, won from embalmed arms, and brooches ravished from the bosoms of the dead — or stranger and more aged receptacles of jierfo- rated wood, containing mosaics, and petrifactions, fibulae, lachrymatories, chrismatories ; glass cases veiling from the decaying air, weird idols of lost religions, and rude weapons of forgotten warfare ; dry bones of extinct animals, and the yet silky feathers of birds, \\hose wings no longer cleave a lustrous path through any heaven ; trays upon trays of gems, and coins, and memorial medals ; velvet-bedded boxes of intaglii and camei ; shrines of wrought bronze, and ivory chasing, ensculptured gold ; valuable whole, and invaluable cracked vases ; the scarce books bound in wood, the gem- incrusted missals, the papyrus-pamphlets, and black-letter poems ; the tables of touch-me-not china, and wondrous shells, and awful insects, pin-transfixed; the old medicines, and older poisons, sealed in crystal ; these, among the items of marvel and rarity innumerable, affected me with indiflfer- ence, after they had sated my first curiosity ; nor was I " knocked down," as the saying is, by the spoils of modern luxury and art, ranging from the smallest models of all the great inventions, to the choicest cabinet color-gems of a Tur- 12 ALMOST A HEROINE. ner's brush ; from the latest-spied grass of the Australasian Flora, to pyramids of Bohemian glass. I lived with these treasures for years, was brought up — educated — partly through them ; and my uncle was conversant with their histories as a true aristocrat with the peerage ; yet I never learned to distinguish Palissy from Raphael ware, Greek work from Byzantine, nor a steam-engine half an inch long from the mouse-trap of a Genevese Chatelaine. That my uncle did not turn against me, as my ignorance and misap- preciation grew upon him, I ascribe to the fact, that it is the mere possession of such costly trifles that makes those who desire them, happy ; and that they no more require other men to like them (however they admire or envy) than they would wish other men to love their Avives — suppose them married. This brings me to other characteristics of my uncle ; he was a cynic of the sternest breed, an unquestionable misan- thropist, a settled eremite. "When I became old enough to marvel at his mode of life, I was also old enough to discern why he, — high mannered and easy beyond a courtier, scholar beyond the hbrary, and philanthropist whose mail-of-iron philosophy cased a heart the most bountiful I ever knew, — should so pass his existence in exile from humanity, shirking the duties and the pleasure of social intercourse, and cutting himself off' from all but solitary ties. I had not been long under his roof, nor outside it often, before I clearly compre- hended that as Diogenes chose a tub for a house, on special account of its inconvenience and shelterlessness, so my uncle selected the dull plain of Uglyville to pitch his tent on, because of its dull ugliness and the moral and mental plati- tude of its inhabitants. At thirteen, in due possession of the eager, "not idle," curiosity of the imaginative, I one day asked John (of whom something further presently) why my uncle had never married ? " I should have thought," I observed, " that any woman would have had liim. It is a mod thiiiir for me, liow- ALMOST A UEROINE. 13 ever," I added consequentially, " that he would not have them." " Why so ? " asked John, simply — I don't suppose he ever realized a meaning in words that only imjylied one. " Because, of course, he would have had some children, and I should not have been his heir." " Oh," said John, not as an interjection, but, as it sounded, because it was proper to acknowledge my remark. " But," I persisted, " was he never after any lady, John ? not even when he was young — as young as I am ? " Let not this presumption of maturity in childhood go against my chai-acter for innocence. I was innocent, ex- ceedingly, too innocent to conceal the vanity of my age and — sex ! John did not laugh, he never laughed ; but the quiet smile that wrinkled his quiddity of a mouth, showed that even if his sense of the absurd was dormant, it could be pricked by anything superlatively I'idiculous. " Very young gentlemen," said John, after the smile had slowly dispersed, and his mouth had returned to its normal shapelessness, " very young gents do better not to marry ; there is plenty of time for them to look about them, and not take up with the first young woman that looks at them in church." At this distance of time I have a dim glimmer of a recol- lection that John was alluding to the daughter of the pew- opener at the great dark church to which John went on Sunday evenings, and to which he sometimes took me " for a change," as he expressed it ; and which young lady, excited by my connection with my uncle's mystery, always made a point of piling seven stray hassocks up outside our immensely high gallery pew-door, and sitting atop of them to gaze upon me. But John did me an injustice here ; I might be vain of her constant regard, and I might have gazed on her in return, fascinated to do so by her having no decent seat in church of her own, by her always eating peppermint lozenges during tlie service (she never offered me one), and by lier 14 ALMOST A HEROINE. always disappearing during the sermon, sliding gently down- wards from her uncertain eminence, in a doze, to the ground ; but I never was in love with her, even at thirteen. I sup- pose I replied indignantly to John's remark above ; I do not remember ; but I recollect that I persevered in questioning him about my uncle and his matrimonial short-comings. At last, John, who had been dusting one of the precious vases, had finished his work, and returned to his own quarters, saying, to stop my tongue, and satisfy me at once, I sup- pose : — "* " You can find out the shortest way, Mr. Ernest, if you ask your uncle ; he never refuses you nothing." And so I did, — it was ever in me to blend audacity with timorousness ; I asked him at dinner, for I always dined in state w^ith him from my tenderest years. " Uncle, what was the reason you did not marry ? " My uncle did not even make a grimace, nor smile ; he said (quite as seriously as though I were a grown man to whom he " passed the bottle " ) : — " Because, if women have deteriorated since Eve, as much as men since Adam, I would rather sell myself to the devil that tempted the former, — and include you in the bargain." This singular avowal, so fiercely worded, frightened me not one whit : — I believe (without understanding the letter) that I apprehended the spirit of its form — the ill-digested memory of some deep slight or heart- wrong. My poor uncle ! Never saw I a fair picture on his walls, nor a fair face at his board. I often fancy, though, that as his skepti- cism of the kindliness of his kind has been mildly reproduced in me, that as his unbelief in human gratitude has also thwarted in myself the intense power o^ feeling gratitude, so it may have been, there was one face too fair for love's sake, too dearly enshrined in memory's dark chamber, for him to bear to let in upon it the least light of association ; and, if 60, here also has my doom too fatally repeated his. ALMOST A ]IKR()INK. 15 The sketch of his outward cai'eer is indeed slight, yet cer- tainly not insignificant. His father, the untitled and unen- dowed offshoot of a ragged noble family, married, just at the end of the last century, the daughter of a corn-factor in flour- ishing circumstances — mai'ried her for love, and, as she hap- pened to be an only child, succeeded her father at his death — thereby losing his last slender hold upon his loftier connec- tions. Corn-factors flourished but mildly then, but there came a time when the ports being closed and foods scarce, bad men made money by basely locking the barn-door ; the wise and generous — rare indeed — lost more by throwing it wide open ; and here and there in a single instance — as in that of my uncle's father — a few hundreds were realized in return. With these (the aristocratic scent fairly out of his own nostrils by that time) he pui'chased a small share in a wholesale tallow-chandler's concern for his son — I know not whether the august scent lingered in the nostrils of my uncle, but certainly they failed to assimilate with the tallow flavor ; — he hated it — but, unlike most youths disgusted with their occupations, he neither ran away from his, nor slighted its demands. He moi'e than worked hard — he slaved — all day at the greasy books, and half the night at books whose influences were at least safe to counteract any contamination from the former. I have always believed that an ardently intellectual nature succeeds the best even on vulgar grounds and in the least exalting circumstances, for his was such a one, and in a space of time, in which another youth would have merely received his salary's first rise, he was taken into partnership. That very year, by a master-stroke of business (which is conglomerated in my mind Avith a Russian merchant and an extraordinary hai'd winter), the partners made half a million between them ; next year, the senior died, childless and unmarried ; my uncle succeeded to the complete command of the business — then immense — sold it out of his own hands in a month, and went abroad at five and twenty to com- 16 ALMOST A HEROINE. plete (or commence ?) • his education ; not to squander his princely fortune, which, except for the trifling pittance he lived on, he did not touch for years. It is pei'haps only in the great continental cities that a man can study ardently, with every appliance at a reasonable price — for, after all, a man must be wise enough to be his own master in order to study. My uncle had no lyrivate tutors — his teachers were the grand free libraries, the splendid galleries wide open for every class, and for languages, for philology, for science, he clung to, rather than attended the matchless lectures of the Ger- man universities, the seminaries of Italy, and the yet classic schools of Seville and Madi'id. In five years he was a fine, if not a pi'ofound, scholar — conversationally, every Euro- pean tongue was his ; and he stood before the world out there, where such advantages tell best, as a well-born man, and high-bred gentleman, about Avhom, though he was thoroughly appreciated, no person made remarks, pertinent or impertinent, for wherever foreign society is totally sepa- rate from English, any rank may mask itself, and never be called in question. But by that time the natural human re- action took place in his breast — the intellectual and physical repute he had attained was insufficient ; the desire to dazzle, or at least to astound, that other little world at home, whose narrowness and over-crowdedness he had forgotten or did not know, rushed over and enchained him. People, too, who have made money, (particularly in trade,) are prone to over- rate its actual power ; above all they are rather inclined to despise those who have inherited, not made it. So my uncle returned to England ; but he came back too soon, that is, he did not stay away long enough to let it be forgotten how he had made his money. So he protested — for from this point the rare hints of his history which I gathered from his lips are instinct with his convictions — only half convictions of mine then, and wholly repudiated by me now. He persisted sol- emnly and unvaryingly that in the English circles to which his wealth authorized his admission, he was uniformly insult- ALMOST A HEROINE. 17 ed, both by patrons and parasites ; reminded carefully of his being so admitted on sufferance, smiled down upon by those who greedily devoured his substance ; finally, disgusted with society as he had been with tallow, but by no means so brave in relation to the former as to the latter — he dropped out of it once and forever, and, personally, was no moi'e known of men. And there has always been a hiatus in ray medita- tions when trying to understand and explain this whim, this mystery, — this, at all events, settled fact. My uncle was the sanest man alive : it was impossible to call him morbid, — he so instantly detected the least symptom of that moral weakness. Nor was he timid, nor hypochondriac, nor cold : it is likely, however, that in society he would not have shone, for, without a touch of the erraticism of genius which diverts the crowd, he was too intellectual in generalities, too far- seeking for motives of excellence, too self-conscious to bear the uninterested stares of those who are curious where they love not — who envy those they hate ! I have still a lin- gering fancy that will not fly, that he was mistreated or mis- understood by a woman. He was a man of a mould that would harden, under such passionate circumstances, against every man. As for woman, I never heard him speak of one individually. No, he shirked even the reading of my moth- er's letters, regular as the irregularities of the Italian mails allowed. Certainly I could write a book wholly about my uncle, and I fear this episode concerning him will do neither him nor myself the justice we deserve ! — but he was a char- acter the like of which may possibly be unique in a genera- tion, or, aloe-like, the blossom of a century alone. In speak- ing of his indifference to women, I allude to women in soci- ety — received woiaew I might call them — only. But women of the class unnamed, which the lowest christened will not own — abandoned wornen they are called — by whom aban- doned'l — oh! ye men, self-censors in your careless nomen- clature of those your brethren have betrayed, and you restore not! — those women, in hundreds, were saved from starva- 18 ALMOST A HEROINE. tion, from necessary sin, from drowning, from child-mur- der, from the cold hell which exceeds all fiery images of the infernal depths — despair — by this- same relative of mine, who stood aloof from men, and ignored their lawful wives. The sums my uncle dispensed in such secret charities were immense ; they were secret from the world, I mean, and from those they benefited, but well known to me, and I may say, in all humility, that if my conscience as a man is pure regarding women, if no mist defiles my memory from any shame or cruelty, I owe it to one who fearlessly led me to a knowledge of those who are the hest and the loorst of God-created beings, by a " path the vulture's eye hath not seen, and the eye of the eagle hath not discovered." I cannot deny, with all my affectionate regard for him and the admiration he inspired me with, despite of his serious oddity, that my uncle was vain. For, as it has been said, there is " high nonsense and low nonsense," and a great difference between them, so I assume there are vani- ties high and low. My uncle was vain of being a rich man — the richest man in Kent, but vainer of his collection, because it consisted of objects which no one (who could have afforded it) had cared to buy. Of course Caucasian trea- sure dealers, after one of their (never vainly-acquired) experiences of my uncle's taste and means, always com- municated with him privately before they published their list of unpurchasables ; and of course the unpurchasables were so because my uncle had bought them beforehand. Of course also it was delicious to any human being not wholly free from vanity to read in the Times, outweighing bank-notes to-day, waste rag to-morrow, that such and such a picture, jug, jewel, autograph, or model of patent process out -steaming steam, had been added to the " Great Loftus Collection, at the Roman Villa, Uglyville." Particularly interesting and flattering to the low vanities of the myriad readers of the Times, such announcements must have been, ALMOST A HEROINE. 19 because, until an epoch I shall have to touch on, no creature, hiretend that I was not thankful and ready to be taken out of my own hands. John put his square boneless-looking paws on my shoulders, and down I sat straight in my uncle's own chair. I was ravenous, and at that moment, smelling the rich scent of the hot soup, I allow myself to have been as much degraded as a person possessed of pride and piquing himself on the possession, can be. I could no more wait than a half-starved dog can when he sees a meaty bone ; and, though John stood behind my chair, though John sprinkled salt into the plate I filled so fast that I splashed the cloth all over, though he inserted little sippets of crisp toast into the very volume of the soup I was consuming, I could not have helped devouring it for the reversion of my uncle's will in my favor. John poured out my wine presently, and put a fresh napkin in the place of the soup-splashed one beside me; John — a new thing for him, as he had never waited at table — brought me every sauce and condiment correctly for every dish, and each time he had served me so, always bringing me the right "things" at the right " side," he fell back quite behind my chair and uttered a hybrid sound between the most exultant chuckle and the most despondent sigh. I never before, and have never since, really enjoyed a meal. After my stomach was satisfied, of coui'se, as all physiologists tell us, my brain began to work. How con- temptibly had I given in ! I thought of all the persons who had starved themselves on principle, whether pride, or love, or honor. I was no hero, no half-hero, nor half-bi'other to a hero. I was even, in his capacity of legal hero, far and far removed from John. Albeit, this very consciousness that I had eaten Avhen I might have starved myself, was of use to me in one way. I dared no longer despise John, because I despised myself. And I am thankful to say that an agree- able dream of consciousness began to visit me, that John was quite as much to be pitied as myself. His innocent, ugly, 54: • ALMOST A HEKOINE. tearless, late tear-swollen face suggested it. How could such a person, who was so nearly an animal, and so little above a " thing," have connived at the monstrous design of his master ? — and that master one whose delicate wit had always been two-edged in its action, cleaving through the joints and marrow of the purposes of fools and knaves alike ! I have heard, or read, that high-class artists are fond of ex- posing their finished paintings for the contemplation and criticism of children, or persons childish in the sense of being ignorant and innocent, and that they set great store thereby. Some such impulse must have visited me at the moment. I looked back over the chair and said : — " Don't stand, John. I want to speak to you. You have behaved well. I mean — sit down there / " — and I pointed to my own chair, now vacant, as it was opposite my uncle's in which I sat. " No, sir, I won't," said John ; " but I shall be happy to stand speaking. I won't sit down." " Why not, John ? Oh, great heaven ! — Avhat does it all mean ? " '* Exactly, Mr. Ernest, what I have been saying to myself all day, — that after thinking my master trusted me, that after his knowing I did not care for wages, that after his knowing I was so fond of you, he should have done so ! It is aU reading and writing, Mr. Ernest, that done it. If no one could read nor write, no one could so behave." " Oh ! I beg your pardon, John ; you needn't read nor write to make a will ; you only have to speal it." " Lord, Mr. Ernest, it is the only comfort come to me that the gentlemen said so." " What gentlemen ? " " The gentlemen that read it. They both promised to make my will out for me any day ; and first day after my master is put in the ground it will be made." " Your will, John ! Yes, it will be a good thing ; I mean, you will have plenty to leave." ALMOST A HEROINE. 55 " They are coming first day after that," said John, " to make all fast to you, if it does not come sooner." Whatever John meant now occurred to me no more, than does the date of the next earthquake in Calabria. His dull, semi-blind instinct perhaps borrowed moral clarity from the very absence of physical lucidity. I only gathered, with a skeptical impulse that made it delusion, that John meant to leave me all he was legally worth, at his own demise, or thought he did. " Mr. Ernest," said John again, astonishing me by two consecutive remarks without any observation of mine be- tween, " that iron box," — he uttered the few words weightily. " Well, John, that iron box, as you say, — we have nothing to do with it at present, neither you nor I; I never, indeed, can have to do with it." " That box, Mr. Ernest ! " « Well, John ? " (impatiently). " I couldn't put it into words, Mr. Ernest, what I think, and if I could, I didn't ought." This obscure grammar made me wonder. Fancy John making any one wonder! Still the hidden sense of what he kept back in his uncouth honor forbade me to inquire, or even looh inquiry. Another question thrust itself for- wards, — I could not keep it back — what need ? — from John. " I wonder what you will do, John," said I, " with all the money — and everything besides ? " " What shall I do, Mr. Ernest ? " (with stolid reproach.) " Yes, John ; you can do anything you like, you know." " I shall do, Mr. Ernest," (very serious, though altogether stolid still,) " exactly what the will commands. It is my master speaks there." " Well, John, but he has left all to you ; don't you uudex'- stand ? It is not his any longer." " So he left it to me to dust the Collection, Mi-. Ernest ! He was not in the room, he was as good as dead. / know 56 ALMOST A HEROINE. what he means, / know. If it wasn't for one thing, Mr. Ernest, I should give it all up to you now, and leave you master. You are master, but my master has made me your servant. I should go away, and mal:e you stay here, as mas- ter, which you are, but for one thing, which is two." It is said that all human beings, reason-gifted, how unim- aginative soever, have, once in their individual existences, one original idea. This conglomerate and diificultly-realized notion of John's must have been his : the twin-born halves of two ideas at least. " Which two reasons, then ? " asked I, curious a little, and not a little astonished, at the phase of intercourse to which he and I had been unawares conducted. " First, because if I gave it to you, you would not take it ; and next, because if you did, it would be bad for you to be moped up here, as he did all along," said John, whose mind seemed to have taken the stride from the animal instinctive to the discriminating human. I am sorry to say that this " leap in the dark," or light, did not tend to reassure me, as it should have done, in all sim- plicity. I again began to suspect that, under this sheep's clothing, hid, and hungered for possession, a wolf, and I took care to remain alone the next few days, vainly trying to sol- emnize my spirit for that hour, Avhose secret shadow I ought never to have crept beyond — the offering of the dust God breathed on, to the dust of which he made the world. CHAPTER VI. LYNDPIELD. The day of the funeral came — was over — it was the next morning. In cold compliment to ray poor uncle (it could be nothing warmer) I had invited the two lawyei-s who had read the will, and the one who had prepared it in the first instance. John had insisted on leaving all the arrangements to me, and for such a purpose it woukl have been monstrous in me to refuse. John himself was my chief trouble in the case. No persuasions, no commands, I was going to say, would induce him either to go in the coach with me, nor with the other gentlemen (I had, of course, asked the doctor, albeit he had not attended my uncle), nor in a coach by himself; but on arriving at the cemetery, there he was waiting, and he liad kept watch over the spot ever since daylight. Also, he walked back, as he had walked thither. It was as I said, next morning. I had settled my purpose by that time, having lain awake all night. I went down to breakfast — I had eaten alone the last ^(^a\ days in my room — and there was John in the room appropriated to the Col- lection, dusting it with all his might. I saw him through the door, Avhich was half open. At siglit of me he as nearly rushed forward as could a frame so adipose, took hold of me by my shoulders behind, and pushed me into the breakfast-room. AVhen the door Avas shut — " Mr. Ernest," he began, " they are all out at the gate watching, and are to bring me word — cook is — when the first carriage shows atop of tlie avenue. Tlien I shall come in to you quietly ; you will hear nothing inside the baize 3* 58 ALMOST A HEROINE. doors here. I was giving a touch-up, and just looking at it. What a pity he did'nt live to see it ! " Here John broke down again, and blubbered. Yes, it was the first day of the Loftus Exhibition. The only duty I had performed (none other had been left me) had been to take care that it was announced fiir and wide. But to stay there while it took place — never ! I had borne a good deal patiently, a very great deal with impatience, and now I didn't mean to bear any more except what destiny should bring me in any shape from the future of Avhich I was free. " I cannot stay to say much to you, John," I observed, snatching a mouthful or two, " for, early as it is, I dare say the woidd is curious, and the house will not be quiet long." " This place Avill, Mr. Ernest, as quiet as the grave, or," evidently considering a mournful analogy might hurt me, " or Jerusalem." "I can't stop — don't talk, John — there, shake hands with me, and go ! But before you go, you may, if you please, give me the twenty pounds my uncle left me." I thought John would have screamed. He did make such a noise as a wounded buffalo might — it shook the very chan- delier. " Mr. Ernest ! you ai'e not going so — not without my knowing your desires and commands. I reckoned you w^ould let me come in here along with you, and talk it over. What- ever will become of me ? Lord ! what have I done to be served so ? Not by you, Mr. Ernest, not by you. You was ever as kind as kind could be — but I wish my master had only cut my throat for me with his razor, last day he shaved ! Lord bless us, and there are the carriages too ! " There was certainly a rumble as of distant thunder, a pause, then a long, loud thunder very near, nay, at the front door. The knocker, which had not been raised for years, awoke. I had appointed a wliole staff of tliose nondescript persons ALMOST A HEROINE. 59 who preside over public expositions of valuable objects to range themselves in the hall the moment of the first arrival, and follow it into the show-room, there to sprinkle themselves in their accustomed fashion, and, with white kid hands, to hold out and distribute, gratis, catalogues. So John was not recpiired to be present, and I must do myself and him the justice to say I had not expected he would desire to be. I will not either veil that it was some slight gratification to me to deprive the sight-seers of a sight of me, who, of course, excited more curiosity than did the articles of the exhibition, sealed so long from the most eagex'. Now, however, that John had raised a difficulty in the form of a " scene " against my exit being immediate and unnoticed ; I was puzzled how to behave. His conduct, indeed, was up- setting altogether ; and I began to wish he had either been altogether stupid or a vast deal more worldly-wise. His utter straightforwardness was most difficult to deal with, and, to do so effectually, I meanly summoned to my assistance every tyrannic particle in my blood, and my most educated manner. As a child, I had often frightened John with long words and lofty -sounding epithets. " My good friend," I said, " I am certain you have too much delicacy and refinement of heart, too much genuine desire for my best interests, to keep me — to wish to detain me — to dare to detain me when I say that I do not choose to remain." John turned ash-white, looked stunned afresh, then rolled his eyes upwards to the ceiling and wrung his hands. When he tried to speak, he stuttered ; and, bringing his eyes down again to bear on me, I beheld the piteous animal-like plea of the dumb uncultured soul, that the taught and eloquent have so much to answer for in tormenting. I heaved a sigh of blended self-disgust and annoyance ; most truly, most ar- dently, I longed to get away. But there was nothing for it but to dwarf and simplify my designs till they sank to the level of his comprehension. 60 ALMOST A HEROINE. " John, don't you understand me ? I am very unhappy here. As my uncle turned me out of this house, I cannot remain liere ; it is not out of it as your house that I go. It is unkind to keep me, as you are doing ; it makes it harder to go. I bear you no ill-will ; you cannot help it, but, but you can help making me still more miserable. And, John, to show I believe in your good-will heartily, I ask you, as a favour, to take care of Hazelnut." Hazelnut was my dearly-loved horse, very old now. I had ridden him daily since I was ten years old ; he would thrust his mouth into my pocket for apples and lumps of sugar, shake hands by putting his fine pastern in my palm, as if conscious his shoe was too hard, stand like a dog on his hind quarters, and bend his proud neck to be caressed — whinny — nay, laugh out when I went to the stable ; and I had always saddled him myself. The chief worry I had about leaving him was, that he had ever testified the most restless dislike to John ; — horses always like men who are either highly bred, or highly cultivated, best. "Mr. Ernest," said John, facing me with an expression Hazelnut might himself have envied for devotion and for truth, " I thought about that horse the minute I came to, after that horrid, that bad reading and writing. I thought to my- self, ' I know what Mr. Ernest will do : he will cut away, his spirit will never let him stop, and that horse can't abide nor abear me; and Mr. Ernest wont take him away from his warm stables, built a purpose.' So I went to the men in the ' Blue Woman ' yard, and told them to get me down the best groom from the Queen's own place — I mean the nobs' own horses' place ; and there he is now, Mr. Ernest, and I want you to go and look at him, and see he's all right. Hazelnut did nothing but eat lumps of sugar out of his hand from the beginning." At this proof of my darling's inconstancy to one object, or of the superlative llarey-faction of his new keeper, I posi- tively (I had only negatively before) began to believe John ALMOST A HEROINE. 61 innocent of any part at all in the transaction between my uncle and that ill-fitting spouse of circumstance from which no pretence or litigation can divorce her — Law. " Thank you," said I, " I am sure it is all right, John, I do not want to see " (I could not have borne to see my half- blind Hazelnut). " I don't want to see him at all ; I only want to go out quietly — and I will write to you in a day or two." This merely to quiet him — I did not mean to write to any one ; but the assurance gave new life to my com- panion, who seemed suddenly endowed with vivacity, dor- mant in him until that precise instant. " Lord, Mr. Ernest ! " he exclaimed, most unprofanely, " you will Avant your carpet-bag. I will go and pack your carpet-bag ; but won't you take a portmanteau, it is so much bigger ? " "I have packed my bag; it is all ready, John, I thank you. I did it the first thing this morning, and I sliall take nothing but xohat is in it." " How much, now, might be in it ? " asked John, in the most wheedling way, with his head on one side. Never had I dreamt that he knew there was such a proceeding as " try- ing to fascinate," but he had learnt in a single lesson. " Six shirts, a hairbrush and razors, two pieces of soap, six towels, and a comb and toothbrush, with a pair of slip- pers, John." I expected some evidence of sympathetic amusement. I had tried to be facetious, as a man might do on the gallows, who was conscious of his innocence of all crime in being hanged. But John straightway bolted without a word. In five minutes he came back, very red, and stolid as a wooden spoon. " Your bag is ready, Mr. Ernest ; I tied the two handles together with a bit of string, to make it faster. It is fine now, Mr. Ernest, but it may rain presently." What on earth did the creature mean ? He wanted to get 62 ALMOST A HEKOINE. rid of me after all. Certainly he was in a strange, eager mood for one so meaningless and flat. Three hours afterwards, after wandering about that part of London which, fifteen years ago, was real old Southwark and its core ; after behaving after the manner of all the ghosts who have no rest undergi-ound, nor right above ground either, until I had worn down my pride to the edge of simple weariness, I opened my bag in a certain chamber. I found all the items of my enumeration to John correct as I had pushed them in, but a little inner pocket was curiously swollen, like a pudding-bag replete with its contents. 1 opened it carelessly, examined it furiously ; it was full, crammed to the very mouth of it, with crumpled bank-notes. I did not count them, but I should say from their bulk they amounted to a thousand or two. I had not shirked my own legal property, and twenty pounds were in my breast ; but this gain, not gotten fairly, I cast out from me with contempt. A registered letter took all the above-named precious paper, carefully creased out to avoid recognition on the postal transit, back again to John ; of course I never had a receipt for it, for, had he known how to write more than his signa- ture, he was not master of my address. The next day I wrote, very shortly and simply, to my mother. I anticipated (for I knew) that she would entreat me to return to her, and, as such dependence would have been more intolerable to me than beggary, I told her most decidedly that if she invited me I should refuse her, that nothing would induce me to forego the necessary conditions of my actual case. After posting her letter, I sat down and thought, not for hours only, I may say for days ; and, being totally ignorant of the ways, means, and passions of that class called lodging-house keepers, I was brought to a very start- ling and sudden blank in my meditations by the discovery that if I remained in such quarters a week longer, I should be without a penny in the world. Not only so ; on the tenth day of my existence there, the man of the house (I had never ALMOST A IIHROINE. 63 seen liim before), came before me with an offended air and avenging countenance. I bade him, hke a fool, be seated ; I liad not the least idea how to behave to such a person. He sat down and scratched his head, then informed me that his wife was too delicate to address me on such a subject (she was an immensely tall, enormously fat woman, five or six times my weight) that it was impossible she should any longer have the honor of " entertaining " me under her roof. I asked very naturally, and rather indignantly, " why ? " and would have proceeded to state that I had never intended to stop, but he interrupted me with a blustering and constab- ulary manner, " That I was not a proper person to have in the house, if all that was said was true, even if I could pay my way, which was impossible ; that his wife was very par- ticular as to character; she never allowed latch-keys." A lie this, for a man in the room above mine came in by means of one every night, or rather morning. However, I suc- ceeded, at last, in extracting that slander had not let even such an atom as a penniless inheritor alone, for, besides my lodging-house keepers knowing by this time my name, who I was, and all that had happened to me of late, they were assured, besides, that my uncle had disinherited me because I was a dissipated rake and rampant idler, who had brought down his gray heirs with sorrow to the grave. I went out that night, and to a mean-looking hotel, where I paid just as much, I have found since, as I should have done at a first-class one. There I took care to give a name as little like my own as possible ; I did not go to bed, but lighted a pipe, and smoked for hours. I do not pretend to be adventurous. I am not of a tem- perament heroic or dashing, though no coward, morally. I doubt not that many a brilliant youth in my position would have dreamed high dreams, superb and yet not baseless, have taken fortune by the forelock, instead of time. I am certain few would have settled down as quietly as I did to a sense of my own incapacity to create either a fortune, a 64 ALMOST A HEROINE. career, or an effect. I was, perhaps, not unphilosoplucal in my decision, seeing I had been brought up to no profession, not even that of a fine gentleman, for I had never imbibed from hixury the taste for little-masterhood. I was too late for apprenticeship, either for profession or craft, and had I not been, I had no capital to invest in the very lowest fee. I had, alas ! no genius, nor even turn for art ; though I had enough imagination to love it and know it as it deserves in its least development. I was exceedingly well educated, but had not been to any university in the world, and who could employ as tutor one who had never graduated? Only the head, or blockhead, master of an UglyviUian boys' school might perchance have taken me for usher on nothing a-year, scrag food, and dirty washing. I overlooked, finally, the only purpose I was born for, namely, the use, albeit light and hour-beguihng only, of the pen. It never occurred to me, though I had scribbled all my life; perchance had I written with less ease, I should have turned to it as an earnest occupation, but perchance, also, my mind had not ripened sufficiently to mature its own designs. I had been deluged with newspapers while at the lodging from which I was ejected; I had ordered them in that I might examine their advertisements. How weary I grew of their sameness, their vain repetitions, their universally gen- eral wording, which had a slang of its own. And I made up my mind to spend what was left me in advertising myself. I knew I could frame an advertisement which should at least possess the charm of novelty in its expression. Failing that — I mean if no answers reached me — I in- tended, literally, not figuratively, to go out to service. I knew I was good-looking enough and horse-bitten enough for a groom, and refined-lookng enough for a lady's-footman. My advertisement was to the effect that I desired a situa- tion as secretary to a gentleman or man of extensive business requiring a correspondent both English and foreign. I engaged to provide specimens of my skill as secretary in ALMOST A HEROINE. 65 French, Spanish, German, and Italian. I stated tliat, although well educated, I had graduated at no university, but that I understood Greek ; and lastly, I did not demand exorbitantly high remuneration, enough, as I calculated, to procure me as much clothing as I could wear out, to frank me of as many subscription libraries as I could need for reference, and to leave me a small surplusage for purposes of charity. I demanded a hundred a-year. I know not at this hour whether that is too much or too little for unremit- ting attention to a business at once practical and intellectual, for such, most assuredly, is real foreign correspondence. However, to make a tedious time seem short in memory, — though, woe is me ! I linger over it lovingly, because, once past it, a gulf of blank, black agony must be overleaped, — to cut off all unnecessary comment, I waited three days — of course I had the sense to put my advertisement in the Times at the top, and to insert it three days running — I waited, I say, three days after the last insertion without one answer. I waited four. I waited five and six ; and by that day I had exactly seventeen shillings and sevenpence in my pocket (I had no purse at all). My letters, if any came, were to be left at a small street post-office, and I had, in advising their directions, still avoided my real name. I might never — and very probably never should — have received my one and crowning answer, had not the post- woman (she was the letter-keeper, and her husband stuffed birds and beasts in the back shop) been a woman of honor — a thing how rare in persons of her occupation, let those sufferers by the late postal robberies declare ! I was walking past the shop-front with its tantalizing slit, in defiance of the spell which had held me vainly captive so many weaiy days. I would not inquire any more, when a little child ran after me with a letter in her hand -^ her hands. She clasped it so carefully, and gave it to me with a pretty stealthy air, saying her mother had seen me pass and sent her with 66 ALMOST A HEROINE. it. "It had only come that delivery," not five minutes back. I believe in destiny, and also in the ingratitude of man. I had starved myself that day, and was light-headed and faint-hearted in consequence ; this be my excuse for my in- gratitude ; it prompted me to tear the late missive into scraps, and throw it under the horses' feet, to mix in city mud. But my destiny — it drove against my hard-heartedness a force much stronger ; it compelled me, against impulsion, to open the envelope — a thin envelope, with a common adhesive cross-barred oval seal — a light letter inside — no waste of paper here, nor of words confided to it, as I learnt when I tore it open. " Lord Lyndfield will be glad to see the gentleman who has advertised three times as an English and foreign secre- tary. A personal interview indispensable — at Lyndfield Chase, Hirst Heath, any day at four p. m. precisely." I had never heard of Lord Lyndfield, her Majesty's Min- istry owned him not at least, and how from Uglyville could I have soared into the sphere of the " named among men with recollected names ? " I walked back to my postal friend ; she was steadfastly sorting letters even then, but she paused, with one hand on a pile, to give me a peerage list with the other. It was no sublime Bernard Burke, only a matter-of-fact statement of titles, with their heirs — not even the names of the wives of the titles and mothers of their heirs. I gathered there- from, mistily, that Lord Lyndfield did live at Lyndfield Chase, that he had no heir, consequently that he was not married. "A personal interview indispensable." Should I go that day ? I thought not, next moment, for I knew Hirst Heath, or rather what line it lay by ; and it was past two o'clock, too late even to reach that station by four. Yet, to stay until the morrow was to spend too much of what I was worth to permit myself to travel first class. I would go second, ALMOST A HEROINE. G7 then, and, besides, would stay out late enough for my people to suppose I had dined abroad, I did so, and thus had no animal food that day. I had never been ill in my life, though delicate enough of habit to fall ill very easily ; I had never yet committed an irregulai-ity, and knew not the probable results of one. Going home very late, and perfectly ex- hausted, 1 drank a wliole bottle of wine — which cost me double what my dinner would have done — and went to bed ; it sent me to sleep, at least, and kept me so till late next morning. It had drugged me well, being well drugged itself; for I woke in the last mutterings and splutterings of a ti'emendous harvest storm, and I had heard nothing of it, as it had been raging and deluging since four o'clock. I dressed in a desperate hurry — never once thought of the state of the streets — the pavement like a gutter, and the gutter an inundation — but swallowed some scalding tea and went out, bag in hand. Leaving my uncle's house, I had taken care to carry nothing away but what was abso- lutely indispensable. I spurned great-coat or umbrella, reck- oning, indeed too securely, on the fair calm average of the season. Arrived at the terminus, I found that by paying first class fare I should only have sixpence left ; second class fare would leave me without more than a few shillings. How did I know where Lyndfield Chase lay — how far from the station ? I might not be strong enough to walk, for I began to feel very strangely already, without knowing the least what was the matter with me ; — it was the shadow of coming ill- ness in which I walked. I had not been ten minutes in a third class carriage before a great rain came on, slanting down from black-blue clouds to the southwest. In five minutes, I wtis wetted to the skin ; in five minutes more, I was in sunshine again, with a rain- bow gleaming on the rack behind. Had I then been able to walk — walk briskly, I should have merely encountered a warm vapor bath ; as it was, for more than three hours 68 ALMOST A HEROINE. standing still, my skin seemed shivering in a mail of ice ; the very sun heat only made me chillier by contrast, or by driving the moisture inward as it dried. And, with the cold, a cold pain crept about my brows, and bound them with a stupefying pressure. I almost lost memory, and quite antic- ipation ; the very present seemed nothing but a dream itself benumbed, and if any remnant of desire was left me, it was to lie down somewhere and rest ; I cared not should the re- pose be death. The train stopped, but it very nearly took me on with it again, (worse fate for railway travellers than to be left be- hind,) for the stoppage seemed to send on my life-current too madly in reaction. I did step out somehow, but could not speak ; my tongue was palsied with a singular sensation of being tied down, not of cleaving to the roof of my mouth, a sensation I am famihar with enough now, though I had no experience of it then. I wonder any one dares say — no poet nor painter would — that country railway stations are not picturesque — more than picturesque, mysteriously beautiful. Hirst Heath is one of the most frequented and least noticed in England ; but its charm is something far beyond the sweetest nook or corner of stage-coach " change." The little station is itself innocent and featureless enough to be no blot upon the landscape ; but those high banks on Avhicli it rests, Avith their bounteous wealth, as rich as ever, in those far days, of fruitful brambles and flowering briars — of starry, pungent-odored camomile, and snow-bloomed bind- weed — of frail, dazzling poppies, standing up at the very edge of the outermost gauge, as if to stare at the flying ex- press — those banks are mysteriously beautiful. The beauty is their own. The mystery is their close connection with the greatest of realized fables, whose realization only makes it, if less a fable, more a miracle than ever. It is wonderful to stand still, with one's feet in the grass and flowers, and listen to the fresh throb gathering strength ALMOST A HEROINE. 69 above, and see the traiu move on so softly, soon so rapidly, and then to see and hear it no more. Ill as I was, I had begun to fear, I stood still to feel the vibration of the earth above me, to see the last of that dark flashing line. Then, for a mo- ment or two, I succumbed to my utter and intense fatigue. I lay upon the warm, wet grass under the bank ; but I had not reached the mental fatuity incident to mid-illness yet, for it soon occurred to me, not only that I might take cold under such circumstances, but that I might be too late for my ap- pointment. 1 dragged myself up, as if a leaden weight I was com- pelled to carry, and gazed all round for some one who could direct my steps. Talk as people will of "excessive cultivation," "over- crowding on building ground," and encroaching of the city on the country — what do they mean ? And in which class do they place those great tracts of unretrleved heath, where nature riots " at her own sweet will ; " those wild gardens, more like Eden than all the cultivated ones, and which places are not at all rare — they are almost common — near the side stations of the all-penetrating force ? I declare that I gazed all round a flat (albeit fairest) champaign for a quar- ter of an hour, and not only saw no sign of man, but no sign of his hand in corntield, turnip-plot, or potato-patch. There was not within sight a sheep, nor an ass, nor even a scare- crow. At last I saw something creeping under the long bramble boughs that made wild arbors all about the heath ; but they were so long and so thick with their darkening ruby fruit that I could not tell whether it was a human being. I gained on it by feverishly-hastened steps, and out of the branches a head was thrust, whose unkempt hair the thorns detained in multitudinous instances. It pertained to a nonde- script child, impossible to be sworn to as male or female, which had only a colorlessly dirty frock, and presided over, if possessed not, a very broken bucking-basket. The basket 70 ALMOST A HEROINE. was on the ground, and a few unripe blackberries strewed the bottom. All my own affairs — my very illness — vanished at sight of this droll innocent. It was what the gypsies call a half- and-halfer, to the very eye. " You must not eat red blackberries," I said ; " they are never good till they are black. You will make your stomach ache." The creature uttered a defiant laugh, delicious in its free- dom, and, clawing the whole contents of the basket together in a crushed and jam-like handful, put them into its mouth, then swallowed them, as it appeared, at a gulp, rose up and stood before me, leaving thick skeins of russet hair upon the bram- ble. " Mammy won't know," it observed, diplomatically, allud- hig to the blackberry bolt, of course. " Where is mammy ? " I inquired. " Up at Lyndfield," was the reply, with a very dirty, but very taper, finger put over the top of the head. " Y''ou know Lyndfield, then ? " " Stoppin' there." " Stopping at Lyndfield ? — living, do you mean ? " " No — yes — goin' to Lewiston races." " When are the races ? How soon are you going ? " " I don't know ; mother's got a young un." " Shall I walk back with you to Lyndfield ? " " When I've done," with one eye to the basket, empty now. " How long would it take to fill it ? " " Twenty hours," staring up at the very high and out-of- reach branches, best and ripest laden. " But what do you want to fill the basket for? " " Sell it." " Sell blackberries before they are ripe." " For jelly." (Jam, I presume.) " Does your mother get more than sixpence for them ? " I was possessed of a sixpence (and another) stilL ALMOST A HEROINE. 71 " No." " How much more ? " " Fourpence." " Tenpence ? " " No ; fourpence." "Whereby I comprehended that fourpence was the princely fee for the unripe bhickberries. " I will give you sixpence to go with me to Lyndfield," I said ; " that will be fourpence for your berries and two- pence for you. Will you come ? " A moment's hesitation. I took out sixpence and put it into one red little palm. The child put the other hand in mine generously, and, still clenching the coin in her palm by means of the thumb and first three fingers, hooked her least finger into a hole in the basket, and dragged it after her. What lovely, lovely lanes we went through ! What weight of summer roses bowed the haughty hedge-tops ! What quan- tities and quantities of tender hiding wild-flowers pranked the lush, long grass ! My half-and-halfer was one of Nature's breeding ; she never spoke, nor stared, till I addressed her ; and I owe her gratitude, for she amused me so much I had not time to dwell upon my deepening torment. I could not translate our conversation, though it was confabulatory, as between a brother and sister — she was a girl-child, after all, — it would take too much time, or space, and very likely no one would understand it. Long before we reached Lyndfield, however, I became convinced that there I should stay, for the excellent reason that I should be able to go no further. There was a village, but I did not enter it ; for, before reaching the first cottage indicating it, we found two small yellow vans, drawn up on a bit of grass sprinkled with camo- miles. The horses were feeding on them, or the grass, with great gusto, and, lying about under the hedge of an inclosure hard by, were five or six more nondescript children, every one of whom rose on seeing us, and curtseyed or bobbed to me. 72 ALMOST A HEROINE. Next moment a woman with tawny skin, blue flashing eyes, and a nut-brown baby in her arms, came round from the front of the hinder van, with stealthy steps — saw us, and curtseyed too. " Hope Rosella has not been sarcy, sir ? " she observed. " Very polite indeed ; I asked her to leave her blackber- ries, and show me the way." Here Rosella held up the sixpence at her mother between her teeth, and winked. Had I been moderately well, I should have stayed to make further acquaintance at the risk of being too late. As it was, I only asked : — " Do you know Lyndfield Chase ? " Rosella's mother waved one hand consequentially over a great space across an intervening common, as if including all the trees, pastures, inclosure, and mansions in the distance. " From there to there" she said, not very lucidly indicating the points she referred to. " All that ? " I answered ; " a large place. I suppose you never heard of Lord Lyndfield ? " " Never heard of Lard Lyndfield. He only brought my young 'un to the town." I was very ignorant on many important subjects, for I did not understand her. I thought she meant the said nobleman had picked up Rosella, as I had done, blackberrying at the station, and brought her in his carriage, or on his horse, to join her tribe. " Very kind of him ; then I dare say she can show me the way to his house." " It's a boy, sir ! " — with superb emphasis of appreciation. " Yes, very kind, very pretty indeed ; the Lyndfield doctor, a most unhandsome man ! — wouldn't leave his bed for one of us. Yes, Lard Lyndfield came at one in the morning and never left till seven, and then the child was dressed ; and sent me lovely Ligian corn, because I told him I couldn't abide their nasty new grits they sell for gruel here." ALMOST A HEROINE. 73 Truth dawned upon me ! It was, then, my doom to be- come attached to the households of exceptional men. Did any one ever hear of a patrician being an accoucher ? " Can your daughter go with me directly to Lyndfield Chase? I will give her another sixpence." " No, sir ! " with a superb gesture again. " Certainly not accept money for doing a favor ! Rosella, put your hair out of your eyes and go along with the gentleman to Lard Lyndfield's — not inside, for you've not been invited to-day. Show the gentleman the lodge-gate and then come back straight." Kosella parted her hair with her middle finger, and marched off", running on first a few steps, then looking back to see that I came right. I could scarcely see her, for the dark giddi- ness growing on me. She looked like a shadow flying over the grass. And what a weary way it seemed ! though I don't think it was half a mile, before we reached, at the end of a high wall topped with loftier trees, a pair of massive iron gates — the lodge inside. Here Rosella left me. I rang the bell. A woman first appeared, and scanned me through the iron fretwork — only for a moment though — and, as soon as I said I had come for an interview with her master, she let me in. I recollect nothing of that introduction to the beautiful place I got to know so well, save that the broad walk I trod seemed interminable, and its twistings countless. I was at last, somehow, on some wide stone steps ; two wide door- valves were open, and a servant stood within. " Lord Lyndfield at home ? " " No, sir ; he has just gone out." I groaned in my heart's depths. " He said he should be in at four." The man looked back down the interior, to consult a clock evidently, for he said, "It is exactly twelve minutes past four, sir." " Oh, the curse of punctuality ! " I could barely falter. 4 74 ALMOST A HEROINE. "The portress at the lodge did not tell me he was out. Must he not have gone through the gates ? " " No, sir " (very respectfully) ; " he went on horseback, and took the fence. I fancied he was going to Foxholme." " Foxholme ! " " The next place, sir ; there is but the fence between. That way, sir," — coming out on the step, and pointing — where, I could not see. " Have you any idea when he will be home ? " " No, sir ; he did not say. He does sometimes stay to tea at Foxholme, and he made me bring a pot of cream, which he put in his pocket." Ill as I was, I was morbidly conscious of the curious im- putations on Lord Lyndfield ; to bring a half-and-halfer's baby into the world ; to " invite" a half-and-halfer's child to Lyndfield Chase ; and finally, to carry in his pocket a " pot " of cream. " Lord Lyndfield did not say he expected a gentleman to call at four?" " No, sir. So many gentlemen come, he never does." Here there was an uncertain expression in the man's voice. Did he mean to invite me to come in and sit down ? If he did, I disabused his benevolence of its illusion, for I felt as if I should faint away on being under a roof. I forced a dying gasp of dignity : — " That will do, I thank you ; it is of no consequence at all." The man shut the door, rather reluctantly, I thought, even in that extremity of mine. I did not comprehend the state I was in then ; but since, I have learnt that it is a commix- ture of physical illness with the nervous condition, in which the nervous fluid is unequally distributed ; now ebbs, now flows, and each as suddenly ; now rushes to the heart and overpowers its action ; now flies up to the brain and quickens its mysterious life to the delirium which learned men, old times, mistook for madness ; or as often quits the stronghold ALMOST A HEROINE. 75 of the spirit, and it is collapsed, all the intellectual impulse lost awhile. So for the moment I became, as the door shut on me, en- ergized. I could walk, I could even see ; nothing saw I, however, of the new and beauteous nature around me. I only looked in the direction the man had indicated when I had not seen. I saw, surely enough, at the bottom of a bright lawn which sloped here and there into little hollows filled with amethystine shade, a light green wire fence. It Avas very low, so low that, for my powers, it was much less than a vaulting post, and my Hazelnut would have sneered at it, and tossed aside. I had looked all round the lawn in vain for a garden-seat or chair ; I knew afterwards of Lord Lyndfield's prudence, as well as his punctuality, and that they had all been carried in out of the morning's rain, and, seeing nothing whereon a worn-out creatui'e could rest for a short breath, not even on the lawn a tree stump, I deter- mined, or rather determined not, but did it, to climb over the fence, and go in among the dainty tender trees of the shrub- bery beyond it, which at least showed a veiling shade from eyes of men, or the heaven, whose sultry afternoon burned its full allowance of August sunshine, cloudless now. I do not mean to work upon the compassion of an hour, by describing what I went through next, or at least by de- scribing it step by step. I cannot, for I remember it, step by step, no more than, thank God, I can anticipate whatever more of mortal anguish is to fall upon me. But I have a vague memory of soft green shadows, and delicate leaf-tints, and ferny shapes ; and one, not vague but vivid, of the blest home I found in that ftiir wilderness. Not very deep perchance in its depths, but seeming the end of the earth to my impov- erished energies just then, there was a pretty summei'-house, no windy arbor, mock hermitage, nor vault above the ground, misnamed a grotto. It was a summer-house, and through the reeling sense of near impending sickness, I could smell its summer roses and clasps of honeysuckle, though 76 ALMOST A HEROINE. how I entered it I cannot recollect ; still I remember, or am perhaps informed by after association, that it was thatched outside, the tliatch covering a pyramidal ceiling within, and that it was divided into two little rooms. With the first of these onl}' I made acquaintance then, for the simple reason that the floor -was thickly strewn with heather, perfectly sun- dried, and yielding even in death a sweet aroma a dead man's character might envy, and on this bed I lay down helplessly, its pungent soothing odor wrapping round my brain. I know not what happened to me next ; whether I went to sleep, or was entranced (fasting breeds trance, they say), or was the subject only of a prolonged swoon ; for I have ever since retained the trick of passing into and spending hours in a curious cataleptic calm, wdien physically or mentally over- wrought. Perhaps I passed through all such phases, for, as I learned afterwards, many hours elapsed before the next impression of any human interest brightened my dark brain. Lying still as death, or as those ivann underneath tlie snow rest in the dying " snow sleep," I heard voices, or felt them, for they were very low, though one was earnest, and the other — oh, how tender ! " Is it dangerous ? " asked the tender tones. " A critical case, at least." " Does that mean the same thing ? " " It means there will, there must, be a crisis. Now, my dear child, I would have you go." " Do let me stay till you know he is alive ; do feel his pulse." " Nonsense ! I know he lives without that. Really I do wish you were away, or that you had never come." " Perhaps he would have died then." " Nonsense ! He would not have been dead to-morrow morning, and I should have been here by that time." " Are you not the least anxious ? Oh, I wish he would open his eyes ! What a beautiful shape the lids are, with that blue shade around them ! " ALMOST A HEROINE. 77 " Nonsense ! That shade is unnatural, and thei'cfore ugly. I will have you go." " Do let me stay till he opens his eyes ! Do you not mean to make him ? " " No ! " This setting up of the crest of another individual will against my own aroused me, as it would have done had I been really dying. An ancestor of mine in articido mortis actually blew away the feather they held up before his lips to see if his breath had left his body, and died directly after the feat, in peace. I opened my eyes wide, but I closed them again as hastily. What I saAV I cannot any more describe than he who was caught up to the " third heaven " cared to relate the " unspeakable things " he heard as well as saw. Then commenced a whispering, whereof I caught no echo. Very soon some universally warm wrap was slipped all over me, and I was lifted up, laid on some resting but movable sup- port, and carried somewhere. Then intervened a pause in spiritual passion, filled up by the pressure of the heaviest in- cubus of sickness I ever knew, sharp pains and stinging rem- edies, long lapses of uneasy sleep, no consciousness of time nor circumstance ; then, the more palpable but safer torment of consciousness intensified in revenge for its temporary sus- pension ; the bitter, stringent, or nauseous taste of drug and draught, strange whitFs of chloroform, ammonia, creosote ; moments ravishing as paradise (but for their transiency), when I swallowed greedily delicious lemon-flavored efferves- cents, or the wine of the ripe apple, sweeter than that of many grapes. Presently after this, the only delectable stage of real indisposition, I began to wonder at my own state and the care bestowed upon me — a certain sign of rapid conva- lescence. All through my illness I had been aware — first indolently, and afterwards with great content — of a face bent over me, I could not tell how often or how seldom ; nor knew I whether I was touched or not ; but in this last state I mention I felt that face a noticeable image, with its rea- 78 ALMOST A HEROINE. soning ejes, and expression of tranquil earnestness. I can use no other term to picture it as then it shone upon me. One day my spirit Avoke up all at once ; I had missed the tranquil, earnest face for long, but the hand of another person held me out a cordial, delicate as fervent, something aromatic mixed with wine — such wine ! It might have been bi'ewed that Comet-year whose bins are waning empty now. The peculiar sensation of being able to bend one's back without breaking it returned to me ; I sat half up. Never was I more amazed than when, gazing round me, I found myself in a strange room ; I had actually been too ill to real- ize it before. It was a delicious room, so large, with softly- tempered light, my curtain drawn on one side, but on the oth- er wanting altogether, and this side admitting the full current of the summer air from the window, open at the top, with shading blinds outside. In the window sat a woman, in a peculiar but pretty dress, such as I have since seen worn by hospital nurses of the highest class. She was working, and in profile to me. I addressed her in a voice whose changed and fallen accent surprised me as much as my new position. " Where am I ? " I inquired. She got up instantly, but I heard no steps, and came to me. In an instant her fingers were at my wrist, and I suppose my pulse assured her it was proper to speak to me, for in the act of pouring out a mixture into a medicine-glass she answer- ed, — " At Lord Lyndfield's, sir." I nearly choked in swallowing my physic. When it was down — " Who was the gentleman I have seen so often ? " " Lord Lyndfield, sir." " I thought it was the doctor," I returned, staring at her — ray instinct had told me so. " He is a doctor, sir." Then waves of recollections seemed to roll over and whelm my weak memory ; I could not tax it further, nor go on talk- ALMOST A HEROINE. 79 ing. I could not even speak when the doctor came in next, that evening late, but it might have been because his eyes were looking extraordinary earnest then. Nor had I the chance of talking, for during many days after that I went through all the paces of the proper convalescent steadily, even ''speedily; was judiciously, exquisitely fed, provided with all luxuries, yet I know not whether the greatest lux- ury of all was not the thought, ever present, of the marvellous charity, the superhuman kindliness of my treatment. For as I grew stronger my memory grew fresh, I recalled each cir- cumstance, even that of the second voice I had listened to through my swoon of illness. It was in vain for me to try and explain this more than Samaritan behavior and immense generosity, immense in its minuteness to myself. My uncle's theories of mankind and their treatment of men as " one another," in which I had been trained so carefully, while so easily, failed as tests this time. How could the degenerate race of this mean planet consist of such individuals as my entertainer? I learned, time enough, that they are exceptions, who prove the celes- tial rule of the Ideal, beyond all the gross quibbles of the selfish self-called Realist. Here was I, in a house that had not known me, belonging to a man who knew not my very name, much less my char- acter, and who must have been, unless he had proved the man 1 knew him afterwards, master of the fact that I had the sum of sixpence in my pocket, and no visiting card. My pure, unsullied, honored host had failed to search my pockets. I knew that when I searched them myself, every item being in such order as that my pocket handkerchief, which I had twist- ed into a trick my uncle had taught me, taught him by a Ger- man conjuror, not only retained its knotted and, to ignorant ones, inextricable condition, but was in the same place in my pocket, that is, frothed up at the opening, with a show of much property being hid beneath — a shape it must instantly have lost had it been touched or tampered with. 80 ALMOST A HEROINE. For all ray days of convalescence my gratitude was dashed back in my face when I tried to express it by word, by token, or by the mist of the thick cloud of tears — how sweet a dew ! — that hung about my brain. Call me unmanly, and then look at the best and bravest of the " men " we recollect, the great units who redeem the blank thousands of the ages in succession from oblivion. "Wept they not, the drowning sailor-lions, kings of an element more powerful than earth — when they sent their last and their eternal loves to their dear unconscious sweethearts, safe on earth ? And wept they not, the hero-martyrs of unneces- sary war, when, dying for want of the blood so ravished from them, they remembered the betrothed, the bride, the wife ? But woe to me, for I shall expend my whole small stock-in- trade of tragic images, or have called attention to such lofty sufferings that my own poor passion will seem as feeble in its essence as it must be, for on that I cannot descant, in its expression. CHAPTER VII. FOUND AND LOST. I MIGHT have spared myself the last page, for it lends little to the statement of the simple fact that when I tried to thank my host in the most idiotical, ineloquent fashion, for all he had done for me, and delivered me from, I met with the decided rebuff of a back turned on me, a staring, I imagine, out of w-indow at the prospect, and presently a remark which bore no more reference to mine than did his dressing-gown I wore, such a beauty, chocolate-colored Gros d'Afrique, lined with Spanish sarcenet, to the planet Mars. Speaking of Mars brings me to the temperament of my friend and benefactor. Temperaments, in boyhood, were my strong point. I piqued myself on understanding them, as if any finite worm, were he blest with brains down to his middle joint, could any more identify and match temperament than find two leaves of the same tree, of the same forest, alike. I have been a fool, dry-nursed at the breast of Knowledge, believing her wisdom, I repeat, for there was a time, not a hundred years ago, when I dreamed of a very small party of opposing temperaments, making Up the sum of universal being. To x'eturn to Mars — at that hour I was bitten with those vague, commonplace, unproven fables of Astrology which the miracle-goddess, skyey-queen Astron- omy, has since defied in silent sphere-music and scattered with one breath of her vast nostrils to space hoio intermina- ble ! In those days, then, I believed in planets limited in number, and corresponding to temperaments, also few ; now I own both innumerable, and not for man to name ! 4* 82 ALMOST A HEROINE. Mars, in those weedy days of mine, opposed to seedy, as the forcing spring to the scattering autumn, was my initial star for a " temperament " witli auburn locks, fair skin, and burning azure eyes, that could lighten at their will ; so the first time I left the floor I had been ill on, I baptized Lord Lyndfield never such a fool as then, for at this time, writing with a trifle more experience, if none of wisdom, I am sure he never could have been a warrior, he was too humane, large-hearted, and too sensible, brave enough for more and worse than ivar, as his chosen career gave evidence. I think he must have possessed the cream, in his, of all the " temperaments '* — fair-browed as a child, with those same eyes I have called in color burning blue, but Avhose expression, the earnest-tranquil, never left them except when he was angry or indignant at dishonor, or cruelty, or oppres- sion ; he was yet hot tempered, but so just, with a delicate spice of real philosophy, that he never gave way to any but decided expressions of it. To look at him in a medium mood you might have fancied him a slow man, one of rare impulses and deliberate in fulfilling them ; — no, his mental motions were rapid as the light, his intuition of character was electric. His honor was blood-honor, the purest I ever knew, it was unconscious honor, albeit he was swift enough to detect a speck on the honor of another person. For his kindness, rare quality, more rare than even honor, I have given good proof of it already. I am writing too much — I could write a book about Lyndfield Chase and its master, but a few reminiscences must creep in yet. I remember now well, the first day I went down stairs to his library, and found him there. He was writing, so, of course, I did not disturb him. Besides his punctuality, which can scarcely be termed one, he had a few crotchets, chips from a noble block ; he never spoke to a human being in the morning till ten o'clock, he never wasted a scrap of paper, and he had a passion for new milk. But I walked softly round to look at the books; the lil)rary was a ALMOST A HEROINE. 83 light, bright room, but it contained only medical works, ex- cept one shelf devoted to the finest editions of all the best books of natural history, from Bewick to Gould. In the four corners were cases of British birds, stuffed exquisitely by himself, arranged, as I never saw them, on boughs of their own favorite trees, dried wonderously so as to preserve their shape, and with nests and eggs. Then I went to the window. What a prospect ! Was it possible there could be such sketches of green pasture and deep broad shades in this small island over-crowded ? Before the sashes lay a lawn, beyond it meadows with a silver streamlet threading them across, and on its emerald clover-rosy shores reposed about a dozen of the superbest cows I ever saw, rich-tinted, dashed with dun or tortoise-shell, or auburn altogether, and one milk- white. With all his passion for cream and milk, however, could Lord Lyndfield, or all Lyndfield besides, consume such quantities as they must produce, I thought. Before my speculation had resolved itself, Loi'd Lyndfield spoke, came towards me, holding out his hand. I know not what chained my tongue, or froze my eager gratitude, but I believe it was his face. I did not dare to be profuse or eloquent ; we sat down, and then I said : — " Impossible as it is for me to thank you, it is more than my life you have saved ; it is my faith in humanity. I must explain to you how I intruded — how I happened to come here." " I think I know how better than you do," said Lord Lyndfield, smiling as he lighted a cigar, " as I carried you myself. I was very anxious." Lord Lj^ndfield's mode of address, without the least ab- ruptness, was downright. You could not guess at the gentle- ness of his behavior through it ; that filtered through the tone. "I want to tell you how I came here, and who I am. You answered my advertisement for a secretaryship, and it was all I had to look to. I set off instantly ; you were not at home." 84 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Oh ! I have had a world of trouble with my correspond- ents on that score, and appHcants too. I sent them all pack- ing. I am sorry you were one." " Sorry ! — you have not even tried me." "But I have read you — you are quite unfitted for the life, and it would wear you down. For a few months it might do — we will talk of it. How was it you happened to fall ill in the next garden instead of mine ? " " Because your seats were all taken in out of the rain, and I was wholly exhausted ; I chmbed over the fence to find some place where I could lie down, or die ; and on coming to myself I heard voices, or they aroused me ; two voices : one was yours, the other — " " Was that of the person who found you in the summer- house, and came and told me — " How very impatient was the accent here, and he went on hurriedly, — " You must have had a peculiar shock, not a pleasant one, to produce such a crisis, Avith your youth and constitution." " It was no love-affair," I inserted by a quick new impulse I could not define to myself. " No, no, — you had been made very angry, or very much hurt, perhaps both ; something bitter had turned your blood, and on its gall you had starved yourself — very likely over- drunk yourself — " I recalled my internal sherry-bath with comjiunction, but astonishment overcame it. " Lord Lyndfield, you are a conjuror." " A doctor should be something more." " But how you could tell my name is Ernesto Loftus, and a few weeks since I thought little to find myself — " He interrupted me, but very quietly. " I recollect the Loftus will. I was so angry at it that I would not go to see the Collection ; but what a silly young man — no, boy you must be ! " " Agreeable ci"edentials from one's first and only patron ! " ALMOST A HEROINE. 85 " Why ? " " Not to dispute it, — think of the good you might do ! It Is your duty, and down you sit like a raw girl a boarding- school has depleted to zero. It is the clearest case out- standing, stark mad ; and the quiet kind, so cruel quiet, stealthier than death." " Do you mean my uncle was mad ? Lord Lyndfield par- don me, I am the only judge there. He was as sane as I." " You are sane ! How many specimens of insanity have you perused ? " How a home-question, be it ever so homely, comes straight home ! I had never seen a mad person in my life. " How many ? " " None — but then I have instincts — " " Instincts direct you in natural instances, not in unnatural. Madness is a violation — and that, oh God ! the most violent — of the laws of nature." How passionately he spoke ! — paused a little, then added : — " I might perhaps know more than you. I have seen the mad by thousands, and I do see a hundred every day." Then he rose up suddenly ; a curious sensation diserapow- ered me for comment. " Do you feel inclined to walk a few steps? — just along that walk that girds the grass-plot." I was very glad to go, when out of the house, — the back I had not seen. I was amazed at its great size ; I had thought it a mere country-house before, with the symmetrical squareness of such modern structures. This Avas not ex- tremely wide, a fair white frontage without wings, but its depth ! — it stretched out such a distance that, standing side- ways to view it, one felt sure it had been greatly added to — indeed, there was an obvious line between the darker primi- tive and the newer brighter brickwork. After I had exam- ined the house, I gladly followed my host to the garden. We walked slowly along the pathway next the lawn. This path 86 ALM-OST A HEROINE. had another boundary, a wall covered with flowering creep- ers, but high and solid ; and I imagined this the limit of the property that side. We had reached about the middle (it ran across the meadows too, and shut them in) when Lord Lyndtield stopped ; so did I ; he drew a great mass of passion- flower from its bower, the wall, and behind it I perceived that a brick had been removed — there was a small gap, oblong square. " Look there — through it," he said in a voice very constrained and cold for him. And I looked long enough — I could not withdraw my gaze. Beyond the wall was a garden even fairer than that in which we stood. Plats of the most vivid flowers (flowers to please the eye) were scattered all over a piece of grass like velvet ; and all around were arbors, in gay succession ; curious nooks that glittered with colored windows and were pranked with blazing spars. The arbors were as thick-placed, and as gaudy, as the pavilions in first-class tea-gardens. On the pinnacle of eveiy one — each a wholly different color — waved a gorgeous flag, a flag of no nation under the sun, save the fancy kingdom of uni- versal childhood. On the grass were trees, great trees and little trees ; on the great ones swings were hung — green- seated and cushioned, swings delectable to notice ; and the smaller shrubs Avere loaded with garlands and streaming knots of ribbon, rose and geranium and blue. A big rock- ing-horse was placed on the lawn, also many shuttlecocks and battledoors — a target was fastened to a gilded pole — bows and arrows were pointed at it — the air was winged with these, kites were flying, enormous kites, far up in the blue sky ; people — persons were swinging, shot the arrows, rode the toy-horse, picked the flowers and smelled them (and threw them away), sat in the gay arbors, talked and laughed, danced even to their own music, and were not children ! Lord Lyndfield pulled me away ; when I turned and saw his face, it was very pale — pale as he was seldom when /saw him. ALMOST A II1:H«1NK. 87 " What do you see ? " he asked me in that passionate, cold voice again. « Whom do I see, rather ? " I answered. I do not know, although I have an awful idea, — Lord Lyndfield — tell me, you." ° " You see my secret." Four hours afterwards (how kind and self-forgetting he was, he would not let me return to the subject till I had rested and been refreshed) we sat together in the library. "You see now why I said what I did about your relation. It was hardly theoretic." « You mean those people were all mad. They did not look so, but it was ' darkness that it might be felt.' But, my dear Lord Lyndfield, you never saw my uncle, and the sight I have witnessed makes me more than ever certain he was not one of those." « It is possible we may be either right or wrong." I was bursting to ask questions, and quite unashamed — what proof of true gentlemanhood in my companion ! " Would it hurt you — would you mind telling me how they came to appoint you ? " "Appoint me!" with a sharp glance from the bright eye^'" « I suppose it is a private Asylum ? " " It is not an Asylum ; it is my house." " I wish I knew." " I know you do, and your desire is a great comfort to me. The young men now are either dissipated or donkeys — there seems no middle class, but you are certainly not either indi- vidually. I will tell you my story ; it is brief, or I shall tell it briefly. I am no purveyor of penny literature. I was not born in the rank I occupy, though of blood as healthy as the best. My grand-uncle was a great lawyer, whose name stands prominent in the judicial history of his time. He saved for a certain Irish peer (a man with seven sons and eleven daughters) his whole estate, not an immense 88 ALMOST A HEROINE. one, but all to him and his, from the damnation to which cer- tain brethren of his jirofession were dooming it by the inev- itable sink of costs. This peer was a grateful man, and recollected my ancestor in his own prosperity, for everything prospered with him, and he married every one of his daugh- ters to men of substance, except the eleventh, who went into a nunnery and grew into an abbess. This earl made men- tion of his lawyer in high quarters ; the lawyer rose to mas- tery in his own profession, and only escaped the woolsack by being made a baron instead. He had saved a good deal of money (we don't sow wild oats broadcast in our race), and he bought this Lyndfield Chase (it was called Lyndfield after him, being strictly a chase A 1 before). It was a pet place of his. He had brought his wife here for the honeymoon, when there was neither church nor inn nor name at Lynd- field, only a tiny shell of wood cottages or two, a little farmer's whose house was less habitable than his own barn, and the old, old turnpike. They lodged in a wooden hut too for the honeymoon, but it was the depth of summer and no foul smells came between them and the camomiles and hay. The gypsies, too, here was their stronghold, with a hundred tents, looking like shells of tortoises, on the wide green dells. Now we have no gypsies, only half-and-halfs, the Saxon half tak- mg such large moiety of the rich dark gypsy out of them, alas ! " My half-and-half's invitation was explained. " My father was my grandfather's only son, and had three children, two sons, myself the second. He had a horror of young men being bred up to no profession, in any rank, what- ever their expectations. I had few enough, for my great uncle had three sons himself. My brother went into the army, I chose physic, my j^assion even then for a profession, and I may say (for I am not generally educated) that I studied it ardently and absorbingly, as alone it can be studied. My brother died first ; he fell early in the Scindian war. Next two of my cousins, bright boys at Eton, were ALMOST A HEROINE. 89 drowned in cncli otlier's arms while bathing. The shock nearly killed their father, and he was an old man from that date. I lost my father four years afterwards, and two years later my eldest cousin died of cholera here at Lyndfield. They used to call it an unhealthy place then, but the des- troyer was in every place that year. I did not like intruding on my relation, but he understood me and sent for me ; I never left him till his death. It is only since that time I have been able to realize my plans, formed long before, of taking under my care as many of these sufferers as my means allowed, of devoting myself to alleviate their awful condition ; but I had longed for such opportunity for many years, and almost abandoned surgery to study the diseases of the mind." The very words w^ei'e on his lips when the door opened gently and some one entered, walked up to him, and spoke. It was a few words about some patient or other out of doors, and poor, and it was a woman's voice. I looked at her well, but not for long. Lord Lyndfield almost ordered her away. " I sent you word I could not see you this morning, that I would call," he said in an accent almost stern ; I felt ready to hate him ! " Did not my man bring a message ? " " I suppose I missed him. I went out early, and came here before going home." " There, well ! It is late for your dinner, my child. Pray don't let me detain you." She held her hand out to him, with what a smile ! Who could have resisted it as he did ? for he loould not smile. He frowned. I did not see that she looked at me, and the omis- sion struck to my heart. But I was much too interested — interested ? — desperate, to be the least timid, or to care even if Lord Lyndfield should row me well for asking. " I know," said I quietly, " who the person is to whom I owe my life. It was that young lady's voice I heard. Is she your daughter ? " 90 ALMOST A HEROINE. " No, sir," almost fiercely, " I am not married, and have no child." I said so much to find out what a sweet instinct made me anxious to know, whether Lord Lyndfield had over this per- son to whom I had not spoken, who had not looked at me, any worldly control. I felt thankful she was not his child, but why — oh, why was I glad ? I wondered why then, and in my saddest frames I always wonder now. For this episode of my life very few words must be enough. I cannot analyze it, anatomize the passion that was to be all of suffering and nothing of reward. I must hasten over my young history, whose youth grew sere before its spi-ing had melted into summer, which Avas to have no summer this side the gi-ave. Lord Lyndfield did not know that his sane protected was slyer than his insane ones, proverbially sly. I outwitted him — and that I did, so I neither blame nor defend myself for. I only inhabit in consequence what is, in truth, the very paradise of pain — for I suffer not alone. I let Lord Lyndfield think I had forgotten or was less than indifferent to, the morning's incident. He watched me a good while, but I fairly conquered his suspicions. After luncheon I remarked that I could not remain any longer under his I'oof unless he permitted me to be of use, and I requested him to place before me the exact details of the duties a secretary should have to perform. To nail him to the notion that I was in sober earnest, I produced four or five lettei's in different languages (I had penned them in my room). Of course I did not confine myself to business terms, but gave my imagination the rein and let it lead me where it would. One letter, the Spanish, was dated from the Jjscurial. I had learned it from the best books and finest engravings, and in dreams had been there too. Lord Lynd- field stopped half way through this rhapsody (it was pure grammar and idiom though) and looked into my eyes — a habit of his, and a rare one too, that of looking into eyes, not merely at them. ALMOST A HEROINE. 91 " Young man, you have mistaken your vocation. I am not generally literary, but yet I perceive it. You should be an author — good thing for any one, but an excellent part for you. You have great imagination and some eloquence, and you are reserved^ Therefore, you would not make an ora- tor, but a writer well." " Lord Lyndfield, my uncle always said it was absurd to publish too young. I have had no practice, and I have lived too remotely. For the present, I should prefer to write your letters, if you think I can." " Quite sure ! I should like to have my eye upon you for a little, too, poor fellow ! " — here relapsing into that ineffa- ble kindness which was no more to be repi'essed, for long, than his generosity. Kindlier than I had ever known it was his manner, his voice, his impression on me ; as he went on, there was reluctance in his accent too. " I am going to make a condition — it is a very simple one. If you remain with me — if you are magnanimous enough to take up such a commonplace burden of every-day exist- ence after all you have expected, and had a right to, I shall be very glad. But the condition must be enforced." " Pray let me hear it." " That you shall never inquire of me who that young lady is, or how connected with me ; the young lady you saw to- day by accident — no fault of mine — I tried to prevent it ; and that you shall never climb over the fence into the next garden again, nor enter the house next mine, for any consid- eration." " It is quite unnecessary, Lord Lyndfield, but I assure you I never will." Lord Lyndfield was not an imaginative man, and knew not the rai)idity of the inventive faculty. I could find out what I wanted, most probably quite as well xoitliout questioning him or getting over the fence. Was it well I did so ? and did I Avrong ? I know not, in so far as that I do not pretend nor desire to be perfect in this 92 ALMOST A HEROINE. imperfect state. I may have caused another to suffer — is it not better to suffer — better To have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all. Fragmentary must be my memories just here, a handful of loose rose-leaves toni rudely from the living rose's breast in agony, and flung out on the winds to wither. I served Lord Lyndfield well. His letters were extra- ordinarily many, and in various languages, for his patients were, one and all, extreme and exceptional cases — cases requiring minute and philosophic — while, oh ! how patient — treatment. They were of many countries, and gathered together durins; their noble benefactor's travels for the express purpose of eliciting all the honey from the experi- ences of those who tend the mad abroad. For foreign mind medicinists are as much more enlightened than British ones, as foreign surgeons are more artistic and acute. He had selected those, the excejitional among the few who baffle even the masters of the general mad ; — those whose disor- ders are the most obscure or the most outrageous ; those who are gladly excluded by the doctors from contact with the insane more mildly stricken. The richest and the poorest, and all of any grade, were received and sheltered, but with the verij wealthiest a fee, trifling to the wealthy, was demanded, such sums swelling the ca2:)ital so largely drawn on for the comfort of the many poorer. So, as the relations who confided their helpless ones to this philanthro- pist were not in all instances inhuman or unnatural, they desired regular information of their welfare ; wrote letters periodically, which had to be replied to, while, at the same time, there was an enormous business correspondence re- quisite with the large dealers who supplied that out-of-the way house of God. I made haste slowly, in the old Latin sense, and for the few days Lord Lyndfield watched me (severely, and, oh, how narrowly ! ) I pretended to get ALMOST A HEROINE. 93 tlirougli my clay's work in the exactest nick of time. After he found me steady, and actually unvarying in ray perform- ances to a minute, he left me to myself a good deal, but still " popt in " upon me unexpectedly a day or two, and never caught me tripping. After that he trusted me implicitly, and returned to his own routine, which was, never to leave his patients a single instant to the keepers, his police — how choicely chosen! — from ten till four. And, lo ! I got my work done (it was the very lightest labor) by one o'clock at latest after he had left off watching me, and was safe home again and in the library, sealing and stamping letters by ten minutes to four. Lord Lyndfield never found me out until — it was too late to save me. I had grown strong suddenly, or strength had come to me out of my sharp illness, — no unfrequent fact. I could take long walks. The first walk I took was not long, it was to the bit of green at the entrance to the village, where my half-and-halves sky-housed theii" vans. It was fortunate I went, if I was to see them at all, for they were on the verge of departing for the races, whereof Rosella had related to me. I found them in no confusion, everything packed up and put away, whatever the property or the rubbish was, and Rosella, in a clean cotton frock, with actually a new straw bonnet trimmed with vivid orange, matching her hair by only a few shades lighter, in her lap, was lying all her length under the hedge. She, with the inexplicable good breeding of her semi-race, never noticed me till I spoke to her, but when I held her out a great ripe " butter " pear, she I'ose and curtsied, coloring with gratifica- tion. On the moment her mother appeared, no doubt had had her eye upon me through the bathing-machine-like window of the van. I went to meet her. She had the brown baby in her arms, and his head was also adorned with a bran-new hood of fine material, white, with a swansdown border round it, beneath which his eyes looked out with elf- like preternature, scarcely Christian. 94 ALMOST A HEROINE. "How pretty he looks!" was my first remark — "the handsomest child I ever saw — he won't come to me, I suppose." " He would be very happy, sir, but he goes to nobody but Miss Hope — she brought him his hat, she made it, and she tied it on herself." " I suppose she trimmed Rosella's bonnet, too ? " " She said it was a shame her complexion should be spoilt ! My grandmother would have declined to tell her fortune." " Rosella's fortune ? " " No, sir," — with a curtsy of compassionate condescension to my ignorance — courtly low in consequence. " No, sir ; Rosella has her fortune to seek herself, if she don't spoil it first by over-sarciness. I meant Miss Hope's fortune. I don't tell fortunes myself, it has so gone out of fashion ; it was the fashion in my grandmother's time. She would have said, ' No, I relate the fortune of men and women ; them of angels is above me, and beyond the starses and the cards.' " I found that Mrs. Rosella — I don't believe she had had a surname, and of course her husband was permanently con- cealed from me, as well as his occupation — was not leaving till the next day. The first van had gone on first. That very evening I saw the pretty fire of brands and perfumed fir-cones flittering across the Chase, for I crept out at even- ing, drawn to that vagrant's camp I knew not why. Next day I went again. There was a great silence, but no soli- tude. Rosella, stretched out as usual on the grass, was examining a large book spread open, (such a book!) con- taining no printed Avord ; but it was crammed with the brightest and the best-drawn and colored of children's pictures — such a book as rich men present to richer men's pampered children, cloyed with toys, or as sycophants, poor in spirit as in purse, would drain the latter for, to pay beggarly homage to their vulgar i)atrons through their dul- lard offspring. It was a big volume, all its sheets of linen ALMOST A HEROINE. 95 ribbon-bound, the sheets bound together with handsome scarlet cloth, the pictures plain and tinted. For the uncul- tured intelligent innocent a whole education w\is there, and no routine one either, adapted alike to the ignorant and the idiot. All the rest, wild auburn-headed children, burnt-blond women, one white haired, and a man's head issuing from the door above, but pulled in directly as I approached, were bent and bowed in various attitudes of the most absorbent interest about Rosella, or rather over the book. I never saw such enchantment, such appreciation, such generous enjoy- ment. I have a quiet step, and the softness of the herbage prevented me from disturbing them the least, but one stood aloof from them all a little way, not as for lack of interest in them, but the isolation of a being who has found no sym- pathy with any — isolation the most proudly helpless, of a heart most innocent and strong. Has any reader read of Rahel Levin ? I had long before that fatal day. She was the only woman in biographic his- tory who had ever touched my heart in fancy. I cannot tell why Erselie reminded me of her, for no brown eyes were hers (my darling's), nor was she a great talker in an im- mense circle of idle listeners ; I think it was the burning and steadfiist passion, the instant and eternal love with which Rahel inspired her husband, long, long the wanderer in the desert of a world ivithout her ; so, in Varnhagen's final heaven of possessing her, leaving at least a spark of hope for me. I know not how we came to know each other, yes, that very day. The whisperings of the half-gypsy could scarcely have been the means, though first she came to me and in- formed me Miss Hope had brought Rosella the mighty pic- ture-book, because Rosella had objected to learn to read the story of "The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage," Miss Hope related to her ; telling me at the same time, with com- placent glances, that Miss Hope was there at that instant ; 96 ALMOST A HEROINE. and then she went over to Miss Hope and whispered to her all she knew about me, whatever it was. That could not have been the reason, and I know of none, except our destinies, tliat we walked home through the long, long green lane, side by side, a longer way than straight across the common. I know that we were as innocent that first meeting (even /was) as the babes in the wood. Per- haps we were moi-e unfortunate than those the robins minis- tered to in their last sleep. I recollect we talked of every subject under the sun. It is a proud remembrance for me that I gave her no more alarm, even on my self-introduction, than the breath of the summer air, for it proves at least that my heart was virgin and my life unsullied. For she was no fool. She was the wisest as well as the sweetest woman I ever knew ; I do not speak of love, and had I not been as ingenuous as I was passionate, and as pure as either, there would have been no danger at all for her, and mine had been cut off that hour from increase. I gave her a great nosegay of wild flowers I had picked out of the hedge, telling her I had no others ; and truly none could have been more variously fair, for I not only informed her of my position at Lyudfield Chase — I made known each bare fact of my blank existence until then, I believe, and there alone I blame myself, that I deceived her there, or worked upon her benevolence to the exclusion of all caution on her part. She had no idea of making me sujfer for her. Angel as she was, even in mere physical perfection so fair, she had been so guarded from eyes of men, knowing them well enough in theory, that she had no idea of her own love- liness, — beauty is too rude a terra. Women, chaste ones, never have, until they test it beneath the regards of men. She thought me unhappy, she stretched out the white wings of her charity to cover my loneliness, she esteemed me unworldly wise, I being the former merely, and she put her whole frank confidence in mine, as hand to hand. I mean, she returned my confidence with all the confiding com- ALMOST A HEROINE. 97 mentarics of a woman eloquent in a single presence. The secret which was not her own she kept — until a day ! Job cursed not his day of birth so bitterly as I that day of the dying out of hope, the birthday of eternal love indeed, but born in tears that fall not from the eyes, yet flow forever. That day, it was quite three months after the first time I met her, I said some words. I know not that I asked a question ; I rather spoke only of myself, not of hopes, nor fears, nor of my own unworthiness, but of the truth that rules the world, or that, unobeyed, makes anarchy the world all through. She made me no reply. 1 did not ask nor wish one ; the consciousness of having betrayed my own dear secret was sufficient. What an afternoon ! November gusts had swept away the fogs from the pui'e country air and carried them to cities. The trees, for me, that morning clothed with summer, stz'etched their wild naked arms against the sky, above the brown deep leaf-beds lying under them. I saw them so from that window when I was busily, or hypocritically, occupied. Lord Lyndfield surprised me by coming in before his usual hour. Never had his countenance been so severe and never his voice so sweet. " I know all, and it is all my fault, I think, poor children ! I dare not be angry. What was I at such an age ? I should have sent you away. I kneiv what it would be, if you saw each other; at least I knew Avhat it would be for her/" After a short pause, daring which my heart's pulse had sunk to collapse almost, I was not strong when shocks attacked me, though I can endure a great length of antici- pated woe : — " You did not break your word, my poor child. I grieve for you." He seemed aflPrighted at my condition — calm enough. He fetched a cordial, whose glass I dashed out of his hand. •' I care for nothing but to understand, and I tvill under- stand," I said. 5 98 ALMOST A hekoinp:. He looked at me with the eai'nest, tranquil eyes that had all power over physical illness, none over my mental torture, because I was not mad. " You are not worldly," I said, quite quietly, with a cold at my heart like death, " and so I cannot understand." He gasped, that rarely excited being, and looked as pale as Ifelt myself. " I would not keep you in suspense for all the heavenly worlds that hang above us. That girl, it would be sacrilege to call such a woman an angel, was only weak in not telling you herself; but what man does not love a woman in her weakness best ? What man who is capable of loving ? She had not strength, and she came to me." " Not strength to refuse me ! strange absence of a woman's nature ! " " You shall not speak till I have spoken. Were she a woman with all the rights she ought to have, she would never have refused you. No ! not a word ! Attend to me. Thirty years ago, I was fool enough to love her mother, single then ; or not fool enough to love, but fool in the faint-heartedness that dared not love her openly. I never told her of it ; I felt far too much her inferior. I was not, like you, with re- gard to her daughter, her equal. Or I thought not, perhaps wrongly, for, had I been honest, I should have saved her and hers from such a fate, as, great Heaven ! now I can only add to in trying to lighten. " I went abroad in my professional career, and my heart was always hers, but I did not keep my eye upon her as I should have done. I had vague dreams, such as men dream before manhood, of earning her love, however indefinitely postponed, and, stupidly enough, fancied it might be effected through my temporal advancement. " I came home, and heard, the first thing, that she was mar- ried. Tliis was a selfish shock to me, and 1 own I have never recovered it. That is nothing to the purpose except to show that I am not hard in not letting you know the hard truth, ALMOST A HEROINE. 99 hard enough for her, and the hardest lot I ever knew for you. For you will never find a woman to suit you again." Without meaning it, he was hard indeed to say so, or was it the selfishness of baffled love within him so to torture me ? For, after all, we arc all mortal, love we, aspire we, as we may. I could not bear it, however, mortal selfish even as he, my brother man, and I dragged myself up from my chair; he went to the door and locked it, and held the key in his hand. T was misery-struck when I heard she was married, but panic-stricken when I heard to whom. It was a good match for the worldly eye, though she never thought of that, for she was in rank as much above Mm as me ; but I knew the name. I found out, and faMened on the family: — one cursed for ages, and, by constant 'intermixture with its own blood, sealing the curse more strongly on every generation, though well aware of the consequences, for they had been dinned into the ears of every member of it ; — a race without principle or purity, so to disdain the instinct of right which inhabits every breast except the idiot's. I am not eloquent in sorrow, and I cannot try to describe the icy horror facing me, not yet un- masked. Lord Lyndfield was merciful in saving me suspense at least, for, turning his back to me, he went on with sharp and rapid utterance : — " The hind of madness in the Hope family is the cursed one ; it can never be anticipated, nor prevented, nor eradi- cated. Every other generation inherits it, and those between are free. It is those last Avho are to blame in perpetuating the curse. I, who am no hero, have existed without the sweets of love ; it can be done. Of this race, too, few are capable of loving ; and their marriages, with scarcely an ex- ception, have been for interest. Don't think me hard again, I say, for crushing the slightest germ of any hopes you chil- dren might have harbored in your young hearts, any possi- hiUties you might have dreamed. I know the girl is firm, if left to herself; I have taken care to nurture her in knowledge 100 ALMOST A HEROINE. at least of the crime she would commit in bearing childi'en, and, though she is in her own power by this time, (she was my ward,) I am sure of her, unless you intermeddle. You can bear now what you could not bear if you knew her a little longer, and now, while it will not kill you, you must go." " I will 7iever go, until I have spoken to her. I have some- thing to ask her to remember ; I cannot write it. There is another thing. You spoke of hopes, of possibilities — " " Which you might entertain, not I nor she, unless you put them into her head ; woe to you if you do. You have not heard the crisis of the story of her mother ; it may be of use to you." His voice changed deathfuUy ; I shuddered from the com- ing words. * " Her father never betrayed his madness till middle life. There she was deceived, perhaps he deceived himself. He was a scholar, a gentleman, a good man to the eye ; I never could endure him, but that was natural. One morning his man went to call him, was bidden to enter in his usual voice ; he was standing before the glass looking at himself, and his wife lay strangled in her bed. They would have him arrested for murder, for he seemed quite rational. This rationality, or, rather stupefaction of the senses, continued till the first day he appeared in court. Then in an instant, he went rav- ing mad, tore up the iianelling before him with his teeth, and nearly throttled the officers on either hand. " From that time he never had a lucid moment until death, which broke the spell ; you could see that by his fiice. I had charge of him from the earliest hours of his disease, and never left him to others. I could not have made a greater sacrifice for her. It was on his account I first organized this place at Lyndfield ; he alone inhabited it till his death, ten years ago, — no human being would come even within the sound of his voice. No one disputed with me the guardian- ship of the child, which her mother had desired I should assume. I have as often thanked Heaven she was so crood as ALMOST A HEEOINE. 101 I have son-owed that she was so fair. For your own sake I command, and for hers I desire, that you shall never see her again." " Your commands and your desires are fruitless. I must see her, and then you may be confident I will go, that you will soon enough be rid of me." " There is something more I wished, much more I should say rather, I wished to tell you." " I cannot listen to anything. If I may not see her in this house, I shall break my promise and go to her's. If you will bring her here, you shall stand outside the door the •while ; so long as you cannot hear my words. I will not be half an hour." He came and touched my pulse. It told nothing. I am sure a poet, although unpublished, wrote strange true lines. He sang: — And sh-ings that tremble every hour At last must break. But not the strings that do not tremble, that endure all pres- sure Avithout betrayal either by music or by sigh. My heart beat regularly, while death was in it ; my being's machinery did not falter, though the spring of love had dried up sud- denly, leaving passion athirst forever. I conquered ; I think the force of passion always does, if pure. I saw her, and asked hei*, — what no one else shall hear. CHAPTER VIII. A READER. If anything could be more tedious than the Times adver- tisement sheet to those who neither insert nor require to respond to advertisements, it would be the history of the diurnal and eternal existence of a young man eligible neither by fortune nor inclination for marriage. I will not add one solid grain the more of tedium to the lazy or exhausted mind by any item of recollection over the dose needful to my " part " of self-biographist. I did not fall ill. My blood burned to no fever, no weighty weakness crushed my muscular sti-ength to dust; but my nervous vitality, too immensely and suddenly drawn on, cut off its supply. I used to think those times, that it was almost a blissful hallucination, that ensuing on the star- vation of the heart ; as they say that the brain of the starved body is strangely hghtened by gleams of the im- pending heaven. I was unfit to stir, once having shifted my abode ; my spine felt paralyzed, my limbs palsied ; only my head survived, the natural miracle of the mind over matter achieving its sweet and wondrous victory. Delicious imagin- ings of such delights as the sensual blind themselves to, ravishing yet nameless sensations, pertaining to no sense, yet felt through its "/re " mystic entrances, as the white hght breaks into its rainbow lovelmess through " seven," a depth of dull sorrow underneath, like the heavy clods from which spring fruits and flowers ; and overhead, too far to reach in thought as hope, the ever-changing but eternal sky. ALMOST A HEROINE. 103 I never can express, and I never desire to express, for " there's beggary in the ' gratitude ' that can be reckoned," all I owe to Lord Lyndfield, that hero on a bloodless battle- plain of far more than a hundred fights ; he too had suffered, how nobly and exquisitely his sufferings were sustained ! I often learned from him a lesson, though never abh', from my feebler and less earnest temperament, to take " a leaf out of its book." I suppose great sorrow makes one humble ; it certainly should, if all that has been written against pride be true, which of course I deny. I do not think that modesty and humility are twin terms either ; it seems to me that this Anglo-British antique-viediceval-modern language of oui's which is so boasted of in places high, low, and middling, is the greatest detriment to a single-minded author. There is scarcely one word left us which is unpervertible, — I was going to say inconvertible. Where are all the linguists, philologists, and grammarians, who address short-winded epistles to the Times without ever receiving any answers ? — at least in its columns. I would not wish to seem to imitate Punch even on the most in- finitesimal scale, yet he might have magnified my above remark as the solar microscope should repeat "e?i grand" the mite investigating a cheese-burrow. I only meant, in the first instance, that though I might be humble, I was not modest, so dissolving, on my own account, any coequality between the terms. For, in my solitude, soUtude of a unit amidst the solitude of myriads, I took upon myself to do what the wisest and the least of fools, the ex- tremest instances of individual wit and dulness have done, with equal (or unequal) rewards of man's contempt or adula- tion — I took upon myself to write a l»ook. It shames me somewhat when I see, floated in upon a loose bed of waste paper that would have made great stand against the waters of the universal deluge, such a mass of worthless letter-press thrust straight in the public eye, as not only has its "billet" 104 ALMOST A HEKOINE. like any other " bullet," but sells and satisfies (like tlie sup- per of the last man who had the nightmare) for the moment. It is disheartening to write one's self an author in days when women who, ten years ago, would have been governesses, twenty years ago laundresses, and fifty years ago good plain cooks — not to speak of men who in such small spaces of the past would have similarly been ushers of commercial schools, foremen of small neat firms in trade, or truly-to-be-trusted servants out of livery — aU write themselves the same, and are in print ; whether read or not, it matters little, for they are paid, or their publishers are, — it is all one to us. I was cast abroad with only one friend — a friend sweet to the heart's core and strong — and, failing the advice of speculative acquaintances who would have been happy to bestow that if none other alms were asked of them, I took his — delivered rather as an opinion. Lord Lyndfield said to me, that dai'k long day I left that blessed (though woful) country-side : — " I told you that you were very clever in expressing your- self. I am not so, though I am no ass, nor do I pretend to consider myself one. Why, instead of writing my letters in four languages, should you not concoct some pretty tale or fancy in one ? Anything new is sure to take, and whatever is the matter with you — whatever scrcAV is loose in your most curious constitution — your composition would be a novel one. You must write something (even if it be absurd) quite as fresh as this morning's day of the month ! " I was so spent — pride and all (I suppose pride ebbs and flows with the current of the blood, and my blood felt like frozen water) — that I could have worshipped him for telling me what to do, or rather, what to set to. I was not like other young men, except that I had as much muscle, if unexpanded, and to the full as much subtle and insheathed strength. I could smoke, but in this my extremity it did me no good — -it failed even to lull my brain. I could ride, but I had no horse ; and I was innocent by will of various performances by which ALMOST A HEROINE. 105 young men kill time, but never care nor woe. So I came to write a book, and, as it happened, I might have done much worse, for though I efFectually barred with my honesty the gate to the " broad " golden way of literature, I fastened on the key to the " narrow," and have kept it ever since. And, through the agency of my honest, small purveyorship to its vast stores, I found such friends as have formed the romance, if not the passion, of my life ; nor have I failed in i-endering the dear dues of love to each accordingly. I. am quite sure that Lord Lyndfield (though no man un- derstands me physically except himself) would never have recommended me to pursue literature as a means of living, if he had not possessed a literary friend. If my most dear Lord Lyndfield had a weakness, it was for literary men — or persons! — just because his wonderful generosity dealt out overflowing measure to all minds but his own, of meed for anything natural to them to do. He never reflected for an instant on the fact that his own medical researches and the extraordinary wisdom he had gathered from them, and acted upon independently, were quite as much literary fixcts as (liow much more lasting and useful than) the ephemera of literary facts in general. How much less failures than any number of works, in any number of volumes, that rush or dribble from the press ! Lord Lyndfield had assured me that if I wrote a book, for which he informed me I was exactly competent, he would undertake to get it " taken." I am not ashamed to confess that, in that young time of mine (no spring, although so young), I believed all authors to be exceptional beings, and myself such an exception as that all beings should yield me dues ; 1 mean in body and m spirit, not in hard cash, for I am not mercenary. It is of little consequence wliat my book was about, nor how long I took to write it. Lord Lyndfield, faultless in delicacy as in heart, sent me exactly the sum I had earned by " writing " all his letters for three months, and not a stiver 5* 106 ALMOST A HEROINE. beyond it. I have since learned that light labor of the inind is better paid than heavy. I cannot pretend that writing gave me the least pleasure, — writing a book, I mean. I was too unhappy, and it was a task, the dreariest I ever set myself to, to drain away my ideas, drop by drop, from the ocean of miglity grief that had absorbed them. Instead of writing about trouble of any kind, I made fantastic merri- ment in my book ; every person was made happy in the way he or she preferred, and it was, to use a word which may dis- arm the fullest mailed critic, idiotically enthusiastic. To seal its natal character, it was a love story, with its scenes and characters in ancient Greece, and, though I knew the lan- guage pretty well, I made strange blunders, both classical and dramatic, which real faults, I am bound to say, those who were kind enough to review me passed over quite, though they turned my romance and my reflected passions into ridi- cule — unproved. And when I had written it out much fairer than was at all needful, announcing on the face of my scripture that I was something fresher than green at literature, I sent my neat manuscript, not to any publisher, but to Lord Lyndfield. Certainly he had desired me to do so, but that was no reason why I did it ; rather I should not have done it because de- sired. If it had not been the fact that I had no idea how to proceed myself, and was rather under the impression that the gentlemen who publish books were in the habit of consider- ing any manuscripts as so much paper-money. Lord Lynd- field — letterless himself — saw into my ignorance, and, as I before remarked, having a " literary- friend," consigned me to his mercies, more " tender " far than those of any pubUsher or critic. After I had sent my MS., to Lord Lyndlield I mean, I went through the customary agonies of authors who have not taken duplicate copies. I thought it would be lost some- how, either perish in the post mysteriously, or be sent wrong. No such thing ; in four-and-twenty hours I had a due receipt ALMOST A HEROINE. 107 of its arrival from my best friends, and in two days more a letter addressed to " A. Major, Esq.," at a certain publisher's of note and influence (not that I knew he was so then), and there was a scrap of command from Lord Lyndfield that I should go to town directly, and call upon the same A. Major, at his house of business. It was only left for me to go. I had no interest in the place I inhabited then, and had no fur- ther penetrated it than to look out of the window. Arrived in town in due course, and at the very door I had to enter, I was seized with that unworthy shyness which most of those about to ask or to receive a favor experience, unless devoid of self-respect. The aspect of the place did but con- firm such a frame. It was the immensest shop I ever saw, by no means exclusively devoted to the sale or exhibition of literature — hax-dly any books appeared, in comparison with the mountains of stationery, and three vans, bigger than my Lyndfield friend's, were loading outside with bales of paper and account-books. The shop was amply stocked with young men, not one of whom looked like a master or part-proprietor. I chose the least sour-looking (they were all sour-faced more or less, and I did not wonder) to state my errand to. He looked at my letter, and after all made some mistake, or else considered Mr. Major on his o\yn level, and the publisher on one far higher than his or mine either, for he showed me into a desk (there was no room for rooms) where, standing at the grate, full dressed for evening, was a person I was quite sure never had been, nor could be, a " friend " of Lord Lyndfield. It was the publisher himself, as he haughtily and harshly in- formed me ; and if I do not call him a gentleman it is because he so pertinaciously announced in air, in dress, in style, that he considered himself one, as to make it utterly impossible he should either be or appear so. His clothes were the most perfectly cut I ever saw, liis ornaments faultless for taste and value, and he was an extremely handsome man ; also, of course, he spoke educated grammar, and he was courteous in 108 ALMOST A HEROINE. a way, desiring me to be seated (there were two stools), but I think I never took such a personal dislike to any one who was not wicked. I could pick out a few hieroglyphics of character always, and I traced ii; him the vanity which is the refuse of overweening selfism, the worldliness which prizes mere money as if it were " riches," and luxury because the really " great " in society live in it, — also, and most oppres- sively, I detected, under his exquisite clothes, human beauty and graceful manner, the most disgusting of vulgarities — refined vulgarity — nauseous as the liquid (hke scented gin) which perfumers who are bad chemists term violet essence. He was too well self-trained to express what I saw he felt, impatience at being disturbed (it was growing dusk in that dull place), and I hastened to undeceive him as to my de- siring to detain him. The instant he heard I wanted Mr. Major, his manner altered (he didn't mean it to), and I could tell he too, as well as his underling behind the counter, considered Mr. Major as lying at his feet, or under them. " Our reader ? Oh, yes ! " and then he struck a tuneful little gong with two notes, adding to me : — "I am expecting the carriage, and I am engaged to dine. Good day." I was aware he meant me to retreat, and I knew not whither, save through the shop, down which I should have gone if another person had not appeared in the desk. I saw not how he entered, but there he was. The other half whis- pered to him, and he turned to me. " Pray come this way," he said, and I followed him into a second desk, with high railings like the first, but not so com- modious to the sight. What heaps and heaps of sheets, both written and in print, lay on this writing table ! And as I sat down on one of the two hard seats, I faced my companion. The first view of him I had was that of the most utter exhaustion I ever saw a human countenance be- tray ; just then it betrayed none other than this dead fatigue, which seemed to swallow up all expression in its own proud. ALMOST A HEROINE, 109 helpless one. The exhaustion did not strike through the voice (he had not been using it), but with the very voice itself the face seemed to alter — : brighten shall I say ? — but that is not the word — and if it did not yield too feminine a sound, I should say simply that with the voice the foce changed to the " face of an angel." I had just seen manly beauty, and despised it doubly now that I saw what was so very different and so infinitely higher. I had also seen a self-constituted gentleman — this was a gentleman by blood, with the veins running clear through the whole material un- derneath the polish. So far, my very earliest impression of this rare person finishes, except to add that, instead of being dressed unquestionably, he wore a decidedly old coat, and his exquisitely outlined hands were dashed with ink. So strong was my immediate interest, that I involuntarily replied to his first remark. " You come, I believe, from our good friend, Lord Lynd- field ? " " Yes, but I fear I am disturbing you," and I glanced at the paper heap significantly. "Not the least," he returned. "But you look extremely tired," in such a tone as that I had often imagined a most be- loved brother might have used ; and to a stranger this ! But that, the very initial, was the key to his moral character. If you had had the lightest fever-cold, and he the most malig- nant fever, he would not only have put your case before his own, but have considered it the more suffering. And feeling in him was so impregnated with intellect that it roused one to excite it. " I am a little tired," I responded, " not a tenth so much as you are." He smiled a smile like none I have ever seen before or since, as peculiar for its bitterness as its sweetness, blended as is nothing in creation, except the sweet and bitter in the flavor of the king of fruits. From the instant of its dawning, I was not to him, in heart, a stranger. 110 ALMOST A HEROINE. "We are both tired, and will agree upon it, not that I should allow every author to tell me I was. By the way, you are not quite yet an author, and I am very sorry, in process o^ growing one, you should have come to this house." " I am not." Then I considered myself too impertinent, or pertinent, in what I meant, that then I should not have seen him. " I am very glad," I added, " for I see such tokens of wealth all around me, that doubtless one should be satisfac- torily recompensed." This came out of me through an awkward sensation about my book ; of course, the instant I remembered that, I ceased to think Mr. Major disinterested, however kind ; of course he had read it, and its merit made him appreciate me ! So much for the wisdom of the sucking-babes of literature. " I do not know. I have read your book ; I sat up all night to do so." I did not know, and little thought of the monotonous labor for the brain, and strain on the attention, of his daily experi- ence. Again I dreamed myself of imperial merit as a writer, to interest him a whole night. " I think I could persuade them to take it here, but I am certain the remuneration for it to you would be small. What do you intend to ask ? " " I had never intended to ask at all. I didn't know it Avas the custom ; I thought all publishers settled that themselves. Would twenty-five pounds be too much ? " I was reflecting on the only precedent my memory afforded me, namely, my quarter's salary as secretary ; it had taken me three months more to write the book, and, having about seventeen shillings left, I considered a quarter in advance quite enough to be content upon. Again, at my remark, there was the smile, preceded by a sincere but momentary stare ; now I know my innocence surprised him, for I suspect, hav- ing had a long nose and rather lai-gely scrutinizing eyes, that I looked more knowino; than innocent. I would, however, ALMOST A HEROINE. Ill had I known the result, have talked any gibberish to provoke that smile. « It is worth ten times as much, and you may get twice as much even here. But leave that to me. Can you really live on a hundred pounds a-year ? Have you ever tried ? — even supposing you could write four such books in one year, in which case, certainly, you would have no expenses for the next year." How bitter was the accent, missing all the sweetness of the smile. " What do you mean ? — the next year ! " " Only of course you would be dead and need no help for living." I was, though not vain, no fool, and I knew he intended to imply that to work at four such books would kill me in a sea- son. " Do you think I have any genius, then ? I do not ; though I would rather possess a grain than the mightiest for- tune in the world." " I am not speaking of genius, whether it be there or not. Look at Goethe, the genius he had, the life he led, the masses he wrote, and the late age he died at. I mean what would kill you is the feeling, not only sincerely felt, but openly ex- pressed." I was so astonished I had never reflected on the ravages of " feeling " which are rarely effected, because to feel is so very rare. I might have perceived them on looking in the glass, for if I had gained five years of expression during the week succeeding my uncle's death, I had the last three months earned ten. " But what shall I do, then ? " I exclaimed, in the sort of helplessness that befalls a man who has never made a cup of arrowroot nor seen one made, and whose wife, sick in the backwoods, request sone. " What shall I do if I cannot earn a hundred a-ycar ? I could live on that of course, having lived on ;i (|n;irt('r of it a (piai-lrr." 112 ALMOST A HEROINE. " How did you live pray ? Did you drink wine ? " " Oh ! no ; I was always used to wine at home, and very fond of it when good, but the last bottle I had (not at home) disgusted me, and 1 shall drink no more." *' Very easy not while you are so very young, and only in the first flush of creative existence too. Let those rail who please at authors who, living at the highest pressure, provoke their weary wits with wine (or ale) or tobacco ; how many of those who rail could do without their meat ? — a much better thing even for the brain ; but what true-hearted author, living up to the rate of the times, could write on meat ? Do not think me awfully matter-of-fact, or unromantic, so to speak. But you, with your unfortunately delicate nerves and strength of will, can never go on bread and water." " How singular ! I have no doubt you know best " (I had not indeed), " but it is all the worse for me, then, that I was born of woman, Ernest Loftus." Mr. Major (who was in a literary and particular sense the fastest of men) knew quite well all that had happened and that was generally known. He simply looked as if he did recol- lect the affair of the will which left me penniless, and my name too, but no more interested or curious than heretofore. Had the Queen entered his desk, he would have offered her the accommodation of one hard stool (just as he would have done to any other woman) only. "It is a shocking thing," I went on, "for one to have no profession, nor occupation, nor craft. If I were only like George Borrow, I could buy a cart and a tent, and go and sleep out of doors. But I always have pain all over if I even breathe the damp, and I have chiefly written my book at night, because I could not sleep on the mattress at my lodgings, it was so thin and laid on laths. Do you know of any hard- ening process, Mr. Major ? I would gladly train myself" " There are such — but not for such as you." Inexpressibly kind was the voice, and full of strong pity ; how diihcult to accept pity from any but the strong, kind, ALMOST A HEROINE. 113 and pure ! It was a fact, and an awkward one for me, that I had a frail constitution, with a desperate sort of courage that would have availed (both together) to kill me very easily. What then ? and what had I to live for ? Why was it a crime to die ? " Then I see no chance unless I go into the army — enlist. There is hot work coming on to try if any fighting-blood is left. I should be stunned with the noise of an engagement, fall on the ground in a swoon, and be easily finished off that way by the stray shots." Mr. Major got crimson suddenly — no lack of blood in him — and looked so indignant, so stern, and so disgusted, that I was amazed, and rather alarmed besides. " Do not speak of war ; do not dream of such a crime, be- gotten of cruelty upon civilization." " But the ancients fought, surely, Mr. Major." " People who were not ancients burned women for witches, hung men for forgery and sheep stealing, and tore martyrs on racks ; pray do not forget that if these crimes are of the past, the monster one of war should be. If men's minds were not idiotized by precedent, as their bodies are enervated by luxu- ry, there would be politicians instead of warriors, and peace- makers instead of diplomatists. Bloodshed would be no more, except to atone for murder." " Strange views ; to go back to the very beginning." " Poets sing that the ' Beginning ' was the Golden Age. Come now, I did not mean to be so selfish, but I will confess I like talking, and I very seldom get a listener I love. We must not stay here all night ; they will soon be locking up, and I can tell you that is a process — through all Cimbb's gentle patents it makes a noise ! I do not apologize for ask- ing you to go home with me to-night, because I have much to say to you, and we cannot finish here." What virtue and grace in the hospitality that forestalled any confession of the fact that I had no home to go to ! Lord Lyndfield in this particular fraternized with his " liter- 114 • ALMOST A HEROINE. aiy friend," and it must bave been on tbose grounds they had sympathy — I never could discover any other. I was very grateful, but sometimes it is as painful as at other times it is sweet to experience gratitude. What right had I to intrude on such a person ? — for already he had won what he always took care (or took no care) to inspire — respect, whether one dared or not to love him. " I am afraid I shall be in your way ; I did not mean any- thing of that kind, but only to visit you on business — " " Which we have not concluded. I only fear that you will find me very dull or noisy, for I have some work in the eve- nings, and no one with me except three children ; they are not always quiet, and, unless so, are a certain nuisance ; they go to bed early though." What a strange tone to take in speaking of his children ! Such a man ! I thought. It was certainly gentle, but not the least tender, and who and what was their mother ? — his wife ? " If you are quite certain I should not trouble any one, only for to-night." " We can settle that to-morrow. If we stay any longer here, we shall lose the omnibus." I had never driven in an '' omnibus." I was astonished at its convenience, its discomfort, its heterogeneous contents, its evil smell, and its distracting din. I was at the same time so sensible of ray own degradation, through luxurious habit, as to feel I deserved to drive about in an omnibus until the day of doom, for objecting to it — an improvement on the fate of the Wandering Jew, who wears out, not shoe-leather, but his own feet perpetually. I only mention the omnibus because I had anticipated a long conversation on the way with my companion, and we could not hear the sound of our own voices, much less talk coherently. I was the more ashamed, however, sitting in silence, to feel the abhorrence I did for the usefullest, if fright- fullest, of conveyances, when I looked at 1dm, of whom, even ALMOST A HEROINE. 115 on that short acquaintance, I felt no situation could be worthy. I cannot tell from which feature, or look, or trick, this impres- sion of high desert radiated ; it was perhaps rather universal, but I was the only person who observed it then and there. No countenance was his to fascinate the crowd — it was at once too passionate and too calm. He had the lofty incuri- ous vision of the highly-bred, and I don't think could have been taught to " watch " his temporary neighbors. I thought the drive would never come to an end, (it was, in truth, a very tedious one for any one to undertake twice every day, as he did,) and when we stopped, I beheld, look- ing out of a window, that we were stationary before an inn yclept the " Angel." I know of two " Angels," one at Ox- ford, and the other at Islington ; long as had been our way, it was too short and slow for us to have reached Oxford. It must, consequently, I considered, be Islington. Again, (what a fool I was in many trifles !) I recurred to an old impression of mine, that Islington^ Deptford, and Wapping were synony- mous terms, (or rather places,) and held the trine in (per- chance unmerited) contempt. Now there are doubtless immense advantages for a certain million, both in the second and the third, still they would not suit the studious few. The first in point of quietude, cheap- ness, and average architecture (no one who cannot rent a mansion should be mad enough to expect good) is especially adapted for the " clerkly," who are not rich, nor anything near such estate. I made these remarks afterwards, for then I had enough to do in following my new acquaintance (no less a friend in need) and in noticing what a change passed over the scene when we left the neighborhood of the inn ; for in five or six minutes we were before the door of a house in a street branch- ing from a square, the street (unknown incident " quite by Hyde Park ") exactly as well built as the square, only four sizes smaller, and presently we stood inside a passage, quite small, quite plain, but square, wall-panelled, and brightly lighted. CHAPTER IX. ANOTHER UNCLE. I MENTIONED the passage being square, because I hate narrow passages, and they are unnecessary in the smallest house. And as for the light, it was one of those finite needs of a nature highly organized. If Arnold Major had eaten nothing but dry bread for two days, he would have preferred it to being left without a lamp outside his parlor door. It is a small thing to notice, but tells, because most persons in his circumstances would rather eat flesh in the dark than starve themselves to buy food for a lamp. Again, from the aspect of the house, little as it was, I could not guess his poverty, because everything, from the ceiling to the door knob, shone with cleanliness, and so did the maid's face when she opened at his knock. My heart sank a moment before we entered the sitting- room, through one of the doors on either hand, for I felt afraid what manner of woman his wife might be. Surely he was not fitly mated ; so few men are among the best. We went in ; there was a fire, a table on which tea-things shone in its light, curtains were drawn, a sofa pulled near the fire, but the room was empty, save of our two selves. " Where are the young gentlemen ? " asked Mr. Major of the servant, who was trimming the passage lamp. " IMaster Hilary in the study, sir, and Master Effingham up-stairs on his bed. He said he was so sleepy, and I put him on his bed at five ; he has not rung the bell which I put in his crib, so I suppose he is asleep yet." " And Miss Pliilippa ? " ALMOST A HEROINE. 117 Tlie maid hesitated an instant, then added : — " In the back-kitchen, sir, giving her cat its tea." ]Mr. Major uttered a sort of sigli, Avhich, however, the maid coukl not possibly have heard. " Do take a seat and rest directly, or lie down on the sofa. I confess I often do. I have to go up-stairs a moment. Perhaps, however, you would like to see your room. Mary," (to the maid,) " show this gentleman into the front bedroom." " The front bedroom, sir ? " "Yes," a little impatiently. Then he went out into the passage an instant and closed the door. The front bedroom, the best in the house, was his own, I found out afterwards. The maid returned to me by herself, and took me up-stairs. When I came down, refreshed by warm water for my hands and a pair of slippers, there were in the parlor Mr. Major and a boy of seven or eight. I had hardly had time to see him, when, before I had shut the door behind me, I heard a great crash like fallen crockery. The maid, who was just coming up the kitchen stairs with the tea-kettle, heard it too, for she stopped a second and exclaimed, " Bless me ! " — then brought the kettle into the parlor. " What was the noise down stairs ? Is Miss Philippa hurt? " asked Mr. Major, anxiously. " No sir — " Again she hesitated. The boy burst out, m accents strangely haughty for almost infant lips, with — " I know what it is exactly, and I prophesied to Mary she would do it, but Mary was a fool, and left the milk on the lower shelf, as I saw it when I went down for my candle. Philippa has got on the table and pulled the big jug down, just because you said her cat was only to have one saucerful of that milk." " What strange thing is this ? " I thought. Mr. Major made no answer to the child, save that he put one hand upon his shoulder, and the boy directly shrugged his shoulder, and flung himself into a corner of the room. 118 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Go and see," said Major to the servant, " and tell Miss Philippa we are all ready for tea, except that we want her and the toast." In three minutes up comes, the door opening as by a whirlwind, a girl about six, and putting her back against it to bang it to, exclaims in bold, boisterous tones, with a cer- tain resemblance to the boy's : — " I have thrown all the milk over and spoilt my frock. I am very glad, for I hate wearing black, and I don't want any tea, and I wont have any tea." Here she evidently caught sight of me, stopped short and tossed her hair back from her forehead, staring out of a pair of splendid big eyes. I saw that Mr. Major was surprised and even gratified ; he smiled, and going up to her took her hand and led, or rather dragged, her up to me. " I have brought this gentleman home to tea, Philippa. He has come a long way and is very tired. I am sure you' won't make a noise. Never mind about your frock." Here she pulled her pinafore aside and showed the under garment soaked with milk. Still she stared at me. She was a very finely made child, robust in frame, but admirably modelled, her features imperfect, but her teeth dazzling, and her complexion that peculiar paleness seldom seen with a vigorous form ; setting forth the beauty of her immense brown eyes and soft streaming curls of black hair. Yet she did not prepossess me ; but I incHne to love all children, so I stooped and was going to kiss her, when she raised her hand and struck me a really violent slap on my cheek, then turned and ran out of the room, slamming the door with all her might. I was certainly bewildered, but resolved not to notice the blow to her father, as 1 supposed him to be. He had left the room that moment. His wife was dead then ; I considered what a vixen she must have been ! The boy, left behind, never took the sliglitest notice of me, but leaned into his corner, sitting on the carpet, and he had a book in his lap which he seemed to bC' devouring ; his eyes danced from ALMOST A HEROINE. 119 line lo line. He had a noticeable face, too ; the features finer than the girl's ; the forehead beautiful for its height, clear temples, and alabaster whiteness, but withal unchild- like ; the mouth cut as with a chisel and colored as with carnation, quite painful in its expression of imperious pride and stern self-will. The great Napoleon's mouth in baby- hood might have carried the self-same type. In about five minutes Mr. Major returned, with the girl in another frock (a little lilac chintz one). She was evidently very angry, very sullen, and not at all abashed. She sat down at table, on which she put her elbows. Mr. Major called the boy, who came slowly, his eyes still on his book. As he slipped into a chair placed ready, Mr. Major very gently, but with a decision in his manner I had not seen, took away the book. The boy scowled, grew paler, a haughtier darkness fell over his eyes (they were dark gray, not brown), and he never looked at any one, nor spoke, all the time the meal lasted ; and he ate like a prisoner over his rations, hungrily, but most discontentedly. I saw that the children were luxuriously treated ; they had neither milk- and-water nor washed-out tea, but there was delicious looking cocoa for them, with plenty of sugar and milk, white bread and butter, and one piece of hot toast for each. The girl kept her word, and would not touch her food (I saw her cast longing looks at the toast), and Mr. Major, with an air of desperate patience I wondered at, did not seem to notice her. He was certainly possessed of tact, for he kept my plate supplied (we had cutlets, beautifully dressed), and contrived to talk to me during the whole meal ; but really the children had so upset me that I could not attend to him the least. We had all finished (except the girl, who had not begun) when a bell rang up-stairs — sharjjly, quiveringly, as if touched by an uncertain hand. " Hilary, you may go into the study, and at seven 1 will hear your lessons. Philippa, go and play, my child, and 120 ALMOST A HEROINE. wlien Effie has bad his tea it will be very kind of you to read him a story." Then he rang the parlor bell, turned to me, and said : — " See how much I have to ask you to excuse me ! I must go and fetch my youngest boy, who is an invalid, poor child ! " " "What cold tones ! — benevolent and gentle, but unfather- like," I thought. Both the children went away, Philippa hooting like a young owl in the hall, the boy quite quiet. In two minutes the maid came in. She was one of the freshest, strongest, and most intelligent looking creatures I ever saw. She cleai-ed everything noiselessly away, except the cocoa-pot, which she placed on a little tray she had brought in her hand, covered with a napkin, and on the tray there were a small teacup and saucer (such as children drink tea from on birthdays), little glass cream-jug, sugar-basin with fairy tongs, and toy toast-rack, with slices of toast, cut evidently from a penny loaf; there was also a small cut dish with marmalade. I wondered even more. Soon I heard a slow step on the stairs, and in the hall. Mr. Major came in with a third child in his arms, and laid him gently on a couch I had not noticed, except as a second sofa against the wall. The child (before I could examine him) began to whimper for his tea. Mr. Major carried a little table, on which the maid had placed the tray, close to the couch, and the boy began to stretch his fingei's towards the mai'malade spoon. " Try and eat some toast with it, dear EfBe," said Mr. Major, kindly (still not tenderly), but the child sucked a spoonful of the marmalade " down " first, then lay back, say- ing he was sick, then sat up and poured cocoa into his cup (he could hardly hold it, and spilled some on the tray), and when he tasted it, having put many lumps of sugar and much milk, cried out : — " It's the bad milk ! I cannot drink it." "Your sister pulled down the jug by accident ; she didn't ALMOST A HEROINE. 121 mean it, clear. I will tell Mary to make you some arrow- root." I suppose arrowroot was a treat, as the boy grunted a kind of satisfied assent, and lay back again, swallowing crumbs of toast leisurely. Mary came in. " I thought I sent down enough milk for Master Effing- ham ? " " You did, sir ; but while I went into the front kitchen to make the toast, the cat climbed up and lapped every drop. She always imitates Miss Philippa, but she didn't break the jug ; she was too cunning." " You must shut her up. Make some arrowroot direct- For a passing moment I felt I almost despised him (I con- fess my own mean fault) for being such a slave to these three children. There seemed something wanting in him as a parent, I knew not whether it was discipline or decision, or the tenderness I had missed before. I had more to learn, however, and, fatiguing as it must be to the reader to read about babes and weanlings, I cannot show up Arnold Major without their help. While the child on the couch Avas waiting (whimpering between) for his arrowroot, Mr. Major took out of a closet, sunk into the wall, a vast array of papers, both manuscript and printed, laid them on the table beside a plain desk he brought from the same receptacle, and, asking me to take the sofa, quietly sat down and began to work. I never saw such rapidity or such concentration. I was far too much interested in watching him to look towards the child. He arranged the papers under some precise spell of his own, the printed on one side of him, and the manuscript on the other, and his eye ran down a page of each alternate- ly. I marvelled at this arrangement until I heard a single knock. Mary goes past the parlor door, opens the street door, comes back into the parlor with the (covered) caudle- 6 122 ALMOST A HEROINE. cup of arrowroot, and says, in the act of giving it into the sick child's hand: — " The boy for the ' Madras,' sir ! " The " Madras " (whatever it meant) was the heap of printed papers. Mr. Major, never looking up, and his lips moving fast the while, pushed them in an orderly packet across the table. Maid took them, left the room, and next minute the hall door shut. Now the papers were placed (all manuscript) directly in front. He was reading now ; I could tell that. For about five minutes there was quiet, save for the sound of the sick child's spoon. Then in came the elder boy, with a book in his hand, still conning it, stood by Mr. Major's side, and, shutting the book, began to recite a French verb first, then a Latin one, and finally some short English poem. Mr. Major never looked at the book, but I could tell he took it all in, for his eye moved as slowly again down the page before him as it had done when he was solely occupied in reading, and when the child had finished, he said, " Very well," with a kindly glance, adding — " Now go to Efiie, and put his train out for him." The boy went to the couch, and the reading continued ; but, oh (not to prose) under what circumstances ! The two children did not precisely squabble, but kept up a constant fidgetation, dropped their toys, gave out sudden cries (mostly whispering, as they had evidently been desired to do), and when the girl came in, perhaps twenty minutes afterwards, she brought a cat clinging with its paws round her waist (the ugliest cat I ever saw). From that moment there was a clamor indescribable ; for the boys were evidently the cat's enemies, and the girl was its admirer and patroness. Still the reader went on, only knitted his brows a little, while sweeping the sheets he had perused aside. How I longed to do something ! I felt ashamed of my own inertia, and feared even to try and quiet the children, lest they should become noisier on interruption. I had ALMOST A HEROINE. 123 leisure to examine the sick one, in the light of the candle on the table. How tenderly one inclines to love sick children ! and how touchingly sweet they generally are ! This one was neither touching nor sweet in aspect ; he was the least agree- able of the three, with an eye without lustre and the most fretful expression I ever saw. I certainly wondered why (being ill) he was not put to bed. It was already half-past seven. Just as I was wondering, relief came, to a certain extent, for the maid entered, and the two elder ones left the room with her. But Mr. Major, without one grimace of impa- tience, rose from his chair and carried the little one up-stairs. On his coming down again, there was a good half hour during which it sounded as if a Poltergeist were racketing overhead, (Philippa,) and the screams, dancing, bangs, and jumps, making the parlor vibrate, went on just so long as till she was pei'force got into her bed. Mr. Major had given me the key of his book shelves, but I should have been ashamed to amuse myself while he was working. As quiet fell upon us, he changed, but still not to any aspect of relief. The excitement of forcing ab- straction being over, that pale shade of deep weariness over- cast his face, which I had noticed on my first introduction to him. I could hold my peace no longer. •' Let me help you if I can ; indeed I must and will," I exclaimed. " You are very kind," (without raising his eyes). " You cannot here. I am making all haste that we may talk pres- ently." Tlie tone was decisive. I could not speak again, and una- ble, or not permitted, to be of the least use, I really could not toatch his weariness and industry together. I am quite certain of being sneered at for treating his occupation as laborious for the mind and weariful to the frame, (copying may not exhaust all lawyers' clerks, nor does reading trash in clear print tire and vapor to misery all sentimental worn- 124 ALMOST A HEEOINE. en,) but, whether such occupation be, in its abstract sense, wearying or not, it was the most wearying to him, as an indi- vidual, that could have been devised or selected for him by his worst enemy. So, in fault of watching him or wearing out my own pa- tience by the consideration of his, I took out a book. I was surprised to find several exceedingly rare library volumes behind the glass doors of a closet corresponding with the one sunk into the wall, on the other fireside. There were the most superb editions of Plato, Shakspeare, and Gall's book on the Brain, all bound in violet Russia, and adorned with a full coat-of-arms in gold. Inside each fly-leaf I noticed the inscription, — " My dear son Arnold, From his father." The type of Plato was the most exquisite in the world, and for about the thousandth time I was breathing the per- fume of the immortal flower of the city of the violet wreath, when ray reverie, so selfish sweet, was scattered by a voice that could not rudely hreak the raost delicate trance ever di'earaed by fervent man or aspiring woman. " I have finished, Mr. Loftus. I am glad. Oh, it is a comfort ! " He stretched his arras out wide and smiled, then rose and locked by all his papers, even his desk, took a chair, sat down in front of the fire, and warmed his hands. " After all, one would not like a stove, except in a bed- room. There it is good, for, missing the red and black bars, one is driven to bed." " Do you go to bed early or late ? " I shut up my book and put it in its place. Now I hoped he would not, that time at least, go " early." " All times, any time. I am free to-night. You must be a fortunate pei'son, for your company sent me on fast. I fear you have been disturbed witli the children though." " /disturbed ! Good heaven ! Do not put me more elFect- ALMOST A HEROINE. 125 ually to shame than by refusing to let me help you ! They are not noisier than most children, poor little things ! But what father would be so indulgent and so self-denying ? " He turned full to me, looked at me a moment with his searching, most peculiar eyes. " I am not their father ; I am their uncle, but I have the charge of them." There was something in his tone of mournful mystery, but no embarrassment. I believe single-motived persons always win confidence from each other — mutual contidence, for I was emboldened to speak out my mind. " I am glad you are not their father." " So am I ! " with the smile 1 spoke of, but scarcely touched with bitterness this time, bright with a secretive and extra sweetness which bade me not ask " why ? " " I thought there was something in your manner unlike what you would he if they were indeed your children." " They are not the less mine. Oh, Mr. Loftus, you are no flatterer, and I honor you for reminding me of ray exceeding short-coming in that respect. I am perliaps too indulgent to them because I do not love them as I ought. Alas! no luxuries can atone for the lack of love to those who need it." " Nonsense, Mr. Major ! Those children need no more love than they have bestowed on them, if you mean charity." " I do not mean charity ; there is no charity in the ques- tion." " I mean you are charitable to them in over-proportion to the love you cannot feel. I am rude perhaps, but it is a morbid view to take, that those little ones require the sort of love you would yourself." " The sort of what ? " with a smile tliat, whether sweet or bitter, explained nothing, but was full of meaning too, but veiled. " The sort of love / should need then ! Now you cannot be disgusted, nor object. I put myself in the place I gave youj an honorable one too, /think." CHAPTER X. THREE WAIFS OF CUSTOM. He looked at me again ; no mistrust nor cynicism in that bright but melancholy regard ; there was but the natural requirement of a wise mind to fathom the depth of the pro- fessions of another to which it was until but lately a stranger soul. The premature " fomiliarity " of fools it is that " breeds contempt." I never should have esteemed Arnold Major as I did at first, nor love him as I do now, but for that logical reluctance of his to sicalloio what he had not tasted. With an intellect far finer and better balanced than my own, he had a smaller share of imagination — a quality rather glit- tering than golden, any how ; and he certainly possessed less real, how much soever ideal, faith, for I was not afraid to tell him my whole history, except the part which was not my own alone. I well remember his reply. " Most persons," he said, "actually overrating the magnitude of your loss in their o^vn minds, would assume to you that they considered it the greatest blessing that could befliU you ; that it had opened to you sources innumerable of self-glorification and independent heroism. I do not. It is a very great misfortune, and one of those which philosophy could only lighten for a very healthy person, whose frame was toned to the ultimatum of physical power. I should regret it, were it mine, even more for its own sake than because it had happened through the agency of one whom I believed to love me. I have not a single doubt that your uncle meant to turn you into a great ALMOST A HEROINE. 127 personage by leaving you pooi* ; but that he had studied the world too little is also evident. To inform ourselves too intensely with one phase of truth, is to falsify all our other views and to render our impulses quite useless. I am going now to propose to you a plan which I hope you will not neg- ative. Come and lodge in my house. There is more room than I require, as I dare not have the children out of ray sight. You will so escape a few of the snares with which * necessity ' entangles the strongest intellect and impedes it ; you will benefit me besides. No — do not say anything — do not object, or I shall be more than vexed — I shall be angry." I know not why, but I could not. It had already crossed my mind that I should not like to go ; and in fact I had put the idea out of my head purposely for that night's rest. It showed the character of the man curiously in one particular ; he had really taken no personal fancy to me (a fact I always feel in any case), and yet I did not suffer from temporary dependence on him, though I meant that not to last. At Lyndfield Chase it had been painful to me to receive shelter and protection. It was pleasant here. I often wonder whether he would have told me anything about himself if I had not attacked him ? I think not. He was a man never voluntarily to confide in any but a woman, but I have the trick of winning a certain degree of confidence if I choose. The children, and his method with regard to them, puzzled me. Just after he had uttered the words for which I found no answer, he went out of the room again — I fancied, out of delicacy, that I might not seek one, and when he came back he had a book in his hand, which he flung upon the table dejectedly. His face was anxious and his brow knitted. " Is the little one worse ? " I asked. If I had not spoken so simply, I doubt if I should have had a reply. " No worse than usual, thank you. He is always ill, and will never be better in this world." 128 ALMOST A HEROINE. I took up the book he had thrown down. It was " Creasy's Decisive Battles." In the beginning was writ- ten — " Hilary ; From his affectionate uncle." "Is this grown-up book that boy's? "What a wonderful child he must be to understand it ! " " He is a wonderfully intellectual child." No pride in the accent — the innocent parental pride ! " Ambitious too, I should think. I noticed the discontented look in his face which, I should imagine, always attends ambition, even in the germ." " Perhaps — poor child ! " " Why poor child, Mr. Major ? with such a friend as you are ? There is only one thing I wonder at — hoio you can bear the three with you while writing and working. Why not send them to school, at least, the ^oell ones ? " " I cannot afford it ; only a first-class public school would suit him, and she ought to have a first-class woman at home ; together the expenses would take my whole income, and I have no property. I only spend half of it now, invariably ; the rest I save." " For their use presently, and your life insurances, of course r ?» He looked surprised at me. Whenever proud persons looh surprised, I pretend not to notice it. It is the only way if you are bent on making them out. I looked straight into the fire, and went on : — " They are very peculiar children, and must be difficult to manage ; it is extraordinai-y that you do manage them ! " " I wish I did ! " — in the most despondent tone. " But would it not be better to leave them to themselves a little ? — turn them into an empty room and let them play ? " " You are persistent ! " — with the smile come back. " I wonder what would happen if I did ? All children should be watched, however little they may (from beautiful dispo- ALMOST A HEROINE. 129 Bitions) need restraint. If these were not restrained — alas ! Did you think me severe with them ? I am an irritable wretch, but I had fought with it, and hoped it did not show to them." " It did not. I thought on the contrary you were too kind." " That is impossible. But now, this is not a peculiarly pregnant theme. I Avant to talk about your book." " I will not talk about it. I am full of those strange little creatures. What a fine face the girl has ! " « Fine — no ; I do not see that, I wish I did ; I hope to- night for the first time she was conscious of some slight interest, in yoic I mean, when she caught sight of you." I reserved the slap : — " Do you fear her wanting in feeling, then ? I should have thought her a romp, but nothing worse." " Nothing worse ! She is disobedient to a high degree, but that she may have learned from the boy, who diametri- cally opposes all orders. Still, I could have hopes about her, but that she cares for nothing, except that cat, a creature I picked up in a furze-bush on Hampstead heath, and which has carried the prickles in its character ever since ; it bites and scratches even her, and I think she likes it all the better." " Is the boy disobedient, then ? Perhaps it is only volition prematurely developed ; there is a look of the Bonaparte." " Bonaparte could not control himself, and it was there he failed and was enslaved. He was, too, the man for the time that needed him, a time little like this. I would rather see that boy in his grave than think of him as yet I dread to see him, and through no fault of his ! He could not help being born." " No, indeed ; I wonder how many of us would have helped it if we could. I think I should, for one. Perhaps, after all, it is only the oddity of genius in him, and he will turn out a great writer." 6* 130 ALMOST A HEROINE. " So much the worse if he did, and infused his own temper into other men's. I often wonder whether most children are .so possessingly a care." " What does he do, particularly, besides being disobedi- ent ? Is he unfeeling, like the girl ? " " I should say so, but that he had the most violent feeling for his mother, who is dead ; and such an affection in a very young heart would, almost naturally, be exclusive. It is the hind of disobedience that is so trying. For instance, I have bidden him never to bring a book to table. The doctor warned me to draw him from study as much as possible. I explained to him wJiy I wished it, and that it was on account of his health ; yet he invariably brings one, and scowls when I take it away. The same at night. The girl stole a candle for him once, and, seeing the hght through the keyhole of the door, I went into his room. He was reading hard in bed, with the candle in one hand and one of Bohn's ' Extra Volumes ' in the other. I put that down decidedly, and took care he should never have a candle (he is not nervous) ; but every moonlight night he tries to read, and to-night, being a full moon, I suspected, and found him reading that" point- ing to ' Creasy ; ' " not only reading, but out of bed at the window, kneeling in his night-dress." " How very tiresome it must be ! " (I thought so.) " But I dare say all children are as tiresome after one fashion or another. The chief mischief must be that it must exhaust you daily. I wonder you can work at all." " My work is light, though sometimes tedious ; it is not that ! " (Here he sighed, the first sigh I have ever heard him breathe.) "We have had enough of them now, and you too much." " I cannot hear too much, unless it worries you. I won- der whether I should be able to do anything with them ! I think I could teach the boy, and pej-haps take that business off your hands." "I think your own business is rather more than cncnigh ALMOST A HEROINE. 131 for you. But some one has been born without benevolence, that you might possess a double quantity, I am sure." " Nonsense ; I should like to master that boy. What was the mystery of the milk to-night, when he accused the girl of throwing it down on account of the thorny cat ? " " Merely an instance of her want of feeling. I always have milk brought once a day from a farm-house for them, and the sick one can drink no other. She knew this, and yet persisted in mounting to the shelf where it stood — she has pulled it down more than once before, and my maid is always changing its place — knowing that her little brother would have none if it were spilt. But truly I will confess, with shame and contrition, that if this ' noteless record ' does not weary you, it wearies me, because it has no result." Certainly it had none then. I could not get a word more out of Mr. Major about the children. "We had supper, bis- cuits and Bass (the champagne of ales, I wonder how writers got on before Bass was born), and my companion was en- chanting beyond anything of companionship I had conceived. The children had not made him " slow," a frequent result of even temporary worry ; and he had the kind of memories stored up that make a human being infinitely more entertain- ing, as well as elevating, than a thousand libraries. I con- sidered that this might be the result of his profession as " reader," till I came to know what manner of books he had to " read." The dramatic genius of Shakspeare might as Avell be fathered on Charles Kean. I thought, when we bade each other good night, that he was going to bed as soon as I, but, on the contrary, I heard him (he did not wake me, I was musing wide awake) go up-stairs as quietly as a ghost two hours afterwards ; he had been finishing what he had inter- rupted for me. I learned this afterwards, for I questioned the maid (a maid one could question), and, without vanity I may say, I slid into such assimilation with the ways and means of the household so soon, tliat I never again allowed such interruption. lie was as frankly highbred in all mat- 132 ALMOST A HEROINE. ters of open fact as intensely reticent with regard to those of the inward life and need ; and I am proud to say he trusted me sooner (he told me so himself) than he had ever confided in man or woman. He was not only " reader " for the great publishing house he belonged to, but hawker — not puffer — I should like to have seen them impose that profession on him ! — of its new, or dashing, or slashing works, to the met- ropolitan libraries. I once went with him to one of these from curiosity, and it was good to behold the way in which, by simple force of his innate gentleraanhood and calm im- spoken, yet out-telling, knowledge, he made them buy the books, and as many copies as he chose, those swindlers of the small change of literature, whose least crime is that they are ignorant on grounds of which all laborers this age are ware ! He was also second editor, with double the duties and half the pay of the first, of the Madras Correspondent, a paper which was worth about three thousand a year to the proprietors. These mingled occupations, undeviatingly ful- filled, brought him an exact income of five hundred and ninety pounds, a sum I will not split into its separate appor- tionments. Half of the same he saved, the other spent — how well ! — but with a helpless and touching want of par- ticular and innate wisdom that, I used to think, might have made a woman love him on its own account alone. Indeed, I have often heard his sweet wife say to him (since), "Ah ! who gave the children hot-buttered toast every night for their tea ? (so economical and so wholesome at once ! ) " This, however, was but one of multitudinous little errors in house- keeping, which I myself was as ignorant of, and as quick to perpetrate, as he, while living with him. Next day, I mean the day after he took me to his house, I was initiated into the routine of it speedily. I had, of course, from what he had said about the girl, expected that she had no sort of daily instruction, and when I experienced her first effect, I wondered how ever any household could move in routine at all with such a racket permanently deranging it. ALMOST A HEROINE. 133 I soon discovered my mistake, and could appreciate the tact of the arrangement by which Philippa was cleared away for a few hours. I had heard her, all the time I was dressing, screaming and running in the hall, but when I went down she was in the small back garden (one strip of grass, two strips of gravel, one lauristinus, and two laurel bushes), scraping out, with her hands, a grave for a dead mouse she had found in the cellar, too far " gone " for her cat to relish. For she could be no more kept out of the cellar than out of the kitchen, and I did not marvel at her uncle's particularity in his choice of a servant, nor at the £20 wages he paid her, when I considered the adventurous disposition and wild rest- lessness of his niece. At breakfast the sick child was absent ; the elder boy alone appeared. Philipjja was too busy, or too dirty, to be presentable ; and whatever care Mr. Major bestowed, or forecast he exerted, he was obliged to swallow that first meal, more supporting and necessary to an all-day-working brain than any, in time to be in the City at half past nine ; it was a three quarters of an hour's drive, too. Directly he was out of the house, I aspired to ingratiate myself with the boy — at that moment I might as well have tried to raise the hearth- stone. He had eaten as fast as his uncle, and, without answering one of my questions respecting what he liked best to play at, got out of his chair, and, leaving it at the table, went across the passage into an opposite room. Left alone, I thought to try my hand upon Philippa, whom I did not hear anywhere, to my surprise ; and going myself into the passage, I met the maid, who was coming to remove the breakfast things. " "Where is Miss Philippa ? " I inquired, as if an old ac- quaintance both of hers and the family's. "I have just taken her to school, sir." I did not choose to question the servant further, and waited till the evening to ascertain where she went to school. It was to a widow lady, next door, who taught only her own 134 ALMOST A HEROINE. little boys besides. Mr. Major informed me he had sent her first to a lady who taught only her own little girls, in the hopes of softening Philippa by means of her own sex, but that she had so hustled and horrified those sprucer and prim- mer little females that their mother herself requested her removal. The sons of the lady next door must have been each an infant Hercules (they were big-limbed, porridge-fed Scotch children), to endure her attacks upon them, for I often used to watch her in the back garden of the next house, when they were playing together. She would over- power all three, and if she did not actually hurt them, it was because they were too hardy and firmly built. Yet I always knew from the beginning, whatever her uncle said, that she had some sort of heart and nature somewhere ; not that she ever relaxed to me ; on the contrary, I excited her especial disgust ; but not to mention the exequies of the mouse, nor her tending the ugliest cat ever beheld, she always gave the three boys next door a big kissing a-piece (I could hear it in at the staircase window), after she had thrown them down, or otherwise discomfited them. It was one of the fulfil- ments of the irrefragable laws of nature that these poor children loved not their best friend — their only friend. But I anticipate. Going back to the parlor, that first morning, I found the boy at the bookcases ; his little figure perched on a chair, and his little hands groping among the books, the largest books too ; and, as I entered, he started, turned. If ever I could read expressions, I read that of conscience pricked in his baby-beautiful face, for he was beautiful, — I care little, if anything, for beauty in either sex, — and looked more beautiful because a rose-rich color had rushed into his pale cheeks with surprise, or with that same conscience-prick. I felt I had a sort of understanding of the strange child, (I had been a strange child myself, and withal a nephew,) so I went boldly up to him and said : — " What word are you looking for ? Can't I tell it you ? I ALMOST A HEROINE. 135 used to read the ' fifteen decisive battles,' and to be very fond of books, and, as I am a great deal older than you, perhaps I have learnt to remember more ; not half so much as you will have remembered when you are as old as I." The boy searched me over with his eyes ; face first, dress next, even hands and feet; then climbed down from the chair. " Are you clever ? I don't think hardly any books are clever. I never can find out what I want to know. They are all the alphabet." Poor little child ! It was the huge " Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica " he had been trying to master ! What grown per- son has not excruciated over its columns, under protest, wlien yearning for some particular meaning never evoked amid the " universal ? " I thought of " Christian Henry Heinetken," that marvellous babe who knew five languages at four years old, died at four and a half, and had never eaten nor drunken save of his own mother's milk ! Poor little child ! again I say; but the poverty of this one— like the other two, per- haps — was in his desiring " strong meats " before he could digest. " What word did you want, my boy ? " I repeated. Again he stared over me, put his finger to his lip, and stamped his foot. " It was not a word" contemptuously, and was going to the door. « Stay," I said, " is it history, or geography, or arithmetic ? " " It is not any. It is about a man." " What man ? The cleverest, or the strongest, or the kind- est ? " " The man who lends the money to the kings." I will not exactly repeat the next phase of our communion. Suffice to say, I elicited, by means of cool, uncaressing as- sumption, that the boy had heard his uncle talking to " Lord Wilders," one day, " four or five days " ago, about the richest man in England, who lent " mon.-y to the kings" of Euroi)e, 136 ALMOST A HEROINE. and that " Lord Wilders " had said the name twice, and it " began with an R." Also that the child had been for days searching in the Encycloptedia to find it." " They would not put him in," 1 said, " because he is still alive." " How stupid, only to put dead people ! They put about live ones in the Times for I have read it." " Read the Times ? " " When the boy was come for it, I gave him some things I saved, and while he was eating them I looked. You are not to tell." " Of course not ; I never repeat anything. It is very mean. But why not ask your uncle ? He would let you read anything, I am sure." " No ; he says it would ' break my head.' Such non- sense ! And I am not allowed to read those others up there, and that is why I like to get at them ; and read them I will. I have looked in the Times, too, for the richest man's name, but it never puts." " I can tell it you, and all about him, if you like. It is Rothschild." " What does he do with his money ? " — with an eager look, and his two hands closely interlaced. " Many things. As you know, he lends a great deal to the kings, and he gives a great deal to poor people and clever persons ; and he has fine houses, buys blue silk cm'tains, gold plates and dishes, and beautiful tilings to look at." " Stupid ! I would not. How did he get his money ? " " He made some, and his father made some, and by lend- ing it he gets more and more." " Could any one make as much ? GduW I ? What is the way to begin ? Did he begin when he was my age ? " " When he was your age he was leai'ning his lessons every day, and playing all sorts of games, or else he Avould never have grown up clever enough in mind, nor strong enough in body, to be able to work — work for money." ALMOST A HEROINE. 137 " I save every forthing. If I showed you my box, you would never tell any one, would you ? I should like to show it you, because you let me read those books up there, and told me the man's name. Will you write me his name down here ? " o-iving me a little old pocketbook out of his frock coat pocket, and a small stump of pencil. I \\T0te it, never commenting on his disobedience ; the fear of not gaining his full confidence restrained me. " Where is your box now ? " I asked. He ran out of the room, across the passage, I following, into rather a long room, comfortably furnished (no forms, nor desks, nor school apparatus, except a strew of lesson-books, and an open copy). " Nice writing," I said, while he was fumbling in a corner closet. " And quickly done too, if you only began it after breakftist." « Ifnished it before breakfast. I wrote it in bed ; I hate writing ; it wastes my time." I went close up to him, curious. He had lifted a loose board on the floor, and produced from under it a small tin case, such as the best wax matches are sold in. This he opened ; it wa? half full of silver coins, for the most part fourpenny pieces, a few sixpences, and one five-shilling piece." « A great big one to begin with," I said, pointing to the latter. « Yes ; Lord Wilders gave it me. I wanted to throw it at him, for I hate him, but then I remembered." He stood still a moment with the box in his hand, and an extraordinary expression covered his whole aspect — resolu- tion, softness, grief; and his eyes burned unchildlike. I had a strange sympathy with his very holes. " Remembered what ? " I asked. " I will tell no one, and perhaps I may help you. I have been unhappy, and I am poor ; you have more in that box than I have got." A sneer clouded the softness ; the other looks remained. 138 ALMOST A HEROINE. " If you are poor, how can you help xoorhing ? You are grown up. 1 would if I only was." " So am I going to work very hard, and I should have begun this very morning, if I had not had the pleasure of seeing you. Now, tell me, if you were rich, what would you do ? " He opened his arms out wide, and a wild glitter filled his glance. " I would buy the biggest park in the world, and a white marble wall round it, and plant it all over with white roses, and white lilies, and very black trees, and in the middle, a great big, immense white tomb. With golden tops — real gold," his voice rising like a breeze, " and inside, a golden coffin, with precious diamonds all over it, and little boxes made of gold filled all with jewels round it, and a black vel- vet canopy, with gold stars, and a white velvet covering with silver stars ; and no music, for I hate hymns and organs, but always quiet, and birds, and doves, and nightingirls singing outside, a great xoay off." The words sounded like poetry, but they were only pas- sion. His arms dropped to his sides, and he still held the box in one hand, carefully closed ; he never -forgot it. The gleam of his eyes had passed, not into tears, — he was a child who never wept, — but into a dull, proud, withal im- patient air. He knelt down at the closet, replaced his money, and shut down the board over it. Just then I was foolish enough to fancy I could fathom his mystery through a deep sea of tenderness over which that dulness brooded. I touched his shoulder : — " And whom do you love so much as to wish to bury in so beautiful a place ? " He raised his right arm, and hit me a blow with ten times the strength of that the girl had used. My jaw was black with it a fortnight. Yet, had he hit me seven such blows, I believe I could not have found it in my heart to stay his hand. I am a bad disciplinarian, and always was. ALMOST A HEROINE. 139 I fancy discipline, as it is called and practised, makes more hypocrites than British money worship, or French matri- mony. The moment after he hit me, he was sitting in his chair again at the table, deedy over his books. I turned, after watching a minute or so, to go. He turned quickly, then. There was no shame nor distress in his mien, but there was regret, a regret quite reasoning and beyond his years. " I beg your pardon, I could not help it," he said, " I should beat any one down if I was strong enough, if they dared — . I don't beat my uncle, because I hate him." " Why do you hate him ? " If I had said, — "Oh, what a cruel ungrateful child to hate such a kind uncle ! " or, " I love him and so should you," I should never have heard a word more of the mean- ing which enabled me to pluck this social " waif" from the overwhelming life-drift. I spoke quite coolly, as if I too did " hate him." " I hate him because he's — because he's the brother of some one I hate hatefullest." (He actually hissed the word out between his clenched teeth.) " It is a miserable thing to hate ; " I said, and then was going. " What is your name ? " stooping over a book. " You had better call me Ernest ; it is short." " Will you call me Ernest ? " " Why should I ? It would make confusion — no one would know us apart. Why ? " " Because I can't hear ; I hate my own name, and I ivon't write it ever, and I have not got two names. I wish you would call me Ernest, just to plague uncle." " Good-by," I said ; " I am going to work." " So am I," he observed, haughtily. " If I can tell you anything, come to me up-stairs in the room I slept in," I added, and got no answer. My " work " was slight enough, for at one Philippa came 140 ALMOST A HEROINE. home to her dinner, and from that moment the " house " was "out of windows." If I had not experienced it, I could never have beheved that one child, with the stoutest frame and strongest lungs, could so have noised herself, not " abroad," but at home. Unless she was crucifying the cat, I could not, even on feline grounds, conceive whence came the rout, nor what it was. Mews, screams, and stamps, racings up and down stairs, and jumpings overhead in a carpetless garret, formed the chief proportion ; in the midst of which the servant (face flushed both with cooking and nursery cares) knocked at my door with " my luncheon ! " I was very angry with my host, and bade her take it down again, saying I would dine with the children. So down I went, and it was a scene : the sick child tended solely by the woman (evidently solemnized into devotedness beyond that of the tribe of hirelings by some moral or material spell), the eldest reading hard the whole time, and eating without salt or bread. Philippa not two instants in her chair, but now at the window Avith a huge potato in her hand ; now dragging her cat on end by its fore paws, and feeding it with a fork ; anon (when the maid's back was turned), unscrew- ing the pepper castor's top, and showering its whole contents into her plate. A tremendous convulsion of sneezing fol- lowed, at which the boy sneered darkly, and during which the graceless cat took the opportunity to scratch her mis- tress's face and arms all over. This was the last dinner I ate with the young lady for a long time ; next day she was not there, and did not come home from school till five o'clock. I conclude her uncle made some arrangement about her on my account, but never a word could I elicit on the subject, and as well might any one expect or try to receive a reply or explanation from him, unless he chose, as force the Pyramids to declare the primal purpose of their archaic founder. CHAPTER XL hokatia's afternoons. * I AM not writing an author's autobiography, and will not bore myself and others with metaphysical rainutiaj. Enough on that point to say, in this place, that when the reader for the great house of Brown, Jones, and Co. returned home that evening, he informed me that they had taken my book — whicli I had little expected — and would pay for it, which I had anticipated less. Forthwith I went forward gallantly with some short stories in French, ore British grounds and outlines, Avhich Mr. Major highly approved I should execute. I also had the inexpressible gratification of composing some leaders (about as long as an auctioneering advertisement in the Times) for the "Madras," (as we called it in brief;) also I corrected his proofs and sent them off, and as soon as I assured him the boy had suffered me to talk to him (I kept his secret, though) he allowed me to teach him, or rather to attend to his self-instructions, when overpressed himself with work, as, when was he not ? So trivial, so trying, so paltry a pursuit could scarcely have been meant for him, nor he for it, I used to think. But just now I only revert to the earliest period of my acquaintance with him, and this fell far short of knowledge. Owing to his interposition and incessant attention, my book was printed in a month, and published in two weeks more. I can truly say I was so sick of it by that time that I never opened a bound copy, nor read a single i-eview, except one in the Times, which amused me with the tokens of true crit- ticism I have elsewhere alluded to, namely, the extravagant 142 ALMOST A HEROINE. dispraise of insignificant errors, and the inevitable non-allu- sion to graver faults, which even selfish 1 detected. This valuable document (I did not cut it out, and have never seen it since) appeared a fortnight after my book ; so that now two months had passed since I had been at home there — or as much at home as one without a natural home can ever be ; as much at home certainly as my poor little contemporary, the boy. This strange creature liked me, but we had not advanced in intimacy. He certainly preferred saying his lessons to me rather than to his uncle, but then he eschewed his uncle in every way — poured passive contempt on him. I never saw a detestation at once so precocious and so inveterate, nor (to me) so unaccountable, for I should have thought all chil- dren would have drawn to Arnold Major's smile. Nor did the boy ever revert to the strange topic of our first conversa- tion. And as for Philippa, up to this period, she conducted herself towards me exactly as if I had been a chair or table, never addressing me (nor I her), and if ever she chanced to get near me, pushed me aside as she did such articles of furniture whenever they stood in her way. For the rest, she increased in tomboyhood and hazardous invention, catch- ing fresh tricks every day, from unknown sources (sliding down the balusters, shoeing her cat with walnut shells, and setting the clothes horse one Saturday night on fire, a sample of them), nor ever turned a gentle eye nor smiled a loving smile on the provider of all her needs. The London season was about budding when my book came out, and I owe to that fact much of its (temporai-y) success. I observed just now that Arnold Major had a vast number more letters (by post, not printer's imp) than he had received before, also (sitting in the same room so much, I could not help seeing) he replied to them in very scraps of shortness — about four lines apiece. Of course, I never saw their addresses, but I also noticed once or twice that servants in livery brought notes, while he was in the City, ALMOST A HEROINE. 143 returning for replies when he came home, and such notes he always pushed into the fire (impatiently but never illna- turedly), whence dripped little rills of sealingwax to the grate. One day, Hilary, the child, (I took care never so to name him), brought me a bit of one of those notes, with an enormous coat-of-arras on its seal. " This is what makes them gentlemen," he observed dis- dainfully. " I know some one I hate, who always uses one." ^nd then he crumbled it to atoms with his finger nails, and to dust under his tiny boot. This was wliile his uncle was out (liis uncle never used a seal to my certain knowledge). That night, when all the children were in bed, Mr. Major surprised me somewhat by a question of his : — " Ernest, do you never mean to go out ? " We always fraternized so when alone together, though never before the children. " I went out walking to-day, at least as far as Oxford Street, and I should have gone farther, but the carriages were so thick, and the people too, that I was disgusted." " Heaven send you hate not crowds, as I do ! Whatever is to become of you if you should ? " " Then Heaven help me, for I detest them." " But I was not exactly speaking of crowds — not of street-crowds at least. Do you not mean to make, or accept acquaintances ? I don't say patrons, for patronage is obsolete. Now is your time ; next time you print it will be too late ; you could cut a clear road through the social Alps, now ; ay, the very highest ; but that opportunity soon passes, and never returns. You have a minority of fierce admirers, a majority of as hot haters, and both among the high few ; not among the fashionable merely." " What nonsense is this you talk ? " I justly thought so, for I was reading " The Flower and the Leaf" when he addressed me, and longing to return to the cream of those days when literature, if a drug, was at least unskimmed. 144 ALMOST A HEROINE. " No nonsense ; and had it not come to this pass I should not have bored you. I think nothing of a stray inquiry or so, but I have had lots of questions as to whether you are personally forthcoming. How they came to identify you as in any way connected with me I cannot tell you." " Lord Lyndfield, of course," I mused aloud. I had, of course, forewarned my first friends of my steps onward, and their result, and he had read my book (I don't think he had ever condescended to a romance before). And it was good to read his letters on the subject, his overweening and gener- ous vanity in one he conceived himself to have ushered into note at least, if not celebrity, never recalling he had preserved my life ! " " No, not he, I am certain ; he never sees any one ; he is too wise, and, oh ! how far too well occupied. I fear it was my fault, in the first instance, for telling one person who happened to call in that I was interested in such a book and its writer on my own account. I did not tell him in particu- lar because of his rank, his wit, or his eagerness to benefit, but simply because he has a kindness for me, and he is a literary epicure, (like most epicures, with little appetite,) besides knowing some persons who might really be of use to you, or your writings — should you continue to write." " Why should I not continue ? What else is there for me ? " But I perceived my question was unheeded ; indeed, I could not but fancy the latter part of the last sentence on his part had been uttered without volition. His eyes (rare cir- cumstance) were in dream, his lips just parted, and over his face played a light unlike the fire or lamp, so vivid and so soft that I scarcely perceived its transiency, only the return- ing shadow of care and weariness seemed to fall the heavier for it when it had sped. I instantly (this was odd) recurred to his last remark : — " I don't want to know, or be known of, persons or a person, unless I knew both beforehand. Perhaps you can instruct ALMOST A HEROINE. 145 mo, and save me all the trouble of making choice ? WIio is the person ? Did he call here ? I never saw him." "■ He called in the City — a rare thing for him to be there, but it only chanced because he had come from Dover, e?^ route from Paris, and alighted at London Bridge. His name is Lord Wildei-s. I dare say you don't know it — it is new ; he was a baronet before." I remembered it — the boy Hilary had spoken it. I did not say so. " Do you like him ? " " Such a question can only compromise your charity and mine ! Would you like to know him ? " " No. But who are the ' some persons ' who might ' be of use' to me ? I really should be glad to know them ! " He started, and looked surprised, as though he had not been conscious in that utterance ; then observed it was late — a hint I took immediately, for, whether intentionally or non-intentionally he spoke, I had ever a horror of intruding on any one — above all others, on him. Next day the youngest child, who had been ill his whole short life, was taken worse. I had seen very little of him. He was not one of those seraphic little creatures whom poets (and sometimes truly) delineate in delicate or dying children, but one full of sick whims, with a temper naturally dull, soured by disease to a morbid condition, most pitiful to behold and difficult to medicine. Every appliance of surgical skill and art was lavished on the little thing — the only carriages seen at Arnold Major's door were those of doctors and physicians — and it seemed a kind of conscientious agony possessing him lest all should not be done that could, not for its cure (by all pronounced impossible), but for its relief. As so often happens, the dead husk did not drop from the character until the very end. Perhaps the kind guardian was rewarded for his inexpressible patience and care when the child, jnst before breathing his last, held out his arms to be taken to the embrace he had ever 7 146 ALMOST A HEROINE. before avoided, and went there quietly to sleep. All that week afterwards I kept the house for my friend (forced still to go out daily), but I could not keep it quiet, for Philippa was at home, and defied me perpetually to make her still — amused — or sorry. The boy read, according to his fashion, all day long. At the end of the week I went with Mr. Major, at his re- quest, and without the children, to one of the beautiful ceme- teries out of London, and there the little one was laid. I fancy I should neither have been chosen nor allowed to accompany him had I been a person (however curious I am) who asked questions ; for the child was laid in a grave already occupied by one, and a plain but perfectly executed square of marble covered it ; spring flowers were opening in a bed all round it, and on one side of the square were cut two simple initials and a date, a few years back. The directions given for the note above the babe I heard — they were simply " Etfingham, " Nephew of Arnold Major," with the date and age, so that I was farther than ever from hearing that other name of the three children which they must have had, yet none bestowed on them. It was only the next day that a note, with one of the ob- jectionable seals, was brought for Mr. Major Avhile he waa out. It lay on the table for Hilary to sneer at, wdiich the child took care to do, telling me privily besides that " that thing, with its ugly head and tail, was Lord Wilders'." I took no notice, except to tell him that he and I might be com- fortable because we possessed no ugly seals ; but his uncle had not been home half an hour, and was just half through dinner, Avhen there dashed some light vehicle up the street and stopped short before the house, the pause followed by a stujiendous knock at the front door. A moment after, the maid announced " Lord Wilders ! " and in he came, before hearing that he might come — a breach of perfect breeding ALMOST A HEROINE. 147 ■which, of course, he had not perpetrated but for the one sitting-room, such persons, and most others, considering good styki incompatible with small domestic arrangements. AVe -were boors or gypsies to him, of course — not that we looked like the former, either of us, and certainly we failed in the picturesque attributes of the latter. Ai-nold Major rose and shook hands with him, (the servant had placed him a chair,) then sat down again, and so did he. I had not risen at all ; nor did I look at Lord Wilders, but I felt he was looking at me. " I have come for an answer to your note," he said. " I was so near you I thought I would try ray powers of persua- sion in person." " I have scarcely read it, but you would have had a reply by the next post to-morrow morning, though I own I wonder you take so much trouble, and give me so much. I cannot come. How often am I destined to say so, or, rather, write ? " " But I think you will come when I tell you something. INIiss Standish has taken a house in Wilton Crescent, and is resuscitating, or, rather, carrying forward Marlborough Build- ings there. I have just been with her." I positively saw Arnold Major's lip curl for the first time ; it was rare with it, for he was far more inwardly proud than externally haughty, and too noble to feel contempt, unless really merited. Could such slight words deserve it ? " I knew that Miss Standish was in London, and it makes no difference, or, rather, decides me all the more to keep within my rule, as I cannot literally afford to waste my time." " She did not send you an invitation^ but I told her I should come and invite you ; and then she said she should be happy if I succeeded." " I believe she would ; I know her kindness. Once for all, pray understand me. I do not visit, or intend to do so, but I think society — such as yours, for instance — a whole- 148 ALMOST A HEROINE. some thing, as well as agreeable, for an active mind ; so that I have great pleasure in introducing you to my friend, Mr. Ernesto Loftus, author of that book you were speaking of in your letters lately, as well as the last time I saw you." I was more indignant than ever I had felt in my life ; I was, for the instant, hurt, but some instinct forewarned me not to make myself ridiculous by betraying either. Besides, Lord Wilders was sitting between me and the door. I could not get out of the room, and to profess myself either dis- gusted or annoyed was to fasten on myself the charge of the smallest vanity ; so I made the best of the circumstance, bowed, and accepted with a second bow (without hearing them) the necessary compliments on his part. And now, as I really looked at him, he assumed not to be staring at me. So, gazing on the lamp, he went on : — " I hope you will give me the great pleasure, and do me the honor, of dining with me to-morrow, Mr. Loftus. And I will not hide my gratification that I shall indeed be the first to mention your real name (you know not how many you have besides) to Miss Standish." Should I say I didn't know who Miss Standish was ? It might be awkward, like not having been to Paris, nor kissed the Queen's hand, and the Pope's toe, nor heard Messrs. Bellew and Kingsley preach. Besides, I could say nothing, for, to my extra indignation and consummate amaze, Mr. Major answered for me again : — " I am sure my friend will be very happy, but you must receive his visit as an exception, for he is very choice of companionship indeed." Possibly I might then and there have protested against this curiously summary process of being disposed of, but I saw a sly gleam round Arnold Major's mouth, short of a humorous smile, but certainly touched — for the first time to my sight — with fun, enjoyment even ; and I liked him too much to have the heart to scatter it. Lord Wilders, with the air peculiar to men of his class and charactei", of having ALMOST A HEROINE. 149 little to do, and yet being driven to see what is " doing " next, rose directly after he had gained his point, if it were worth calling one, and went, shaking hands with Arnold Major, and advancing towards me with the same intentions, but finding them balked by my again bowing, with my arms folded. I have, indeed, often wondered why one must (in society) shake hands with so many persons, under so many circumstances, and wished that it were not a fraction of formal etiquette ; bowing and smiling are surely sufficient for all the cold ends of courtesy, and to the magnetic, it is positive (not negative) misery to come into personal contact with tliose they love not. But I was not considering this then ; I was simply desir- ous to be alone again with Arnold Major. The moment the street-door shut, I was ready to explode — by no means to argue or to remonstrate — about his behavior on my behalf. Again he anticipated me by his aspect — amused, half- repentant, but wholly gratified. Nor did he keep me in suspense. I could not even speak first, he was so eager to explain. " I dare say you are disgusted with me, and I do not won- der ; I should be in your place. But it was really the only thing to do ; anything like a set and prearranged introduc- tion you would have revolted from ; and I had such excellent reasons for wishing you to be acquainted with his set, that I took a liberty, for whose magnitude I ask your pardon, but which you will forgive me one day. I think you need, after all, have little to do with him'' " I want to have nothing to ' do ' with any one ; Avhat is the use ? " " Some, certainly, if it were only on account of your books. How do you mean to subsist by writing Greek love- stories into English ? As well poems in ' Runic,' and grind out of their stones your daily bread. And seriously, my dear Ernest, though no one appreciates what powers you have more than I do, or more selfishly enjoys your passionate 150 ALMOST A HEROINE. delineations of delights not meant for me to realize, I do assure you that, as a writer, you will never either succeed or be of use (if you aim so high), unless you mingle, at least for a time, with your fellow-creatures on equal grounds. I say this to you as a sincere admirer and friend, and, were you my brother, I could not mean it more." I had never heard his voice so manly or so sweet; his innate nobility flowed out from every word. He touched me deeply against my will, and, oh, how my will rose against that master-will of his ! " Really, with such views, I do wonder you shut yourself up ; you do not care how much you expose me to — you are so safely enshrined." " Now, Ernest, do not be unreasonable. I am no author, never was meant for one, and happily I did not (as such thousands have done) mistake my own vocation. Besides, forgive me, I am something older than you, and I do assure you I have most thoroughly investigated, by experience, what is called society; otherwise, I might not be so cool about it, perhaps. I know its depths and their ultimate shal- lows, and I am a^vare of its lukewarm insipidity after the first plunge. Yet I recommend you to take it, for surely, if you would not consider yourself educated without books, you should not esteem yourself cultivated without reading men." " And women ? " " As a matter of course. If I ask you, as a favor to my- self, to go to dinner with that young man to-morrow, will you doit?" " I do not understand how it can benefit you." " Then you were not born for friendship, having no faith." " You would consider it an act of friendship then, if I went — " " To-morrow, and after to-morrow, wherever he wished to introduce you." Impetuous accents, these ! I had never heard such eager- ness expressed from his voice. There was a mystery, too, ALMOST A HEROraE. 151 one the more added to the many little mysteries encircling jum " I will promise to go to-morrow, and after to-morrow. — To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," I said, " if you will promise me one thing, that after the last three to-mor- rows — quite a sufficient scoop out of one's life to taste all fla- vors and smell all savors of what you call society — you will suffiir me to sit down quietly and let the world go by, or rather (to walk on firm ground instead of stilts) if you will allow me to do my own will afterwards, having done yours until that moment." " Safe, then," said Arnold Major. Words, curious merely for their simplicity. I could not but own they were not of simple meaning — for their tone was far reached, and as an echo from tlie land of dreams. I am not fond of obeying people, yet it was a pleasure to me to do so in this instance. Little enough pleasure I ex- pected in the action of another's will, and may be, for once, I deserved the agreeable disappointment which ensued out of it. Not as for as Lord Wilders was concerned, though I had cause to thank him too. He dined at seven, which, to my fancy, is exactly an hour too soon, and an hour too late, that is, one can eat at six and be thankful for not having after- wards to sup ; and one can sup at eight and need no further sustenance. His house was one of the very smallest in Park Lane, and at a glance I perceived him to be a bachelor, not only that the sumptuous show consisted entirely of the items of male luxury, but also because there would not have been room sufficient to contain a lady's necessaries (?) At least there are many needs of a delicate woman, with which a man of average constitution can dispense ; and I hate to see waste in high places, though I dearly love pro- fusion in proper ones. It certainly struck me that two young men, with health, strength, and youth at their disposal, ought to be ashamed of sitting down to dinner with a man behind each of their seats, a third at the door, and a fourth iuiraedi- 152 ALMOST A HEROINE. ately outside it ; also of having such a number of dishes ac- tually brought round to be untasted ; also of looking at each other over a minute epergne made of Californian gold, and wrought in Paris, and filled with mignonette, lilies-of-the-val- ley, moss-roses, and maidenhair-fern in March. Then, as to my entertainer, he did not, I do believe, ever use more than one attendant on ordinary occasions, but it was his rule to have everything (as he would have expressed it) " perfect," if he received but a single friend to dine. For the rest, he was a model specimen of a class which is less every day be- coming a minority (sobering fact for those who think, for it seems as though the duties of the minority increased with the miseries and privations of the majority, and as though such duties were less and less considered and fulfilled). I was thankful when I saw Lord Wilders near, that I had never been to Eton, for he had been there, and a sort of fragrance of it hung about his character, not of the highest mould of power, — that which forms itself, — as scholars declare they can detect whether another is from Oxford, Cambridge, Dur- ham, or Dublin. He had not been got up anywhere in Brit- ain ; however, he had travelled : in a post-carriage, with a spring-bed and a cook ! And he reminded me rather of cer- tain floricultural miracles (native, not exotic), plants that have been trained and enervated unto that vegetable deside- ratum of running to seed, for exhibition at Chisvvick, &c. — prize pumpkins, monster cabbages, gooseberries egg-sized, with cometary hair ; pansies and daisies as round and as plump as the face of Philippa's cat. For Lord Wilders was one of the instances of that human material which is more useful raw than dressed ; he was ornamental merely. I cannot tell why all individuals of his temperament (they are not rare, though seldom so higldy accomplished in mind) fatigue me so excessively, and dilute, as it were, my own thoughts as they spring, with the lymphatic platitude of their universal utterance. I don't suppose there was a subject he did not touch on ALMOST A HEROINE. 153 this first time — subjects of that date, such as at this present are pliotography, the last operation at St. George's Hospital, Vancouver's Island, Charles Reade's new novel, aluminium, Lytton's latest speeches, big ships, and crystal palaces, all political slangs, and literary public or private scandals. Things he hinted at I had never heard of, visions I never dreamed, theories sounding vast as Babel, facts of science fixed and brilliant as fresh-discovered planets. All such matter, though, frittered away, as it were, and bereft of in- terest by the manner ; not that it was indiflferent — it assumed the easiest optimism — but that it was spiritless. After dinner, we went into a smoking-room like a French cabinet, lined with velvet, and he offered me cigars like sweet- meats, with coffee like nectar. I do not love any cigars, though I glory in a pipe ; and, when I told him so, about thirty pipes were at my service, each one costly enough for a present to the Sultan. Up to this time he had never once alluded to myself, my position, or my prospects, for, with all his negativeness, be was indeed a perfect gentleman ; but presently he glided into a conversation, which was, for me, very selfish, and certainly showed much kindness in his prom- ises and offers, however little knowledge of my feelings, in so desiring to oblige. For instance, he asked me to be his own private secretary (he was one of the speech-makers among the peers, and, I am confident, thought he benefited his country by making them ; he also " read " diligently in sta- tistics). And when I refused, on the plea of being unfit, he offered to initiate me himself into all necessai-y duties, " which," he observed, " could not be more arduous than writing sum- mary statements of the condition of insane persons." (I had told him about my residence at Lyndfield Chase, possibly with a kind of pride in having any credentials of capability at all). " You really do seem unfortunate," he went on, " in your choice of acquaintance, Mr. Loftus, insomuch as you are evidently doomed to light upon fanatics, however far they be from fools. There is Major, now, a person who has shame- 154 ALMOST A HEROINE. fully frustrated the designs of his own creation ; do you not think so ? " " I do not know what the designs of his creation were ; but I know that lie fulfils the ends of his human being admi- rably in every instance I have had experience of him." " But a man like that has no right to leave the larger duties unfulfilled, for the sake of alleviating, or trying to alle- viate — for it never will succeed — the petty misfortunes and wrongs of persons necessarily unfortunate, and who ought to be taught to bear their own burdens, not to shift them. There is scarcely any eminence he might not have reached, and retained." " In what particular line would you have had him excel ? " " Political, of course ; he is exactly a man (idol of his youth's friends, now forsaken) who might have made a party, and kept the head of it." " Really, I am no politician, Lord Wilders, and the term seems alone left now, without the meaning ; but for a man to head a party, surely, in these times, is much like a genuine turfite training a whole stud, till thoroughly amenable, with- out the chance of any race-course, nay, common highway, to run them on, and with no prospect save that of leaving them to eat their heads off in the stable, or choke themselves with gnawing their own cribs." If Lord Wilders had been Archbishop of Canterbury, and I had been setting down the Established Church as a sham, he could not have looked more shocked — nay, more con- temptuous. And, though he could not have known any one circumstance of my past breeding or education, I instantly perceived he considered both, not incomplete, but null. I suppose, failing the usual topics of exclusive manly sym- pathy, he thought a hint or two of feminine idiosyncrasy might be about my level ; for he fell to entertaining me with short histories of the young ladies who were marriageable in his circle, and their trifling characteristics, such as what color became them, and what colors they [)ersisted in wearing ALMOST A HEROINE. 155 which became them not, how much rose champagne they drank, how httle allowances their fathers made them, how many were in debt to their own maids, and how few any man was really meditating to marry — a sort of modern Walpole gossip, less the Walpole. As he so persevered in detailing this smallest small talk, I inwardly rejoiced that he went no deeper, and that he was in the main a virtuous individual, well disposed towards the sex he so pitifully complimented. And what was curious, or seemed so to me, not a single sylla- ble did he breathe concerning that Miss Standish whose name he had pronounced at least more earnestly, and with more like living interest, the day before, than he had shown or uttered at all this day. I little knew that she had just refused his hand, and knew it not for a long time afterwards. I suppose I never should have known it but for the fact that she told some one to wliom she had a trick of telling everything, and that that some one had a trick of telling some things to me. I said Lord Wilders did not breathe a syllable concerning her, but this is erroneous, inasmuch as, though he had not alluded to her before, he finished with her the last thing. At eleven, more tired than if I had been standing for twenty- four hours, I went away ; and just before, even at the door of the street, to which he courteously accompanied me, he said : — "And now, you will not refuse to allow me to gratify Miss Standish's curiosity ; to-morrow is her afternoon ; will you let me call for you ? " I had gone too far to care how much I went farther ; that is, I had broken my resolution of never going out anywhere, nor being indebted to anybody, entirely to gratify what seemed like nothing wiser than a whim on the part of Arnold Major. So I might as well gratify my own curi- osity into the bargain l)y gratifying " Miss Standish's," what- ever kind that might be. " Oh, I will be ready for you here. Do not come so 156 ALMOST A HEROINE. far ; it is quite out of your way. When should I be with you ? " " I will be with you at three," — with the extra courtesy of one who can confer favors so easily that it is merely as if he scattered the coins from the own purse of Fortunatus. That night I shut up my own pride (it had been packed away out of sight during that dinner), and asked of Arnold Major : — " Who, and what, in the name of Heaven, is Miss Stan- dish ? " " That is a question which I should consider it a pei'sonal favor if you would answer to me, after seeing her. If you had asked any one of a good number of young men, the re- ply would have been — ' a Standing- dish.' " " How unutterably detestable ! I hate puns." " You will not think so when you have tasted hers." Quite seriously this was said. Tasting puns ! What a phrase from Arnold Major's mouth ! And a woman making them for the " tastes " of men — a sti'anger practice still. Strangest of all, for Arnold Major to like the taste of such ! Why, above all, if he liked such flavors, did he never go into society ? For, among other trifles, Lord Wilders had im- parted to me the knowledge that he could go out anywhere if he chose ; nay, that, though an eremite of several seasons' standing, he was still sought after and angled for ; the mys- tery of the notes with seals revealed itself herein. And, if he liked anybody at all, what reason had he for not going to see them ? Being a bachelor, he needed not to entertain back again. Certainly he worked hardly and constantly enough, but he was one of those persons who, never seeming in a hurry, deceive as to the actual amount of business they get through. I thought of these things after I was in bed, and conse- quently Avas too late to see him at all next morning. Much self-disgust I experienced, and feared I had fatally involved myself in the inextricable toils of the Demon Idleness — ALMOST A HEROINE. 157 nay, I made solemn resolutions not to go out any more, hav- ing gone out that day, as I had promised, not only my inviter, but my present jio.-t. I continued to waste my time (having begun to do so, it was easy) until three o'clock, and, precisely as the hour struck, Lord Wilders drove up to the door in a single brougham. Being ready, I went out directly, and such a fast animal he had, that before I dreamt Ave were near the parks, we stayed in Wilton Crescent. Some of the prettiest mansions in all town are there, and that one before which we stood was cliarming ; its chief charm, an extraordinary one for that quarter, namely, that the fittings of the interior were as un- ostentatious as the architecture was faultless in itself. You could not tell, in passing through the hall, how it was tinted, nor the hue of the stair carpet, nor even the livery of the two servants, the one at the street, the other at the drawing- room door. Half way up the stairs I heard sounds — I knew not whence — of singing so strangely rare, so startling when listened to for the first time, that I stood still involuntarily, as one would stand should a break of music breathe through a vast peal of thunder — both the music and the thunder from the clouds. This is a very far-fetched comparison for a voice the most humanly expressive possible, but distance and the unknown lent it just such an awful mystery as all passion's utterance bears when heard for the first time in the darkness of the inward being. Lord Wilders humored me, or was himself stricken, I thought then ; I little knew how worn-out an enjoyment all music was for him, and men like him. We stood a few min- utes even, and then the voice ceased, and there was just such a rustle, buzz, and low conglomerate chatter on a small scale, as on a large scale would cause those slow German neigh- bors of ours, who study and who feed on music in the orches- tra, to rise up in mutiny at a concert and turn the whole au- dience out of doors ! 158 ALMOST A HEROINE. We profited by the interval, and were shown into the di-aw- ing room. At first I was left standing just within the door ; my companion going on up the room, which I chose not to do, seeing a swarm of persons gathered there, whom I knew not. There were several empty chairs just near the door, and I sat down in one, and, before called on to do anything else, had time to examine the room, as 1 like to examine even the least and lowliest chamber which a human resident has touched with his own character. Here, again, the same semitone, rather than monotony, of color prevailed, and when I say that, for all the neutrality of the blended lights and shadows cast from furniture and form, thex-e was not the slightest suspicion of a dowdy air, it may be guessed how perfect was, not only the taste, but the art of the arranger. No glare of gilding, nor gaudy flame of ill-painted picture, nor pre-Raphaelitish flower-bunch upstaring from the carpet ; no, nor even the inevitable plague of ornamental baubles on every inch of table, with which the smaller housekeepers afflict one in Brummagem, and the larger in costly ugliness, these times. One glance taught me so much. Now, as for what I heard, everybody was talking, but one voice rose above all the voices, not that it was louder than many others, but so wonderfully clear. I could not detect to whom it belonged, for, as I said, a swarm of persons had gathered towards the top of the room, where now I could make out a piano in the midst of them, and all whom I could see wore bonnets, being dressed for walk or drive. I guessed the owner of the voice, however, and guessed aright. So, as it befell, I heard Miss Standish before I saw her — a circumstance I like to happen in any case. Who but I, I wonder, ever felt the pathos which, when that voice was at its highest pitch, struck through it like a bell too wildly shaken by wind or wave, to a vibration still musi- cal, but cold and strong as sorrow ? I say rather ivave because the first time I listened to Horatia's tones, in her ALMOST A HEROINE. 159 haughty but sweet-humored social mood, I thought directly of the Inchcape chime, rock-riveted, irresistibly sounded by the surgent tide. And this pathetic reminiscence lay wholly in the voice, no topic touched on by the speaker or any speaker present ; for indeed no discourse could have been lighter in manner and matter both ; I was going to say more frivolous, but the term would be misapplied to Horatia, she was so earnest even in trifles, so passionate when most careless. I mean, though, simjily to relate how I formed an ac- quaintance with her. Presently, a short ten minutes after Lord Wilders had left me standing, he returned to find me comfortably seated. I thought, of course, he came to fetch me for introduction — but, lo ! a lady was by his side ; she did not foil him well either, she was so fine and refined a woman, and he so feeble and over-refined a man ! " Mr. Ernesto Loftus," he said, in a very low voice I thanked him for. Miss Standish did not wait for her own name, to put out her hand to me. Such a soft, helpless hand ! And such a cold touch ! — no pressure whatever from it ; but a smile so cordial that the little light frost falling on one's spirit from her manner melted as if it had been the sun under it. Not that it was merely a cordial smile, but one of the perfect smiles so seldom seen ; it not only changed the expression, but the very shape of the features while it lighted them. Physically, the smile was born from the brightness of perfect teeth — to use the words of the poet of the " Nympholept," — " more white and sleek than the nut's coi-e." The smile soon passed away — and so did she — for me at least, she had so many divergent threads to keep together in her hands just then. I so little comprehended the actual reason why these people had met together, that it was suffi- cient amusement to watch them and see what they would all do. In the case of the majority, they did nothing except sit round llie room, lo(jking, oh ! liow tired, and as mucli over- 160 ALMOST A HEROINE. interested as if they took no interest at all. In fact, it seemed difficult to determine precisely why such an audience had been chosen, bidden, or attracted, whichever it was. For it was an audience — there was so much to hear. First of all, the commotion of tongues being stilled. Miss Standish (I knew her now) sat down at the piano. To my surprise, Lord Wilders, my companion, stood beside her, — to my surprise — for he began to sing ; — graceful, tuneful, — toneless, and meaningless, alike the voice, the style, and subject. Still, one could have slept through it all — or dreamed, if polite enough to keep one's eyes open — had it gone on by itself only ; it could not have disturbed, it was so truly nobleman-like in its calm and soothing self-compla- cency. But after a certain number of bars Horatia's voice leapt in, — her very accompaniment roused with it, as a springing gust sweeps forward a sudden flame ; and like fire, so immaterial and strong, so subtle and so forceful, swelled the voice. It was as extraordinary that those soft made and helpless looking hands should draw, nay, drain, such sounds from the keys' depth, as that a voice so charged with fire should sus- tain and poise the listeners on its spread burning wings. For in it there was neither rant for declamation, nor for expression cant ; albeit through its medium outflowed pas- sion, pure as its own source, in perfect freedom ; such free- dom, with such purity of expression, perchance was never heard. It would have been wholly tragic, in the old Greek sense, to listen to Horatia's singing, had it not been so repulsively comic to hear her sing with another person — any person I ever heard her sing with, at least. It seemed every mo- ment as if her slumbering wrath and artistical antipathy must wake up and strangle with their blended powers the poor weak efforts of singing that was fashion's handmaid ; for it is fashionaljle now to learn to sing, and not only fash- ionable, but a fashion the aristocrat has dignified beyond all art. ALMOST A HEROINE. 161 The serious-stupid duets being spent, I fondly imagined there would be a respite; and fancied too, that after so singing, so playing, and so enduring such other singing, Miss Standish would rest. Not at all so ; and in her very resolu- tion — it breathed from her face in a struggle with unmis- takable fatigue — to amuse others who were incapable of delight or pleasure, and to humor those who had not even mind to be amused, a tine temper and generous impulse were displayed and wasted, which could have fed, oh, what purposes and ends ! none could have been too lofty, too great, or too concentrative. So thought I then, ignoring, in my hasty estimate, the sweetest purpose and the deepest end of all. Every one who sang — and there were several — Horatia accompanied herself, with those magnetic fingers of hers, that could be positively or negatively charged at pleasure. She showed herein, in an aflernoon, more amiability than in one year I could have felt ; for, not only was every voice inferior in infinite degrees to hers, but there was, in every instance, the truly genteel (Gentile?) non-professional dis- like of music, tortured into sham liking by the agonizing dread of not being up to the time, or not being up to her, the hour's queen ; I " thought " the latter " then," and " now I know it." Horatia must have steadfastly crushed, and kept under her will, her idiosyncrasy, those afternoons of hers, as a fakeer pre-resolved to make his foot turn ankle front, and keep so, is wont to do; for never, in any com- pany, under any circumstances, have I seen a hostess, her company, and her circumstances so utterly at variance. And, actually, her tact, talent, or universal charity, I know not which, prevented any mental collision or moral accident amidst this serene chaos and most melodious discord. CHAPTER XII. HORATIA. Abruptly enough I have brought Horatia's afternoon to its close, but not more abruptly than, in fact, it ended. With a milk-and-water meagre mimicry of concert-givers, goers, and patrons, on a minute scale, the contents of the room, humanly alive and attentive one quarter of an hour, were scattered and dissolved the next. In plain language, after a ballad of Miss Standish's, which might have raised one of the dead from under the stones of Poet's Corner, the company quietly (I thought gladly) got up and went away. It was such company, and so conducted itself, that it made me feel two sorts of shame — the one at its own want of feeling, the other at my own excess. I waited for Lord Wilders, not as a matter of course, for had I not vaguely hoped to get a little more out of Miss Standish on my own account, I should have slid down stairs on the crowd's current. The room was empty now, save for one lady (the only one, except Miss Standish, icithout a bonnet), who sat in a far corner on an enormous sofa, and my introducer, who was close beside Miss Standish still. Why was I angry? — and why did I long to throw one of those fair chairs beside me, " still warm with " some " ample " or aristocratic " presence,"' at him ? I did not know ; but I know now, and the reason is not because I loved, or love, Horatia ! There Lord Wilders stood and whispered l^y her side ; whispered, albeit the room was so long and large, with only ALMOST A HEROINE. 103 one person now at each extremity of it. Still, to do Iloratia justice, I do not think a man — any man — with, I say not a particle of pride or self-respect, but with a whifF of spirit, would so have stood and whispered. For, though she was as free mannered as the air she breathed, and as kindly as the universal sunshine, she was, as an individual to an indi- vidual, cold to liim as stone. Her very manner, so easy, open, yet all concealing, was the essence of indifference. I could tell that afar off, and did not envy him. Through all, she was so well-bred, (or so indifferent !) that when he had finished, and set his face and his steps towards me again, she followed him, instead of walking by his side, this time ; so that I don't think he knew she was there. I shall never forget my astonishment and curiosity at her man- ner of pausing and regarding me, and, I believe, with all my follies, I am modest, for I never dreamt she did it from interest in myself, as perchance some youths would have done, had they, even for a moment, arrested such a woman's glance. At all events — still behind Lord Wilders — she stood and perused me earnestly. Her eyes were full on a sudden, and in an instant, of an expression I can only call beamin(j tears — instead of smiles this time ; not that they were moist, but, as I have said, they had the expression, without the mate- rial reality, of eyes that weep ; I never saw that expression, either, in any other eyes, without the reality ; nor ever saw I truly Iloratia weep, though I have seen her in a thousand smiles, not all of love and joy, but many a one of sweetest kindness for those who wept. I was quite sure that she did not know I was observant or conscious of her presence, for I have a knack of peeping through my eyelashes, and I did so then. It was odd that, knowing she had been looking me through, I should start when she addressed me ; but I did. There was something disconcerting in her manner until she was perfectly at home with one ; the world felt it, and often named it haughty, 164 ALMOST A HEROINE. but, haughty or not, it sprang from a timidity excessive as her pride. " Mr. Loftus," she said, " I have seen so little of you — it was impossible I should see more, but it was little ; you will not refuse to stay to dinner, for your company would give me a great deal of pleasure. Your friend. Lord Wild- ers" (my friend/), "I have succeeded in persuading, and I hope to do the same in your case." Here was I, with a perfect prescience that I should be asked what I thought of Miss Standish when I got home, and whatever should I say ? It had been so much trouble to come, that I might as Avell take the little extra trouble to stay. And, not to pretend even to the meanest sort of merit, I was most curious to see more of one who, in such a short time, could impress so deeply. " I am very much obliged to you. Miss Standish, for your undeserved kindness ; and I shall be most happy, but you see I am not dressed." She smiled like a gypsy ; a positively saucy smile, not only (or rather not at all) arch ; it had no coquetry in it, but gen- uine fun ; and how different was it from her smile of primal welcome, which had been a ray of soul! In this spoke a capacity for innocent mischief, the freaks of a bright mind at play. " We are none of us dressed ; I mean we are all in un- dress," she said, " even Lord Wilders, who is a model for all. I wish to present you to a dear friend of mine, Mr. Loftus," she went on, and there was loill in her wish, — she turned back up the room, and I followed her to the corner where stood the enormous sofa, and on which the only lady who had been without a bonnet, like herself, still sat. " Mrs. Le Kyteler, I bring you the solution of your doubts as to the authorship of the ' Violet Crown,' in this young gentleman, who in his own person represents the book — Mr. Ernesto Loftus ! " How ringingly she announced one ! Like articulation ALMOST A HEROINE. 1G5 tlirough a silver trumpet, it made me positively shiver. That was only her way when she wanted to excite more than an interest, a respect in worldly natures, for any person in whom she took an interest. How came she to be interested in a dull-looking, pallid creature with owl's eyes, like myself? It was not easy to take real note of another lady while so near Miss Standish, and a woman who could attract away from her even a ray of regard must have been either very superior or very original. Mrs. Le Kyteler was decidedly the latter, and, in a social sense, the former. She was old, but I knew it not then, and never should have guessed it ; a majority of the connoisseur crowd would have pronounced her handsome, and Horatia plain ; the British connoisseurship, I mean, for any foreign arbitrant would have preferred Horatia's face, as well as her figure, noble, feminine, and fluent from head to foot, to the straight and august grace of the elegant Mrs. Le Kyteler. I could fancy, as I gazed on her, what a star of ball-rooms she must have been in days when quadrilles were danced, not slurred through, and even minuets were in vigor still ; and I cannot own I felt any of those melancholy qualms of imag- ination which persons of primosity, or fools, attribute to the contemplation of past beauty which has been " a ruler of the world." Mrs. Le Kyteler, like all beauties, whether one cares for them or not — I don't — was pleasant to behold because she was so picture-like, and pictorially dressed. She had a splen- did complexion (or had had, and now painted one, which she was no hypocrite in doing, having owned the original) ; she was carnation-brown of skin, with an elegantly formed counte- nance, large eyes, as bright as they were dark, with an inde- scribable searching shrewdness in their gaze, and they looked like eyes that had not been wont, and would not be taught to weep, when first they shone forth on youth's morning, but had learned the lesson since, and wept themselves out dry some time, now long ago. 166 ALMOST A HEROINE. I have spoken of her dress, and must again. She wore black silk, with great damasked flowers, thick as card board, and sheening back the light ; her throat was muffled in lawn, folded like sculpture, and fine as gauze ; her cap was of the most exquisite shape, and made of " pearlin " lace ; her hands were veiled, except the fingers, by Maltese mittens ; she wore no ornaments, and no gold, except a wedding ring. She was married then, of course, and I wondered was she Miss Standish's mother, who had married since ? It was impos- sible to look at either of them and believe so. And there, in contrast as picturesque for itself as it made the sofa- enthroned lady look more picturesque, stood Horatia, by my side, before her — I cannot say stood still, for it was one of her charms that, scarcely ever in perfect repose, she looked so interesting in all her various motions and tiny tricks of character. Fancy Horatia dressed and preserving herself and costume intact as in a frame ! No dress she ever wore looked precisely the same half an hour together ; it got shaken out of shape or into some new shape far more entic- ing. Yet, she knew how to costume herself; I never saw a woman who knew so well. This night her dress, or what she pleased to call her undress (I wondered what her full dress would be like), consisted of golden bronze silk, watered in widest waves, and made with an extremely deep " bas- quina" (fashion not then generally seen), and a lace cape fall- ing every way around the throat, five bracelets on one arm and four on the other (beautifully turned wrists, requiring no bracelets, certainly), which said ornaments were fond of becoming unclasped, but seemed, for that fact, none the less ornamental ; and a head-dress of beetle-wing, that gleamed like emeralds on fire. There was one fault, and only one, in the mode she trained her hair too ; it was banded too near the eyes, and should have been swept far back, to show the temples and the forehead's breadth. This criticism of mine may sound impertinent, but, in reality, it means gen- uine homage to her most innocent want of personal vanity. ALMOST A HEROINE. 107 Just as we were standing so (Mrs. Le Kyteler, true lady of the world, i)aid me no compliments, and only spoke about the weather, and the difficulty of preserving an even temper- ature in reception-rooms), two gentlemen and a lady were announced, and after their annunciation, dinner also. To my extreme gratification, Miss Standish asked me to take her down, and she paired the others in her easy way — that was never oflT-hand — and, as easily, let the two men who had no jKirtners go alone. With her on my arm, all my terrors at the idea of a set dinner in a " fine " house vanished vapor-like, — they re- turned substantial enough, when I dined at other "fine" houses afterwards. The same neutrality of tint prevailed in the dining as in the drawing-room, the former being deep-toned neutrality, as the latter was fair. There was no surplusage of servants, and the table was laid, as the dinner served, a la Russe — a style then barely known in England, and scarcely spoken of. There Avas an abundance of cut-glass about the table ; the very epergnes were glass (not silver), but positive vases of ground and frosted glass — there were three of them down the table, which was oblong and nearly oval (much graceful- ler than a perfect round), and they were filled, not with costly hothouse, but exquisite fresh garden and frame spring- flowers ; the hardy red geranium and peach bloomed China primrose, with bosses of the sulphur-yellow wild primrose, and quantities of double snowdrop, and feather-like masses of fern that quivered with the breath of the talkers. And nothing could be prettier, in contrast with the white flower- epergnes, than the cluster of tinted glasses by each person, pale rose, soft green, and crimson cut ones for the fingers, shaded and shaped like brilliant wide-blown tulips. A simple Parian basket, snowy as the damask it stood on, and looking as if cut from snow, filled with mixed seasonal fruits (not forced), was placed between each twain of the guests ; so that in no sense could the meal be called extrava- 1G8 ALMOST A HEROINE. gant ; nor in that of the wines either, which, excellent, choice, and costly, were not of endless names and vintages. Miss Standish (curious circumstance) sat neither at the head nor foot, but next to me, with Lord Wilders on her other hand. Mrs. Le Kyteler was at the top of the table, and at the bottom one of the gentlemen, the elder, who had been announced. He was an artistic carver, and unutterably at his ease. I could not, from her hands and wrists, fancy Miss Standish able to carve, however willing, and I, there- fore, concluded she had made this her guest of use in the manner most pleasurable to himself. I had no idea, either, that he was a great wit, franked so by all literary sects and schools, and never had so little notion of the fact as at the end of dinner, during which he had (I afterwards learned) exerted his whole powder to amuse. Nobody laughed, how- ever, except Horatia, who, had she possessed an atom of vanity, must. have been suspected of laughing, because she lauglied so charmingly, both for look and sound. For my- self, I wondered how the man could go on scattering his silly sallies, far-hunted puns, and jokes vamped up from patterns of the old art that died not with the tongue, but lives to shame the mirth of the present with the real wit of the past. There was yet some one left, and with veins most wealthy too. If it had been a singing-bird, instead of a cackling goose, that laid the golden eggs, it might have been compared to Horatia. I was not prepared for her extraordinary gift ; no one had forewarned me. Nor was that the spell by which she chained the hearts that loved her with fetters softer than if flower-enwoven, or the minds of those who, like myself, heart-claimed already, could so passionately and exquisitely appreciate her. Dull indeed am I as a reporter, and must be (dull as Hansard without accuracy), for if I were to repeat all Horatia's witticisms, those bright ephemera of a brain that was no more inconstant than her heart, she would in- stantly be recognized. Why ? — but for the fact that she is ab- solutely the only witty woman of this generation in this land. ALMOST A HEROINE. 1G9 I have begged the question, in order to escape the very liglitest charge of character larceny. In truth it may be said, with all admiration and regard, that Horatia was as generous of her powers, nay, as prodigal, as the most of such persons are jealous and reticent. If a man of straw or a dummy had been her audience, and her creative thought had prompted her at the moment, she would have lavished just such wealth of wit on it as she did on us, on me I was going to say, as the person who the best, most gratefully apprized it, and the only person present who felt no envy. One more note I must make of Iloratia as a wit. I shall leave that phase of her to those who are wittier than I, and more competent to decide the claims of wit. I had read in every kind of book (having had access to so many) about the women-wits of all the social ages. Horatia answered to not one of these ; she was herself. The blending of audacity with animalism, of coquetry with false refinement, that had struck me to be the grand deformity of all brilliant women who figure in historic biography, was in Horatia wholly wanting ; albeit she Avas so perfect and helpless a woman that it nearly made one cry to think of her being unmated, and so standing, truly and necessarily, alone. And her spiritual ease seemed to enfranchise her of all claims on ordinary men. I marvelled whether any man had ever dared ask her to marry him, little knowing then how many she had dismissed who came to her on that errand, without allowing them so much as to put the question, but refusing them heforehand, as only the finest and highest among women are wont, or know how, to do. I am quite sincere. No one ever appreciated her more than I myself, but had I only seen her in that mood, which most men only saw, I should never have truly appreciated her, for she would have been a bright mystery to me, and cold as woman should be if she wills to be free of all man- kind ! Her dazzling i-emarks made me positively shiver (just 8 170 ALMOST A HEROINE. as I had done wlien she introduced me to Mrs. Le Kyteler^ and shut me up ; I repeat, had I only so seen and heard her, I should never have opened my mind or character to her more than a lilac-bud opens in January air. I only mention this fact in leading to the change that fol- lowed — change marvellous in development as summer fol- lowing winter. "We four men did not stay long after the three ladies went up-stairs ; and there we found them, look- ing tired one and all, as I myself felt. The lady whose hus- band had not been the carver, came to him very soon, and they left first ; then the carver, after a speech to Miss Stand- ish which referred to their meeting somewhere in public the next evening. As the door shut on him, Lord Wilders, who up to that moment had been talking to Mrs. Le Kyteler, ad- vanced with his hand out to Miss Standish. She amused me then ; she stood a long way off from him, and stretched her arm so that barely her fingers could have met his. " You may go," she said, smiling. " I am going to keep Mr. Loftus, and will send him home." To keep me ! I wondered at myself for not bursting out that I would not stay. And I wondered, too, why Mi's. Le Kyteler, who had looked as if asleep in the sofli corner, perked up cunningly, and flung her bx'ight glance forth as if to pierce some motive of some person's. I could not tell if it were mine. Lord Wilders gave a short shrug to his shoulders. " Oh, very well ! You are indisputable, we all know, to our cost. It must, however, be of his own will and pleas- ure that Mr. Loftus stays. I was going to invite him to take a room at my place to-night — it is so much nearer for him than to return to the region I fetched him from." " I am much obliged to you, Lord Wilders, but I must go back to Islington. Not to speak of the distance, which is tri- iliiig, being nothing to me, I believe Mr. Major would be good enough to be anxious, and, indeed, he might sit up, ALMOST A HEROINE. 171 which I never could forgive myself for, he has to rise so early in the morning." Again — that singular soft-brimming glance ! — quickly withdrawn this time, I could not help thinking, because Mrs. Le Kyteler's eyes were fixed so searchingly on Horatia. At all events, she put on the coldest and most careless manner I had seen her wear yet, which she preserved even after Lord Wilders had departed (he was much too highly-bred to be persuasive or pressing). She led me by her gestures up to the other lady's sofe. " Now, Mr. Loftus, we must not weary Mrs. Le Kyteler with our lucubrations, and I have so much to say to you about your book — I dare say you think I didn't care about it ! You and I will go into my little room just there," point- ing to a door in an arch near one of the corners of the larger saloon. " My dear," said Mrs. Le Kyteler, " do you mean to keep the young gentleman up all night ? Better, surely, bid him come to-morrow to luncheon, and he shall go back directly in the carriage." How that woman hated me ! I never saw detestation so strong produced on so brief an acquaintance, and I knew it directly, yet did not care for it the least, because conscious I was not detestable to Horatia. The old lady adored Horatia ; I could tell that, too. I could even read she was jealous of the slight interest Horatia took in me. But Horatia stood up and stretched her throat as resolute as Pauline Garcia in " Tancredi." " Indeed I shall not let liim go, my dear madam. I have set my heart on getting him for half an hour, which I won't exceed ; nor am I so heathenishly ignorant of the ways and means of authors as to doubt that, one and all, they love to roost as late as possible." Mrs. Le Kyteler (could she have any power over Horatia? I thought) positively scowled at me after this speech, and, takin"- the cue as well as I knew how, I bowed lowly to her, 172 ALMOST A HEROINE. as if to bid her good night and farewell at once. She hardly acknowledged my salute, but bade Miss Standish ring the bell, adding, " I shall not be in your way, my dear, I am going to bed." And on the entrance of a maid she went. Horatia stood in front of the fire until she had gone. I was, I own, a little surprised at her pertinacious detention of me ; I did not know how little time she had strictly to herself. " It is not always pleasant to take one's own way ; is it, Mr. Loftus ? " she began suddenly. How astonished I was ! I should not have recognized her voice, it turned so soft and breathing, from being so high and ringing, and so cold ! The question, too, was odd, but it posi- tively put me at home with her ; for, if not marvellously apt, I am not wholly stupid. " You do not like to oppose those whom you love or who love you. Miss Standish, I suppose you mean ? You did not hke keeping me, after your friend Mrs. Kyteler expressed her desire I should be dismissed, but you kept me because you were afraid I should be hurt, and you would not hurt a fly, much less a MS. grub-worm." She laughed out, but low — a sweet laugh, like May morn- ing breezes — as changed from her society-laugh as was her voice. Truly, I may again assert, I muat be modest, for I did not take to myself the interest with which she was evi- dently warmed and filled, though quite ignorant of its real cause then. " Well, it is not exactly agreeable to cross one's friends," she added ; " but I was selfish enough to-night to do so, for I did not know tchen I might have the opportunity to see you thus. It was very kind of you to stay to dinner, for there was no one I should have asked to meet you had I seen you first ! I had no idea you were so exactly like your book. What a charming book it is, and how I thank you for writ- ing it ! — but yet I am disinterested enough to hope your next will be very unlike it ; as little laborious and as light as possible." ALMOST A HEROINE. 173 " May I ask why, Miss Standish ? " I fancy I spoke rather seriously, for she looked up at me (I was a great deal taller) with an air half-timid and half- excited, wholly, though not idly, curious. " May I ask a question in answer ? " she replied. " Have you known Mr. Arnold Major an immense time, that you have quite fitted yourself and formed yourself with his habits and opinions, nay, with his very manner ? " She turned her back on me here, and pulled a screen down from the mantle-shelf, which she began to wave before her like a fan. " I assure you .1 have only known him very few months. I would they had been years ; but had they been the longest mortal period, I could not have regarded hira with more depth of gratitude and affection than I feel for him and owe him now." Sideways to me by this time (she had wavered till she was in profile again), I again caught the firelight in a dewy gleam upon her glance. I was standing rather back, and am cer- tain she knew not I could see her eyes ; however, had I been able and had she known it, I believe it would have made no diffei-ence. It was one of those moments (rare with her then, but now the pulse of her life's harmony), in which she suf- fered her true nature to have its way. Like all the pro- foundly passionate, however, she could restrain herself at all times, and recover herself in an instant. So she turned full to me again, still trifling with the screen — one of those ges- tures of hers that are indescribable to those who never saw them — and without the least light or shade of tears or mel- ancholy left. " Come, now, and sit down, for the short time you will stay. Do not be ashamed to sit on the most comfortable sofa, Mr. Loftus ; it is much fitter for a student than a lazy woman. And I should know (from your book) you are rather a stu- dent than a writer, though your genius enables you — " " Now, Miss Standish, once for all, I cannot have any 174 ALMOST A HEROINE. conversation about my book, my studies, or, what you call (falsely, I think, and you know not whether truly) my genius. Still, you may tell me, if you will be so kind, tvhy I am to write ' light ' works, requiring no ' labor ; ' many words will surely not be wanted ? " " As you are so frank, Mr. Loftus, you will excuse my equal candor. I wish you to get rich, as you ought, and may, after a beginning as successful as yours in every way. We will speak ill neither of the dead nor of those whom we have ever loved ; therefore, I make no allusion to your case, as most would do ; but it would doubtless be much more de- lightful to you to enjoy wealth earned, than by mere acciden- tal right inherited." She was up to the will then ! But I could tell quite surely that she thought I had made more, much more, by my book than I had. If she had thought me jiositively poor (as I was), I know how she would have behaved exactly, for I have been told, A literary acquaintance of mine, and a writer also, fell upon Horatia much as I did, and she has often related to me how Miss Standish treated her in the first instance, when she visited her in an obscure, tiny, really poor lodging, which circumstances had driven her into a while for shelter. At that time, my friend informed me. Miss Stand- ish inevitably conducted herself, not only so as to place her companion at her ease, but as though nothing were wanting of luxury, pleasaunce, or perfect appointment, in the little closet of a room she was entertained in, and where there was truly nothing but heart-wealth to welcome her. Some short space afterwards, this authoress received a worldly lift from hands beloved, and richer than her own ; also she began to make head in the stream of literary cir- cumstance herself a little. And then (she has confided herself to me) Horatia began to persecute her to go on faster to grow rich, just as she commenced with me, gave her ad- vice, inquired into her affairs, and informed her how she (Horatia) managed lier own expenditure. This literary ALMOST A HEROINE. 175 friend of mine swears by Iloratia, and, I believe, affects her too, notwithstanding she is a person who, beyond anything besides, abhors interference. This small episode is out of place, perhaps, but I wanted room for it somewhere. " I believe you give me credit for being more unselfish and industrious infinitely than I am," I answered to her last remark. " I cannot say I was glad to lose the inheritance I expected ; it made me very unhappy, and noio it makes me worse than unhappy — miserable at my own powerless- ness to help those I love, those only left to me to help, I mean, for my blood relations, to whom I am really nothing, are amply provided for, and want my aid no more than they care for my company." An ungrateful speech this, but I had not (then) received a kind letter from my mother, which was long delayed by post. However, when it came, kind as it was, it made no difference in my desires or designs. Miss Standish started a little at my words, " those I Zore," and then looked at me somewhat stealthily, but witli incom- parable interest, I wish I had not the knack of reading persons' meanings before they choose to express them — but I possess it — a very minute stray ray of the great light which enveloped the seeing soul of Heinrich Zschokke. I instantly perceived Horatia's thouglit, and it shows, better than any delineation, what manner of woman she must have been, that I did not mind it, nor mind indicating my per- ception. " You are very kind. Miss Standish, and I thank you for your kindness. But I don't mean that I am engaged and too poor to marry." She started openly now. I suppose it ivas an odd speech, but it came so naturally to me, and her tact, or her intuition, was, at least, equal to my unconventionalism. " I am glad of that, for your best life is then to come," she said, in a sweet manner, which suddenly grew strange ; "yet 176 ALMOST A HEROINE. it is di'oU. I should have fancied, from your look — that — at least — it makes one sorry that the experiences are false, because they touch one's sympathy — and one does not like — " All the latter part in Horatia's own halting, hesitative manner when she was annoyed, disappointed, or not at ease. I perhaps was suspicious beyond any right of man I had — but I did fancy she was afraid I was, or was going to be, in love with her. I did not wonder, for she was made to upset the equilibrium of men's being, whether intellectively or personally ; nor was I vexed ; but I could not allow her to remain in ignorance which destroyed our mutual comfort, for a curious, nameless necessity prevented me from departing abruptly. I could not tear myself away." " I do assure you that whatever experiences of feeling I ever expressed, are sincere. Nor did I say I had never been in love. I was born unfortunate, and shall perhaps die so, but have no fear that sorrow will last forever, though I am sure love will. When I spoke of helping people I loved, I was thinking of my dear noble friend, and those children who are draining all )iis vitality out of him in worry, though I know they cannot be blamed, but must be pitied, if one cannot help them. Now, if I were rich, I could, I believe, help one" If Horatia had touched me with surprise before, she now transfixed me with curiosity. At the beginning of my sen- tence, which, cold as it may sound, it cost me some hot enei'gy to utter to a stranger, she had looked at my f:ice with that wonderfully tender glance of hers, that I have compared it to the gleam of tears. The moment I spoke of my friend she turned away as if indifferent. Her gesture was so, but I could not see her eyes. Next, the moment I spoke of the children, a flash of eagerness filled her face ; she fronted me, but when I said that they were draining his vitality, (an ex- treme expression, perhaps, but of a subtle fact,) I thought her eyes would have come out of her head with the strained ALMOST A HEROINE. 177 anxiety that rushed into them — no tears nor tearful soft- ness — but a woman's agony, wifely and maternal in one, if any person besides myself can comprehend my mean- ing thus. This, however, was not the end. Conquering — as by a moral impulse one alone rules over the physical, or spiritual, for the matter of that, quite as much — conquering and controlling her very countenance, (something for a person infinitely too natural and too little vain to do so habitually,) she gazed long at me — or for what, under her severe and singular scrutiny, seemed a long time. I know I felt my cheeks turn hot and cold for many changes, while she gazed. Yet it was not the manner of her looking that excited me, it was only what always fevers and oppresses me more than any other mood — suspense. What could she mean — be going to say — and would she say it then — before I went away ? " I wonder," said she presently, with a trifling air, rather wild, too, as if distraught with strangled emotion, " do you keep your friends* secrets, Mr. Loftus ? " " If my friend gave me a secret to keep. Miss Standish, you even should not know I had one." She tried to laugh, but failed, plucked at the screen with her helpless-looking hands — and I saw them tremble — did her heart tremble too, I thought? — and what could make a head so much concealed tremble thus before a new acquaint- ance ? Again my intuition served me. " He has never told me a secret, Miss Standish. I wish he had. It is the only fault I find in him, that he is so mad- deningly uncommunicative. And I — I can't ask questions (can I ? ) of a man who took me home when I had no home to go to, no kin to care for me in this enormous cruel land of Lon- don — yea — and no money either, to make of me 'a man.' " This was the way to treat her. She rallied, flung down the screen, and kicked a small round hassock, lying at her feet, across the room, yet seemed neither vixen nor coquette ! " I am well aware, better than you can be, of Mr. Arnold 8* 178 . ALMOST A HEROINE. Major's merits. But, once for all, as you can be trusted, I wish you to know that it would disgust me if he knew I gos- siped about him or inquired into his affairs — nay, I suppose he would object to my asking after his health — I will tell you. I knew him well, through an acquaintance formed be- tween our families (his is far better than mine), and I had a friendship for him such as you, who appreciate him, will un- derstand. Circumstances, which no one could help (can ever one help them or foresee them ? ), made it difficult for me to continue an intimacy with his family, and then, soon after- wards, he separated himself from it, and if his family could not gain access to him, how could his friends ? So, I have not seen him for five years, and as he chooses not to mix in society, — he might frequent the very highest, — of course we, who are held by our position, and even our duties, in a certain circle, can know nothing of those who deign not to enter and who despise it. They all think, too, that we have no thought or care for any one who is out of, perchance be- yond our sphere, and never consider that they may possibly have forsaken society, rather than it, them." This peculiar and somewhat incoherent speech was jjoured forth (albeit in tones carefully kept down) with all the jeal- ous pain of passion starved. I forewent all my own poor scru- ples of mortal pride to meet it generously ; for I understood her and her history (past, which was not her final fate) that moment — only then. " I know not anything of Arnold Major's antecedents ; I never heard him allude to them ; and fancy any one else daring to do so ! But it is enough to contemplate his daily life, which, so circumscribed, apparently holds so many good deeds, great in performance if little in contemplation, done. Of course, he would be very angry if he knew I talked so of him — but he won't know, for neither you nor I will tell him. He certainly is neither as prosperous as he deserves to be — which is, perhaps, impossible with his aims and actions — nor as happy, which }s iiqt only possible, but natural, I think." ALMOST A HEROINE. 179 No reply, at least to my remark. In a moment or two she said, rather bitterly, I thought, for her — I even so early de- tected her oj^timism — and with decidedly a jealous ac- cent : — " I suppose you know that Mr. Arnold INIajor is by no means perfect. His failings are obvious to those who have known him long — as you have not. But, with your poeti- cal idealism, of course all your friends, nay, your fresh ac- quaintances (if formed with your own will) are perfect." " I do not long for perfection, nor love it ; as I now exist earth is not heaven. As for poor Major — well, I don't be- lieve that even his temper is perfect ; I have seen it ruffled, chafed, fevered alike at morn and evening — no hard words, nor hot, nor deeds either ; still, what would he be worth if he could not control his temper ? Certainly neither the moral hero nor the gentleman he is ! " " Oh ! you are ideal, and whether you care for perfection or not, you expect it. It is, I believe, quite moral perfection to control one's temper ; those who have tempers, at least, find it so — or, rather, don't find it so, for they don't conti'ol them." " What do you mean, Miss Standish ? — your temper or mine as uncontrollable." " My own," — quite ingenuously. " I was not speaking of temper when I spoke of his not being perfect ; I meant disposition." Arnold Major faulty in disposition ! AVhy, it is the finest' and the gentlest possible." " He has indeed some one to sound his trumpet for him ! Seriously, do you think he does right to deprive those chil- dren of the friends (and they are many) who would do, at least, something for them ? " (The '■'• friends ! " — there was but one friend, and that herself) " I thought the children were left specially to his care, or that, for the sake of some one he loved (one or other of their 180 ALMOST A HEROINE. parent?, perhaps), he desired to provide by working for them, in which case I could well imagine he would brook neither assistance nor inquiry." " Oh, it was for the sake of no one he loved ! " exclaimed Horatia, with Avhat energy ! " You mean, then, to tell me actually that you know nothing about those children ? Is it possible ? " " I only know the children through themselves, and though he has spoken of them and of his anxieties about them, freely to me as to a brother, he has never told me their story nor their exact position, not even after I had been with him to bury little Effie." " Effie dead ! " She turned her eyes on me — oh, with what woful earnest- ness and passionate surprise — sad-heartedness, too, to bal- ance both — a look of lonely pride, as if her woman's sym- pathy were driven inwardraost, uncared for. I understand all lonely moods. « Why, Miss Standish, did you like little Effie ? " " That matters nothing. He was his mother's babe and darling, as the elder was her son and pride." " Hilary ? — and did you know him ? " What a glance ! — merely a glance, neither llush nor fea- ture, convulsion nor gesture ! It expi-essed such cold horror — such helpless detestation, and, oh, such self-contempt ! But the last expression faded directly almost, leaving the other twain to wrestle with each other, as it were — for she was too much possessed of some passionate secret to hide that she possessed it. I take no credit to myself that I ministered to this her moral misery. I can cdways medicine sorrow, if it be gen- uine, — but sorrow, true sorrow, is just as rare as love. She has some reason for loathing that child, I thought, or his name, — it was at his name she turned so desperately towards me. " It is odd. Miss Standish, but that poor little man detests ALMOST A HEROINE. 181 his own name, and begged me nevei* to call him by it, even asked me to call him by my name instead. I am glad to say that he in some sort took to me, and to a certain point con- fides in me. But then I always respect him as though he were a grown person. " Did he care about his mother so much as you imply she cared for Mjn ? and who was this mother ? " With exceeding earnestness she answered : — " Mr. Loftus, if you really wish to know because you love the little things, or their guardian, I will some time tell you, if you will come again ; but not now, for look up there ! " She pointed with her screen's handle-tip to the Genevese clock on the high mantle-shelf, and that instant it sang out two, like silver tongues. She seemed positively to wince at the soft chimes, and looked back, over her shoulder, down the dim, long drawing-room : the chandelier had long been quenched, only the wall sconces flimraered still. " Ghosts, Miss Standish ? " " No, Mr. Loftus ; something I dread more, though I am no heroine in supernaturals. Sometimes Mrs. Le Kyteler comes down in peignoir to fetch a book, to take a stroll, for she is one of your nervous wide-awakes, — or to find me." She laughed in conclusion, but not comfortably : — " And if she found me as well as you, she would think I was making impertinent advances." Horatia stared at me a moment. « Wonderful ! " said she. " No wonder ! " "What is wonderful?" "Your simplicity, innocence, unsophisticated kindliness rather." " Charming testimony ! But ' no wonder ' what, Miss Standish ? " She went down the room putting a chair or two aside, reached the door, opened it wide, then said in a low tone, all but a whisper, yet as clear as frost : — " No wonder you are Arnold Major's friend ! " 182 ALMOST A HEROINE. Then, as I hastened after her and stood just within the door, just opened for me : — " Mr. Loftus, is there anything I could do for those chil- dren ? " she added, still in the low but thrilling voice. " How, anything ? — is their uncle to know ? " " I should not care if I could bring them any good, but I should prefer he did not, because he shuts them and himself up so sedulously." I saw her generous heart was half bursting, like a rose-bud in a chill June day, that cannot open for want of sun, yet yearns to yield the sweetness of its bosom to the summer air. " Miss Standish," I whispered, as she held the door in her hand, " I wish you would give me a new half-sovereign for little Hilary. Don't mind the name ! That poor dear boy is hoarding a secret store to make a tomb in a fair place for some one he loves ; he never told me, but noio I know it must be his mother." I have said I never saw Horatia weep ; I never did, but possibly it was because she rushed so precipitately back down the dimness of the drawing-room (the sconces mere wax-taper-fed, the gas-chandeliers were out, and the former had burnt low). For when she came back to me with a small peach-tinted portemonnaie in her hand, her eyelids were positively, in that short moment, swollen. She drop- ped it on my hand out of her fair, helpless-looking fingers, and it would have fallen to the carpet had not my other hand caught it and pressed it back for hers. " There is very little, Mr. Loftus, but you might perhaps make it of some slight service for the child." " Miss Standish, Arnold Major knows every item of those brats' expenses (I mean, he superintends all), from the boy's minced veal, when he won't eat cold, to Philippa's last tear in her frock. You could do good by giving me the light, valuable coin I mentioned; but if I carried this lilac thing home and bestowed it, why, the child, who has only new ' tanners ' from me, would scream out straightway that he ALMOST A HKUOINK. 183 had a golden ' tanner ' or, rather, from the feel of the f dry pouch I should say, many golden ' bobs.' I have no doubt you think me vulgar. I hope so indeed, since one cannot be fashionable without." " Do not jest, Mr. Loftus," (and truly she fell funeral grave). "You asked for a new half-sovei-eign, and I had not such a coin." At this juncture, I heard (so did Horatia, though she assumed not merely indifference, but an air of noontide com- placency) a very soft rustle and infinitely softer step-fall, as of a pair of feet slippered with quilted satin on thick-piled stair carpet. I was ready to break out laughing, but Horatia looked distressed, dull, worried, — one link, and not the first, with Arnold Major. So I put my finger on my lip, tiptoed down stairs, (my tread is light, if my heart is heavy,) and soon reached the street door, where a man-servant, cosily asleep in a straight-backed, mediasval, walnut-wood chair, started up, and, in undrawing the bolts as softly as if they were oiled, bowed half way to mother earth. I read in that quietude, that homage, two facts : Miss Standish was a woman whose dependants honored her as well as served, and Mrs. Le Kyteler was an orthodox bugbear of those identical menials. Further : about two doors down, or up, Wilton Crescent, stood in the road a brougham — item, driver asleep — as his brother of the uncomfortable hall-chair had been. For the latter went up before me to the said equipage, touched driver as quietly as though Mrs. Le Kyteler could hear, and whispered I know not what ! Al- beit driver roused, without descent from his box, and chair- man opened for me the brougham door, — what a delicious air- stuffed seat and back ! I went to sleep, albeit very easily kept awake, and dreamed worlds of luxurious rest before I got home. CHAPTER XIII. MOUSE AND LION. Home ! What manner of person must it be wbo makes a home vei'itahly homely for a fellow-creature, almost a new stranger ? Also, what manner of woman, with whom a mau can converse, freely, openly, deliciously, after the lapse of an hour or two's acquaintance ? I put both these questions to myself in one, as I stopped at Arnold Major's door. I thought of course he was in bed, though I gave him credit for being tolerably curious, too ; but he never sat up after twelve — how could he have worked so long before noon, if he had ? I was not surprised to find the lamp in the ball still lit, for fancy him allowing his worst enemy to come into a dark passage out of the dark night ; I meant, there- fore, simply to fetch one of the chamber-lamps from the table at the end of the passage, where they always stood ready, and to go up-stairs creeping. I was not the least faint, be- cause my fair companion had rather renovated than ex- hausted me, — rare fact, and rarer temperament. " Ernest ! " called a voice (not a very bold one) from within the parlor. " Don't do — " I could not distinguish the rest of the words, though the voice went on. I opened the parlor door ; Arnold Major was sitting with his back to me, and kept it so. " Don't do what ? " I asked. " Don't do — I forget what I said ; but I meant, don't go to bed without your supper ; I have waited for you, and, by Juno, I am hungry." ALMOST A HEROINE. 185 " Why Juno, not Jove ? " " Because I have been reading a young lady's first novel, in one volume, whose heroine is called Juno, though she rather resembles Venus in re Adonis. Such stuff ! I was obliged to negative it, and tell her to Avrite us the tale of a wash-tub instead ; she has a little fancy, with abundant lead to balance her stage-Avings." There was the precious " reader's " portion in the form of an awful school-girl's scrawl, piled on a chair next him. Still, I thought it a droll topic to begin with. The tablecloth was laid, and all its paraphernalia. " I don't want any supper," I observed, " and shall only keep you up." " Yes, you do ; you want oysters, shell-roasted, the living flavor extinguished in a nobler, if not immortal destiny." He knew I had persisted that I could not eat fresh-opened oysters raw, because I could not be certain they were dead. He had told me also that his forte was oyster-roasting ; still, the recreation of cooking was a very extraordinay instance of his " shredding time." He pulled the bell, then stretched his arms over his head, — still did not turn his face. In came the maid with the dish, the oysters between hot napkins, smelling like sea-game, and small brown rolls, with butter cream itself. " Great heavens ! where did that butter come from ? " " From Highgate-rise. I took the children out there this afternoon, and they had their share at tea. Item, for sup- per oysters ; but Philippa gave hers to the cat, with results I will not take away your appetite by mentioning." " Don't you mean to do your own honors, Mr. Major ? " I exclaimed, for still he remained with his face to the fire. He turned round slowly at my voice — took a chair — now I could see him. What a change ! For the habitual weari- ness of expression there was a glow, a light, a vivid life in every lineament ; above all, that air which denotes that one ia occupied and excited at once by Jnimcui interest : an air com- 186 ALMOST A HEROINE. monly absent from his splendid countenance, and which it made one sad and dark to miss, where it should ever have beamed and ruled. It was a most exceptional dissipation, also, for him to come home early enough to take the children for a walk — it had certainly not happened since I came. " Is any one dead at Brown, Jones, «& Co. then ? as you were here before dark." " No one, I am glad to say. But the senior was out, has been for three days, and one can ask a favor of , so I begged him to excuse me, and he was most courteously pleased to give me a holiday, saying that he wished I took one oftener. Kind as he is, he would not have been able had the bead of the firm not been out." " And you sat up for me ! " " I had a good deal to make up, you know, nor were you very late." " Not late ! Miss Standish was horrified when the clock struck two, and packed me off. I floated down stairs, like thistle-down, and she had sent her brougham two doors off for me, for fear of Mrs. Le Kyteler." Oh, tell-tale eyes ! The hungry — no, thirsty — look that leapt into them like lightning, but remained, and filled them with such fierce and subtle fire. " It is ridiculous cant to call women angels, — and yet, if it were not, one would not like to call Miss Standish so." One of the lightning rays flashed my way. " I should never have called her one. I detest angels." " Well, certainly she ought to be something so much better, sweeter, and more satisfactory (in a mortal sense) that the word but serves to exjiress the want in her, which, cutting her off from human perfection, makes evident the void angel- ical of her unmated being." " You have been talking and imbibing nonsense, then — pity too ! In one evening, in an hour, to let you know her history ! " " Her ivhat ? " ALMOST A HEROINE. 187 " She must have told you a great deal'about herself." "She talk about herself! Why, you ungrateful churl, she was talking about you and yours — and me, me principally, and my affaii's." I slipped in the last clause, suddenly recollecting, or by in- stinct feeling, I ought not to betray her very predominant interest in him. Had she not spoken of keeping " secrets ? " ■ Howbeit, I feared immediately I had let one of those winged traitors free. For Arnold Major smiled like a lover, like a bride- groom. I can only use such similes to express at once the sweetness and the passion of his smile. I pretended not to see it, did not notice it, of course, but knew what subject to cling and keep to, noiv. The smile, however, faded like a sunset rose-beam, leaving a twilight melancholy as soft, if not as sweet, and possibly more passionate, if that could be. " What a creature she is ! People, authors rather, have raved about women as mistresses and wives, and sentimental- ized and pi-osed of them as mothers ; they always seem to think the reality of the maternal virtue must annihilate the romance of wifehood. What awful nonsense ! — fit to have been dictated by fiends to apes ! Do you know that my uncle knew a clever woman who always persisted that mon- keys were ' illegitimate devils ? ' Now, Horatia — one must call her Horatia, though she is as unclassical as she is un- Saxon — is a woman who would be as romantically delicious for her husband, as fascinating and tender to him as a woman, and as exquisite and soft as a mother, when she was — " He got up hastily, pushed his chair with such violence backwards that it fell against the wall. " Be silent, Ernest," he muttered, low but hoarsely ; then he tried to rally, and did, so far as to say : — " If I had calculated on your being so late, I would have made different arranscements." 188 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Whatever do you mean ? " " My dear boy, I should have gone to bed, and ordered your little chasse-diner to be served you solus ; but here we have been talking. I thought and hoped to hear that you had advanced your own fortunes a mile a minute. But, as it is so, as you are so disinterested, we must discourse no longer, fastly or slowly, but to bed." " Good night, then," I said. He always shook hands with me when we were goino- to bed. This time he passed me clear — but, oh ! what a flush was burnt into his cheek, one side, with the whitest pallor on the other. What eyes ! — anxious, strained, reaching into what far depths of light, and finding there no human ray of consolation — he took away with him alone! Who wrote — said — knew — it was not good, therefore was evil, for a man to be alone? Worse fate for men, man knows, than for women, who always, if genuine women, kindle into some sweet flame of love or charity. Besides, there is the Hebrew truth that he is to rule over her, which true women of every rank are always so ready to prove by their passionate patience, tenderness, long-suffering, and love. Not that women have not been badly treated, shamelessly, in ten times a thousand instances, but they bury their sorrow — which to a woman veiled with virtue is her shame. But what mystery was this? Here were two persons, positively %vorthy of each other, in either sex, and I — wheth- er honorably or not, perforce of nature, had detected their absolute suitability. I had not imagination inflamed by worldly excitements, nor enervated by their consequent exhaustion. Besides, to a certain extent, they had each of them confided in me. Had I been asked, I should have said they must love each other as a matter of course ; at least, if I had been asked, I should not have said anything, but have kept my own counsel ; but I should have believed their doom was to be one. Half through breakfast next morning, a note was brought ALMOST A HEROINE. 189 to me, — now, we were about half an hoiu* later than usual, or we should have finished breakfast. I did not know the handwriting, but Arnold Major did, from upside down. I knew it from his face, and I saw that he was excessively vexed that he had seen it, yet that he could not help it. That writing, so clear, nohle, but dashingly fast, no one could help recognizing, having once seen it. My vexation at his vexation made me fumble in opening the note ; and so awkward was I that I let some little article that it contained slip out and fall on the floor. Philippa, who was next me and had reached the dregs of her bread and milk basin, jumped down in her wild way and picked it up — tore the paper from it (it was folded in white paper), and, lo ! there was Hilary's half-sovei'eign, bran-new from the mint. I took it forcibly from the child's tight grasp, but too late ; her uncle had seen it was a gold piece. How horrified I Avas. He looked awfully angry : the pale wrath, not the red, froze all the brightness of his countenance. " Go to your lessons, Hilary," he said, with an accent quivering but stern ; " and, Philippa, you have finished ; go also and get ready for school." Both children lingered ; their difficult dispositions always set up a hundred prickles against volition — and there was more than volition, inflexible resolve, in the order. They lingered, but not long, for he took them each by a hand, and put them out of the room, then locked the door inside. " It is not agreeable to meddle ; particularly disagreeable to me to seem to interfei-e with you, but one word : — is that money intended as a present for the children, or is it the fruit of some private arrangement of your own ? — in which case forgive me." " Forgive you ! I should think not ! for those savage eyes and that murderous visage. I did not hiow you. As for the iutei-ference, I wonder you dare to interfere certainly, between myself and a third person, who is both ' fair and kind.' I should have given you credit for more pride — at least more 8i)irit." 190 ALMOST A HEROINE. " You don't know what you are saying, you don't know what you are doing. If you have any inmost secret you respect, pity one, slight enough, but miserable enough, of mine." " I was only in fun. Truly and honestly Miss Standish asked if she could do any little thing for the children, and / asked her to give me a new half-sovereign for Hilary." " You asked for money for them ? — for him ! How could you ? — how dared you ? How dared she to be- stow it ? " Mr. Major, would you like to knock me down ? Would you like to unload your revolver at my ear ? — you are welcome. I am tired of life, especially if you mean to quarrel with me. Miss Standish was right — you are not ' perfect.' " " I forget, you do not know. I beg your pardon. I am sometimes even now two thirds desperate ; but I don't show it till I am overdriven. She might have spared me — and herself." " Mummery and mockery ! I don't understand, nor want to do so. There is the miserable money — take it ! " I threw it on the table ! I loas astonished ! He picked it up, held it but long enough to cast it into the fire, then jammed it down with the poker into the red-hot middle of the coals. " Much use," I remarked (I really felt wrathful now). " Gold is gold, despite of necessaiy alloy, and it will only reappear among the cinders with a lustre as of a lily among thorns, or as its generous bestower among the daughters. " I really thought he was going to break my head with the poker, but he threw it in the bottom of the grate instead. Then stood up in front of me like a commanding officer. (He ought to have been in the army, but he hated war.) " I beg, I desire — I order you, to take no money for the children from amj one. I don't allow them to accept it." " You let the boy take Lord Wilders's five shillings." ALMOST A HEROINE. 191 He bit his lip, but looked now (instead of angry) so seri- ously annoyed, so put vpon (as tlie phrase goes) that I took compassion on him. " I promise to take no more money from Miss Standish, until authorized by yourself, but I must explain to her how it was her bounty never reached its destination." " Oh, that they had never been born ! " he groaned. " Will you — you have been kind enough to call me your friend — will you show me an act of friendship for which I will thank you eternally — which will never free me from obligation ? It is, not to mention the matter to Miss Standish, except to say that I do not permit my niece and nephew to take pres- ents, and have begged you to return it." " With no ' thanks ? ' " " /could not thank her " — he said, and ground his teeth. " Good heavens ! Why, j'^ou yourself wished me to make her acquaintance." " I did not desire to renew my own." "I am much obliged to you for giving me your cast-off habiliments, ' old clothes ' of dead and buried friendship ; I require an entirely new suit to fit me, and 'tis not yet made. Then you order me to return the new half-sovereign to Miss Standish, and, to use one of her fascinating little forms of speech, — ' I have not such a coin.' Am I to pick the same in its transformed condition out of the ashes, or will you bring me one in with you ?" " I will bring you one. I suppose you are not in a hurry to answer that note." Despite of his white-faced anger (scarcely spent), he sur- veyed the little missive hungrily. I tore it open. " Let us see," I said, " whether I need to answer it. You shall have it directly." But, lo ! — " Dear Sir," it ran : " With respect to one subject we 102 ALMOST A HEROINE. both referred to, and on which I half-i3romised to enlighten you, I fancy I did wrong to promise, and will beg you to absolve me. Being no angel, neat as heaven-imported, but a very (sometimes) foolish woman, and, I fear, never wise, I do not object to cast myself on your mercy, nor to confess my tongue was, last night, too free. I regret much that we spoke so little of your books, past, (present?), and future; but if you will kindly visit me at any time, I shall be truly gratified. I said one word about secrets, may I say one other ? Burn this scrap (not that you would keep it, except to light your pipes with), but it would be better burnt at once. 11 rCy a que les morts qui ne reviennent pas. — Yours ever, — Horatia Standish." " I cannot show it you," I exclaimed, involuntarily, and threw it into the fire after the half-sovereign. I watched it consume, so did not at first detect that my words had been, hoio interpreted I could not tell ; but there was something I could see, and that was the black shadow of the blackest of all dark demons, yet, perchance, an angel fallen — jealousy. His whole face was gloomed over and writhed with it. I had never conceived such an influence could overcome him ; but then I never saw a being so passionate, with passions so marvellously under self-control. He was conscious of his giving way this time, for he rushed from the room precipi- tately, and out of the house. For nearly an hour (it must have been) I stood and turned the matter, which was immaterial mystery enough, over and over in my mind, and, like an ass, settled at last (temporarily) that he was a rejected lover of Miss Standish's, and that she had refused him prematurely, ignorant of his merits, or of the possible fusion of her own heart on his account ; also, that she now regretted her refusal ! I did not like this solu- tion, but it was romantic enough to serve for a little time. Then Hilary came to his lessons, and it entered into me that he might be of some slight use, the " mouse " to the " lion," peiliaps. ALMOST A HEROINE. 19^ « My dear boy," I said, after he bad read bis Keigbtley, and construed bis Caesar, " I wisb you would tell me how heavy your money-box is getting ? " " I shan't," turning restive directly, though be was very gentle under intellectual rein with me by now. " Why not ? I might be able to make it heavier." « I wouldn't take it ; I shall wait till I get to the dig- gings ! " He had picked the word, and meaning too, out of the Times. But directly I saw bis mood, I felt certain of " dig- ging " no more out of him. A being more pertinaciously re- served than the little creature was never created or develop- ed. And now, here comes, or rather came, a question. Why did I brood so intensely and unvaryingly upon the certainly then separated fates of Iloratia Standish and Arnold Major during all that day ? As there is camera obscura as well as camera lucida, is there dark-seeing as well as clear-seeing ? 1 have a blind but feeling instinct which clutches me now and then, and dumbly bids me follow it. When it strikes me thus, and I neglect its impulse, or rather neglect to obey it, I always find some fine chance missed, some error perpetra- ted, in the long run, which would have been gained or avoid- ed had I followed my spiritual scent and let it lead me where it would. Here was I, lonely, without ties, without means (the last, if possessed, may to a generous heart yield wealth enough of joy, without the beatitudes of love and sympathy of blood), and what had I to bestow on others — to be —to do for them ? To intermeddle in any person's private policy, whether needful or assumed for prides' sake, is ever a disin- terested action, for no person likes it — except those who like interfering themselves — and no one cares for such enough to interfere in their concerns. How idle — lazy — I was all that day! I wrote not a word, and could scarcely attend to the child, who, with his precocious vigilance, looked up in my face continually, to find 194 ALMOST A HEROINE. what possessed or stupefied me. The impulse all the while held me tight, would suffer me to pursue no occupation nor train of thought in default of its own determination. And this impulse was neither more nor less than to acquaint Ar- nold Major with the contents of Horatia's note. Had she not written of secrets in the same breath with the order to burn it ? True, and I fancy myself honorable in my way, but I had not promised to hold my tongue about its contents, though I had fulfilled the command to consume it ! Cole- ridge has told us how a lie is in the intention, not the utter- ance, and how, sometimes, a false statement may absolutely tend to truth. On this ground I acted, when I was fool — or wise — enough to say, the very first thing Avhen Arnold Major came in, and while Philippa was racing up and down the passage on his umbrella : — " I have been considering, and I have come to the conclu- sion that I will tell you what Miss Standish's note contained — if not in her very words, yet her meaning intact." " Oh, Ernest — Ernesto Loftus ! " he exclaimed, bitterly and coldly, " I did not think you ungrateful ! " — with such a piteous accent too. I did not care ; his speecli did not w^ound me ; I more than half understood it. " And why am I ungrateful ? Nay, tell me truly, and do not spui-n an honest man's faith, as you would not spurn a dog's attachment. Why am I ungrateful ? To you, for bringing me home and making me at home ? " " Hush ! " that was inflexible. " You are, I think, a little tormenting about Miss Standish. What is she to me? Nothing. I thought she would be of use to you, and there- fore I requested you to accept her acquaintance." <' Accept her acquaintance ! — you must think it precious then ! " " She is certainly the most fascinating person in all the world, if that is ivorth, — " he said, and his the pause. " Worth indeed ! Why, I should have said, — and I quite ALMOST A HEKOINE. 195 appi-eciute the iii^ force of her fixsci nation — that her worth is precisely the most extraordinary thing about her. She is good, goklen, — a finer and purer nature never breathed hfe's breath, nor London air. And hear me. I am no fantastic fool, intoxicated by her like a fly fallen into a honey-trxap. I will tell you, I know her so well as tliis. She is perfectly unworldly, but she is also vain of being so ; and only so far is she vain at all ; her fascinations and her passionate sweet- ness she is alike unconscious of." I must have been inspired by a genius-angel — perhaps sincerity is one, he looked so strickened,so quickened with sur- prise ! And it was easy to see, from his glad, yet sad sym- pathetic dwelling on the subject, how dear was that subject to his soul — not only to his soul. I had never seen him look so weary, nay, so utterly exhausted, masked with white fatigue, as when he came in first. And now there was the flush so intense and warm on either cheek — the glory m the gaze, which only passion, and passion fed by love's sweet madness, lends the aspect of manhood whose passion is m- corruptible as its love is fast and constant, not faultless. I know not, and little believe, that women adore angelic per- fection in what is human. This little parenthetic statement- is not dramatically ivrong, for it was several minutes before he answered — could answer — me. Then he said, — " I beg your pardon for calling you ungrateful ; perhaps, it was I myself who Avas ungrateful rather. But I will not be so to you. I will tell you, that it does not do for me to trust myself to speak about her, or think, in reference to my- self. For, whether she is good or bad, fascinating for sweet- ness or evil, an angel or a worldly woman, it matters not ; I have nothing, shall have nothing to do with her, though I have known her — have seen her — too often ; I mean " (here he grew incoherent to my heart's content) ; " I wish I had never seen her ; then might I have lived in peace ; or else, that I could hioio her, — then I might, at least, die so." " Most assuredly you might know her if you chose." 196 ALMOST A HEROINE. I spoke dryly, and felt disgusted, or half disgusted. It seemed horrid to tamper with a woman so tender and so strong ; horrid for two men in conversation so to seem to do, at least. " And if you donH know her, it is most likely because you are not worthy," I added, angrily. " Good God ! " he exclaimed, " if she were only worthy to be remembered as she seems — " Here he gave one of those deep, dry sobs which men can pity in each other, as women each other's hysteric agonies, and which alike denote the spasmodic crisis in which physi- cal endurance is spent — crisis that the spirit in a swift reac- tion remedies, but which leaves on the brightest brow its lines, beneath the loveliest eye its shadows, and which, through the richest hair, passes like a sweep from the reaper's sickle. " I wonder why you do remember her if she is unworthy," I said. " But that is nothing to the purpose. I wanted just to tell you about tlie note which disgusted you so. AYe had been talking about the children — if she had borne them, she could not be tenderer over them — and particularly of Effie. She remarked that he was his mother's babe and darling." " His mother ! She spoke so ? She said the woi-d — the name ? Horrible ! — unnatural ! I could never have be- lieved that of her." Passion and reason shared his accent : there seemed a sort of logical conviction that she had not so spoken. Yet I knew she Itad. It flashed on me that some ignorance, through pride or resolute self-will, possessed and held him flxst. It was an oppoi'tunity, and I seized it. " If anything could be unnatural, it would be to call her so. A person so strikingly, wonderfully natural could not be found, whatever her faults may be, and I have not detected them, though I dare say they exist." I do not know how it is, but I am always frank with the noble charactered, though reserved beyond fathom Avith those I neither esteem nor understand. It was too much, I do not ALMOST A HEROINE. 197 doubt, to expect such openness from a man like Arnold IMa- jor, with his wisdom and experience so far greater, if his passion were not more earnest and intense than mine. But yet, it worried my pride and chilled my heart that he did not respond fidly and instantly to it. I forgot then that it was the core of his confidence he with- held, that precious fruit which ripens slowly in all friendships, however soon it flushes into maturity and sweetness under the sun of love. And, blaming him, I forgot besides that he was, in point of fact, as ignorant of my secret as I of his. It may seem strange that any one, with that eternal care, which is the eternal treasure too, ever possessing him, should have taken so profound, human, and sudden an interest in the histories of two souls which ought to have been one. I can only say that the truth which struck me and held me on to interfere (?) was this : how could two who have a right to become one, and the desire, lose or destroy the chance ? Was it not ingratitude to do so — ingratitude to Heaven ? For not one word or look, on either part, of theirs had convinced me that necessity separated them. And if pride kept them apart, it should be slain like a moral monster ; it mattered not who slew it, but he would be victor worthier than many " crowned with carnage." As I said, I had not gained his confidence ; I had rather frightened him away from the very borders of it, by my im- patient sympathy. I knew that by his exceeding self-posses- sion, now restored. He took out the unlucky half-sovereign, bran new, a very twin of hers, and tendered it me coolly, then added in a tone that would have been indifferent, if the voice could have ever been so : — " We have — you and I — enough to do Avith our own fliults, at least I have with mine, without examining those of others. In this case, too, there really is no blame. Miss Standish, brought up as she was, is not answerable, would not be, even did she positively err." " Brought up ! Who brought her up ? " 198 ALMOST A HEEOINE. " The woman you saw with her. I suppose you saw her, as you spoke of her." " And that woman — lady I should have called her — well?" " Do not speak of her any more. I have been absurd to do so ; in fact more absui'd to discuss the matter at all, which belongs to me no more than heaven, at present. I had no idea you would fall into such sudden love with it, or I should have been more cautious in self-defence. For talking, above all chattering, about women, when one has nothing to do with them, is impertinent, and wastes one's time." This was true ; we had both wasted a good deal, more than ever since we had been under one roof. For the matter of that, we were both behind hand too, and wrote desperately all the evening. Despei-ately, I say, for Philippa was particularly noisy, and her ordinary self-expositions were wild enough. The child grew stronger, larger, hand- somer, and more omnipresent, every day. She seemed created without the need of rest, and yet the spirit of mis- chief was not subtle enough to keep her quiet while she did it ; her possession was chiefly an exuberance of health and animal vigor which never had enough room to expand itself in, nor sufficient change to absorb it. Her uncle felt this so strongly that he never found the least fault with her — only made excuses for her few parents would have formed ; and hore her as I don't believe any would, for she was well enough and unsensitive enough to have been sent to school entirely without harming lier physically. But Arnold Major detested schools for girls, and the temper of his conscience was so fine that those he loved not were safe, in his keeping, to be treated better than those he loved ; at least, while those he loved were not in his keeping at all. He would only re- gret (about Philippa), that he had not a great garden for her to race in, or, at least, a large roomful of toys ; but she certainly had toys sufficient, though few, for they were all of the kind, one of which satisfies a really intelligent and hearty child for AL]\[OST A HEROINE. 199 hours. She did not care for toys, nor for play, save romp- ing only, and turning things into playthings which had not been invented for the purpose ; and, as far as I could detect, the leant in her was, that she cared for no human being in a human way. Over Hilary she rode rampant, without ever testifying towards him even boisterous affection, and the only thing she ever kissed was Fuzz the cat (corruption from Furze, said cat having been picked up in a furze-bush on Hampstead Heath), and Fuzz always scratched her in return. The only historic or poetic comparison I ever found for Philippa was Kate, the shrew of Shakspeare; but I doubted if in modei-n times, on British soil, a hero with the nerve and the valor of Petruchio would turn up. Besides this KateJcut's " uncle " was not " very rich, Hortensio," but decidedly poor. I speak of Philippa in this place, because, precisely at this place, she began to play her small strong part of semi- heroine ; she helped romance and love, that loveless, un- romantic little mortal, and was actually to the royal netted " lion " the " mouse," quite without the benevolence and gratitude of the mouse in the fable, though. It was nine o'clock (the same night, I mean), and Philippa would not go to bed. The maid made double racket in the passage, trying to persuade or coei'ce her. " I don't believe she is sleei>y, or tired either," observed her uncle, in a tone she could not hear. " But it is nine o'clock. Such a time for a child to be up !" " She wakes with the sun, you see, despite of my darken- ing the window, like a chanticleer in a stable. I would give anything if I dared afibrd her a pony — a rough little beast — that she could manage by herself; but I must not this year." " And you wouldn't allow any one to give her one ? " " Certainly not, except the person who can aftbrd it no more than myself — " " You mean — " 200 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Yourself; I tell you that is a compliment from me." " I think so ! " "We said no more then, but two hours later, — "I have been thinking that I must go over to Uglyville," I remarked. " Go to Uglyville, my dear boy ? " " Yes, to see John. I have a horrid, obtuse presentiment that he is doing something to himself. I have finished my 'Album d'Enfance ' even this afternoon, and I want you to let me take Philippa — she can have a good run at least, or a ride on an ass in the very Eden of ' Jerusalem ponies.' " John was no secret between us. " You are very kind, but would she go ? " " I doubt it not ; she is like a spirited terrier, or terrier- ess, and will go with any one to go out. Only give her a holiday to-morrow, if the sun shines." " Give her a holiday. Yes ! What ever am I to do with her, Ernest ? She learns nothing next door, no not even to be still. And a girl who is to be a woman ! And suppose I die before I have made up to her for — " " I will not hear another word of that description." It was the only subject that, to dwell on, visibly excited him to burning fever. The hectic came to his cheeks at the ver}-- thought, and his pulses, to the very eye, grew wild. " There is one thing : a woman such a Philippa will be will command any price in the market, independent of rise and fall in female stock." " Don't speak so ; you don't know — " " I know you are dead tired — let us go to bed." But I knew by his eye next morning he had been awake half the night. I had myself kept watch an hour or two, meditating. I decided not to send back the half-sovereign to Miss Standish, whom already I knew well enough to fear wounding beyond remedy if I icrote, but to take it her in a day or two, and explain exactly wliat had happened, as much as I had, or considered I had, the right to do. So I was ready, as the sun shone, to hear Arnold Major say : — ALMOST A HEROINE. 201 " Pliilippa, would you like to have a whole holiday, and to go out to-day? " " Not in the square — the square is deuce ! " Arnold Major looked at me appalled, but did not show her any displeasure. As for rae, I laughed aloud ; I could not help it. We never, either of us, ever found out who taught her the word (Miss Standish evolved that she had picked it up in overhearing a three-sentenced conversation between the newspaper boy and a chimney sweep, while she stood on the step next door before it opened.) As for the limit of the square, its garden was open to our children through the mother-heartedness of a spinster occu- pying of the square the best house. She had seen a number of children in our street from time to time — Hilary and Philippa among them — and made them all free of the gar- den with her own key and right of entrance ; and, being sofa- ridden, it was the pleasure of her life to watch them play there. To Hilaiy it was a great boon, for the boy really was too finely strung to bear jostling in the streets, and I am pei'suaded, but for it, lu; would never have had any fresh air at all ; he would walk up and down, round and round it, two hours at a time, reading. None of the others molested him, they shrank from him, and left the walks to him much as their grown contemporaries would have behaved in the case of a madman. But Philippa, that child, went once in the square (the tradition was preserved) ; it was in the time of carnations, the pride of Islington gardens, and the central beds were all abloom. She found the trees — she tried on them first — too tough to pull up by the roots, and fell on the pinks straightway ; all of them she dragged up and made a heap in the middle of the lawn, amidst screams and dep- recations from the other children ; and, from the two nurse- maid'^ present in the gardens, she received a more personal check. One of them she kicked, and scratched the other, till they were glad to get outside the gate, and she was finally 202 ALMOST A HEROINE. carried home by a policeman, who delarecl her to be a " hand- ful for Goliath, and a match for a mad bull." Howbeit, this is all too far from the present mark. " No, not in the square, — a long Avay in a cab, and a train up a hill — oh, a very long way, with Mr. Loftus ! " " I want to go by myself." " But you would lose your way," I put in, " and hurt your feet on the stones, and get very hungry and cold, and all sorts of dreadful things. I shan't talk to you unless you like it, nor even take hold of your hand. And perhaps you might see a donkey you would like to ride on." This mythic luxury settled the question ; not that she as- sented, either with grace or without. But Arnold Major was no sooner gone to " business," than a great knock (no tap) came at the door of the room I slept in, and in which I was arranging some small matters ; the door flew open, before I could say " come in," and Philippa appeared all dressed for walking. " I'm ready, uncle ! " she exploded. " I am happy," I returned, " but not your uncle." " It's just the same thing. You're both men." Such was Philippa's logic, but — thanks to a woman bet- ter and greater than she — I don't think she will quite so far favor the Latterday Saintship in respect of men as hus- bands. She was a bore. I had not had her five minutes before I wished I had never undertaken her. For speed, I took a Hansom to the train, and nothing would suit Philippa but to emulate the immortal " Lettey Larkins " in respect to her seat. She excelled her, however, for she positively preserved her equilibrium, sitting on the edge, and I dared not stop the driver, for fear the shock should fling her in the road. Next, in the train, she tried all the seats one after another (we were in one of the Uglyvillian genuine slow steam coaches, and for two miles had it to ourselves). On the entrance of one stolid gentleman, she asked liim why he put his hat " up ALMOST A HEROINE. 203 there," meaning between the leather straps that crossed the carriage roof, and when he nothing answered lier, save with a grunt, she phicked the same hat from its position before 1 could foresee her intention — the owner of it having shut his eyes after the manner of Ugly villians en route — and threw it out of the window ! Fancy ray horror ! The Uglyvillian opened his eyes in the very nick of time, beheld the performance, could not speak for fury, and would accept no apologies of mine, but got out at a station before Uglyville, having yelled to the guard like a nightmare from the moment of the train's slack- ening. Philippa glorified herself, and I was obliged to take out my pocket handkei'chief, cover my mouth with it, and frown at her over it, for I was near dying with laughter, the child was so strangely self-possessed in her impertinence. Between that last station and Uglyville (the hatless gen- tleman had not changed his carriage, but disappeared through the shed of a station's door) I literally had to hold her down, or she would have burst, I believe, the door open, so impa- tient had the fresh air and motion made her, and, oh, so strong ! We emerged in the very heart of Uglyville village, for I wanted to procure an asinine steed for my charge, on the heath. I knew, if I let her go, I should lose her, and I had positively to gripe her hand (she twisted it out of its glove in her energy), and she was exactly like a weaned co\t turned out the first time to grass. Her great eyes swept over the heath with animal ecstacy. As soon as I perceived a stud of them, I hailed one of the donkeys, a fine large one, with a good breadth, and clean wiiite cover to its side-saddle. A boy brought up the same, rather superior to the average of his freckled class, lifted Philippa on the donkey's back, — lo ! she instantly and quite naturally assumed the attitude in which Lady Hester Stanhope rode her celebrated Arab. Such a commotion the 204 ALMOST A HEROINE. girl-jockey excited on the heath ! All the donkey boys were after her, full shout, admiring too ! Arrived at my uncle's house — how httle it looked like one ! — I told the boy who was at Philippa's donkey's heels (giving a fourpenny piece in advance) to keep her ass going steadily, and take care of her while I went into the " Roman Villa." How the boy grinned ! He knew its dull history, I could see, and deemed it fun in lieu of any real amuse- ment. " Bring her to the door in half an hour," was ray final ordinance. The door ! Curious it is to see a place, any place, wheth- er palace or log-hut, one has inhabited, any time within a three months' lapse, afterwards. It ever changes, or is changed, to the mental vision. In my case, there was no actual change, save that a great cobweb was woven exactly across the entrance-portal — sure proof it had not been opened or passed through by any inside habitant ! I rang the bell immoderately ; it had a rusted tinkle, unlike its old clear iron sound. The house was " haunted." Sti'ange steps echoed from far within, came slowly to the door — slowlier it opened, but a very little piece, and there, peeping through to get a view of me intrusive, I saw a face that was as the face of a ghost. " John," I cried. I was just going to say " how ill you look ! " but he gave me no time ; he opened the door wide, dragged me into the hall, went down on his knees, kissed mine, sobbed till I thought he would choke, and chuckled till I thought he would sutfocate. Man Friday lived again in him that hour. He went rather too far for me, however. I was rather puzzled when he screamed so that the whole house echoed : — " I knew you would come back — no one told me, but I knew it — to take your own out of my hands." Then went off into a fresh hysteric of choke and chuckle. I pulled him up from his knees ; he was lighter than he ALMOST A HEROINE. 205 used to be, he had grown so thin, and looked even more comical lean than fat. " I have only come to sec how you are getting on, Jolm," I said, without noticing his violent emotion. " I don't know what you mean by losing your looks so ; how ever is the Collection to keep dusted if you get weak ? " He toddled before me to the door of the room containing it — threw it open. Behold a misceUaneous of sarcophagi, fashioned out of canvas, and looking like mummy-cerements ; the Collection was free from dust, at least. Then John tod- dled out, with me behind him, into the garden ; we came to the stable door — he opened that too. Hazelnut's smell ; who could mistake it ? But Hazelnut had gone blind with age, and John informed me he had " taken no notice " for some weeks. lie knew me, smelt me before I touched him, and reared till his fore feet felt out my shoulders — rubbed his nose into my mouth, and so forth. He was too fat, though ; I told John so ; as much so as John was too thin. " Law, Mr. Ernest, he won't suffer no one to excise him ; how is he to keep down his fat ? The groom, he tried to get on him, and he kicked him over his shoulders before ever he tried." A rather Hibernianesque explanation ; but I was satisfied with Hazelnut's fidelity, and liked him so well as an old friend that I did not care to stay with him long, unless I could have stayed near him always. " I wish, John, you would try, for my sake, and enjoy yourself a little. I thought I should find you very happy." " Mr. Ernest, master left me the will, but he didn't leave word I loas to be happy." " Nonsense ; it would be the only thing to make vie hap- py, i£ you were so." " I don't know, Mr. Ernest. I always was till since. I had ever a plenty to eat and drink, and some one to serve ; both's gone now, for, since I have no one to wait on, I am never in a way to eat or drink. Even pipes is not what 206 ALMOST A HEROINE. they used to be ; I don't seem to want them often, and when I want, I don't hke them ; they're gone oiF. After you was gone, Mr. Ernest, that was not hke tlie gentleman you are, but your uncle was not like the gentleman he was, as it turned out. When you went, lots of people tried to get in ; they nearly beat down the gate, and would have got over the "wall but for the spikes. I didn't want to have none of them near me, for all the time I am thinking, and did from the beginning, ' Well, if I die before three years, all right ; if not, why in three years, that box! I worship that box, like the Catholics the crucifixion.' " (Crucifix ? ) " Why, John, you have been getting up in your reading? " " Only the martyred foxes, Mr. Ernest." (Fox's Martyrs ?) " Well, I am glad to hear that. Nice pictures ! " My uncle's " Fox " was the very earliest edition possessing big plates. " I took the liberty, sir, of reading them, I was so lonely ; but it is hard, and the cuts are all fires, and the foxes being roasted alive." Just tribute to the artistic genius or black letter print and illustration ! He could not positively make out enough either of the one or the other to know the martyrs as men ! And, as it would rather have horrified him than amused him to know it, I let it pass. " I have brought a young lady with me, John ? Do you think you could find her a bit of Indian preserve, in your store-room, or have you eaten it all up by yourself? " John grinned immensely. I knew his thoughts were un- duly excited. " A young missus, Mr. Ernest ? " " No, no, John ; I can't afford to have a lady Avife, you know. It is a very young lady indeed, and her uncle is the best friend I ever had. Pei'haps I shall get rich through him, John." " A young and handsome gentleman, Mr. Ernest, and rich ? " ALJIOST A HEROINE. 207 "A great deal younger and hand.somer than rich, John. How about tlie preserves ? " " If they arn't gone mothery, Mr. Ernest ; but I should have, I'm sure, if a death had been in the house, and nobody had ever come near me." " To eat you ! But, John, preserves have not such tender hearts, they hold their own under all circumstances ; at least, Indians do, so go and see." John went, and returned laden with a tray covered with soup plates, every one filled with a diiferent sweetmeat, and spoons ; also a bottle of the oldest tokay in the cellar, and another of pale brandy, thirty years of age. Had Philippa been left to herself with these varieties, therefore, she might have died either of a surfeit or intoxication. But she was so long coming back that I went out to look for her, and there she was, tearing round and round the heath, having disarmed the boy of all power over the donkey by coaxing out of him his knotted stick. At last, in my sight, the ass kicked, and precipitated her over his head on the grass. I picked her up and carried her (she was too tired to kick me) to John's mansion. She was, however, too hungry for the spread before her to suffice, and I had much difficulty in de- taining her while John went to fetch her some bread and cheese. (He lived on nothing else ; no wonder he was lean !) She had not spent herself a bit, and after a huge luncheon, set oiF all over the house and garden, I following her close, lest she should do or receive mischief, so that I actually had no time to talk to John until it was time to go. Again I should never have got Philippa back to town if I had not allowed her to go to the train on a second donkey, which John fetched willingly. I think the eclat of appearing on it to the folk outside the station satisfied her finally, for in the train she fell asleep, and was most horribly cross at being woke up when it stopped ; so that before I restored her to the bosom of her family I was foin to repent I had torn her from it. 208 ALMOST A HEROINE. How that child Hilary sneered at me that night ! I could not exactly tell why, until, just as Philippa had gone to bed, nearly an hour earlier than usual, he looked up, and, before his uncle, said : — " It is a pity the ' Arabian Nights ' are not true." He so seldom made a remark on his own account that both of us encouraged him by exclaiming : — " Why ? " " Because then she could have been turned into a donkey, and gone to feed amidst the thorns and thistles ; she is fit for nothing better." I perceived Philippa had been reciting her experience. Arnold Major would have shocked educationalists, I'm sure. I have said he never scolded or punished the children, but at such speeches from Hilary he ever looked so mournfully compassionate as though — I know not what. Now, he did so. I don't think the boy perceived it, as he never raised his eyes from his book, but he went on presently, in a voice half murmur, half an accent of surprise: — " I don't care for Ernest's friendship now. I did at first, because I thought he cared for me ; it is not worth a half- penny. He cares for her just the same. I Avill never have another friendship all my life." We men looked at each other as women might. I was as much pained as Arnold Major was made anxious. I had lost my hold then, unknowing that I had one, and he had not pressed it either ; but the chance of winning the little heart to love from "friendship" had then passed away, — was it indeed so ? Sometimes now I can promise to myself a brighter certainty that such a wayward being may have found root in my own, so dull and barren save for the poor droppings of heart-charity, which fall on the " stony ground " by the " wayside," " among thorns " — how seldom on good ground, for that is rare as love's own seed ! Next day I settled in my own mind (and had settled the day before) to go to Miss Standish. I had not the least fear ALMOST A IIEKOINK. 209 of this fashionable creature, for fashionable she was to such a high desrree that her fashion was absolute fame. I should not have minded calling on her out of calling hours, and that is something to saj, for one whose horror of intrusion, or not being welcome, is only equal to his disgust of pork, and dishes fried in lard. Howbeit, I had designed to go to Wil- ton Crescent in proper calling hours ; even if I could not find an opportunity of explaining the return of her gift to her until after such season, I would only have been glad to stay so long. But it happened, by some curious chance (was it chance ?) that my young companion of the day before {i. e., Philippa) got up with a cold this morning, most likely bred of over-warmth, induced by her dual donkey ride ; and Arnold Major, poor fellow, was as anxious as a cock with one chick, whose mother hen has died and left it to buffet alone with the rough and tender mercies of the dunghill. He entreated me to remain beside her and keep her quiet (she would if kept in her bed), and I dismally promised, for I felt as if I had no power to keej) her " quiet," unless she chose. I also felt sure he overrated any possible danger from her cold ; she was so sti'ong, and her aifection that way was so slight, though she made the worst of it, sneezing, coughing, and breathing hard, because she delighted in it. Her poor uncle ! He went off to the city with such a pale face, and an extra thorn in his side. Perhaps I was imprudent ; perhaps no mother would ever shake hands with me on the score that I was ; but when I beheld that the child, after her twelve o'clock dinner of a poached egg and Indian corn pudding, as large as a break- fast cup would contain, and all of which she ate, Avas only fevered by being kept in bed, she was so strong, I permitted lier to be dressed and to come down stairs into the parlor. There she was wonderfully edified for an hour or two by my making her fly-cages, ships, boats, barges, bread-baskets, &c., out of the writing-paper I ought to have been treating differ- ently. So I presumed too much on her being quiet while 210 ALMOST A HEROINE. she played, and after three or four hours' devotion to her I observed : — " I want to go out, Phihppa, for a little. You will be a good girl, and stop here till I come back ? " " AVhere are you going, uncle ? " (This novel style she seemed to fancy.) " I can't tell you, my dear. Shall I bring you anything back ? Would you like a muffin ? " She made her eyes look like dark saucers : — " No ! " I came down stairs, meaning to walk, just in that nick of twilight which no good house wives illumine. In fact it was dark in the hall. I called to the servant that she was to tell her master I had gone to Miss Standish's (she was a servant possessed of the rare gift of remembering names), and then I let myself out. I thought I heard a door slam behind when I had gone about a dozen paces, but took no notice, as there were so many other doors besides the one I, had just shut myself; and presentl}', I cannot deny that I did hear sounds behind me as of feet, but in London this is no exceptional fact, and . I am fond of pressing forward when I walk, hating to look behind me. Soon, too, I was in a dream, a state, I think, town engenders more than country, and by the time I reached Wilton Crescent I had enough to do to rouse myself out of it. There was but a stray carriage outside the door ; Horatia's " afternoon " was in its decadence. In the very act of my ringing the bell, the man inside opened the door for some one, the habitant of the carriage, I presume. Dusk as it had become without, the bright fresh light inside poured forth in dazzling contrast, and, for a moment, I could see nothing except the moving figures of two or three persons coming down the stairs. They were lingering ; I knew why, for I heard those cold, rallying, yet over-enticing tones. Horatia was above them at the stair- head, and held them so. ALMOST A HEROINE. 211 I licard some words from her to the effect: — " Oh, he had his cash checked instead of his cheque cashed" Then a laugh ; and then, by all the powers of elfdora, good and evil,' I beheld beside me, on the very mat inside the door, Avhieh was still held open for the descending guests — Philippa ! I don't know whether I swore, screamed, or shouted ; but she burst out laughing, which laugliter passed into a cough, and ran past me up the hall, turned into the dining-room, whose door was ajar. I thought I should have swooned ; my heart did "knock my ribs," my whole impulse was to get at the little wretch and carry her out again, wrapped in my greatcoat. But, lo ! before I could get half as far as the dining-room door, two ladies swept down stairs, largely cos- tumed and widely skirted, and a man after them, whose whole attention was directed to not treading on their gowns behind — for his own sake, not theirs. On they came, all three, and if I had not stood like a scutcheon against the wall, the perfumed draperies might have carried me into the street on their waves of stiffness. The fair obstruction past, I said to the man, — he remembered me, I saw : — " There is a young lady who came with me, and has run into the dining-room. Can I fetch her out, or is any one there ? " " Oh, certainly, sir," — goes before me. " Maurice ! " (Miss Standish, her foce put over the balus- ters, and the hall light beaming up on lier face showing well a weariness almost equal to that I was accustomed to in Ar- nold Major's). " Maurice," she went on, too tired to perceive me clearly. " Does he want anything, that person ? Don't send him away." " Oh, ho ! " I thought ; " you don't send ' persons ' empty away then ! " But, before the man could reply, though he had run speedily to address her, she saw me — knew me in a moment — expressed by her intensely-recalled self-possession how des- 212- ALMOST A HEROINE. perately she was astonished, perchance something more than pleased ; but, as I was not vain, more than a grain of mus- tard seed is salt (no merit either to the mustard-seed or me), I knew very well she did not care, exactly on my own ac- count, that I was there. The self-possession I have alluded to scared arid settled the man ; he came down stairs abruptly, and sat in his chair hke an image originally carved with it in the middle ages. " I am delighted to see you, Mr. Loftus." (Really she looked so). " But I am not delighted, though I thought to be," said I. She took this as a weedy compliment. " Come up-stairs, pray," she said. " Certainly not. You have to act queen, for I have to throw myself at your feet, or, rather, on your clemency." " All the better ! Do come in here, then." Didn't I know she thought I had come to ask her for soyne substantial favor on my own personal account ? — for " in here " was the dining-room, now turned into a " den of thieves " by the good-for-nothing little torment. I whispered : — " Miss Standish, you know Arnold Major's little niece ? " " No, I don't ; I wish I did," she whispered, reciprocally. But, oh, how her eyes smiled and her mouth shone in . gladness ! I felt no fear after that. " Well, the little monkey — I never dreamt of it, though she had plagued us all enough — followed me to-night with- out my being aware — cunning imp ; for I took her out with me yesterday, and I fancy she desired a repetition." " What ? How ? " — impatient a little. " ' The creature ' ran by me like the substance of Wes- ley's ghost, and is at present in your dining-room. But, Miss Standish, that is not the worst, for 1 read in your countenance you would esteem the presence of no child a bore. She took cold yesterday, and all day I have been nursing her by her uncle's command. I ought not to have left her, but I was ALMOST A HEROINE. 213 certain she was safe, and how ever she followed me, or she got out, or what she has on, I know not ! " " We will see," said Horatia, with a smile, — oh, such a smile ! — half gentle pleasure, half vivid passion ; and leav- ing me, as it were, she went into the dining-room. I fol- lowed. There was my mischief, not huddled up, not modestly posed in any chair ; she was sitting on the dining-table, which was already half covered with a snowy substratum of dam- ask and silver and delicate mats ; eating salt out of a frosted shell containing that condiment, with the fan-lipped spoon that fitted it. Miss Standish broke into one of her genuine, glorious laughs. Philippa turned at it, and looked surprised, yet en- chanted, as a child of her age at a peal of Christmas bells. But only the chime was of Christmas ; there was summer in the air. Philippa, now I had time to see, had nothing warm on ex- cept her little high-neckeil winter frock, and tlie hat (one of those brown hats that never looked either new or old) in which she went to school. Staring at Miss Standish, or the salt, made her cough. In a moment Horatia was at some mysterious closet or bureau, and came back with an oval loz- enge in her hand, held it up cunningly, then slipped it into the monkey's mouth. " Now," said she, but I could trace an indefinite and deli- cate uneasiness in her ease, " we will go and see all the little fishes in their green groves, and the flowers that live in the water and pop up and down to peep at them." She took hold of Philippa, but did not lift her off the table, for the simple reason that Philippa would have dislocated her wrist, or rather broken her arm ! Philippa took to her by miracle, — I can only call it so, — jumped down of her own free will, and positively put her hand into hers to go out of the room. " Will you come, too ? to see there is no foul play ? " said 214 ALMOST A HEROINE. Horatia to me, not looking at me tliougli, and the second phrase so unconcernedly concerned ! I followed. Miss Standish led her charge (for the first time led) into a little room behind the dining-room, and not opening into it by any door ; one of those nondescripts -which, in fomilies who are standard for mid-class respectability, are devoted to old books, old tables, with no fire in cold weather ; in fast families with no sons, but with daughters, to literature and the private easel ; and in fast flimilies with sons, to tobacco and penny newspapers. In this case, quite well fitted and furnished fully with many books, a set of steps to attain to the higher shelves — some old chairs and an old table cer- tainly, but a very new and handsome aquarium in the long, bright window. Here comes a slip-note of somebody who has learnt there is wisdom out of his own sphere of observation, or that of others he has vast trust in. Arnold Major had a disgust for popular science. (I had a dislike till he turned it to disgust by sympathy !) We had mutually agreed an aquarium was a disgusting object, an intolerable dissight. Those who very poetically idolize the sea for its own sake (a taste, I believe, much more rare than it seems to be) never could sincerely love the chamber-aquarium ; but for certain minds of vivid if unimaginative growth, it is a wonderful assistant, a charm as softening as it is innocent. If I had been amazed to see Philippa take to Miss Standish, I was more so to see her fasten on the aquarium. She was fixed, fascinated, and when Iloratia brought a lamp close over it, and the forms of tiny life began to rise, start, undulate in their crystal circle, she was indeed touched, and held as in a fairy ring. Totally absorbed, nearly bi'eathless, she did not fail to stare now and then up at Miss Standish, with a smile that nearly reached from one ear to the other. In a few minutes I whispered, for the child not to hear : — " I must take her home, indeed, Miss Standish ; I shall be ALMOST A HEROINE. 215 awfully bullied if I don't ; in fact, I am appalled at my own prospects anyhow. May your s(?rvant call me a cab ? " Pliilippa heard — at least she called out, " I won't go liome. I want to stop here and see the fishes all night." '• I wish I might keep her," said Miss Standish, " for in- deed she should not go into night air with that bi-eathing. I suppose I must not ? " she added, wistfully, half questioning me. But, before I had time to answer, a long, low, but ex- ti'emely impatient ring ! I knew it, and so did she. I cannot tell whether I turned as she did — pale to her lips, while a quiver — no, a shudder, only visible, not audible — passed through her from head to foot, like the lightning-shock or the frost-blight for swiftness, for instancy ; but I know that I did not recover myself, as she did, in a moment — a second or two — before the guest, unbidden, had touched her inner threshold. When I say she recovered herself, I don't mean she settled into studious apathy, or lofty indifference ; she was too natural. All the dread passed with the mo- mentary shiver, and left her. I know not how to express it, but it was as if, starved long and long from her being's proper nourishment, its fountain had sprung fresh at her feet. Such pleasure brimmed her glance, and the calm of passion suddenly appeased, so grateful for the respite, how- ever short, from pain. I had never, for my own part, felt so like a coward. I actually stood stock-still. I knew not what to do or how to meet him, if at all, for I will not hide I was downright angry with him, until I saw — well I saw this, that if he bullied me till that day next week, or cut me permanently dead, he was immensely thankful to me for breaking that mysterious barrier, cold as ice, and which had seemed as hard as ada- mant. I had not time to collect ray faculties, for, promptly as if there had been a curtain on fire to extinguish, Miss Standish went out into the hall. I did not know at that time what an 216 ALMOST A HEROINE. effort of moral courage, nay physical self-constraint, it must have cost her to meet him so, and all I thought was, how inexpressibly sweet, and expressively cold, was her manner of address — sweet as March hyacinths smelling in frosty air, and expressively cold ■ — how it desired to thaw, and dared or chose not ! I didn't wonder when I heard his an- swer : — but it was so timid, too ! Had he not loved her, he would have felt this. " Mr. Major," was her beginning, half way down the ha;ll, as he stood at the door (I took care to peep out at them), " I don't suppose you will forgive us, but I hardly think either Mr. Loftus or I are to blame. The little thing followed him without his knowledge, and, behold ! has taken a fancy to ray marine store, in there, of limpets, shrimps, periwinkles, &c., all alive, which, I hope, if you don't allow her ever to come and see me again, you will permit me to send home for her, or after her," I am no woman, but did I not feel, without perceiving, the hysteric gasp that she strangled, the loving sob that she held her breath to smother ? If he did not, he was more or less than a man, Avhich I believe all good, fine-natured men must be until they are made one with and through a perfect woman. His answer made me in a rage ; it was, I thought, both commonplace and ungrateful, till I saw his face. And let me just note that neither the one nor the other attempted to shake hands or approach each other near. "You are very good, but Philippa is very naughty, — there is no excuse for her. I have never yet punished her for any- thing — but for this — " " You should punish me," I exclaimed, quite bold, now the lady had borne all the brunt of it, " It was ray fault for leav- ing her. You bade me stop with her, and so I did, until I thought I had spelled her for an hour with my previous ex- clusive devotion, and you know I could not come to explain to Miss Standish your objection to your nephew and niece ALMOST A HEROINE. 217 taking presents while you were in the house, for you are such a tyrant, you insist on knowing every one's business, or, at least, you discover it, under your roof." " Am I a tyrant ? " said he, jealously. He did not like me to throw a stone at him before her ; and, good powers, his face ! If she looked pale with passion, and pride, and sorrow, he was " on fire within ; " his very features seemed sublimed in a flame-like tracery ; and if his brow was pale, it was as if a blaze shone through it, only veiled and tempered by the tortured flesh ; his cheeks were ardent with a burning hectic I had never seen except in fly- ing fits ; only and always when we spoke of her. His eyes did not flash ; they were too melancholy in their meaning, and they alone looked, in the flickering lamp-liglit, like points of shade. Yet, through all the intense warmth of his tem- perament, he was calm and steady as the mid-day sun in heaven. This is by the way : they both made too striking a picture to leave unnoticed. To return to facts : — " Am I a tyrant ? " " Yes," I said. " I dare say Miss Standish knows it, as she knows you. You are hard upon that imp in there ; she never showed a penchant for a thing or person, even my adorable self, and she has fallen in love with the aquarium." " Hush, Mr. Loftus ! " said Horatia, with a woman's in- stinct ; " Mr. Major must do as he pleases, and I would not for the world have interfered with the children, but by acci- dent that made it needful. The real truth is " (here Horatia grew fashionable and fast) " that the child may be made ill between us three, because she has a croupish sound in her breathing ; is quite strong enough to have croup very se- verely, — it rains, and the child has not pi-oper clothing. If you like to leave her here (she is truly so wedded to the fishes, that it seems hard to tear her from them) till to-mor- row, I will take care to send her home the warmest and driest hour of the day, well wrapped up. But if you must take 10 218 ALMOST A HEROINE. her now, I will wrap her up as well as I can, and you, not I, must take the consequences." As if to us both, and mutually, she spoke. If she had not put the responsibility of the child being possibly ill upon him, I believe he would have torn Philippa from the marine joys. But he was morbidly conscientious over the children's health, — perhaps she knew this. I ventured to strike in : — " Do let her stay, — it would be so much better ; " and then seeing in his face that lost and yearning look of pride which seems to be wild for want of some one to step in and interfere, or arrange, I added audaciously, in the meekest tones : — " We shall be very much obliged to you, Miss Standish, and I will fetch her to-morrow morning. I am always at home and idle, he is always abroad and at work." If Arnold Major bad not been quite so much in love, nor so long without the least ray of communion with its object, I am quite sure I should not have dared to say so, or he would have knocked me flat with contradiction. He could not endure to stay, or he would never have gone. He had passed beyond his own control, inwardly — most dangerous crisis for the most outwardly self-possessed, be- cause the internal yielding always precedes a physical break- down. I saw this — he knew it. " C4ood night," he said, quite simply, still with his cheeks on crimson fire, and his eyes passion-darkened with " excess of light." And Horatia as simply — her action brought tears into my eyes — held out her hand, or rather those finger-tips she was apt to present helplessly instead ; so helplessly now ! as if she asked pardon and feared it would be withheld, for some crime she knew not she had committed, yet of which she was silently accused. And Arnold Major held out his hand an instant — snatched it back — but I am afraid he hurt her fingers, for she flushed. ALMOST A HEROINE. 219 She (lid not shake hands with me, but ahnost turned her back, and the moment the servant returned (he had retreated, most properly, in the first instance) she went into the room after Philippa, and I heard her voice as cold, as clear, as lin^ht as ever. Perchance she was lighter-hearted, for a very slender beam Avill console and bless the prisoners who are bound by treachery in the darkness, or by misapprehension — most mysterious treachery of all — in the " places which love doth not li^ht." CHAPTER XIV. WONDER. I HAD a scene that night. Arnold Major fiainted dead away, almost the moment we got into the house, he having maintained a dead silence all the way back, at which I did not wonder. But I was awe-struck, never having seen a man faint in my life. His fainting is as unlike a woman's as his structure ; it is profounder, and far more nearly like to death, than her evanishment of consciousness. I was quite an hour getting him to, or, rather, he was so long coming to, for I fancy nature had the most to do with it. How pas- sion, let loose a moment, had ravaged in that short space ! He looked as if he had just risen out of a long, dangerous illness — wasted, pallid — with, oh, such a heart-rending ex- pression of mixed tenderness, exhaustion, and despair ! " I am. not worth a pinch of gunpowder, I am a coward, I am an ass ! " were his first words — little tragic enough — and he tried to smile, but it was a convulsion. I took no notice for awhile, but made him sAvallow some brandy (better than wine on such occasions), and left him alone. I had carefully kept the maid away, as if we were occupied in business, but noio I had not been out of the room ten minutes before the bell rang for dinner, and she was sent to call me, also the boy Hilary, in whose room I was. We worked as usual all the evening ; that is to say, we sat at the table in the same positions, but I wrote a mass of dream stuff that the Minerva Press would have disdained to publish in its insanest hours, and Arnold Major read and ALMOST A HEROINE. 221 wrote in fever-fits of restless and emergent haste, with alter- nating moods of melancholy, slow suspension. The boy Hilary watched us both, watched me furtively and his uncle haughtily, and I do not think he tidded to the comfort of the latter by his presence. How thankful was I (my companion, too, I saw), when his bedtime arrived ! " Good night, Ernest," said the wayward creature. I held out my hand and shook his ; but he had only so behaved to me tliat he might throw into relief his neglect of his uncle, whom he took no notice of, but spurned with his young eaglet's eye. " That is really a bad child, I do fear," was my involun- tary expression, I was so angry with him. Is it not a like impression that seizes us about a very in- fant who cannot be coaxed to stroke with its soft hand and say " a-poor ? " " Oh, please do not give him up, for Heaven's sake ! I look to you to save him," said Arnold Major, earnestly, (it must have been very earnestly to strike as earnest through the passion that wrapped him like the thunder-cloud, melting down in moisture when the electric force is spent). " I give him up ! What do you mean ? I, who have so little power, and am so poor, save in good intentions ! AVhy, I mean to look after him all my life ! " " Tliat is good of you, lor he is trying to the patience ; and, oh, how diihcult to do one's duty by ! But, truly, Ernest, I hope you do not think him had." " Well, Mr. Major, you must frown on me as you please, but if he does not love you, he cannot be good, and, being imgrateful to you, he must be positively bad." " No ! You and I have both at times, I have no doubt, been ungrateful to God, as if He were man ; yet we are neither of us bad." " But why does he — how can he dislike you ? " " Can we govern likes and dislikes ? I do not wonder." " Don't you wonder ? I do. AViiy does he, then ? " 222 ALMOST A HEROINE. I did not expect an answer ; probably should never have got it but for the event of the afternoon. " The poor child dislikes me because he thinks I am like his father, -tt^iom he hates." I recollected the boy's saying something of the kind. But this opportunity must not elude me, for it might — most pi'obably would — never occur again^* I put on the brazen mask forthwith. " I do wish you would tell me something about yourself," I exclaimed. " At the very first of our acquaintance, I told you everything., except w^hat I can tell nobody." " Ah, but that's it." " No, that is not it ; for my secret is concerning my love, and your love-seo'et is no secret to me. You revealed it soon enough ; it is safe, — trust that." " How dare you ? " he began, — then in a minute, — "I wish you had no secret of that kind, for, in that case, perhaps, it would be your fate to cut short my life-long drag and weariness — my eternity of suspense." " Not at all ! If I were free, 1 should never fall in love with Miss Standish. We are both too peculiar, she and I, to wear ready-made shoes, much more to fit ourselves with chance suits of that chain-armor yclept wedlock. And, really, on the whole, I should beg, at any rate, to decline the transfer to me of a woman you would not marry yourself! " Any other man would have explained two thousand phra- ses, I think, when Arnold Major only flashed a look ; but such looks were those ! — hot and ardent as the fire of the sun beyond the flame of earth-brands, and chaste in their utter loneliness as the sun-rays that hold all heaven in thrall, and shut the stars out with their light. No similes yet suit them, they were so human ; and the sun is not quenched in utter night, as they when spent. There were no stars behind his perpetual shadow — must it therefore be eternal? I thought not. And I think there must be a point in passion (seldom reached) which, like death, scatters all frivolous ALMOST A HEROINE. 223 conventionalisms and fantasies of morbid vanity. I believe, too, we reached that point just then: he, overborne by soli- tary endurance and sudden, if swiftly-passing, excitement ; I, brimmed with longing to minister the sympathy the proud never ask nor claim, yet do not reject inevitably, if sincere, and which the rich in heart yearn to bestow if they are poor — in means — and grateful, " I did not intend to be rude," said I, suddenly (he was drooping over his papers again), "but I have often wonder- ed, seeing you don't morally and heartily trust me, that you leave me in the house alone with such triiles as the children — your plate — your private papers." " You knoio that the second item I don't possess, and I am sure you don't know I possess the third. " Of course you do. Are you not a ' gentleman, and a man of honor ? ' No, you are not to sink into that passionate apathy again." " The what ? " " Never mind ! I was intended for a poet, and I always knew it. You are not going to do anything else to-night but talk to me. Surely, if you don't choose to tell me anything of yourself, you can tell me something of Miss Standish — social facts that everybody knows, because they know her, but I don't know because I have not known her long enough. For instance, is she very rich ? " He didn't like her to be rich at all ; I could tell that. He put his pen down, though, and was, oh, how delighted to have dragged out of him anything concerning her ! 'a believe so ; she ought to be, to keep up the style she lives in honestly." " Honestly ! I never saw such an honorable face — such honorable structure. She knocks you down with it ; it ra- diates from her all over, hands and all. Fancy her hands picking and stealing, or her tongue slandering! It is a shame, though, that her voice should never be tuned to love- inakiiig, fur a sweeter never breathed." 224 ALMOST A HEROINE. This was the treatment for him ; if he had not been so miserable and ill, though, I would not have indulged him. He liked me to paint her in the loveliest colors, to cover her with praises, and to abuse her or negatively disapprove her himself — a droll raood, peculiar to a very strong and jeal- ously tender temperament when empassioned, and absent from, or not belonging to, the beloved. " She is rich, then, we will agree, and that she is generous as the summer-time I need not ask you," I continued ; " who does she belong to ? Is she the only one of her race ? " " I believe the last of her own family." " Don't be so curt and cross-grained, — I wan't to hear her history, as far as you know it fully, and no subterfuges nor hints. It is mean to treat such a person so ; and I can only learn from you — I should not choose to question others, and have it repeated to her I had done so." " No ; and, besides, you might hear tvorse than the truth," he said, in a dreamy, painful undertone. " No truth about her could be bad, or anything but good." " You think so, of course ; you have every reason ; but — unfortunately, it would make no difference — " Here I was thankful to see him get up from the table and walk to the fireplace, turning his back to me. I knew I should make some little way at least, by the token that he would not show his face. " What would make no difference ? — and what is the difference ? " I asked directly — did not give him time to rein in. " If you passionately, desperately, entirely loved a woman, — that is if I did, — it would make no difference if she were worldly — dishonorable — a thief — a liar, — if she were branded on her body — if she lay in chains in a cell, con- demned for muixler ! " The words too measured and distinct to be impetuous, yet passionate as his quiet voice. One could not doubt him, even if one did not understand. I did, most perfectly. ALMOST A HEROINE. 225 " Do you know what you remind me of? You recollect that fine unique scene between Lavengro and Ursula under the hedge, in ' Romany Rye.' ' Money and fine clothes would induce you to do anything, then ? — to chore — to hoh- hawar — in fact to break the law in every thing ? — to play the thief — the liar — the — the — ' " I don't think I am dramatic, but he flung round, facing me i-igi(i — white as ashes — dark with frowns his brow — his bosom heaving like a sea whose shore an earthquake rends. I laughed — the only thing to do — and went on quoting : — " ' Why, I tell you what, brother, you look as though, if you only had something in your hand, you would do me a mischief.' " — " No, no ! It is not that ! Has any one told you anything more than you have told me ? — or than I know ? " Mortal jealousy, immortal love, these two sensations only could have struggled so strong together in such fraternal ha- tred ! But it was a good thing. I had reached the crisis of superferainine curiosity, when that ivill be appeased, and it lent me double audacity — a powerful moral agent, a mental magnet, if not a spiritual one. " Now, Arnold Major, sit down, or stand if you are pleased ; but listen. I have told you I would not ask any one about Miss Standish but yourself. How then can I have heard ? And let me tell you, besides, that, though you are so mad as to assert you would love a woman who was a mere worldling, a liar, a branded thief, a condemned murderess — all save the word you stopped me short in using, and for that I think you uncharitable — " " Only in respect of the woman one loves — no other. Any other I would tend and raise before a host of suffei-ers." " Metaphysical muddle? — not only to say it, but to feel it or pretend to — for you don't. It is very easy to say it : for the woman in question is precisely the woman incapable of any one of the above charges being founded on the remotest 10* 226 ALMOST A HEROINE. phantom of fact regarding her. Of course she is no favorite with men in general. I should know that — " This was a bow drawn at a venture ; the arrow sped and smote as sweetly and cleverly as any in " Dan Cupid's " quiver. " I beg your pardon, you are not to be supposed to know, and are far too inexperienced in society to understand how she has ruled men in general — how she impresses them and enchants them ! " This was excellent ; I had not hoped so far. " I am to be pitied, then, and if you, being my intellectual godfather, mean me not to be despised in society, you had better enlighten me a little ; and I don't see ivhy I am to in- quire of one of her enemies, when I can hear from one of her friends. Enemies tell lies always, friends sometimes dis- tort truths from an over-ideal notion of the perfections their friends ought to possess, and don't — or do, quite as often — in this case, I am sure." " Ernest, don't talk nonsense. It is unworthy of you." " Sense then ; and do you give me of your overplus. Seri- ously and sincerely, I won't go to bed till you have told me all you know of Miss Standish." "All that I know, but there are many things I don't know." " I said all you hioiv, — how pi'ovoking you can be ! First, we will go back a little, ' she is the last of her race.' No, her family, not her race. What next ? Did her parents love each other desperately ? Did they delight in her ? " " Her family is one of the best of the oldest — rare now — for the old ones decay in mind, or waste away to scrofula — the Saxon curse." " She says yours is better — your family. Little Saxon in either, I suspect ? " " Absurd ! — it is futile nonsense, — but she is touched with the ' black book,' just a little." He lilied it, though, because she had spoken of him. How ALMOST A HEROINE. 227 curious he looked ! But I wouldn't enlighten him, though it Wild very tempting. " Very good ; her family was one of the best old ; now for her parents? " " Her mother was very beautiful, of a curious gypsy bril- liance scarcely ever seen. I never saw hei", she died too young ; but I have heard my mother — my mother was one of the pale, fair De Claverings, celebrated for their excessive loveliness of complexion, with plain features it disguised and veiled with what seemed beauty — she thought the then Ho- ratia Standish — christened Horatia after Horace Walpole, who was a worshipper of her mother — I mean, my mother thought Mrs. Standish the most beauteous and vivid thing alive or created. Her eyes, my mother used to say, were like crystals of brown quartz, her hair black satin, flinging out the light in amber reflexes. Her cheeks were 'cleft pom- egranates,' her lips ' a thread of scarlet.' " It was glorious. I had whipped him up, and would apply the lash again, remindingly. " You speak of Miss Standish's mother — you said ' gypsy brilliance ; ' but gypsies never have color, and are never bril- liant — regularly." " That was the wonder — the color, all carnation, tinting the darkness, soft yet keen ; but both were there. Miss Standish used to have a splendid miniature of her mother, and perhaps she would show if you asked her. But her father ! — that was a man ; you never see such a one these times. " He had not a large estate, but few, if ever any one, dis- pensed such gentle hospitalities with such genei'ous charities ; none, I dare say, ever regulated their lives so well. My father adored him, though he knew him personally scarce at all. But every one who came in contact with him, or was within the remotest edge of his sphere, adored him too. His temptations were immense, and he never took advantage of them, nor paraded them ! Imagine how the old wits, or the "228 ALMOST A HEROINE. new make-shifts for wits, would have yielded themselves up to such ! He might have been in the closest intimacy and contact with the person ' closest to the head tliat wore a crown ; ' but his independence was only equal to his purity, or his wit and fine gentleraanhood. I don't think we shall see such a gentleman again. My father used to say so, and though no more modernly witty than his own ' Elzevir Horace,' my father was also a gentleman ! Who shall noio see such a thing out of the trained and taste-pampered no- bity? " Major Standish deserved every epithet of appreciation lavished undeservedly on the scholars who became court- fools, and the wits who lent themselves to lampoon-fashioning for the fools who had no wit. Him would have suited the terms of Goldsmith's epitaph, and the lovelier termination of that on Walpole's mother, (whose monument redeems all his vanities, and gives his history a gentle pathos that covers all his follies ; even had he committed many sins). But yet it would have required something more, in or out of an epi- taph, to describe Major Standish's merits, goodness, sweet- ness, or deserts. What he ivas, all words would have been * too weak ' ' The glory they transfused with fitthig truth to speak.' " Arnold Major was not a man to quote Shakspeare or Shelley in common with counter-jumpers and literary baboons. What he quoted he meant, just as he meant much, how much more than he originally said, not quoted ! " How kind he was to authors, authors who deserved it ! — for he had wits as well as wit, that man, and could not be deceived on any literary pretence." Here he smiled, and pleasure warmed his face all over ! Was it such joy to speak of the man who had begotten her ? " Are you cousins, the Standishes and you ? Major Stan- dish, you said — " " Oh, no ! he was in the army. No such fair fortune for me as to be related to such a man by blood ! " ALMOST A HEROINE. 229 Perverse! He might have been — might be, I thought ; but perhaps he knew it not ; perhaps, said I ? — surely no. I was afraid he would not go on any more if I let him muse. " Miss Standish was an only child ? " He started — already in a reverie ! '' Yes, oh, yes ! an only child." Then he sighed, so deeply, such a weight of passion ! — the breath lifted, and let fall again upon his heart ! It was real suffering this time, apart from love. I felt the dif- ference. " He didn't send her to school, I suppose ? " They say matter-of-fact comforters are best, at least the most successful. I was so cool he didn't suspect me, or, more probably, was only too glad to have the stone rolled from the sepulchre of his memory, perforce of another will. " No, never," with energy ; " he could not bear her out of his sight, he worshipped, idolized, appreciated her, kept her absolutely as an ewe-lamb in his bosom, till he died. But just before that, in the excess of his benevolence and through the whiteness of his charity, which covered all men and their motives as with an angel's wing, — that time he erred, or I do in thinking so, — he left her in that woman's charge." " That woman " was Mrs. Le Kyteler ; I was sure of that. " Is there any harm in her ? Really I don't think so. She seems fond enough of her charge." " That is not strange ; fond enough, of course she is, and too fond ; but I believe she was in love with the father, and though he was far too natural a person to remarry, we are none of us quite flattery-proof — vanity-proof, rather, I should say ; and, may be, the love of an imperious, worldly woman would flatter any one of us, provided we knew she had no power to suffer." Now, " I saw in my dream," that Mrs. Le Kyteler, though I didn't like her, had the power to suffer, though in what degree I knew not ; nor did I think she hud the air of one 230 ALMOST A HEROINE. with any alloy of interest in her fondness for Horatia, which was the simplest sign of character she gave, and even touch- ing ; it was tinctured with a kind of reverence one had not suspected in her nature. Howbeit I dreaded of all things to quarrel with him and to divert hi«i (outwardly) away from the subject, evidently his inward whole delight. " She went to live with Mrs. Le Kyteler ? " " Directly. Major Standish's estate had been purchased by him as a residence, and he had immensely improved it in every way, especially the house (which -was in his own taste throughout ; and that is revived in her). Still the tenantry were poor and the rents small, and his private property was not enough for a woman's life of luxury — that is, for the necessaries of a very refined and extremely delicate woman. Knowing this, he arranged in his will for the estate to be sold by auction, and it realized a splendid sum. I need scarcely say he had insured his life besides. The guardians were men of honor, and acted for the best ; and, to give the woman her due, she would not suffer a penny of her fortune to be applied to her education, maintenance, or even clothing, till she became of age ! " Always her (without a name), and she. " That was generous," said I. " Generous — with her own fortune ! Mrs. Le Kyteler had two thousand a-year, a house in Bath, and no children, scarce a relative." " Still own, not everybody with two thousand a-year would have done it. You or I would, of course ; but never mind. Did they live in Bath after that ? " " I don't recollect. I have only heard up to that time. I was at school myself, at St. Omer, and after that I travelled several years, and very nearly settled — a victim to foreign jurisprudence — in Germany. 1 was saved, however, for a smaller fate, certainly a more rational one, by my dear fa- ther's illness — a slow and lingering one, not painful, I am glad and thankful to remember. I n^ceived news of it and ALMOST A HEROINE. 231 went back to England instantly. He was surprised to see me, because — well — for a cause that cannot interest you. However, it was my own old nurse who had written to sum- mon me — not my brother." There was a very curious calmness now in his voice and mien. He drew up stiffly ; his strong wrists (strong, yet tliin) clasped close around each other, and his fingers clenched as if to deaden the pulsation I had always felt so vivid there, when shaking hands with him. I did not speak. I knew a breath articulate would break the spell of his so rare commu- nicativeness. " My brother was in attendance on my father day and night, and another person was often there. My father idol- ized her almost as her own had done, and truly she was very good to him. I don't foncy any one can tell what she is who has not seen her in a sick-room. And it seemed more re- markable in her, because she is so nervous — always was — extraordinarily tender-hearted, abhorring even the dream of pain, and thought of bodily suffering. Besides, she was the star of the county, its idol, its renown at the very time. And, whatever Avas noised abroad with truth, it was a lie that she did not so tend my father out of her great heart, her com- passion, her kindness — she never had a double motive in her life, I know, whatever she was obliged to do." Singular hints these ! — and how was I ever to gain access to the facts of which they only served as symbols ? " If she has preserved as much of her genuine self as I thinh, she is a marvel — a miracle — after the life she has led, or been taken through, for I believe, I ever shall believe, that woman did all the mischief Even my father thought her acquaintance an acquisition, — he was but a simple burgher once, though he man-ied the blood they call old in England. Yes, it was a wonder it did not turn her brain. Actresses create tempests of popularity, which are laid as soon as summer dust ; beauty-roses, who have no claim to the lau- rel, last perhaps six seasons. Poetesses have been famous, — 232 ALMOST A HEROINE. have hungered afterwards a little for repute, and died — for lack, or in consequence. I have seen female literarians in full masquerade costume of borrowed wit ; but I have seen her with all such, and all such pale, wane, lose form beside her. Her fascination was as pure as it was unspeakable ; it was cold, and how electric swift ! — albeit through it she never corrupted a soul ; it never palled on any, nor satis- fied, for why ? — she had a secret one woman in a thousand does not own." " I think I know what you mean." " No, you don't." I did, though, for he repeated aloud the whisper of my thought. " She never permitted men to make her offers personally to go so far, — all women could prevent it, if they chose, — that is to say, considering her position and her popularity, it was wonderful that she had but one actually made her face to face." " Good powers ! How can you know unless she told you .'' It did strike me as so strange, so amazing, for him to hiow so much, and yet hold himself aloof, grateless too, un- less — Here the ugly phantom presented itself, that had be- fore intruded, of a notion that they had been betrothed. Was he the " only one ? " 1 did not care ; he could but negative or knock me down. I said quite quietly : — " And that offer of course you made yourself? " I expected certainly something else than what happened, for to myself there came no mischief, mischance, — not even a harsh word. How fond people are in books of making catastrophes everi/where, on the shortest notice and the smallest pretence, — women faint, men swoon, either of them shriek, rend hair, at least fall to the ground and groan, have to be picked up and scanned by friends and servants, &c. Now there are such ; once or twice, even the great outward calm of a na- ALMOST A HEROINE. 233 ture passionately pure, whose being is unshareil, may yield entirely the soul from self-possession. But if it happens constantly, it is not worth more than common hysterics, and we know how cheap they are. The real, rare hysteric of a sublime nature overwrought is awful, and in its agony most beautiful, because so true. And yet, in some instances, there is a strange bland mood, more awful still, of feeling, positively magnetized through fear of its own strength, — of love with its natural tide froze fast and utterly suspended, — " death in life" — by the great cold of a proud conscience, that holds, will hold till death or deliverance, the heart in thrall. This was his mood now — with that supernatural softness, like muffled bells rung stealthily through velvet for some heroic funeral, his voice was toned. So few, few words ! — and they left behind them, as it were, a phantom of perished hope on the long silence, hovering in love-forgotten loneliness over its own grave. Yet his accents were simple. I should have been glad to know his sutfering was as vague as they. " No, it was not I ; it was my brother — the father of the poor children." He was incapable of making (or meaning) an effect ; yet what pathos in the words " the poor children ! " But more : I was pierced through and through with the conviction that upon no brother of Arnold Major had Horatia Standish ever smiled, betrothed. It w^ns not the time to say so. I might have turned his blood to illness, if not his brain to a terror still more di-ead. " She was engaged to your brother, then ? " " I suppose so ; they said so. That was nothing to me, of course ; but she forsook him, — no wonder ! Still, after that, all went wrong. What could he he, forsaken by her ? what do ? Oh, God, I am so tired, so very, very tired ! I wish it would be right to die ! " Very sharp and sudden the last few words. He stretched his arms towards the wall gropingly, as if darkness had 234 ALMOST A HEROINE. fallen on his vision — then staggered. I went up to him and seized his hands in mine ; they were cold as ice an instant — the next the blood rushed back to them like a wave of flame, — the pulses throbbed countlessly, a thread of fire in each. But would his spirit desert him ever after this ? For, taking my gesture as though I had intended to bid him farewell that time, he looked up proudly pale, but strong as love or death. " I have talked great nonsense, I am afraid. All is safe with you, and you will forget it. Good night." And he was gone, leaving me, far the less self-possessed, behind him. I did not lie awake all night. I don't think people who are accustomed to occupation by day ever do, except in books, but I did stay wide awake an hour or two, perplexed, interested, wildly curious, not idly so. I could not doubt that Arnold Major, in speaking of his brother, meant neither more nor less than that Miss Standish had jilted him. A monstrous improbability ; even had I not heard her speak of the children or of my friend, I should have deemed this, and, having heard her, I was convinced it was impossible. It seemed wonderfully strange that Arnold Major believed it. Still, I did not know his brother, and it was likely I never should. Morning came ; no dreams had dissolved my doubts, and the white light dazzled, as it ever does, the visual nerves for an exhausted brain. I went down, trying hard to look and feel unconcerned. He was there. We greeted without meeting each other's eyes. Presently Hilary said, very suddenly, — it started both of us : — " You look as you did the day mamma died." This was to his uncle. " Perhaps I do, Hilary," was Arnold Major's answer. " I have been thinking about her." '' I don't hate you when you look so, because he never looks that way." This was half whispered, but with no inviting, childish ALMOST A HEROINE. 235 smile ; yet, actually, it brought consolation, — a very little light does that, in utter darkness. I only mention this, be- cause, metaphysically, this trifle had its link in the chain of circumstances. " How glad I am ! " said Arnold Major, directly the boy had left the room, " If I only could feel that boy's heart, I might be able to doctor it !" lie was yet speaking, when I heard wheels — so did he — very light wheels, rolling as if on moss. The children were to play a certain part that day. I ran to the window, of course ; he remained where he was, with his back to it. " Oh, that monkey ! " said I, to relieve, at least, his sus- pense ; " there she is, in solitary state, and swelling like a pouter-pigeon. Do come and see her." Directly he knew she Avas alone, he came. But — oh, humanity ! — he actually looked disappointed. Would he have been better pleased if Miss Standish had brought the child ? At least, if he expected it, he didn't know Iloratia as well as I, even in my short, clear-seeing acquaintance. I wanted to laugh, for it was so like her pride to send the child back the very earliest moment it was safe ; and safe this day it would not have been an hour after sunrise, though now bright, and warm, and clear. Philippa, swathed like a mununy, was exceedingly unwilling to be lifted out of the brougham ; the coachman put her down inside the door, then brought divers parcels and gave them to the maid. Arnold Major — of course, he was too perfect a gentleman to seem ungrateful — unfastened Philippa's wraps. I suppose he was not in love with his own niece ; but how he touched her, as if she was his dearest earthly treasure of preciousness, in handling tliose ! First there was a swansdown " pussy." riiilippa's own term ; he did not lay it down, but put it on his arm — no — pressed it with one arm to his breast, while unfastening an Indian shawl, as soft as cream, that deep red tint so rarely seen amidst the scarlet and the ambers. From its folds gushed in faint whifls, fliint as scent pressed from 236 ALMOST A HEROINE. myrtle leaves, that peculiar odor which only abides in such fabrics, and of which they never can be freed ; an Oriental, delicate, strange perfume, that penetrates the very brain for subtilty. He turned dead white, but he would not give up that privilege, of touching what had once touched her. He absolutely trembled while he folded it, still kept it close ; and then appeared Philippa, like a quaint German doll, in a knitted jacket with ermined edges, reaching to her knees. " She wore that when she was smaller than me, and not half so pretty," said Philippa, " and she made it herself, and dropped ten stitches in the front," added the mischief, poking her fingers through. I hadn't the least doubt that she was repeating Miss Standish's words. " And the moth got in it, and she put camphor, and the moth ate it," (the camphor?) "and I am to keep it for Fuzz when he is cold, and it" he has kittens " (this is a report ver- batim), " it is going in the cradle, and I've got a cradle for them, and seven little pillows ! People never have more than seven kittens at once, she says." It really would have been amusing, if it had not been so tragic, to see his face of dismay at this arrangement. He forgot all his pride ; in the longing to possess the woollen relic himself, he almost struggled with the child for its possession, but she was triumphant, because she was rough and strong ; he, only powerful, and trembling with excite- ment. It was well she was no " Mignon," who would at her age have hioum all, if not understood it. I was really afraid of the boy Hilary coming in, and I took the shawl, &c. from him. I nearly tore them, he had grasped them so fast and fondly. Then I delivered them out at the parlor door, and came back again in time for a little bit of comedy, that inspired me with gratitude on his account. He was ohliged to be di- verted, and late for business too ! This was the opening of Philippa's treasures. The parcels were large, but the con- tents heterogeneous, none new, none valuable. I noticed ALMOST A HEROINE. 237 this extreme and touching delicacy, and, poor fellow ! so did he. There was absolutely nothing he could return to her, nor object to the little animal's appropriating ; and the little animal was fascinated to tameness in a night. First she produced the cradle ; a large doll's cradle in the good old wicker fashion. Then a string of amber — several beads missing, and the snap tarnished. " That was her grandmamma's, a beau-ful lady, who went to Charlotte's drawing-room, inside a hoop, and she played with it when she was a baby, and swallowed one," (a bead, I presume, and which Avas the nominative case ?) " and had some medicine to make her sick, and it came up whole." Next was half a box of pink tooth-powder. " I rubbed it on my ftice, and she told me not to put any on my forehead, but to roudge my doll. Oh," cried Philippa, warming with her subject, " I said I didn't care about a doll, because it was so small, and she gave me this with all the hair on, and a comb to do its hair," — a toilet dummy with much of its coiffiire run to seed, and an ivory tailcomb " without a -tail." Finally, there was an enormous bundle of old Illustrated London JVeics, Punches, French fashion-books, out of date, and those pretty passed toy pictures, "changeable ladies." Nothing that could offend or hurt the pride of the person most sensitive to presents was there, but a bazaar-full of new playthings would have been dust and ashes of interest to Philippa in comparison. P^rom that date she ceased to be a household torment, and became, what so many troublesome things become under proper management — a favorite, if still a trouble. Philippa, unconsciously grateful, threw her little light upon the subject too. Very soon her uncle went, too late for him to have any repose (not bliss, that is different) in his thoughts that day. The child had never warmed to me at all, though she had not slapped my face again, because I had not given her the 238 ALMOST A HEROINE. chance by going near enough. Howbeit she did me the honor of confiding to me the wonders of Miss Standish's dressing-room ; beginning: — " She didn't send me the fishes, because she was afraid they would take cold " — (or because Ihey cost something and were new, oh, tender hypocrite !) " But they are to be mine when I go there, and she will take care of them. They eat little bits of red meat. Oh ! I had a hot roll for break- fast, and I like it much better than toast. She whistled to me a real tune ; it was like the birds in the Pantheon. She has got lovely, beau'ful candles on her table, and a tall glass ; I could see my feet. She has got so many clothes ! I stood up in her closet with doors, and she shut the doors a minute, and when I came out she told me a story ; not a bit like the stupid, silly stories about being good and turning into fairies — but about a woman who was going to be mar- ried, all in a white gown, and they played at hide-and-seek, and she got into a box, and it wouldn't open any more, and she stopped there always, and no one came to open her, and one day somebody found a skeleton in it ! " The idea which would keep a tender, timid child awake, ghost or bone haunted, for nights, had but served as a slight stimulant to Philippa. The woman who dared to tell her such a story should have had the training of all children whose mothers are fools or loorld bound. Her own, alas ! — who should train them ? Who love them ? Where was their father, and where their mother, if lie existed not ? The child prattled, or rattled, all day. I could do nothing. And that child Hilary — student-stuff such as cemented Academe's columns — such as keeps Oxford and Cambridge colleges one stone upon another — that child worked hard the while. His glory was in books, and his po-wer of abstrac- tion, at his tender years, shamed mine. That " knowledge " was " power " he believed implicitly, as German babes the Christ-child, but he thouglit, too, it was " gold." That mar- vellous precocity of intellect, so unlike the precocity of genius, ALMOST A HEROINP]. 23D which is always passionate, did not touch me ; the softening of a savage thing hke the girl affected me far more. I had been gathering strength from purity of motive all day, for my mind was made up, if only I had means to carry out its im- pulse. I could not rest, not live, without seeing Horatia. Had she not, indeed, invited me ? Had I not excuse, besides, in Arnold Major's commands laid on me to return that luck- less coin ? Truly ; but, after seeing tiiem together, nothing would have induced me to wound, to insult her by returning it. It was Saturday — the Sabbath of the Old World — golden age ! I knew Arnold Major would take the children out next day, after church-time, and I determined to wait till he had gone, and then do my own will. But he came home awfully late ; he always did on Saturday nights, because they put so much upon him, that they ought to have paid others to do ; but this was worse than usual, through his morning escapade. I only saw he was so utterly exhausted that those who loved him could but show their love in letting him alone. Next day, after two o'clock, I said very quietly, without consulting him, to Philippa, rather than to Hilary: — " Put on your very warmest things, my child, and I will fake you to feed the Queen's chickens in the Park." Truly Horatia had sent the cold packing with her magic one night's influence ! " Has the Queen got fishes, too? I like feeding the fishes best." "Hasn't she? She has got everything — a black swan, with a red bill, that swallows almond-cakes whole. Now, Philippa, make haste, and be sure you put on that beautiful warm jacket Miss Standish made, and I have some almond- cakes ready for you." Talk of sudden conversions ! — here was one ! She was changed like March in the old proverb, when, coming in " like 240 ALMOST A HEROINE. 51 lion, it goes out like a lamb." Philippa rushed away. Then I said to Hilary : — " Go too, my boy. I want you to tell me about the book you began last night." And the boy sauntered away, too. Left alone with Arnold Major, " Ernest," he said in his own exquisite voice, lovely for its intense truth and hidden tenderness, " I do thank you ; you are very kind ; you ai'e like a brother, and better — better ! I thank you." Words to use to a creature he had saved, saved from the life-long uselessness of woe — whom by his advice and wis- dom he had saved from literary fixilure ! Yet it is ever so with natures that will have no strugrjle in dying — so near they are to love's heaven, its universal charity, save and only the struggle of having what they love. And how vulgar is the gentlemanhood of England, depend- ent on a few foreign tricks, infinite tact in idleness, a number of other person's houses which they are franked of, and dissi- pation for which they run in debt, and for Avhich they care as little as for their wives, if they have any, or for any woman to whom they are not married. Such men do not have leave of nature to taste the luxury of love. Arnold Major made a palace of a room a few feet square. I know not that any one ever, in his own person, so glorified poverty. I remember once asking him why purity of manners and life are so rare ; why to ordinary and average men so diffi- cult ? " Personal purity is not more difficult than faith to the soul. But who believes, and who persists in loving ? " he said ; a half aphoristic sequence to my question, but scarce an answer. It was his fashion ; he was too passionate to en- dure long, tedious self-illustrations — too sensitive, too strongly and determinedly preoccupied. His sweet, grateful words, so undeserved, about my ridding him of those day incubi, the children, entered my very heart ; and, though I knew myself, I was half ashamed to deceive ALMOST A HEROINE. 241 him in the veiy least degree. I did, though, for I asked him to let the maid go too, urging that I was frightened to have charge of both the children mjself. He consented gladly. I knew he would feel the lapse of perfect solitude within the house as soothing as the tide-wreath melting round the Hebrid Isles, Placed far amid the melancholy main. Maid had her best bonnet on of course. Philippa never would wear a best bonnet, and only appeared in her brown hat, with the big black ringlets tumbled round her face. The boy Hilary kept his little yellow gloves on — a faultless chev- alier in embryo ; his style was always perfect. I had not seen his father then, or I shoidd have seen the wonderful resemblance between the two. I took the triad in an omnibus as far as the Marble Arch. As we skirted Park Lane, Hilary pointed to one of the most superb houses, and plucked the maid violently by the sleeve : — " That is my fether's house, which ought to belong to me.'^ The maid pretended not to hear, and hid her perfect un- derstanding in a cough ; I did not notice ; and as for Phil- ippa, the Marble Arch might have been her immediate ancestor, for all she cared. It was well I took the maid, for Philippa ran far and wide. She was wild with the green grass and sweeping breeze, and if she didn't pluck the flowers, it was oidy because there was so much room for her animal excitement to effervesce in. And I did think she would have thrown herself into the pond after the royal water-fowl. I gave her a bag of cakes, and Hilary another of bread, ready broken ; then I said to the servant : — " Keep them hei'e until I come back. I shall not be away more than an hour." And the marplot Philippa exclaimed : — 11 242 ALMOST A HEROINE. " You are going to Miss Standisli's, uncle ; I shall come too." Do we ever go exactly as we mean along any path ? — and does not circumstance direct us best ? That very mo- ment, a great April cloud, heavy with its burden of delicious rain and cleansing hail-shower, broke directly over our heads. The pond was dimpled with immense drops — the ice-kisses crackled as they fell on the gravel-walk, and Philippa tried to pick them up ; I swept her away. " Take her, carry her ! " I said to the maid, " and run ; put her into the first cab you see ! " But it is a nice thing to be overtaken by a rain-storm in the great gardens of the west of London, they are so wide and exposed ! Philippa was wet through, of course ; such children always are, where a frailer and more spiritual make would dash off the moisture like a single-bloomed wood-anemone. Hilary walked with me quite composedly, letting the hail whiten the whole fi'ont of his dress, and behaving as though his own " trap " awaited him at the Park-gate. Here were my arrangements set aside and negatived. It was hard to disturb Arnold Major from his rare repose of solitude ; but, of course, he tvould interfere, and see that the strong thing was undressed and put to bed — her bed warmed too, and the slighter creature, who could not be put to bed because he would not go, made as comfortable as he could be ever, with a volume out of the forbidden bookcase. Circumstance directs us best : have I not said it ? If I had gone to Miss Standish then, I should have found her in full drawing-room of all sorts of persons who had the least fag-end of a reason to boast her acquaintance — people wearied with the church services in which they found no meaning, and people who would never have found out a meaning where there w^as the deepest — a cui'ious and satur- ninely silly throng of ALMOST A HEROINE. 243 Toadies young and toadies old, Toadies hot and toadies cold, Toadies tender, toadies tough, Heaven be thanked, I've had enough! Miss Standish miglit certainly have quoted the last line of this adaptation, whose primitive poor sally has perished with its use. CHAPTER XV. LONDON NIGHTINGALES. I DO not think I am a moral coward, though physically, I shrink from urgent action or endurance ; else I should never have done what I did that night. It was past seven, and both the children were disposed of — Philippa, tired with her late cold, fast asleep, and Hilary still reading his dear book in the long room opposite the parlor. Arnold Major (I suddenly discovered, from receiving no reply to a trivial remark of mine) had dropped asleep, in the dead, deep sleep of a worn-out, spirit-spent being, on the sofa. How glad I was I couldn't wake him ! I got up noiselessly, went up to my room to comb my hair, that I might not look like a Fury announcing a Fate, and quite as noiselessly went out of the house, for I went by the backdoor, and frightened the maid, who was washing tea-things in the back entry, almost to the extent of her taking me for a gentleman of light manners and conversation. I reassured her in a twinkling. " I am going out a little way," I said, " and came through the kitchen to prevent waking your master by shutting the street-door. Mind you don't disturb him either." " No, sir," half sighing. Was she angry with me ? If I am not " slow," I suppose I am very simple, for I never detect the hidden meanings of undei'bred persons. I did not walk, because I desired to be very cool, and I got to Wilton Crescent about eight. It was all but dark — a fair spring evening, full of stars, but no moon. I Avonder ALMOST A HEROINE. 245 wliat makes me feel more romantic by night in town than in tlie country ; but I do ; not in the daytime ; that is another thing. How astonished the man looked ! I didn't ask if Miss Standish was at home, for she was singing, and her voice swept out and mingled Avith the night-air. I only said, " Could I see her ? " and sent up my card. The man came down and said I might. Still more amazed. It wvas evident she was breaking through a rule.' The moment I began to ascend the stairs, the singing ceased. This was cruel of her, because she was singing a contralto solo from the " Stabat Mater," of Kossini's luscious lamentation, which she, of course, preferred to Pergolesi's. I was certainly surprised to find her in the dark, the long drawing-room windows showing each an arch of deep blue evening and a shy twinkle of the brightest among the risen stars ; one ray, besides, from a gas lamp beneath in the street, poured in across the centre, and showed the shapes of chairs and tables like phantoms in strong relief. Horatia was standing at the middle table, her hand resting on it, and, whether she knew it or not, the lamp light just touched her face into a phantom, pale as all the other shapes were dark. IIow pale, how awfully alarmed she looked ! And before I got up to her, ^feJt the reason. She thought something was (he matter with Jiim — that he was ill — that he was dead; all love leaps first to this last conclusion. " I have come on my own account — the most absolutely selfish intrusion," I said directly, and in an instant the terror passed to pride, as water into ice. Glacial cold was her greeting, her fingers might have been*snow-drop stems for all warmth or sentiency they gave, and her voice took that tone I never heard in any other, of vividly clear height, like Al])ine echoes. Passing strange in a voice whose singing was deep toned and fiery — all summer — all midsummer too. That 246 ALMOST A HEROINE. tone could not be kept uj) however ; her heart was too bounti- ful and warm. " We will have lights directly" she said, " and if you can find a seat meantime, without breaking a limb, pray take it." " Please don't have lights for me," I pleaded. The terror touched her heart again. " Is anything wrong ? " " No, nothing ; it is only a whim of mine. I am going to ask a favor, and am mean enough to prefer doing it in the dark. Nor is it dark either." " You always talk of asking favors, but they never come to anything. I wish they would ; and by this time I must say I expected we should have had some conversation about yourself entirely. That is what I wish." " I do not wish it. I have not come with the slightest intention of the kind. But I have come to beg the revoca- tion of your queenly edict." " Oh, me ! I queenly ! What a notion ! Sit down here. I have felt out this chair thoroughly, and it is a comfortable one. I will go back to my old place." That was the pianoforte stool, in the darkest corner. She touched a chord or two, as low as possible. " Of course, Miss Standish, you won't honor me by singing the rest ! " I thought she would sing herself into a state, perhaps, in which she would be easier to manage. " AVith the greatest pleasure. Why did not you send me word, and I would have had out something new ? These are all old things. Mrs. Le Kyteler likes them, and I generally sing to her on these occasions. She never leaves her room on Sundays." Before I could reply she went on, — what into, I don't know ; but to this hour I know I never dare to hear her sing when I am in certain frames, and I cannot tell what power it is she possesses — it certainly resides not in her voice — to draw out of one every reminiscence of passion, of ALMOST A HEROINE. 247 pain, of agony, of love ; just as if it was all new, not past anil hidden, if not forgotten. She magnetized me physically, too, and I crept nearer, nearer, till I stood behind her ; tlie full volume of her strain, interfused with her fervent finger-music, wrapped about me. When she ceased, and perceived me behind her, she was not the least angry. To confide in Horatia oiice, to demand her comprehension of you and her compassion for yourself, was enough. She never misjudged you any more; no little vanity excited her on small occasions, wherever she knew herself appreciated. Nay, if she made your heart beat faster (and she always knew it if she did), she was all the warmer, kindlier, freer, for the fact. ,She had a sort of wild vivacity about her now and then, which yet was sad to contemplate ; it was so like a finely trained bird, brought up from the nest, finding the use of its wings on a sudden, and feeling its wires at the same instant, — that yet disdains to beat its plumes against its prison, but flutters them witldn, plucking the feathers from its breast in that strong, passive rebeUion against its fate. Strong and passive — that is what a woman's longing for her proper life should be. Howbeit, this is nothing to the purpose. " Have I pleased you, Mr. Loftus ? I sing pretty well sometimes. I hate German songs ; am I very wicked, or only very stupid? I can't be ignorant, I was taught so well. Viardot taught me once, and hated me ; under the circum- stances, therefore, she showed herself all the more Christian." " Is your friend, that lady, a Jewess, Miss Standish ? as she keeps her room all Sundays?" " No, she is not ; she keeps her room because she lost her husband on a Sunday. Voila tout ! " " Dear ! — she was very fond of him, then ? " " She loved him, as women ought to love their husbands, Mr. Loftus ; and, as he loved her equally, I presume she has the right to regret him as much as ever she pleases." " Oh, certainly, Miss Standish ! Do not be angry with 248 ALMOST A HEROINE. me. I only did not think she looked either very unhajDpy or very much in love." " Because she Iddes the first, and does not show the last. Fie ! It is easy to see in what school you have graduated. I do not approve — " (Here Horatia grew futilely in earnest, as women do when logic will not serve their end, and yet they choose to hold a certain opinion no logic caii sustain.) " I do not approve of the exclusive charity you idealists and scholars indulge in ; we were sent into the world to make others happy, and through lightening their cares to do them good ; but you seem to consider it the privilege of the few — only the very few — to be liked, consoled, or amused." She knew she was talking nonsense. I liked it. " Miss Standish, then you think a charming and noble woman, with a heart full of concealed sweetness, is to dis- tribute her feelings as well as her faculties, so as to go the farthest ? — like crumbling a single loaf, and giving a crumb to each of a million persons starving; you would not break the bread between two mouths, or give it all to one, for the one might be saved by it from death, yet it might not be enough to preserve two." " I was not speaking o? feelings." " You said our ' exclusive charity.' I suppose you meant me and Arnold Major ? His principles, however, harmonize more with yours than mine do, for I never let him take any pence out in his pockets, because he gives all the sweepei's a help, and there are a good many sweepers in the city." " Mr. Loftus, you spoke of a favor ; I don't perceive it ; and of revocation of an edict, — some nonsense, — still let us know it ? " " You wrote me a little note." " Did I ? I really had forgotten it clean — I write so many little notes every day." " Perhaps ; do you require them all to be burned because they speak of secrets ? " ALMOST A HEROINE. 249 Slie put down a great chord, made it die a lingering death in a winding and wandering arpeggio. I went on through it bravely. " You can't have forgotten, Miss Standish, because you can take no eartlily interest in me, and ^jet you wrote — wrote on purpose. I have nothing to lose by plain speaking, and plainly I shall speak. The reason you wrote was be- cause you Avished, in the least troublesome fashion, to break your word, for you p7-omised you would tell me about the mother of the children, if I 'really loved the little things.' And, behold, innocent as I am of any occult motive, you write, and as good as refuse to tell me ! I therefore thought, being truly very innocent, that you had heard something against my character." " Against your character ! Don't speak such cant ! " " It is your fault. Why did you show me so much kind- ness — gracious friendliness — in the first instance, if you did not mean me to trust you ? " "Oh! if it is anything about yourself — that can benefit you" — vivaciously cold. " Whether it be or not makes no difference, — you prom- ised. Now, I have a very deep reason for wishing to hear all I can about this case, and, in the name of all human gratitude and delicacy, can I ask my friend ? " " I do not think it would be very useful to you if you did. He is truly obstinate. I don't use the word in a bad sense." " Will you tell me, then ? " " I don't know you, Mr. Lofus, though I do believe you have as fair a share of honor as of talent — only — " " Only you cannot divest yourself of the impression that I am a young man, — in common with all young men — how- ever worthy (I know you are immensely charitable in re all your inferior fellow creatures), and you are certain that our universal motto and direction is ' Gaudeamus igitur,' &c." " It is in worse taste for a man to use Latin than for a woman to quote French," she observed, reticently, jealously. 11 * 250 ALMOST A HEROINE. I took no note of that. "But if it does not concern you, how can it matter whether you tell me or not ? Who, exceqyt Arnold Major, would be interested sufficiently to inquire about his brother's illegitimate children ? " " Gracious ! you know so much." " No more than I showed I knew before." " But it Avould do good — and it might be misrepresented." " Scarcely, if it were never repeated. I assure you it is most unlikely I should repeat it to the only person concerned (certainly the father of the children is not), for I love him, and unless we ai-e fiends or monsters, we men, we don't make our best friends needlessly suffer." " But I cannot imagine why — " " Why I want to know ? What, you who have a circle of about ten hundred individual acquaintances, and are inter- ested in each of them personally, cannot fancy my being interested in two children no one cares for, save one — but for whom they would be destitute ! " " If it is really only on their account, I do not mind telling you, but it is a dull, sad story, one of the old pattern, never told in booh, — only I should not like it repeated, because — " " Have I any one to repeat it to ? Have I not told you I refrained from asking him ? Would it not have saved me some time and pride to do so ? " " It might have saved you time, but I do not see how it could have saved your pride." A sweet concession, in a sweeter voice. " I had a very loving and beloved father, Mr. Loftus. It made me fastidious, I confess, for when I first entered the world I saw none like him." I was just going to say I had heard about her bringing up. It was well I stopped myself, or I should have effectually stopped her. " i\Iy kind friend, Mrs. Le Kyteler, took charge of me at bis request, and I never can express what I owe to her. A ALMOST A HEROINE. 251 sensitive and odd child, quite without personal charms, she saved me at once from myself and others, by educating me in every way, and introducing me in every place, till I was totally self-possessed, andfi-ee of the society one must be used to if one is to bear up on its element without fiiilure or ex- haustion. It always seemed to me like learning to swim in troubled water against the tide. Heigh-ho ! I don't know why I improvised this auto-prelude, for the story does not affect me, except that I knew of its happening among friends. It was some time after Mrs. Le Kyteler went back to her house in Bath, taking me with her, that it happened. We had been abroad, and in all sorts of country-houses of friends of hers, till we, I at least, were glad to have a little breathing time at Bath, for that, if not passes, is slow these days, you know. She was always an invalid, never having, as I told you, recovered her husband's loss. One day, I don't recol- lect the year" (fair falsehood !), " a message came to Mrs. Le Kyteler to lend a certain prescription for the gout, which had been preserved in her family for generations (the pre- scription, not the gout.) It was wanted in a hurry for a gentleman, the head of one of the best families in the shire, in fact the father of the father of those very children." "Arnold Major's father, too? Or was he a half-brother?" " Certainly, his father also, but I thought you wished to hear the children's antecedents. Well, the prescription was, in fact, an embrocation, had to be applied in a peculiar fash- ion, and, being dangerous stuff" to handle, Mrs. Le Kyteler had been used to let me apply it myself where it was wanted. She gave quantities away, though a mere moth of fashion, as you ideals would call her. She could apply it of course, but, being so delicate, could seldom get out to do so. So, this in- stance being imminent, she sent me to Mr. Major in the car- riage, and I was fortunate enough to be very successful ; in fact, he took a fancy to me, having very much admired my father ; so that was the beginning of my acquaintance there — having been away so much, I had lost many traces of old 252 ALMOST A HEROINE. acquaintances. Not the very beginning, though — I had met the elder son at balls a time or two, but the beginning of intimacy, for I liked old Mr. Major desperately ; a sweeter creature never breathed. He had the loveliest temper, and was excessively literary ; only, it was a pity, he was rather weaker than his wife in the first instance — dead then, but I had heard of her ; in fact, she was notorious for her maternal injustice. She doted on the elder child ; her second she de- tested. She actually would not nurse him, and he would positively have died, but for a good woman who was nursing her own baby at their park lodge, and took him, wrapped up in a blanket, through the cold there, just in time. Of course a wet nurse had been provided in anticipation, but she had taken a fever the very day before he w-as born. Then he was only seven, a mere baby, when he perceived exactly the state of the case, and asked his father to let him go to school abroad, ' that he might not be in the way nor make quarrels,' as he said. It was done ; he was packed off to France ; the elder child went to Eton, and had a private tutor, a doctor, and a horse ; the younger — well, I don't know — for foster- mothers are invariably jealous over their nurslings, but the woman paid her own way over there to go and see him, and came back to tell his father he was half starved. Then they sent him to St. Omer. In fact, he never came to his proper place at all until his father's illness, and, at his death, lost it again. I think he carried his pride, if it Avas not the fear of man, too far." She didn't think so. I could tell that by her voice. How she adored the little details, how intentionally indifferent, yet lingering and explicit, was her tone ! " Of course it is not necessary to tell you that VaUiance is the nom de plume adopted from the last of his several names, for, of course, you know his works; no one has not read them." " Good powers ! " A curious light flashed across me, lurid as a forked electric beam. I did not like if at all. ALMOST A HEROINE. 253 " Do jou mean Arnold Major, that he wrote Valliance's innumerable romances ? Why, my uncle, who let me read anything, never would let me touch tliem. He said, one might as well take nitrate of silver in an overdose, yet allowed he was awfully clever." " Nonsense ! I never said so, Mr. Loftus ; I mean the Right Honorable Hilary Philip Effingham Valliance Ma- How she flouted the names in very acclamation of disdain, not scorn ! I don't think the waspish quality could have de- fded the honey of her disposition, only she was very riglit- eously indignant when she chose. " A privy councillor ! — and leaves liis only brother so ? " " Stay ; let us be just. He would have advanced his brother in his own line. Certainly they did say he preju- diced his father so bitterly as to preclude Jiis being just; and to persuade him to cut that brother oflf with a single, poor hundred pounds ! But, as I abhor scandal, never, so help me God ! will utter it, and seldom believe even its founding fact, we will not speak of that. The wrong he committed against his children was certainly unpardonable, though it seems another has been so infinitely blessed in making it irrepaj-ahle." " Would have advanced his brother ! Advanced ! I sup- pose he would have grabbed a miserable consulship or pitiful attache-ship from his enormous perquisities for him ! — for him ! And you can misbelieve what you call scandal in this case ! What if it were truth ? Arnold Major told me that an old nurse called him to his father's death-bed, — not his brother." " But I did not know that. I could not help it. I am glad, though, for it explains some things. However, he was some time with his father before he died." " So he told me. But if you mean that he had time enough to plead his cause, as an excuse for the other, why you don't know him much." 254 ALMOST A HEROINE. " I didn't mean it, and I know lie never even touched that hundred pounds his father left him ! The mother left her whole fortune — not large, but something — to the elder ; the father left the other (besides the above hundred) a few choice library books — I dare say he refused those, too, but didn't ask. My informant in the other case was a solici- tor, who happened to be concerned in the refusal of the legacy, and told me, — he is very honorable, or I would not have attended to him. As for the estate, that is strictly en- tailed ; it is a magnificent place. Champion Valliance it used to be called ; now they call it Castle Valliance. It came quite unexpectedly to the Majors, only two generations back. The grandfather was, in fact, a Belgian Jew, and his name was Van de Meyer, hence the corruption, which the son's wife insisted on." " Indeed ! I thought as much. At least, I knew. — "Well, about this many-named individual ; is he in person at all like his brother ? " " No, no. Well, a stranger might see it — not a friend. I mean you would not, being a friend of the latter." " The child does ; but then he hates his uncle. What a horrid thing it is ! " " More horrid was his desperate cruelty to the mother. Mr. Loftus, I don't know how you feel about women, but I should fancy you wise for your years as well as kind. She loved him so, it broke her heart. She was nothing but heart. She had none of the ^ne\y -expressed instincts or intuitive poetry of such persons as Marion Lyle." " Marion Lyle ! " I thought — " oh, I begin to under- stand." Then aloud I ventured, " Marion Lyle is, even in poetry, an exception." " So was this woman ; loving natures are exceptions al ways, and one so excessively innocent, so ignorant, was an exception greater yet. However, she was his mistress for years, and devoted to him as few wives have ever been to any husband. During the time, after his father's death, that ALMOST A HEROINE. 255 he maintained towards her a shoxo of fondness, (it was all like heaven to her if he was only there), it happened to be convenient to him to do so, because he was waiting for a certain heiress, too young to marry, to be free. Directly that happened, he left the first one straight, or rather crooked- ly, and it was a very little time she lasted after thatr Whatever did this mean ? Arnold Major had implied that her forsaking her troth-plight's design towards his brother had sent him wrong. And the " heiress " could not have been herself ! " Did he marry the heiress, after all ? " " Oh, yes, some years ago ; nearly five ; and has a child, a deaf and dumb creature, more than half an idiot, a son, and none since. But we need not dwell on that point. I wish women might take a lesson out of that extraordinary innocent woman's book, I mean the first. People used to go and tell her she had done wrong ; try to make her confess it ; that always fired her. ' He could not have made me do wrong, nor asked me,' she invariably said. She lived in such retirement ! — cared nothing for fine things. The day he sent her word he should not see her again, she put on mourning, wore it till she died, was huried in it. He sent her a cheque for a hundred pounds, and she tore it in two bits and put it in the fire. I was there when she did it. That sickly babe, the last one, was her idol, because it teas the last, and I believe it sucked its death out of her veins, for she was dying then." " Do you know, Mr. Loftus," (in a changed tone, mystic and secretive, but very eager too,) " I cannot comprehend the best of men. I believe your friend to be one of the best, and yet, can you imagine it ? He who took the child- ren and the whole weight of their support — not that the father offered anything for them — and who gave up every prospect of his own for them — he despised or disdained that dying woman, their mother who had borne them, and borne such infinitely heavier burdens." 256 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Miss Standish, are you mad to speak so of Arnold Ma- jor ?" I felt on fire. Some wrathful and relentless lie was to be rent or burned away. I frightened her. I made her shiver. She quailed from me in the dark. I think she thought me mad for a moment, but she was too perfect a woman not to be sympathetic as soon as she could perceive or think. The 2)assion I had shown and felt, alone won the secret from its deep of deeps. No other, or inferior, emotion would have roused her to self-oblivion sufficiently, or to oblivion of her pride, so dear to her. " Well," she said, " it was cruel, for when he met me at her bedside, — it was only by chance, and through his foster- nurse's telling me of her sufferings and her illness, that I went there, — when he met me there, he treated me as though I wei'e degraded, sunken, fallen, by the very contact with a woman quite as good as I, and far more innocent, ybr- she knew less and ' loved much,' ah, how much after she was forsaken too ! — which I could not. I am by no means good enough, and don't pretend to be. And if he despised me and trampled on me for tending her in all woman-heartedness, what could he have thought of her2 What must have been his daring, to dispute such sorrow, and to call it shame ? If he be in- deed an angel, he deserves, and ought to fall." Arnold Major despise her, and trample on her! — the one fadeless rose of his deserted fancy, bis bride-dream of eternal longing, his passion's queen and tyrant, alike his love and sor- row ! What a good thing it was I had an end in view, or I might have ruined all my hopes for him by blurting out just the above. The other question gave me means of an escape, and something to say too, needful indeed, for if I let tliat darkling romance-time elude me, never might such another happen. "I am sure. Miss Standish, there is some absurd, probably wary trivial, error somewhere. I know no man so wonder- ALMOST A HEHOINE. 257 fully tender to those the world calls fallen, and esteems ashamed. He does but exaggerate, if that may be, the evil we men are able and apt to do. I am very open, you see ; and, indeed, it amazes me to think how you could have so misunderstood one you profess to have known so long." '' I did not know him a long time ; only a long time ago. Certainly I had not seen him a good while, and perhaps, therefore, that was the reason he would not speak to me, nor shake hands." " Mr. Loftus " (kindling suddenly into such indignant sense of injustice) " no bigoted sectarian, ice at heart and strait of brain, could have shown such speechless contempt and dis- approbation. He was rigid, stern, unbending ; I dare say I was a coward to rush away and leave her with him, but I could have been of no use to her while he stayed." " I think I can explain it." (I spoke with the quietest in- difference, just as though it had struck me without surprise, or association of herself with Mm.) " I recollect hearing Arnold Major say you had been much admired by his brother, who had proposed to you, — in that case he might have had some curious comjiunction, which I can excuse, though I don't quite comprehend." I never shall forget her then ! In an instant, her nature spoke forth — so natural a person I never saw. Her pride beneath it Avas like fibre that marks out and braces the frame from head to foot, clothed over with the warm and vital flow- ing life. " I never had an offer of marriage from Valliance Major ; if I had, at one time I might have been vain of it. I was a girl, and no wiser than my years, but no merit to me ; he never made me one. Heigho ! JNIr. Loftus, what an extra- ordinary conversation we have had — infinitely dull for you, too, and little else for me ! We will have the gas, and I will show you some new books — nice books, not the dead aver- age — that have been lent me." I would have endured anything, any mood from her, or any 258 ALMOST A HEROINE. ill chance whatsoever, now I had such a treasure in my keep- ing — beyond all gold — the priceless key to open two pure hearts. I sat quite quiet. She glided from her corner in the dark, and rang the bell ; pealed it twice. In an instant there was dazzling and blinding brightness — all the jets at once. Straightway she went to the table directly under the vivid chandelier, and, f;xce full front to me, selected a whole heap of volumes wrapped with different pale-tinted papers. " You read French, Mr. Loftus ? " " Of course." " Italian ? " " Certainly, Miss Standish. I was Italian boi'n." " And Spanish ? — German ? Well, I can't either, de- cently. But you can, I dare say ; you should, if you are to write ? " " Hard on us ! " I shrugged my shoulders. How I wanted to be gone ! " If you are good enough to lend them to me, I will take good care of them," I added. "I will send them, of course." Then a shy, annoyed expression crossed her face. She had forgotten she must send them to his house. But her generosity conquered. " They shall come after you, to-morrow, by twelve ; will that do?" " Perfectly." I was sure she knew he Avould be out at twelve. Then she put a piece of paper round the books, sealed it absently, directed it, with full knowledge of the address, for I saw two lines. I got up then. I knew better than to apologize for taking up her time. I only said : — " I thank you for your music. There are London night- ingales." " In cages, certainly." She gave me her finger-tips in the act of ringing the bell, ALMOST A HEROINE. 259 and, withdrawing her hand, said very earnestly, and not at all warm!)/ either ; — " Remember, though, what I have told you is a trifle ; yet ' trifles make up the sum,' — you know the rest. It is all sacred, and must not be recurred to between us." Between us two I never cared it should be ; and sacred, — what a good thing she didn't say secret, out and out this time ! " Sacred," I replied, quietly, " of course ; and I will trouble you with no more tete-a-fetes." I was so afraid she would go further, extort some promise extra, that I was in misery to get away. Fortunately I heard Mrs. Le Kyteler's haughty highbred voice, " Horatia ! " " I must go to her," Horatia said uneasily, and ran up- stairs." CHAPTER XVI. MAGNETIC SLEEP AND WAKING. As firmly as in the blessed sun and moon and stars, do I believe in the fact of Magnetism, but I do not qualify the term, nor say it is animal, spiritual, or odylic ; it may be, perhaps must be, all. But as true as attraction in love it is, I think — indeed, have known ; and hearts in harmony, albeit not in unison, affect each other, I am sure, both to pain, to agony, in proportion as they are untuned, or not together stricken ; or to tlie ecstasy of peace when in accord they Aabrate, whether near or far. Else wiiy, for the two hours I had been away, had he slept ? The maid opened the door, for I came in the front way, not fearing any longer to be prevented going out. I opened the parlor door; having knocked and received no invite to enter, I concluded the room was empty. The fire was out, the darkness visible ; still I thought it empty. I fancied he had gone out. I moved forward a little, and saw, to my amaze, that there he lay upon the sofa, still in that deep sleep. For an instant I was alarmed, but felt my own folly the next, for I heard him breatlie, not like " an infant," as the favorite phrase is, but with the profound, long, even respirations of a grown man exhausted, drinking, wave by wave, great draughts of delicious rest. I sat down like a mouse, or, rather, much quieter than ever a mouse behaves, and stared at the blank shadows ; listening to the deep breaths as to the "sacred" music I had lately heard! Presently the clock struck on the mantel-shelf (a little ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G1 clock, ^vith a loud, shrill tongue, like a shrew's) struck ten, he never stirred, and the great soft breaths Avent on. Ala?, for my want of feminine forecast ! with ten o'clock com- menced a jingle in the realms below, like nothing to which grand persons, with large establishments, are exposed — a jingle of glass and crockery — in fact, a supper tray; and while I was debating whether I should go out and stop it, in it came, with light, a moderateur-lamp ; worse glare, in the small space, than all Miss Standish's gas blazing high above one's head. With the glare, of course, he stirred, gave a start that showed how deep had been the sleep, and in a moment sat up. Pure and strong ! — what words has one to paint certain looks in certain faces ? His forehead was bathed with that dim dew of slumber which gives such excessive mildness to all the lines ; his very hair hung round it, softened by the tender moisture fi-om its rather rigid curl ; and his eyes gleamed as if their glory were fed'from some large star, by the wondrous influence of rest, which gives one's idea of heaven itself a real meaning. But his mouth — who does not know what the mouth reveals ? All illness, care, all sorrow, all oppression, write there unfailing record ; and also bliss blooms first from its expression — confesses the sweet mystery before the eye reveals it, long. " I never had such a sleep before ; never was I so thank- ful. It was delicious ! I feel made new." Then, his anxious nature re-arousing: — " Why, surely, you have not sat there all this time ! You have not been watching in the dark for me, Ernest ? How truly kind you are ! How happy you deserve to be ! " " Spare your praises, my dear fellow ! I should have kept watch with pleasure, but I have been doing something better still. Now sit down and eat, this moment." " Oh, I can't eat," with infinite disgust. I gave him a glass of wine — it was worse ; he pushed it away, and looked quite sick. He threw himself on the sofa ajiain and murmured : — 2G2 ALMOST A HEROINE. " I wonder if it is right ? " I burst out laughing. " Right to sleep on the ' day of rest,' when you work hard all the week ? I did not expect that from you." " Not to sleep — to dream" — the last word with vehement emphasis. " Because, if not right, it must be wrong. There is nothing between in such a case." This was more serious. Yet a hope stix'red in me, as a bird fresh fluttering from the shell. " You dreamed, then ? Odd, to dream in such a heavy sleep ! One generally dreams when the brain is half shut only. It must have been a magnetic sleep." " My eyes were not open ; were they ? Tell me," more eagerly, " did I speak ? Did I say anything ? " " No, no, be tranquil ; or if you did, there was no one to hear you. I was out. I did not say magnetic trance ; I said sleep,'in which case most likely you were actually mag- netized without knowing it. Perhaps 1 did it, perhaps she." " Perhaps who ? Oh, Ernest," very bitterly, " don't torture me. Indeed I don't deserve it ; and it is not like your nature to take advantage of your brother's weakness." He got up, hastened towards me with such a look of des- perate distress — such self-compassion, so rarely to be touch- ed in him I " Nonsense," I smiled. " I only mean it must have been Miss Standish ; she has been talking about you." He could not speak ; he was stoned with suspense, rather than surprise. "I will tell you something, if you will confess to me whether your dreams were of her." " Yes, yes, they always are. But not like this. They come, and wear me out. I am blind and thirsty in my dreams, and they make me blind and thirsty all the day. I cannot do my duty for them with my heart. But now ! — oh, that I miglit ever forget it ! It is like remembering the fresh water out at sea, it is like the scent of grapes in fever, it is ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G3 like a nightingale hidden in one's bosom, and singing against one's heart." " It was certainly magnetic, then. We have been speaking about nightingales. Was she sinfjing in your dream ? " But he made no answer. " Now," said I, " I have too much regard for you to let you kill yourself, and you have too much virtue to do it. Let us have supper ; I, for one, make a vow not to speak till it is over." He made no vow ; but I knew him pretty well, and I sup- pose he knew me : he never in(iuired what the " something " wTis — no, not after we had finished and were standing near the fire, side by side, just before going to bed. I had only waited tor that moment, for he always put the lamp out first. The fire was low ; no light came from it, nothing but a glim- mer. " It is something very particular I have found out," I said. " Miss Standish never was engaged to your brother, and he never made her an oflEer." He staggered back in the half-darkness, half fell upon the sofa ; for a moment there was dead quiet, like a pause in life ; then strong breathing — quick and sharp — not deep and slow this time — more like gasps than sighs — still not a word. " I should not have told you if I had not heard it from her own lips. I was alone with her, and she said quite simply — I will repeat her very words — ' I never had an offer of marriage from Valliance Major. If I had at one time, I might have been vain of it. I was a girl, and no wiser than my years ; but, no merit to me, he never made me one.' Then she twisted the conversation round to some new books, which she is going to lend me, by the way, and to send while you are out to-morrow." " Are you sure? are you sure?" he murmured. "It can- not, cannot be ! Oh, I must be dreaming, as I did before. You have come to tempt me. You know not what you do." 264 ALMOST A HEROINE. " I will swear, I do sweai' ; and may I nevei' speak again if I have deceived you." " Open the window, quick." I flung back the shuttei' and threw up the sash. The strong spring gust, waking shiver-like, then sobbing wild with the summer promise, poured in and filled the room — not only with itself, for it was heavy with the night sweetness of the blossoms in the Square-garden round the corner — the white lilacs, guelder roses, and briar sweetest of the sweet. Well has it been said, in certain cases, that only what excites will soothe. Perfumes ever excited Arnold Major, as music excites those who worship it ; and he adored them. This time they soothed at once. " It is like lying on a cloud above the country, far from any smoke. Oh, thank you ! Are you too tired for me to tell you something ? Stay there by the window, please. As for thanking you, I can do that no better than I can reward you. But, poor gift as it is, you shall have my confidence." I hardly knew his voice ; it had faltered from his eager- ness ; it fell gentle as the dew, and just as penetrating. " And that is more valuable to me than the whole world, except one thing," I said. Presently he went on, more ar- dently : — " It is not needful to explain being in love, any more than to apologize for it when it is hopeless. But there is one thing strange to me — how any man can like his wife to be the centre of a circle of petty adorers who cannot or dare not love her — how he can actually exult in the power she may have, innocently, over other men — how he can hear her to be long enough away, and far enough off from himself, to en- able others to approach her even in homage." " I am shocked at your jealousy. It is super-refined, but nothing better. Diamond is charcoal, I believe, though white, not black ? " " Nonsense ! I am not jealous ; no man ever was less so. If a woman could give me cause for jealousy, I should not love her." ALMOST A HEROINE. 265 "Just SO — allowing you could feel its very keenest tor- ments ! But pray go on." " It was only to excuse myself. I have not, however, ex- actly explained. I should not like a woman I embraced to have kissed another man, or received his least caress." " We none of us, true men, should like it, I suppose ; but it might have happened to the sweetest and the truest woman before she tvas a woman, and most girls marry so — more pity ! " ^ _ ^ " Well, in general cases you might be right. But it you knew a bad man had even passing power over her, or had touched her very dress, if he had breathed on one of her fin- gers, it would have been the same to me." "I don't think you could test yourself so. A woman is always noble, as well as pure, if she breaks off with an un- worthy man she had to do with ; and in such case it is no question of honor for her, but she is simply true to nature — therefore right." " But it was not so — it has not been. Oh, Heaven ! the sweetness of wakening from such a dream as that! You don't know what I was before I knew her, for to see was for me to know her as well as to love. She was transparent to me even where mysterious, as an astronomer reads the heav- ens that yet are mysteries to him. Whatever I have endured for her, she has made me what I am. I was born one too many, so I was taught to feel ; before my spirit budded it was crushed, all but the germ, that cannot die. It is mourn- ful for a child to despise itself, — it is awful for a man. I did, as both, and, though I felt my own gifts, humble as they were and are, and diligently cultivated them, it was rather to escape the gnawing agony of my solitude, the eternal hunger of the void of natural affection. When passion came, and the time for it, there was no hope ; the mood next to despair clutched fast and held me. If I had not steadfastly believed in my Creator, and in his unfelt love for me, and unseen vengeance on behalf of those He loves, whom man oppresses, 12 266 ALMOST A HEROINE. I should never have come back here, for I should have quietly drowned myself, far enough out at sea, somewhere, for my body never to be reclaimed. But enough. The time came. It was hard to me to go to my father when I had no sign from him I should be welcome, and was fully rewarded for doing so by his taking one of the feio moments we Avere unwatched, to tell me he had begged the old servant to write. But Miss Standish, — she was there. " She had no idea of doing me good, and was wholly un- conscious of the tremendous hold she took on me directly — I had not been a day with her in the house before her extraordinary attraction pervaded me as a spell. It was strangely genuine and tangible. I dared not sit next her for fear I should touch her hands, her hair, for fear, indeed, she should hear my heart beat, for I could myself, — for fear I should forget mygelf in her, so as to betray my secret by a word — a sigh. For it Avas a secret, and soon, alas ! I knew it always would be. Purely physical was her first and finest influence, the emanation of the spirit through the body ; the rest came afterwards, but was all in keejnng. There was no deception in her ; she was neither siren, goddess, nor angel — hollow wonders all. " She was spending the day there, and went home rather late. "When she was gone, I was appalled at the vacuum she left in me after those few hours. She had scarcely spoken to me either, though she looked at me pretty often ; and in- deed I was a strange looking creature, and used to being stared at without interest. My brother had been at a mem- ber's borough meeting, and came back just in time (he said on purpose) to take her home. This she would not permit, and even lie could not enforce his escort. She came again next day. She was nearly always with my father ; in flict, he could bear no one else to touch him, and she allowed none other in the day-time. Before he died, indeed, she always sat up half the night — but she was always sleepy at night, like a child. Soon every room was haunted with her, and, ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G7 as you accuse me of magnetic tendencies, I will confess to you that I have seen her sitting where she was not, standing Avhere she had not been ; she rose up hfe-tinted, to tantalize and torture me, and vanished as I went near. Her voice often woke me in the night with speeches she had uttered during the hours she had actually been present. As for her singing, 1 never heard it more than once. " That once I was in the room alone. She was singing for my father, who lay in the room above, and both doors were open, that he might hear. I am little susceptible to music generally ; that is, I care for little Avithin my means to hear. She was singing a very insignificant ballad, the words positively weak, the air little better. But the pas- sion ! With it she wrought forth a strain seraphic, fiery. I listened as a being breathing an unknown em2:)yreal ele- ment ; my temples throbbed, my hair shivered, my hands and feet changed cold as ice. Then again — I recur to your magnetic accusation — I either fell asleep or swooned on the chair I had taken when I crept into the room. I came to, with a horrible shock of hlanJcness — there was no more voice! Perhaps also the pungent odor of some half- medicinal perfume helped it. Whence came that f It was about my person. I put up my hand ; my forehead was wet all over with it — even my hair. No one was in the room. In another instant my old nurse came in ; she was very ignorant, but very fond of me. 'Where did you come from ? ' I asked, for she was generally at the lodge, though just then retained up-stairs as an extra hand in nursing. She bathed my head again, gave me some mixture with camphor and spirit in it, still did not speak. ' Who could have sent her ? ' was my next idea, and then I remembered the singing — the swoon of ecstasy — the perfume on awak- ening. Had she healed me Avith her touch, and left me ? So she hated and despised me — as all despised and hated." For all his magnificent pretence of Horatia being as " transparent " to him as the sky to an astronomer (by the 2G8 ALMOST A HEROINE. way, an unanalogical fancy, worthy of a lover), he could have known her large charity very little, her great maternal instinct still less, to think she would have left a fainting man alone because she despised or detested him! One reason only (and that one I had no right to hint at) could or would have driven her away and made her send other assistance in such a case. " I shall tire you to death, Ernest ; yet I have hardly begun, it seems. I must finish shortly. I can't talk about my after-glimpses of her, for they were wild, maddening flimpses. I had to see her in parties, with other men, if I was to see her at all; and yet I could not help going then. " The first time I saw that woman with her was at a ball, where I was asked as a matter of courtesy, because I had come home alive, I put up with anything if I could only see her. That woman hated me, as a serpent a poor fluttering bird. I scarce knew it at first, so wily was she ; but I was, as I am now, a -man, and I never could suspect a woman of tell- ing lies. She drew me to her side, spoke to me of her dear charge, tried to sound me ; but the water was too deep, be- cause I did not like her, and I never trust any I cannot love. " Of my brother I cannot much speak — not from any idea of its being wrong to acknowledge one's blood-relations in the wrong, but I might go too far. My brother was eternally paying attention to her; he was point-device in gallantry. I had heard enough of him abroad, she might not have known anything ; and as for his attentions, why, she had so m-a.ny from so many, it could be nothing new to her. And though it was that woman who told me she never permitted proposals from those she did not affect, I do be- lieve it, for I saw her conduct. She was not only high with all men -^ she was cold as marble, but without the least hardness ; indeed, she was free as air, but there seemed a veil between them and her, whose tenuous strength no look could pierce — a halo flung from the external chastity to enwrap the inward fire. ALMOST A HEROINE. 2G9 " I had little communication — no communion — with ray brother, he never told me his intentions. I have not de- scribed liim to you because I cannot do him justice, as I don't admire him, but his personal appearance, let alone his genius, as it is named, bewildered, dazzled women. After my father's death there came a lull which to me Avas a blank space in time, like total darkness in separate confine- ment. I did not go out anywhere, consequently never saw her. What my brother did is of no use to recall. Howbeit, he was a great deal out directly afterwards. One day, I was walking along a dull path near the house, when a carriage passed me in the road ; my impulse made me look into it ; there was that woman, and she was there also, my brother on the back seat talking to her. Oh, I remember that time ! She was looking out of the window, not over-comfortable. I thought she saw me — she bowed — she smiled. Such a smile ! the carriage passed swiftly, but the smile stayed — it was mine. Alas, for me ! that I was mad or fool enough to mistake its sweetness for other than compassion, than sympathy. Worldly I knew that woman to be to her heart's core, if heart she has, but I thought her unworldly, of stuff society can neither imitate nor spoil, nor lessen in its value, like gold itself." Not one word of his being left unmercifully poor, save such a hint as this might give, and which would have been none but for Iloratia's prior explanation. " I made up my mind tJien. I had not then been told she never ' permitted proposals,' — an absurd term. " I could but be rejected, if she chose, but if I did not confess my love to her, and have one chance of flinging my passion at her feet, I felt my heart would burst. It seemed scarcely an evil to contemplate that she might, most likely would, refuse me ; it was so dehcious to think of telling her my life's life out ! I was new to love then, knew little of its sorrow, nothing of its sweetness, but gloried in its power. I was punished for that pride. 270 ALMOST A HEROINE. " I went to the house. Of course she could not live alone, but I hated that woman to live with her. I asked for Aer, not her protectress, as she called herself. Whether the servant had been taught a cue I know not, but he showed me into the dining-room. There sat that woman, and I could not escape her nor her greeting. It was very bland this time, and almost cordial. She would have made me sit down beside her, but I took a chair as far as possible away. I had brought myself to it, and required no courage ; my impulse was enough. Never have I understood how genuine love could make of a man a coward ; so I said, quite calmly, 'Is Miss Standish at home ? ' " ' I am very happy to say yes, and also that your brother is with her at this moment, up stairs. I dare say that I need hardly tell his only brother the nature of the interview. And, indeed, when I look at you, I cannot help thinking you were so amiable as to come and beguile me in my suspense.' " The strength of some feelings has an ebb proportioned to their flow. I was perfectly quiet, understood her completely, resolved not to go till I saw my brother out of the house. " ' I suppose you mean that Valliance is making a declara- tion of regard to Miss Standisli, Madam ? He never has confided to me his intentions, still I can guess as much.' " ' He confided them to me. Had she been my own child, he could not have been more honorable and open. But he ovglit to appreciate his success (as certain as his design that must ever be) for it is the first actual declaration she has ever permitted. Her sense of propriety, her breeding, and her feminine dignity, all these have always preserved her.' " I never thought what jargon this might be ; I scarcely listened to it, but only heard. I commenced a trifling con- versation, with which I took infinite pains, but she was re- solved I should not stay, and would not keep it up. Then it struck me I was an idiot to remain there, merely, perhaps, to miss sight of him as he left the house, when I could watch outside. I rose, bade her good day hastily, and went. ALMOST A HEROINE. 271 " I -walked up and down, avoiding the dining-room win- dows, for half an hour. Then the door shut. I saw Val- liance — determined to clench my destiny, that it might become my support instead of my destruction. I walked fost after him. I recollect how his hair looked, as I was behind him, (of the curious cruel color history tells us Lucrezia Borgia had,) bright yellow, thick as Absalom's. How women worshipped his rich locks ! I came up with him ; I governed myself perfectly, though I am a miserabh; actor ; and far too natural to be ever fortunate. " ' Have you succeeded, and may I congratulate you ? ' I asked — ' Ernest, you are as simple as I in some things, though we are neither of us fools.' I was certain of a sin- cere answer. "He started a little — recovered — and with his faultless manner, he exclaimed : — " ' I thank you, Arnold — I never knew your kindness for me. She is an angeV " And he hurried on. Who would not have been deceived ? He was flushed — his cheek crimson. You have seen that peculiar flush in little Hilary. His lips quivered — or he made them quiver. In my place, would you have believed him ? Would his words have sufticed as well as simple yea or nay ? " " Certainly in ijour place, because in that case I should have been yourself. Now, I am different. I should have bolted back to her — seen her — ashed her." " Not if you bad been crushed and unconsidered since your birth — not if you staked all on the one chance of a woman caring for you, before you showed you cared for her ! " It seemed to me he had shown it pretty well, though ; but I would have perished before I went against him then. " But, seriously," I said, " you believe her, don't you, when she says she 7iever had an oifer from him ? Or is it my statement you don't believe ? " 272 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Should I have told you all this — have madly opened the floodgates of the past to drown myself in misery — if I had not believed you, and thanked you as in words I 7iever can ? I was a wretch just then, a smile raised me to heaven, a tcord could hurl me to despair. It was the fault, not of any accident of education, but of my innate temperament. I have had experience since, sure as it was slow, and it has cooled the hot metal in me — hardened it, I hope." I could not perceive it was hardened ; as for its cooling, I had not the means to judge. " I went to London directly — got something to do." Got something ! as if it slipped, for the asking, into his hand. Never should I have hnoivn his personal extremities, but for his wife's generous friendship for me, in the which bonds she deemed me worthy to hear of them, to a certain point. But that it Was the struggle of the exceptional^ who cannot turn their hand to anything, as the phrase is, and are not free of any common means of livelihood I know. " By chance," he went on, no need to prompt him now, " I met one of the men who had been invited to our best balls to make up deficient numbers. He was one of those beautiful heroes, a life-guardsman. He offered me a cigar, I recollect ; he was a well-born fellow, and the real drill would have made him something hetter. I was shabby enough, and he asked me to go home with him to dinner ; I refused, being very busy. Then he said, ' If you have not been home lately, it may be news to you that it is all off between your brother and Miss Standish. Every one is astonished ; Avho would have believed Iter a jilt ? ' " I ought to have had the spirit to ask him then Avhether they had been really engaged, for I never heard from any one, my fault that. I sent no address anywhere. But I was exhausted with days and nights of restless and sleepless sor- row, — I will not call it love, love is all warmth and sweet- ness, wliether slumbering or awake. I had no spirit left ; at least it was chained fast with ice-links to a rock of ice. I ALJIOST A HEROINE, 273 had hitherto heheved my brother's condition and their con- nection, now I seemed to hioio it. But it is awful to lose uiorslnp — esteem is a mere cant phrase, invented by love- less rationalists — to lose worship, in forfeiting its object. I left off adoring her because I thought her erring and unfaith- ful, but all the more love rushed in to fill its room. Mind me, it Avas not that I blamed her for changing her mind, on learning hira better, but that I had imagined her a woman who would never cease loving had she begun, and would never have promised herself in marriage unless she loved." " No more she would, I am quite confident." " I know, I believe — I abhor myself. And liear, it is my only comfort to confess, how shamefully I wrqnged her. I knew my brother shortly afterwards fell back into the old track from which I had fancied she reclaimed him. But I did not think him systematically a seducer — the very dissi- pated shrink from such a bi'and — yet there it is upon hira. In the case of that unhappy innocent, it would have been like expecting a lamb to refrain from cropping the fresh herbage, to imagine slie would have resisted ]dm. " Tlie fiiculty of adoration was all she possessed to any purj)ose, and the master-scent, — the slave fealty — of the dumb animals themselves. She was soul and body his ; his must answer for her. However, it happened quite by chance, I heard of her as ill, near death. The nurse I told you of, and who alone Iiad my address, came to me. I went with her, that day and many days. I promised her to take the children, but even that instinct was dead in her. She only cared to see hini, and that I could not compass. With ex- cessive economy I was able to help her somewhat, for from no other would she accept aid. One day — that was the last time until the other day — I met Horatia there. I could not speak, I should have broken down, and the woman was dying under my eyes. " It is all explained. Oh, mercy, how sweet art thou ! I did not leave off loving. No, the glimpse made me frantic 12 * 274 ALMOST A HEROINE. for weeks and month?. But it cut ine to the core of my heart, and love, quick-bleedinj? till exhausted, turned to sor- roAV. I told you truly I should love her were she the lowest criminal, but I might not humanly desire a mortal union in such case, because of the future in my children. Only so. And how miserable is our judgment of women ! How poor are our causes ! How insane our tests ! I fastened on her blame lor non-comj)letion of a marriage which would have broken my own springs of life and faith, and made her useless, if not wholly wretched ; and I deemed her the cause of the sad and piteous wreck of womanhood that lay there dying." " It was not strange," said I. " But some person or per- sons must have told, or acted, lies, and I should like to trace and understand them." " Soon I shall." With exultation. I could scarcely follow him in such a daring frame. It showed how strong had been the inmate of the prison, that, seeing through a chink cleft open on a sudden a single beam of light, it plumed its wings to fly, — it foresaw the gates burst open in the everlasting morning that little ray foretold. CHAPTER XVII. UNFOKBIDDEN FKUIT. We talked no more that night, we two — I should indeed think not. Next morning he was gone when I came down ; I half wondered whither, half guessed, for it was not later than usual. Guessed wrong, of course ; else, at twelve o'clock, almost on the stroke, the parcel of books had surely not arrived as it did, fastened together as I beheld the night before. I did not open it then, for I had no time to read, — I wrote all tlay, — with such interrui)tions as were salutary, if incon- venient, till four o'clock, and then Philippa ran in, an hour too soon from school; in fact, her instructress had a sick headache, and had sent her prematurely home, fearing, or not able to bear, her noise. There was no quiet in the house, for it was a lovely afternoon, and everything, with Philippa, was precedental; she required me to take her out, and I obeyed. Coming back as dusk was falling, there was no one there yet, save Hilary, who had resolutely refused to accompany us. Tea was over, Philippa enwrapped in hairdressing once more (the dummy never failed), and the boy in the other room, alone, — no Arnold Major. I was not alarmed, of course, only anxious everything should go straight, and, for the first time and the last, I rifled his writing-desk for the sheets he had been upon latest. It was " Madras " night, and just as well I was there, for, I doubt not, had the proofs of the Ori- 276 ALMOST A HEROINE. ental ephemera been wanting once, he would have lost his sit- uation. I corrected and enclosed them, and, after they were fetched away, went on with the next number in manuscript, finished an article ad libitum, without an idea what it was about (I never heard my part of it called in question), and then commenced where the reader's mark was set in the middle of the second volume of a romance in blue letter hieroglyph, which I translated in a short written digest as easily as I could, that he might be sure I had read it, for when he particularly hated a book, he was always over- scrupulous to do it justice. Then I sent the imps to bed (Pliilippa much exhiharated by its being an hour later than their usual time), and having done all I could to anticipate the following day for him, I sat and watched the fire, med- itating, of course. Still wondering and wondering, for my first guess had passed into supposition, and now the supposi- tion seemed incredible — it was surely not like him with his pride — the strictest, while the purest it was possible for pride to be — to rend its veil intact abruptly. How little I understood him ! — how little could I appreciate the im- measurability of something in him that was not pride ! There may be a class of persons with his temperament, but I ques- tion if there ever existed an individual character like his own. No wondrous certificate, perchance, to bestow on a 'mortal whose very humanity is Heaven's making; but Avhere variety is infinite, the finite cleaves to the finite first, per- haps. Ten o'clock ! I could bear it no longer. I took a book and stared at it, and wished I knew how to make fishing- nets, or to build ships with straws (like the French jn-isoners in the last war except how many ?), or to copy Jullien's studies in double crayon, whatever that may be, or to write little sets of verses in common metre, with only two rhymes, — the second line and the last ; none of these accomplishments were mine ; I was, though well educated, a very dullard at accomplishments, magnificent or trivial, and at last I took ALMOST A HEROINE. 277 an egg-glass and turned it continually on the table before nie, watching it, — never let ladies be accused of " spilling " time again, — till just eleven. At last he came, and then I haidly dared to face him. The cruel fimcj seized me, that perhaps I had eri-ed — had allowed my imagination to deceive me — had lured him, even him, to the gates of that grave whence there is no res- urrection — despair. Fantasies absurd and worthless as the half-dreams that flit with waking, uin-emembered. Not so easily, if ever, can I forget his fiice, his aspect, his address. No angel now, nor any transfigured mortal clothed on with superhuman glory — but for the first time a man, a perfect man — his power and will made one ; his love his life — both free. I had not looked, before I knew — before he even grasped my hand ; and with the knowledge, all surprise, all wonder vanished ; whatever he had done seemed natural as its result. For a few^ minutes he uttered not a word — nor I. In fact, had he not spoken at all, I should have been quite con- tented, because convinced ; not that I was not curious, but I was not going to show it ! First came this wayward ob- servation — his pride, by her defeated, revenging itself on me: — " It was all your fault, you know ! " " I am only too happy to bear the blame." " Do you think me wicked ? Selfish I am — I must be." It would not do to spin out long answers, he was too excited and too glad to bear them. "In what way wicked? I can better understand the self- ishness." '■ Those children — such a burden ! I thought of them the whole time, too ; reckoned all the sum of their annoyances ; yet it made ?nt me, my body — that if he made me, and was all love Himself, surely it was my right, in so far as I knew myself pure of purpose, to speak my love as well as feel it. ALMOST A HEROINE 281 "And I did — it all came out — before I explained or pre- pared her the least. I could not have apologized; it would have been mean. And she — oh she ! — I don't think she was surprised ; how miserable I should have been to have surprised her ! then she could not have been thinking of me." Not surprised ? Oh ! woman, thou art the only holi/ hypo- crite, for thy deceptions are ever born of love ! He had fallen into a delicious reverie — his eyes were feasting on the unseen ; his lip looked as if yet tasting kisses. Only Horatia, of all women, could have suited Arnold Major, because none other would have behaved as a wife to him be- fore espousal, in everything but marriage. I don't believe he would have borne the effete absurdities of a lingering court- ship, regulated step by step. Had he died after their first kiss (returned as freely as re- ceived), she would have been his widow in her own esteem, for life. " She is brave ; I don't know that I could have sent such a message, in such a tone — that Avoman sent upstairs when I had been there half-an-hour about, to fetch her down to dinner. This was in the middle of — Oh, Ernest! If I had been killed, I could not have uttered a word. She went to the door and said (her very clearest) : — " ' Tell her to be so good as not to wait for me, for I can- not come. I am engaged with a friend on business.' " Then she came back to me, and trembled like a leaf. "I must tell you one thing — that, too, I know no other woman would have confessed. In her oivn voice, too, not the voice her acquaintance know for hers, nor her admirers think so charming, but which speaks into one's open heart. I never forget her own words, either. We had been talking a long, long time, (how dreadfully famished she must have been — how awfully selfish I was !) and had spoken of course about the celebrated proposals that were never made. " ' One hears curious things, you are aware, about one's self — things that might have happened, and things that never 282 ALMOST A HEROINE. happened and never could ; but now and then it is droll to hear the truth, and does one no harm, I fancy.' " Horatia's exact trick — I knew it — and he actually had caught her accent. Were they not already — " Distinct in individualities, But like each other even as those who love ? " " ' I admired your brother very much, when I was a mere girl — he was very beautiful, and I own I was flattered by his little notices. I thought him a genius also, and I had the over-regard for genius Avhich 3'oung persons are apt to enter- tain. But long before the time you speak of, I had lost even admiration for his genius. I might have avoided the honor he had in contemplation to do me, but I was wicked enough to uiish to refuse it. I knew he was not formed of stuff to hurt. In due proportion was my punishment — I never had the chance ! Yes, Mrs. Le Kyteler had prepared me for it — he had spoken to her and she to me — but I began to re- pent, long before he came, that I had allowed him to come. What I passed through is indescribable. He did not know she had spoken to me, but when he came in I thought I should sink into the floor. I knew I should not find the words I wanted — I didn't want them though ! " ' In a few minutes I got quite straight, and began to won- der when it would come. It was a strange thing to do, but he began to question me rather freely about certain opinions of mine which I never withhold, but which he had not hap- pened to hear me mention, because he was not a person I ever felt at home with, or sure of. On this occasion my good genius impelled me, and I talked out an immense time, — to me it seemed ages. Then suddenly he got up and went away ! " ' Mrs. Le Kyteler questioned me closely. I told her the simple fact ; she absolutely would not believe it ; to this day I fancy she does not. But she was truly very angry with me, and according to her views of the subject, I deserved it. ALMOST A HEROINE. 283 « ' It was droll ; but sometliing must have been said some- where, foi- I was told I was positively engaged. Several persons would not believe I bad not, as I tell you, had the chance. " ' Then they said presently ivhat you know, and I won't repeat. It was useless for me to contradict that report, because I had contradicted the Jirst one without being believed.' " " Yes, Ernest," — I quite started at his relapse into him- self — "she was too proud to say so, or at least, I cannot repeat her words just there, but I do believe that brother of mine pretended he was engaged to her ; gained the credit, without the trouble, for a little time." " The trouble ! " I exclaimed. It was dark to me, that. " I forgot I have not told you all. I can't act any more. I must be myself, or I shan't come to at all ! There was, of course, the usual — no — twice the usual amount of disa- greeable gossip, and it had almost died out, when my dar- ling's godfather — " How the sweet word thrilled from between his lips ! He stopped a second, as if listening to it himself. " He is a noble old man, her father's great friend, Sir Verveyne Waters : she was a wondrous pet of his, but he had been in India some years, only returned after Rangoon, hard wounded. Then he could not do enough for her. One day he went to see her — as he was always doing indeed — and asked her point-blank whether Valliance had proposed to her. (Now he hated Valliance's political pretences, I say not himself, and was known to have mainly contributed to the overthrow of some intention the Government had half assumed to send my brother to India.) She answered quite simply ' never,' and then he urged her a little, and being so dotingly fond of her, perhaps he had as much power to win her friendly confidence, at least as any woman. She told him exactly what had, and had not happened — her protec- tress's hints, all — in fact, not concealing her intention of re- fusinjr him. 284 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Sir Yerveyne then explained his motives for inquiring — that he had heard it broached, and never believed her to have jilted Valliance. ' Now, my dear child,' he said, (she told me,) ' I should have honored you far more for jilting him than for marrying him, if you had ever promised. But I think it due to you to tell you, that I heard from his own lips tohy he never declared to you. I found it out myself. I bamboozled him a bit, flattered him overmuch, and whee- dled monstrously.' " ' I will tell you," at last he exclaimed, with one of his dainty oaths. " I was fully prepared to do so — what an es- cape for me ! I was treading on a perfect volcano, in a state of non-eruption ! How could I have guessed it ? — For a Avoman to sustain me in society, to rivet my friends and fas- cinate my foes ; to take a high place on her own account as my wife, and keep it on my own ; and to preserve my male diners in excellent humor, and make my lady-guests less scarce ; to bear me an heir or two, in case a single specimen should foil to flourish — why, she seemed perfect — the very pattern. For I could not have been bored with a beauty, to trail all the youths and bachelors at her flounce, as a magnet attracts steel-shavings ; nor could I have endured a woman for my wife, who could not hold her own in conversation, and soar above the average in entertainment. Absolutely I was all but sold ! I never imagined her with the remnant of a heart, save the calcinated ember such an education as her's is meant to reduce all such hysteric nonsense to. And I IouikI — why, at first I thought she was acting — on the stage one miglit even have bravaed her, and thrown her a bouquet — but for a woman in her senses — a woman born for any social end, it was terrible — tremendous ! Her views and her ideas ! why, they drag her to the very verge of vulgarism ; and vulgar she ought to have been — not fash- ionable as she decidedly is. A wife with feeluicj ! Give me, with such a bargain, a halter of the ancien regime round her throat that at least I may sell her on the shortest notice." ALMOST A HEROINE. 285 " The heart is better than the liead soinetimcH, then, and 1 always thought so. But there must have been a tolerably elear head to i'uresee the need of the heart's ageney." I said this only to say something, for he stopped just so. Is not the exhaustion from ecstasy or enthusiasm greater and more sudden, if less subtile and intense, than that from sor- row or endurance ? Surely, for he sank down all at once. He would not have confessed it, I suspect, but iiave talked all night in fits of forced reanimation, fed by too frequent draughts of intoxicating reminiscence. I pretended, therefore, to be overtired myself. " I am so desperately done with your recitals, that go to bed I must." " Oh, don't let me detain you ; how hateful of me ! I wonder if I shall ever feel tired any more." " Don't fear to feel sleepy at least, for now your conscience need not forbid your dreams." He was no more a thorough-bred hero, than she was a perfect hei'oine. Fancy a hero man-ying a woman with money when he himself has none ! Perhaps something sweeter for this world, and better stuif for spirits and spir- itual bodies in the next, was in them both. Was not Knowl- edge the forbidden, and Love the unforbidden fruit ? CHAPTER XVIII. FLOWER TIME. They say a marriage makes greater change in a family than death; and so it ouglit, but only those distraught beings, who dwell on the threshold of courtship's temple, know the consequent and emergent chaos created in a small respect- able establishment whose head is " within the veil." I do not love taking upon myself, but was obliged during the next month or so. Certainly it was flattering to be confided in, (or would have been, but for the reason of the confidence.) Arnold Major told me " he left everything to me ; " and so he did, even to the keys, and I Avas a week learning up the locks they fitted. I have often heard the domestic menac/e of university dons lauded, but never believed in their econ- omy, though readily in their regardlessness of expense ; and I put to the test now the superexcellence of that excellent thing, a good housekeeper. I was not one — could not be, — the week's bills were all a pound higher than the average of the maid's reckoning ; though that was only the tenth part of " Mr. Glashier's " celebrated " forty -three years." She and I ever were in consultation, and could never tell how it happened. I am sui'e she didn't spend it ; she couldn't, for I paid for everything as it came in, just like her master. How I marvelled he could do it, and yet keep his head clear ; I could not : and attempted not a single literary or scholastic experiment all that Io)i(f short time. I recollect, a very few days after the engagement so inter- esting to me, but which I had not thought it possible could be ALMOST A HEROINE. 287 even imrticnlarhj known as yet, Arnold INIajor came in for a ^cw moments at six o'clock, instead of going straight to lier, as was his wont, for nothing couki tem})t him until freed in the afternoon, I knew that. He had a letter in his hand, Avliich he handed to me, a regular business formulary, written in the middle of a square blue sheet, stamped Avith the pre- I^ossessing " mark " of " Brown, Jones, and Co." I was horror-stricken at first, fearing he w'as dismissed from the situation he had gained so hardly and filled so well. It was a direct oifer to raise his salary two hundred a-ycar more. " "Whatever is the reason ? — anyhow it is a good thing — but Avhy just now ? " " Because they have heard. That exalted gossip, Sir Ver- veync Waters, deals Avith them, and indeed was the means of their Madras connection, Avliich is immense ; he could not hold his tongue, and this is the result." " Is it possible ! I never shall knoAV worldly people to the bottom." " HaA'e dregs any bottom ? " " Of course you Avill accept it ? " " Of course refuse." " Why, do you mean to say you don't earn it ? " " Possibly ; but tliey AA'ould subtract the extra sum in driblets from five or six of their other underlings. Did you fancy it would be a fresh scoop from the mine ? I knoAv them better. Will you ansAver it for me in my name, and say ' no ' in my Avay — you knoAV hoAV ? " " Of course I Avill, and imitate your hand, too." This Avas the only time he came in till near eleven ; and hoAV angry he used to be Avith Mrs. Le Kyteler, because she drove him aAvay at ten. " She A\'on't let us alone ; she always sends Avord that she has gone into her room — and of course that is my signal. She used to be up all night at parties, and often sits awake for hours now. There is one debt of gratitude I owe 288 ALMOST A HEROINE. lier ; she will enable rae to ask Horatia for herself the sooner." I know it is the flishion, in romance, to make courtship the Ultima Thule of romance — to pour out on it the full libation of authoi'esque means ; to rarify and sublimate the condition, as though marriage after it were tame and cold aivahening from Paradise to platitude. False utterly, in essence and expression, this misrepresentation. A progressive state of any kind is decided on and receives its character from the end which crowns it ; and in such a sense, perhaps, this fash- ion of writing is correct (if not true), for their Active mar- riages are as unlike true marriage, as their " romance " is unlike poetry. Courtship, exquisite as it must be, fraught with delicious emblems, and " breathing spring," is merely valuable and substantially a treasure of the being, in propor- tion to its fixed results. Therefore, to a looker-on, who is desperately interested and sincerely sympathetic, there is something painful in it, while so tender — the greater the chance of perfect happiness in union, the more the passionate suspense is overwrought to fear. I was not singular. I recollect his saying to me, one night about a week after that glorious one he came home changed. " Oil, Ernest ! I tvish we were married. I should not care how long I courted afterwards — but one of us might die ! It is not ingratitude — but life is short anyhow, and love makes it shorter ; — time at least. Nothing that hap- pened then would matter ; but now I cannot bear sometimes, yet must, to leave "her. It is unnatural, when love is per- fect." I thought so, too. I had thought so often, when musing on that, the 07ilg subject eternally fresh, and from which springs Wisdom in an everlasting fountain, free to all — of which few taste — and those Avho taste drink deep, and drink forever ! " My dear friend, why do you not strike a blow at con- ventionalism, which, it seems to me, a brcatli could break ALMOST A HEROINE. 289 down, like a house of caixls ? You could many ivlien you choose." " Aud never give her time enough to find out that — truly — she does not detest me." Oh, jealous ! did I not know it aforetime ? Well for him he had found her ! " You really do mean to say that is your reason ? " "■ Tlie only one. I torment myself awfully for fear she should find out she cannot personally like — not only love me ! " Poor, dear lioratia ! I felt certain she was fretting on ])recisely the same point — reversed in her, of course — lest she too should fail to please. But women are the only proud ones after all ! and the only faithful ; — not more constant than we men, for I do think men and women divide the laurels there. This end of conversation was one among many ends, most shorter. I had rather too much tact to plague him with " dowdy " details of my domestic non-success. And working so liard all the bright daytime (as romantic to true lovers as twilight, star, or moonshine) he did deserve his evenings — besides there is a " time to love " — and were love made the chief business of life, all living truths Avould flourish better, whatever might become of " Gold and Clay." This, by-the-bye. It was (I suppose as is usually the case) the doom and glory of the servant to enlighten the children — for I never told them, not exactly knowing how to do it, and dreading Philippa's delight as much as Hilary's dis- pleasure, of the latter feeling sure beforehand. About the end of the first week, the boy came sauntering in, with that listless elegance very peculiar to men of letters, men of uni- versal modern literary dilettanteism (not learned men) — and wliich sat upon this child as upon a man. Generally, I took no notice of him when he entered so, a very uncommon thing in the forenoon, when he was wont to be chained to his books 13 290 ALMOST A HEROINE. — and Avhen he only came, if he wanted a word in a dic- tionary or lexicon ampler than his own. To my amaze, he stood still at the table, leaning his angular little elbow on it. I was trying to unconglomerate a nucleus of items in a gro- cer's bill, which were inconceivable to realize, because the children had had neither tart nor pudding, only boiled rice the whole week, after their daily dinner. There must, I suppose, be a dcavn of the magnetic gift, either affective or receptive, but the wondrous quality in Arnold Major's gaze that had so often fixed and made me quiver, a look he had no idea of possessing or using, (he made the very least of all his own charms always.) that quality had been inherited in very diminished quantity by his brother's eldest son. I w^as writing figures, as I have said, and quite without in- tention was drawn to look at him. I noted the bright, steadfast point, the speck of attraction in the pupil of each eye — next instant it had passed — flit- ted like lightning. A heavy dimness overspread the poor babe's vision — he half reeled to my side — and, oh, strange fact, passed his little arm about my neck, and bowed his head upon my shoulder. His tears, few and big as the sultry heat drops that never I'efresh the earth, fell into my very bosom. I had never seen this child cry a child's tears, so wild and so wetting to the full, any more than I had seen him laugh the laugh of childhood. But I knew better than to inquire. I waited rather. He did not sob, his temperament Avas too reluctant, too re- served. Soon he was tearless as the drought. "■ I want to go and live with you. I won't live with them" he said. Can it be believed that my o-Kn false position in the future home of Arnold Major had never struck me ? I take no credit to myself; no innocent expletive will serve to mask my folly ! I believe I was at once too unconventional (Oh, curse in this strait Britain, over-peopled and overworked !) ALMOST A HEROINE. 291 to reflect on my own future at all. How tliankful was I to the child! For, thougli integrally as poor as a gentleman could be, I made enough to be able to pay for two rooms, and keep them clean besides. Selfish as those wrapped in comfort and in custom (the highest luxuries of the ideal, whose minds can only act per- fectly in a physical calm) — selfish I had truly been. But now I saw, perceived, and felt. « Don't you like your uncle to be so happy, Hilary ? " " As he pleases. I don't care about that, but I don't choose to live with a woman, since mamma was laid out ; and I won't. If you will take me to live with you, I will work hard. I will copy all your books, and clean the grate, and go out and beg — anything ! Not that I particularly like you, but you don't look happy, and I hate happiness." I thought a moment. " Then my dear child, if your uncle alloios you to leave him and live with me, you certainly shall. I am very poor — you don't know that." " Oh, yes I do ; but you are far cleverer than he, and can teach me, if you will." Not a particularly available cleverness, thought I. " As for his allowing me, how can he do that ? He has no power over me — no one has — in law." " What can you know of law ? " " The woman told me, and mamma too. It was only be- cause she told me she desired me to come home with him here, that I came ; she would have liked you better, if she had seen you." Then he relapsed back, impracticable as are Druid re- mains. It was detestable to intrude my own affairs on Arnold Major ; but I knew the breach would have to be made some time, and the present was the best. That very night when he returned, I exclaimed, athwart tlie sweet, warm dream which flushed his very face yet, from his fancy : — 292 ALMOST A HEROINE. *• I can't bear to bore you at tins moment, and I believe you know it ; but one thing I must say, rather ask. You have often trusted the boy to me ; will you do so entirely for the future, making whatever arrangements you please, of course ? " " What do you mean ? " The dream was troubled with his real surprise. " Only that he asked me to-day whether he might live Avith me when I leave you." A perfect storm of expressions swept over his face — per- plexity, distress, annoyance, generosity. " How unutterably clumsy I am ! How ungrateful I must seem ! Forgive me, if I don't explain to you to-night — only do not speak of going." And (perhaps to prevent it effectually) he went himself; and came down stairs no more that night. Next morning there was a little note, very short, and I did not expect to hear its contents. Howbeit, after breakfast, he said to me, just as the children had vanished : — " She wishes for Philippa to spend the day there ; in fact, she wanted me to promise last night, and I persisted in re- fusing, knowing the trouble it would entail. Now I dare not — the command is peremptory." " Will you tell the child ? " " I really cannot." I could quite understand that he coidd not. I am sure I could not have named " my love " to Philippa. As soon as her uncle was out of the house, I informed her she was to go, to be fetched at eleven ; and at eleven she was fetched, to her wildest glorification, in the brougham. Thus early had she been glorified, because she was to be returned at four. I wondered, till I saw her back again, where she would be dis- posed of by her hostess in the evening, and her good-humor was sustained by the memories of a visit to the Zoological Gardens and a real ice in a confectioner's. Also the posses- sion of a pack of playing-cards, with a deficit of five, a stuffed ALMOST A HEROINE. 293 humming-bird without a glass, a pocket-book of 1830, with a quantity of silkworms'-silk in skeins between its leaves, a nutmeg in its native mace-sheath ; and last and best, some easy knitting, begun with large pins and very bright scarlet wool. Only a woman would have devised this blessed expe- dient for keeping such child out of mischief; and for the next week she was " seen and not heard," so intensely was she occupied in making, as she expressed it, soldiers' garters. The very day after her visit, behold, 1 was sent for. Never had I been more astonished, for what could Miss Standish want with me ? I said so to him, for he gave me the message late at night ; no more little notes for me. " I suppose you will allow it to be a gratification to see one's friends at all times," was his answer ; " if you do not intend to go, why, it is for you to say so, not for me." " I should like to go ; I have been dying of curiosity, as women say, to see her ever since — still I cannot fancy — " " As curious as a woman, too. I think," he said with a wise smile — a smile that breathed admiring pride. " Do go, if only to gratify me." Sufficiently gratified he looked already. " What time ? " " About five. I shall come an hour later on purpose." " Dear ! what ceremony ! (I wonder if you ivill.) How can it take an hour ? " " It may, if you are obstinate — take more — one word, Ernest — you do not know how sensitive she is. Pray do not hurt her ; I could not hear it." " Good powers ! how could I hurt her ? /.' " Not a word more could I ehcit, and these few words made me very nervous I confess. At five I went, next afternoon, not less nervous. I was more so than ever, and my heart throbbed with suspense. The servant who opened the door looked so disappointed at me. I liked this — it showed that her kindness to her de- pendants had won its just reward, so seldom given, because 294 ALMOST A HEROINE. so rarely earned. Tlie man was disappointed that I was not bis mistress's " sweetheart ; " — sweet word, that ever it should grow wild, and be used at random ! — vulgar it can never be. Horatia was alone in the drawing-room ; one glance at her attitude (few figures have such extraordinary expres- siveness as hers) before I saw her face, restored my proper equilibrium. She was thrice as nervous as myself; I went up to her, and bowing, said : — " It is very kind of you to allow me the great pleasure of seeing you — of congratulating you, Miss Standish ■ — you will understand me. I do truly understand him and hig happy fortune ; he is almost worthy of it, if one man may say so of another." I had better have held my tongue — I hardly " under- stood " her. She scarcely touched my hand — but just ges- tured towards the sofa. I took a chair near it — then she sat down, still turning her eyes from me, but I could see her face in full. The most beautiful and original of all Lady Eastlake's similitudes struck me then and there as true to nature. She speaks of the mysterious, almost bewildering foscination of the " orchidaceous countenance ; " rare in humanity as its type in flower-life. Horatia's face had this strange charm ; expressions rived one's sense in her, that would have merely, in instances of prettyism, touched the eye and vanished as unseen. So, bathed in tlie soft glory of intense yet unper- fected happiness — the morning twilight, as rosy-dusk as the evening's is purple-gray — she struck me in a new and touching fashion. What blessing that he not only passion- ately longed for, but immeasurably loved her ; mere pas- sion would have drifted her from a rock of loneliness to a whirlpool in which she would have been whelmed like a weed, and yet a heart brimful of calm affection, such as Saxon Avomen are wont to crave as love — would have to- tally failed to bind her, or to bless, — nay, it might have ALMOST A HEROINE. 295 stirred up a spirit in lier which no man could have held in check ; from which rather he would have been glad to ily. These thoughts, mere foncics after all, passed swifter than "a summer cloud." Meantime, it certainly was three or four minutes before she deigned, or was able, to speak. She wore black silk ; nothing became her so well, I know not why, for a less nun-like or sad-like person I never saw. It pointed her characteristicalness, however, like a very deep " tone-bath " a fine photograph. Two ends of amber ribbon in her hair behind, her only bit of color, except that she had a little ring, simple and inexpensive as possible, a narrow flat gold one, on a certain finger. She had been fond of sporting a great many rings, — she was a very Jewess in her taste for jewelry, — and they became her ; now she had put them by ; and I think her singularly gracefid hands looked gracefuUer without them. I was idiot enough to dream of carpet-knighthood, and began to speak of sundry circumstances, stale, second-hand as strawberries two days old. The season (much I knew about it), operas (what would I not have given to know out of the " Athenaeum's " critiques), plays at the dear " Prin- cess's," which, known to me by heart from childhood, were Paradise after the gates were shut to my experience. She took her very easiest tone, and coldest too, in answering all my observations ; and I was growing frightened rather than once more nervous, when she exclaimed, — " Mr. Loftus, I should not have taken up your time for nothing, believe me. I have something to say, and fear to annoy your pride. I don't say hurt it, because you know I think it does want pruning very much, and only you your- self can doctor it aright. We are all more or less depen- dent on those we love ; and no difference of opinion among us can destroy that fact. Do not be vexed if I say that I think you, and one who is more dear to me than you can either of you imagine" (what an inclusion!) "are not the very best comnanions for each other, without another, or 296 ALMOST A HEROINE. third person, wholly devoid of your super-social idealities, to mediate between you, (not keep the jieace), but to preserve your bodies from being starved or rarefied into uselessness." What a tirade ! I knew it was but the introduction to some benevolent design of hers which she was ashamed to announce oiF-hand. " I thank you, Miss Standish, for coupling my name with his at any rate, it is an honor I always strive my utmost to deserve." This speech pleased her ; I saw her face kindle. " I dare say you have been pretty comfortable together, you two," with her rather saucy smile, not looking at me. " I have been something a little better than comfortable, Miss Standish ; but as for him, I don't think he ever was comfortable in his life." " For the rest of it, I hope he will be." Quite simply, but very tenderly ! Suddenly she flung her hands together and interlaced the fingers, turned desperate, took her haughtiest tone, wliich, strange to say, was often the kindest possible. " You see, he repeated some nonsense to me yesterday of which I should have believed you incapable. Once for all, if you refuse to share our house — I don't say our home, for you shall be as solitary and independent as you think proper — why, it will make a very serious difference to us, for I will not marry if I deprive you of such a friend." O, Horatia, it was well for you you were not put to the test ! As a peroration, it was, however, very charming. " What do you mean, Miss Standish ? Do you suppose a man like Arnold Major w^ould endure a third person between or near him and his ? — forgive me, but I was startled. There is no difference — will be no loss to me, except of his society ; and that I must, I suppose, give up if he marries ! I should rather think so." " No, no ; you don't understand. I told you stupidly. I mean that you should do exactly as you have hitherto done ALMOST A HEROINE. 297 •with respect to him as ix friend. I am quite aware that you have made your own arrangements mutually, of which I know and shall know nothing. It will be always the same ; as hitherto, this will be his hdkse, and everything in it in subjection to him ; he cannot avoid that, the law of nature. You will speak to him — only promise me — please promise me ? " " What, Miss Standish ? " " That you will not thwart him — tease him — about it ; he has been worried and tormented till " " I understand ; you wish me not to thwart or tease him, and you know I have already given him ' a turn ' at both. Is it not so ? " She laughed like a fair gypsy. " He was very anxious — he is much attached to you." " But you see, Miss Standish, though I might trust you, and, indeed, feel no wound to my pride, if you felt my pres- ence under the same roof no plague, there is the boy ; he has himself declared to me he would not live with any one but me." " I am not vain," she smiled, " but I fancy I myself could obviate that difficulty. I have a knack with children, par- ticularly odd ones. Otherwise you might make him under- stand (if you were so kind) that he need not, to all intents and purposes, live with any one but you. I will arrange so that you shall be as ifjow were in the next house ; there is a certain wall " A thought struck me. " Miss Standish, — pardon the question, — it may save some worry. Did the boy know your name when you used to visit his mother ? " " No ; I didn't mention it, I think (there was no need) ; a dear, good woman (she had nursed our friend Mr. Major) told me all the sorrows of the other poor dear ; and so I went — not much good, I fear." Half blushing, as if angry or ashamed. 13* 298 ALMOST A HEROINE. " The child saw you ? " "Yes, the boy ; he was always there — never would leave her. I never saw the girl till lately, because, as you may imagine, she made too much noise for a sick-room, and her uncle had sent her away — this very foster-nurse of his had charge of the wild thing." " It will do — I am so glad — there won't be any trouble," I murmured, half to myself. She looked inquiring. " I do hope not. You really have had (and taken) so much trouble for me — I mean, for us." No hesitation in the award — as earnest as the tone was light. I don't know whether she would have said more — scarcely, I think — but there was an interruption. She rose and took a few fleet steps towards the door — his knock ! — had she not known it ? — and certainly he had not come " an hour later on purpose ; " it was barely twenty minutes. / was annihilated forthwith, or as good. I might have been tliin air for all the effect remaining in my presence. I saw them fly into each other's arms; it was enough — no power could 'part tliem now. I tried my experiment on Hilary that very night, and with marvellous success. I asked him (in the dusk) whether he recollected a lady who went to see his mamma when she was ilk " There was only one lady came," said he. " The rest were vulgar women," briefly. After a second or two, I said again, — " What was she hke ? " " I don't remember her face, but she had nice eyes, that looked soft and sorry. She had a white bonnet and a red shawl ; she wanted to kiss me, and I wouldn't till she kissed mamma. She stroked mamma's hair, and said it Avas so pretty, and asked her for a bit of it, and cut it off ; and next time she came — " (half choked this, but no soh) " she brought a gold locket with that hair, and gave it to me for ALMOST A HEROINE. 299 myself; it liad a black ribbon. I used to wear it till I came here, and then I huried it," — with a gulp, — "buried it in the cemetery, because I wouldn't let him see it, for fear he should touch it or take it away. " I liked her ; she had a sweet smell from herself, and she washed mamma's forehead with Eaii de Cologne and some- thing cold ; and she sent her strawberries, and flowers, and wine — beautiful wine, and a great big pillow, and little books, with large prints and pictures ; she never talked any non- sense, and she always made mamma laugh a little. She told mamma she was as good as herself. I heard her. " One day uncle came in, and, after that, she never came any more. But she sent flowers and things still." " Hilary, that very lady is Miss Standish. "What do you think now ? " " Miss Standish ! and she is going to marry Jiim. Well, I will go if it is only to jdague him, for I know he wants me dead." Oh, perversion of love and sweetness into bitterness and hatred, tlu'ough the nonfullilment of love's first law ! I could no more scold the child than I could blame. All that could be done for him must be in the training of the future, slow as a sapling springs into a tree. He could not get over the mystery of this marriage, how- ever; and it remained a puzzle to him long and long. That any one should love his uncle he could not actually believe. How I wondered what Miss Standish would do with — rather ho^v she would ever manage Mrs. Le Kyteler. I did not ask Arnold Major about it, for the simple reason that I had neither the time nor the chance ; as after the inteiwiew, of which he forewarned me, with her, I did not see her again, and him only in such flying glimpses, as precluded any but the shortest greeting on both our parts, the children being present at breakfast, or at least one of them, always ; and both when Miss Standish did not send for Philippa to "breakfasts" with her, which happened about twice a week, 300 ALMOST A HEROINE. and wliicli matutinal event struck thrice the awe and gratifi- cation into the imp's breast that the most elaborate dinners and expensive suppers would hj^ve done. She always came back from them in time for school at ten, and chattered the whole evening of their ravishing enjoyments to me. This notice, by the way, is merely inserted to show Horatia's hind of delicacy, — it was the only meal she was alone at. Mrs. Le Kyteler always breakfasted in bed. And while touching the above point, let me add, that those who accused Miss Standish of humoring Mrs. Le Kyteler's whims, and endur- ing her constant supervision, for the sake of that fortune of hers, which she had no heii's of body, or of legal nearness, to inherit, were strangely at fault in the event. Mrs. Le Kyteler, a hot-headed, haughty, untender, but passionate woman, could have scarcely been expected to die very old ; her life burned out too fast. And before three years had passed, she died, leaving to Mrs. Arnold Major — nothing save her dying acknowledgment (a loving one too) of Hora- tia's long forbearance, sweet temper, tried and tormented for years, but neither soured nor made bitter, her generous con- cealment of every folly or weakness in her so-called protec- tress, and her real unworldliness in regard of that very van- ished fortune. For at that truthful time — the last hour before repose — it came out that, on Horatia's marriage, she had persuaded — forced Mrs. Le Kyteler to purchase an annuity with the whole of her remaining capital, diminished from its primal value very much through ill-management, unequal expenditure, extravagance, — " extravagant gener- osities to myself," Horatia always called them, — and the bursting of a financial scheme or two, in which portions of it had been invested. So one end was gained, — the world deemed Mrs. Le Kyteler richer than she was, because she removed, on her charge's marriage, into an establishment fully equal, in means and style, to that she quitted, — and another end to another person — Gain — was lost. Howbeit, (willi full knowledge of Horatia's undying ob- ALMOST A HEROINE. 301 jection to the phrase, if not the frame, ideal, and her per- sistent protestations against lieroicism in every ideal form,) I will confess that I am quite sure she would not have liad the phantom of an objection to receive a large worldly por- tion by legacy from any one who could have afforded to leave her such, without denuding themselves of comforts in life, or depriving others of the least item of their rights after- wai'ds. This by the way. No one besides her husband and my- self ever knew whether Mrs. Le Kyteler left her anything or not, at the time ; for, fashionable as she certainly was always, her style's scutcheon had one flaw which could be got over no better than a bar-sinister ; she had no gift of gossip, high or low ! and if she occasionally dealt out of her deep nature too earnestly and passionately with trifles, never, never could she be accused of " trifling with serious matters." Sliall I ever forget that wedding-day ? Scarcely — when it never faded, but reminds me of its soft spring morning every hour I see their perfect life. Certainly, in books and out of them, people make marriage end when it begins ! Little wonder, when one considers what they have to hide, and what assume. If Miss Standish had been going to be mari-ied from Mr. Major's house, (not the usual precedent,) that domicile could scarce have been in greater confusion. No one did anything for days, except that the maid dusted double — she was a good dust-hater — in revenge for the universal strew. Of course Philippa played at enough weddings to provide the parish with " marital appendages," (a phrase Horatian.) She was so beheaded (a pln-ase of our servant's, who of course meant the child had " lost her head ") with her own coming a2-)propriate bridal costume, simple as it was, that she turned white Avriting-paper into every possible fragment of mimicry that bore upon tlie subject. I made her about a hundred favors, and fringed out a dozen feathers, all from the best " cream laid letter," of which she ravaged her uncle's desk, 302 ALMOST A HEROINE. having broken the lock first. Also, I liad to provide endless square dishes (she was disgusted because I could not contrive round ones) for bits of bread, coifee-beans, pounded sugar, uncooked currants, rice, arrowroot, (in powder,) which had been begged from the kitchen for the " breakfast." This mania in miniature lasted till her clothes came home, the very night before the day. Had I been born a woman, a nurse, a governess, a mother, or an old maid, I could not have been more deeply concerned in that costume and its results. Her uncle, whether proud of her or not, was too pi'oud of some one else, not to have the elf bridesmaid --— the only one, that was a stipulation of the bride's — in perfect order. Philippa would have looked as out of keeping in silk, as a wood-nymph in moire-antique. He had given her a Dacca muslin frock and trousers, with just a beading of fine -work to border both ; a white china crape sash — the frock made high and basqued, with long sleeves — requii-ed neither scarf nor mantle ; the sash very broad, and tied behind in fluted folds ; a little white plush hat, the prevailing (then the new) mode, with a very thick full wreath of white narcissus twisted round it ; also, for a bouquet, she was to carry a great bunch of fresh narcissus in her hand. This once — not for his own sake — had Arnold Major given his peculiar, if very fine, taste its way. The maid, as proud, if not as vain, as Philippa, arrayed her in full rehearsal, and then called me to look at her. Pier uncle had certainly made of her a picture, if nothing bettei-. Sir Thomas Lawrence might have come out of his grave to paint her — even without the living flowers that were or- dered from the country for the next morning — as " Early May." I didn't mean to show her I admired her, but the minx saw it in my face, and instantly a wave of the old mischief sub- merged even her vanity. She plucked the soft creamy-look- ing hat from her head, danced on a chair, and stuck it on the top of mine, ruthlessly crushing the delicate narcissus (made at Michell's, in Oxford Street) in her two little rude ALMOST A HEROINE. 303 brown hands. Then she leaped oft" the chair, twisted the broad soft waist cincture till she got the tie in front, and of that she made a conglomerate knot. Tiie maid (she and I were in league for the hour, by the force of circumstances) asked me to hold her still while she " undid " the knot, and half succeeded only. For the instant the sash was loose,- Philippa was off — had flown down stall's ; and the emer- gency engrossed the entire attention of the maid and my- self — duiilly responsible for her appearance at church next day. For well I knew, neither I nor any other should com- mune that night with Arnold Major face to face. In default of the orthodox bridesmaidenhood, I must prose on this, my woe and final triumph. Had not the bridegroom relied on me to present her perfectly in statu quo ? For I was to give Philippa my arm, at all events. Certainly she was not more than two feet my " shorter," — but oh, the wriggles of her inconstant temperament ! who could so well have appreciated their possible results as I, subject to her these last dying hours of her uncle's " single life, half death?" I was as awkward as an unaccustomed male creature who is neither a French stay-maker nor English purveyor of rid- ing-habits, — endeavoring to help the servant, — for she pos- itively cried, wiping her eyes by stealth with her knuckles, at the disorganization of the perfect little effect, — the hat with its soft nap " brushed the wi'ong way," the scrunched flowers, the undue limpness of the china crape delivered from its own bonds. She was doing, and I watching for several minutes. Then, Avhen she had positively retrieved all injury, we both thought of Philippa, and the frock she still carried on her person. Every one will be exhausted of her, as I was that time. But there were in fact certain premises on the top of the house, and to it pertaining, commonly called " leads." Ar- nold Major, with his half morbid terror of injury to the children, had forbidden them that domain, and the region 304 ALMOST A HEROINE. that led to and communicated with it, a space about three feet and a half high, with cobwebs and a low set of steps to fiirnisli it. To make a dull story short, there existed in the heart of Philippa a yearning for the leads, because forbidden. So when the maid and I, after screaming all over the house for her, finally explored, we discovered that she had broken the neck of a bottle of Bass in the cellar, drank half its con- tents, and was then dancing on the leads in a state of semi- intoxication. The unfortunate frock was dyed with the de- posit of smuts and dust up there, and the maid sat up till five in the morning, washing, clear-starching, and " springing." The daylight settled her a little, and if she had been going to her own coronation, she could not have given herself grander airs. She wanted to be dressed before breakfast, and I only quieted her by strict injunctions how she was to behave in church. I did not see him, nor desire to do so then. But lo ! at the eleventh hour, the boy came to me, entreating, supplicating, that he might not be made to go. I had hardly been prej^ared for this, — I tried to reason, and then his nature broke out bleeding in its mother wound. " I won't go ! " said he violently ; " I will go to no mar- riages, — my mamma was not married. You cannot make me." And he rushed into the garden and banged the door. I did not follow, — under the circumstances I resolved to obey my impulse, and leave him at home. If Arnold Major or his wife should scold me afterwards, it Avould be too late to matter, and I did not greatly believe that either of them would miss him. They did not. There is little poetry in most marriages, and in every-day weddings even sentiment is vulgarized by precedent. In this instance (to me, the rest did not per- ceive it, I am sure) there was poetry in the very ceremony, circumstances, and custom. Iloratia, in an innocent over- anxiety to do him more than honor, had invited I cannot say how many of her " highest " and most influential friends. ALMOST A HEROINE. 305 Such an array of fine people, finely clothed, I never met ; it was a mob of exquisitely dressed ladies and got-up men ; round the railings, it was as though " A wind-waved tulip-bed," framed, quivering, rustling, and blazing-tinted — two shadow- statues in the midst, so pale and quiet stood they both, so utterly absorbed. As for feeling the crowd, the stares and smiles, the silkly-burnished atmosphere closed round them ; it was no more to them either than the world is to the dying ; yet were they held in thrall by the fact of not being alone, and magnetized through great suspense. I had to make various grimaces at my charge to induce her to bear being entirely overlooked by the bride, who was quite past presenting her handkerchief, bouquet, and gloves to her attendant. In truth (just like herself) Horatia car- ried nothing in her hand except her gloves, which she had pulled off quietly, rather wearily, the moment she had taken her place. She was most perfectly dressed, however, with dead white silk, thick, soft as fresh fallen snow ; a shawl, drooping to her veiy feet, of Lisle lace, the smallest centre pattern and the richest border (neither Honiton nor Brus- sels), and a bonnet of the same lace, small but hood-formed, with a fall ; no flowers, nor artificial " love-herbs," no orna- ments, no "fuss." About half through the short service, I " was ware " (and made ware by so many of the idlers near me looking up to the gallery one side) of a gentleman leaning along the red front-cushion with his elbows, and sneering down on the two lovers like a Mayfair Mephistopheles. The* likeness, an- gelic-diabolical, to Arnold Major ; the hair such as the lat- ter had described it, — nay, the very unveiled surprise of the wedding-guests confirmed my first flash of a suspicion. What a mercy the child Hilary was not there ! As for Philippa, she was far too self-engrossed to notice — or if she noticed, to know — her father. 306 ALMOST A HEROINE. And there were many joined the festivity that day, and had enjoyed Horatia's wit and hospitality often and again, besides, who declared her unwomanly, unnatural, unfeeling, because one child was present whose father did not own it ; whose father had not been invited ! Let that pass ; Horatia could afford to be stuff for scandal now and then, she was rich in all humanities, so large in heart, if so exclusive in love and liking. The banquet was perfect, — not the least superb, but every- thing on the table was eatable and drinkable, — the rarest facts in wedding-breakfasts and ball-suppers now. There was nothing to do but eat and drink for the guests, as the bride and bridegroom went straight away from the church- door together to a country corner, the brightest within ten miles of town ; I have often seen it since, and so have they. By three o'clock the house in Wilton Ci'escent was deserted as Gerstacker's " dream-house " again ; every guest gone ; even Mrs. Le Kyteler, who would not take off her bonnet in it ! (noble exemplar of personal pride), but had her carriage waiting at the door, and whirled off to one of the sweet little slips of lesser houses in Upper Brook Street, where (I had it on unquestionable authority — her own maid's through our servants) she cried the rest of the day, went into hysterics at evening;, and never went to bed all night. CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER CLOUDS. I SHOULD not have drawn even a vignette of the wedding, but for the fact of its being the initial to certain after-scenes and facts. I had a kind, noble-worded note — quite as dash- ing as heretofore, and not a whit the warmer than the old ones, from her, and about five lines of his across it, to beseech " me to do them the infinite kindness to spare them the cold vision of an empty house." Arnold Major's house could not be given up till June, and here June was ; so the note was to spare me any trouble or blushes about being " turned out" on the quarter day. And they made eight weeks of their honeymoon abroad, — at home the bees never wearied of working, because the summer weather always lasted ! But the " at home " for three days after their return w^as a failure — the only social lapse Horatia ever made. Such quantities of people came ; five — six times as many as had decked the altar ; such droll people too, as well as fine, lan- guid, condescending, and flattered ones. Came for ten min- utes — sat staring, or not seeing anything (according to their degrees of breeding), said a few different words on the same subjects — and went. I have no doubt each and all went away highly (or lowly) offended with the late Miss Standish, because she could not or would not amuse them more than ever. But Horatia could not get rid of her husband, and her self-containedness (never an extensive capital of hers) had passed quite into him. Not that she blushed, changed color, or did anything she ought not to have done ; on the 308 ALMOST A HEROINE. couti'aiy she had never looked so interesting or been more polite ; there was however no warmth about her for any one, except her oion, just yet, it had all reti'eated to the central life-heat, for the present, where the faculties and the feelings met and rushed into embrace as one. Not yet assimilated to the summer passion she had blossomed fresh to, it could not yet freely j^enetrate her character, — how then inform her manner ? It is not that such a woman alters Avith marriage ; but with the fulfilment of the Creator's whole designs in her, she exjxinds — is unimprisoned through the love that, under every form and image, is alone the agent of everlasting Freedom. And the other ! Men do not pass into such perfection as their wives by marriage, their own physical development, if not their moral beauty, being complete before. I have no doubt Horatia felt a difference between her acquaintance- friend and lover-husband, — but it sprang from the change in herself, not him. I saw him exactly the same, he could not have more dearly doted on her now than he had done before ; but by curious chance I knew this far better than she could know. And as for his extraordinary lovingness, it was only now active instead of passive, just as his passion was revealed instead of hid. And therefore noAV, just as I had always perceived it, the bitterness in him, to which I have once alluded, was as per- ceptible. His sweet disposition always tempered it to her, and his exceeding grandeur of character, through its out- flowing humanity, absorbed it — as the air a perfume — still in gusts I felt it, and dreaded it not for her sake, but his. You could not call his innate displeasure in society a preju- dice, any more than you could damn his jealousy as a bad principle, — yet both were in him and \)iiv\ of him. He dis- liked society in proportion to his charity towards all the world ; and it having never yielded him either homage or apprecia- tion, perhaps it was not strange he should. Then his tem- perament extremely ardent ; an over-active brain ; with ALMOST A HEROINE. 309 nerves of electrical receptivity ; the delicate melancholy of his views and opinions that, not tinctured -with rainbow imag- ination, dwelt ever on sin and shame with sorrow that knew not hatred — above all the engrossing, if fastidious, passion- ateness that pervaded him pei'haps accounted for his antipa- thies, -which, if they were odd, were innocent. I just touch on them in recalling his behavior those thi'ee " at homes." Had Iloratia asked him to go up in a balloon for two hours under a broiling sun, he would have done it without question or hesitation, feeding in anticipation on a thousand kisses when he should come down. And therefore he so sedulously followed her arrangements, premeditated with scarce a thought on her part, only as a matter of course. He was excessively courteous to every one ; his equanimity was unperturbed, no higher gentleman, if none simpler, came or went. But I who knew his soul, as one who, in all other respects unlike him, had a single point in common, can know, was j^erfectly aware of his impatient longings to " have done with it," as the phrase is, and be alone with her ; of his jealousy un- touched with meanness, that grudged the very sight of her to those, her passing guests. And oh, how tired she looked when all had gone ! though I don't suppose it would have entered her head to say so, she was too completely inured to etiquette to complain of, or even comprehend, its results. One favor on his part (actually asked by him as a favor,) but received and obeyed as law, was the request that in those three grand, gloomy afternoons, Philippa should be kept out of the way. So I found her, happier than is describable, at six o'clock, with the aquarium. I took her to dine with Hilary and myself in my own room — the domestic chaos was not yet perfectly reduced to order. But next day, though, in respect of the boy, she left me perfectly indepen- dent, and as if, indeed, I dwelt next door, Mrs. Arnold Major took Philippa to herself, and had her to dine at lunch-time. For she was (the first time) alone after breakfast. But, though it may a[)[)ear a trivial merit to note, she was a per- 310 ALMOST A HEROINE. son so ill love with literature, so thoroughly, if easily, accom- plished, that not a moment could hang heavy on her hands — not to mention that she had as much romance as a woman ought to have, which is not little — and would not have wea- ried of her own sweet dreams and anticipations the whole livelong day. Then of all things, it was innate in her to ahhor teaching and finding fault (its necessary consequence, if the teacher be conscientious) ; but her organization was peculiarly sensitive to small, slow, worrying cares — albeit, a being moi'e endurant I have not seen, in the process of real trouble. Yet her design to manage and train Philippa was carried out to the utmost, and for some months it was like the breaking in of the wildest and waywardest strong colt. No failure here though, for Horatia made a clean dash at the child's intellect, whipped it into excitement, and bowed it in the new-felt hunger for knowledge of all sorts, before she meddled with the moral bias, or the paces of the future char- acter. Five ordinary children would have given no trouble in comparison ; nor was there any of the winsome fondness of some little ones, in this instance, to beguile or lighten the rude task. Horatia also knew very well that her husband could not love the child (loving really no human creature except herself, though she was too modest to find that out for a long time), and that doing his duty by her to the best of his ability, that duty possessed no charm of interest in his eyes. Dull as such details must be, it is due to such a character as hers to analyze in some slight sort her connections posi- tive, if passionless, with so many other persons. Every one knows that there are human beings reduced to such a morbid condition that they cannot bear their self-reminders ; never- theless, this condition may be rather to be pitied than con- demned, as should indeed be their feeble incapacity to bear up against solitude, (ever a stern test — there is no solitude for those who love !) The loveless fly to such society as they can afford, compass, or come at — they do not enjoy, ALMOST A HEROINE. 311 nor cause enjoyment in it, they simply suspend self-con- sciousness for a while. Others again, particularly -women these, would perish if their own husbands were sole arbi- ters of their charms — personal, mental, or exceptional. There are, also, women vain enough (I was going to say wicked enough, but retract it, for I am a man) to desire more than their husband's the miserable appreciation of other men — perhaps the husband's is no better ; but men honor, if they cannot love, a " virtuous woman," and give her full credit for her utmost self-respect. In no such class could Horatia be set down an instant by the most fatuitous man or si)iteful woman — nor indeed in any class ; though excep- tional, she was quite as guiltless of eccentricity as free from cant. She was born with social gifts that it was as natural to her to exercise as to breathe, she pleased all persons, whether they would or no — she fascinated many — troubled by her spells a few. But all this as naturally as (again to say it) she breathed ; still the very fact of its being rather through the free motions of her mind she entertained them, than with any pai-ticle of sentiment or intention, gave her own performance a zest to herself far racier than any she im- parted. Just as she glorified and dramatized the silliest little ballads and least " aesthetic " songs by her remarkable fashion of singing, she uttered Avitticisms or fathomed subtle intel- lectual depths more in her own eax-s than others ! — her words were to them diverting pictures — hieroglyphs ; she only had the key. I have no doubt she overvalued her social position (an unusual one) for her husband's sake at first ; dreaming bar- ren visions, beautiful with love, of its restoring him to his right place, whatever that might be. I am sure the con- sciousness of possessing more wealth than he, never touched nor tainted this sweet fantasy ; besides, her tact was per- fect, as only in very passionate natui'cs tact ever is, — I don't speak of '■'■finesse" the French botli of it and its mean- ing. And so she allowed him perfect liberty in his own 312 ALMOST A HEROINE. affairs ; sbe did not even refurnish her house ; she fitted up no private room for him especially ; and I have reason to know her very table was less elaborate than, in Mrs. Le Kyteler's time, on her account it had been. She was so delicate that, if a parcel came directed to him unpaid, she never paid it, but let it alone till his return. Still, be it understood, wherever the Avife's rights, personal or other, were concerned, she was as jealous as ever he, and as tena- cious of them. No servant dared to touch his clothes, his books, the very pen he wrote with last. I did not dare any more to correct the " Madras " proofs, an item of labor which he had left to me and she snatched from me ; order- ing me not to inform against her. It was a curious household, and I don't think many wives and husbands behave as they did. To return to the " soci- ety " point, it had (if never more than a pleasure that fatigued her agreeably before) become a positive annoyance now to her to adhere to her former customs ; yet she did so, and, I am sure, thought it her duty all the more because " their glory had departed." After those " afternoons " in which such crowds were concerned, and to which they rushed all the more now she was married, to see what she would do, say, look, under those remarkable circumstances ; after hav- ing entertained them charmingly, and received and dismissed them with kindness rarer than courtesy, if felt, as hers was ; I have seen her pale, excessively tired, but never sinking, nor giving way ; only wearing on her brow, and in her eyes, the yearning anxiety for his return, the waiting patience, very touching in an impatient temperament like hers. And when he came, behold it was no more ! but it returned when he departed, even for an hour. I detest, because tliey are radically, on pliysical princi- ples, false, those delineations, so favorite in conjugal romances, (written by the umoedded always,) in Avhich husbands and wives are made to torment each other and rupture the law of marriage twice an hour by hidden or obtuse jealousies, ALIIOST A IlKROINE. 313 constitutional irritabilities, tempers "sore with tenderness," delirious mutual or one-sided suspicions, all which convulsed deviations from the average of the "two made one" are reported and commented upon, on either part, to any per- son, however insignificant, who does not happen to be the natural and authorized recipient of such mysterious mise- ries, i. e., the man or his wife themselves ; the man for his wife, the wife for her husband. Arnold Major was a jealous man, — all lovers are ; — Hora- tia a jealous woman, — all loving women will be ; but in neither of them it induced want of confidence, nor any malefi- cent or morbid frame. Of course they suffered from it, he the most I think ; and yet I don't know, when I recollect her gratitude at the end, when she really found how entirely she was his all, — a fact she took long time to learn. If he suffered from his jealousy, it was not because he fancied her smiling on another man, even as a friend, in his absence, — not that he doubted her (almost amusing) coldness when she sang duets, or took part in concerted music according to her girlish habit, become a part of nature, — not that he fancied her for an instant oblivious of her own beloved, in absence. But there was in him, just as he had expi-essed it once, an unraeasurable power of loving, that could not fulfil itself in this short life, and that yet asked every instant of time be- stowed on man to prepare himself and his soul's soul for the food and fashion of eternity. To do him justice, and prove his integrity of faith in her, I recollect the only time 1 ever heard him allude to those same reunions of Horatia's acquaintances. It was thus ; I happened to be present, a rare thing then. "Did Lord Wilders come again, and did you sing to- gether ? " " Yes," said Horatia ; " the same things. He does carry his conservatism into his singing, as into everything else, and he will discover imperfections, till the standard of per- fection is lost." 14 314 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Does it tire you very much ? " " No, not the least. I am too idle not to like grinding at the old better than learning the new." " It is all right, then, but I will not have jou fatigued more than must he." Tliis was all, save that the " must be " rang in my ears. It meant something, it was a beginning or a hint — of what ? Let it not be imagined that Arnold Major was devoid of spirit, or that he could not hold his own. A very few months after their marriage they went one night to a ball. She, splendidly dressed, and with two exquisite and most extrava- gant bouquets he brought her, one for the bosom and one for the hand. Though to go out, as a fact, afforded him no grati- fication, he was radiant with pride to take her out ; and truly as far as his mere " apparition's shell " was concerned, she had reason to be proud of him. He was too well put to- gether not to be a good dancer too, but he danced idly, like one who dreams deeper " within a dream." Dancing did not excite him the least, but music did, almost beyond enthusiasm. However, this was an immense ball, one of those last efforts of the season to perish gorgeously, like a dolphin dying, at a very grand house where scarce a commoner was ever asked, and to which it really was a fine thing to have been. Such an awfully hot August night it Avas ! Through Mrs. Arnold Major, who could get anything out of anybody for any one, I had received an invitation, and accepted it solely out of curiosity on my friend's account. I had plenty of leisure, of course, to watch them. The rooms, vast for a private mansion, were reeking with breaths and perfumes, lined with such hot-house flowers as should never be brought into a dance save in the open air, for instance, the African jessamine, and purple heliotrope, with quantities of orange- shrubs in bloom. The air was positively sick with the lus- cious mist. It made me giddy, and I saw rings round the lustres ; to crown all, a distant storm spent and spit its last spite upon us, and through the windows, flung wide open, the ALJIOST A HEROINE. 315 electric smiles played over the bright twinkling show till twelve o'clock. At five in the vivid August morning we went home. IIo- ratia, much too exhausted to speak or stir, lay back in her husband's arms, in the carriage, and he actually carried her up to bed. Three hours afterwards he came down to break- fast without her, having ordered her to remain in bed; I knew this, because he was obliged to speak to me about a message he had to take, in answer to Brown, from me. She did not leave her room all day, until half an hour be- fore the usual one of his return. Then she too sent for me rather peremptorily, — it was, however, a case of exigency, in which she found herself at fault, (she did not allow it in the least !) for the Madras proofs were sent for, and found wanting. We kei)t the boy waiting while we retouched them between us, and then fearful, as I knew, of hurting my feel- ings by making even the least use of me, she insisted on my remaining with her even to dine ; she pretended too, that she did not expect him to come home. This was only the reaction of an exceedingly fine sense of justice, — she was heartily vexed that her husband did not dance the night before, except once with herself. Arnold Major was neither straight-laced nor old-fangled; a more liberal person did not live, but it was next to impossible he should not try his wife's nerves, if not her temper, the first year of marriage. She was vexed, not that he had danced with no woman but herself, (not a woman ever so jealously craved her husband's every smile and gesture of devotion for herself alone,) but that she had quite thoughtlessly and natu- rally, at the time, danced with all wlio invited her ; in Hora- tia's case these could not be few. By the way, just to defend Arnold Major from the lightest charge of primness — which his very soul abhorred — I have seen him dance on various light and bright occasions since, as he would have romped with children, or rifled his own or- chard to shower "golden apples" on a parcel of sehool-boys ; 31 G ALMOST A HEROINE. but on this occasion he himself, new to his great happiness, too great to compass in a hurry, and not yet even semi-real- ized; when festivity was positively run desperate, and the festal throng moved rather in " melting durance," than for love of even " the divinity of custom," I was not surprised at him, nay, I even sympathized with him, for being passive at the time, and much disgusted afterwards. While waiting for him, (I knew he would come, and so did she, whatever she pretended,) I could see she was really ill, -white as a sheet, with the black-blue shadows under her eyes that denote intense exhaustion ; deepened, instead of light- ened, by uneasy sleep. I fancied, indeed felt sure, she had fretted all day to tears — those all spent now — for any but her husband to behold them, she would, I dare say, have deemed a sacrilege. Besides the premier vexation, I could tell she had been dreadfully vexed not to make his break- fast (for the first time omitted since their marriage, I knew through his proud assertion ; he ne\'er wearied of praising her if he only saw me for a few minutes.) He came in rather before the usual time, and I saw one of their embraces — a beautiful siglit. "Their every parting must have been to die," for such long, speechless, pressure in each other's arms had something almost mournful in it. Hearts sobbing under the great waves of an overwhelming passion, calmed by love — and yet not stilled forever ; the tide felt every motion of the changing moon ! He looked dreadfully tired himself; but, I thought, it was cruel of him to fasten such a look on her, of wild reproach, half tragic — quite more than the occasion warranted. He could not help it, though, and she did not dislike it, for she knew its Avellspring. " I will not have it again ! " he exclaimed, in eager, heart- wrung tones, (I knew he didn't perceive me, if she did.) " I will have no more of your life drained out of you by these vampires, who Avould not even regret you if you were dead ; but " (I knew he meant it) '" who would only ALMOST A HEROINE. 317 revenge tbcmselves on your departure by devouring some one else." How she laughed ! half nervously, because I was there, half with her sense of the absurd, stricken at its highest jjitch by his sublime treatment of a very trivial foct. His arras were round her still, and she spoke low in answer ; but her excessively clear voice only seemed distincter in a whisper. " I thrive very well on the vampirism ; I suppose I wanted depleting. And you have been working all day, so it is good for you to reproach me with being idle ! I like it ; it appeases my conscience a little." Without (as it seemed) heeding her light words, he went on, — " I will have no more August dancing ; it is horrible tor- ment, worthy of the Inquisition." "There Avon't be any more this year — there can't." " There will be another August — promise me." " For all the future summers ! I certainly shall never dance again, unless you allow me to come down next day as soon as you do." This was all. Certainly, the next August saw neither of them at " the dancing," for better reasons than Arnold Major's then. Another source of vague annoyance to them both was the child Philippa. She grew in stature and knowingness, if not in wisdom, excessively fast, and was ever in the way. I fancy no house, no palace, would have been big enough to get rid of her in ; she so persisted in haunting places where she was not wanted. I knew that her uncle had resolved to send her to a school of the very best sort, where she should be kept till bedtime out of the way ; but this Horatia never would permit, and as far as the child was concerned, she was perfectly riglit. The chief annoyance she occasioned to him was, that daily and hourly slie was on his wife ; the crown- ing one to hei" tliat the child annoyed him. She was a care and a handful, or rather a handful of cares ; if she ever 318 ALMOST A HEROINE. had been tired or spent, or if one could have made her fond of books, or anxious to learn drawing ; but no, neither pur- suits found favor in her eyes, though, like a rough, unkempt scamp of a Sl^ye-terrier, she adored Horatia, and held fast on to her. This the lady only allowed, of course, while her husband was away, apportioning a large empty room at my end of the house to both the children, though empty it was not, for all sorts of old toys, and queer, past-use articles of childish or nursery virtu found place there — a few gymnas- tic poles and a firstrate swing among the rest ; also an old rocking-horse ; besides a great deal of Arnold Major's furni- ture from the old house was stowed there also, the best part of the said furniture having been ordained by him to fill the rooms which I and Hilary occupied, — the children's own lit- tle beds, baths, &c., having been quietly permitted by the mistress of the household to be retained for them instead of new ones, or any of her own. In a moment of rare confidingness, (rarer now she was won instead of wooed,) Horatia had expressed to me her re- gret that she could not give Philippa a pony. " It is hard," said she, " that whatever I can do (and it is little) for the children, I dare not do till I am dead. If we were in the country, she could scour and rummage every- where on a surefooted Shetland by herself; but here, there must be a groom, or at least a mount of some sort after her, or she would be run over ; and as I have not been used to keep riding-horses, why, I can't, because — " A sweet smile finished up the reason. Of course Philippa was ordained to remain in the play- room all the evening, unless sent for, which I recollect hap- pening once when I was sent for too. I fancy Horatia was afraid either of us should feel neglected ; as if that imp could ever perceive neglect ! And Philippa, never allowed to climb on her aunt's lap, (oh ! poor Arnold Major ! how that word made him wince and shiver when she used it ; I can't tell who taught it her, unless the servants ;) Philippa ALMOST A HEROINE. 319 v.'oukl throw her -wild arms round Horatia's neck, half strang- ling her, and dealing immense smacks, that by Brobdignagian courtesy only could be tei'med kisses, all over her face. Al- most sternly — his cheeks burning — Arnold Major tore the nuisance off, and, I believe, by his marked disapproval, he drew down on his own head the " ignorant thing's " revenge. For scarcely a day afterwards, Philippa found her way into the drawing-room while they were at dinner and I engaged with Hilai-y ; often enough she played " Mag's diversions " there on a wet afternoon when it was not visitors' day, and whatever she broke, injured, or upset in her schemes, Ilora- tia (very firmly reproving her though) took care to remove all signs of before her husband should come home. This time I mention (Philippa imparted to me in after confidence, which I won on purpose), she heard them coming up stairs, and, frightened to be found there, (curious, I sus])ected, also,) crawled under the largest sofa, and lay there perdue all her length. Heard them enter the room, heard various other sounds — she took care to lie still — was privy to such sweet secret convei'sation as the little bird of the proverb of the softest wing and voice hears not — repeats not — in common with ruder secrets ! Meantime, Horatia being tii-ed, and the autumn evening a wild, wet one, her husband drew the sofa for her near the fire — discovered the intruder, who only escaped without reprimand because they were both too an- noyed to find words or time to scold her. She came tearing up to me, and told me every thing straight out. For a few instants I hesitated whether to show her I was exceedingly angry, and order her to tell no one else ; but I decided to let it alone, as my veiy interest in the matter would incite her to take more than she felt herself — a mere ()assing one, born of high health and rampant curiosity, as it proved. If I could do little or nothing in the matter of Philippa, I was thankful to find that at least the boy became my care alone ; he chose it to be so, or so it had not been. Of melt- ing heart, relenting temper, he showed no more sign than 320 ALMOST A HEROINE. she did. But one coixld not deal with either of them as with the " happy-born ; " their disadvantages pressed prejudice backwards, and wooed benevolence in double measure to overflow on their behalf. As for religious character, that seemed fanatically developed in little Hilary — a morbid predisposition to remorse, to superstitious awe that had no spring in faith, but only in his fear, a fear nurtured by pre- cocious grief (as weeds grow rank in wild churchyards, that in the pure sun Avould dwarf and wither). As he got hold of all sorts of books, — and there were strange books, though none evil, in the house, — he took a singular infection from that new class of literature, professing to reconcile the high- est spiritual mysteries with the simplest natural facts, and to explain the one by the other as easily as the chemical com- position of soda-water; books very interesting to the adult .and high-class literarian, who, as much as an honest surgeon must learn pathology, should study every manifestation of the " spiritual body," in order to test and appreciate the sound and healthy " animal magnetism." Not the standard pillars of the science, but the offshoot tracts, theses, and American pamphlets on odyle and clear-seeing ; (not the noble classics, Avhich are almost poems, of those poetic facts), but all kinds of collections of dream and ghost stories, many true, some false — (not dictated nor meant so) ; nay, even the new and startling re-revivals of witch- power, crystal divination, and fate-casting, with which the broad sea of modern generalistic publication is sprinkled unawares, (quite rightly, too, for the angling of those who are mature, or who have the prematu- rity of genius) ; such books, unknown to myself, (I was too busy in more matter-of-ftict fashion to heed his play-hours,) did Hilary suck down and retain, to the irritation of his in- tellectual "plexus," in an undigested mass. As nightmare springs from bodily indigestion, so did the intellectual pleth- ora react. The horrible and grotesque play equal parts in "incubus;" therefore, in his case, the morbid and the sad did so. A positive magnetic predisposition, too, made such ALMOST A HKRUIXK. 321 pursuits more dangerous for him ; he would lie on the rug for hours, his eyeballs, turned up to the ceiling, fixed and filled -with hazy gleams and shoots of sudden radiance, most uiichildlike — above all, unboylike ; to me most painful ; or ■would elude me after my most elaborate efforts to interest him in some wild, breathless narrative of travel or adven- ture, or novel phenomenon of science more like fairy than is all magic ; would then escape to some dark room or cor- ner, and watch the lambent light — that licks the edges of all crystals seen in darkness by a vivid vision — in scraps of sugar. Often he declared to me he saw ghosts ; I know he never did ; " the magnetic eye is not the eye of the clear- seer," says one who is wise upon the subject. If he had been born in certain circles, or certain novelty-ridden persons had got hold of him, he would have been spoiled for any active part in life, and sunk into a prodigy. Whatever must happen to him, I was resolved that this should not. It was the worst house he could have possibly come into ; for, one scarcely knew how, a constant excitement pervaded it ; and had he been a poetical child, this would have done him good as well as harm. Horatia's singing, when it came swelling from beneath, blanched him, made his eyes grow dark, with dilated pupils surcharged with weird expression ; and for hours after, he was, without being able to help it, too unstrung to learn. Yet no cathedral music — I had often taken him to the Abbey — had on him the least effect, though I have seen him start and turn momentarily rigid at the boom of a deep-toned bell. Still there Avas nothing to fasten on as a positive f;^ult in him ; be obeyed me better than any one, and with a better grace ; learned faster than ever, procuring himself just so much more time to dream ; nor was he actually rude to his uncle, as he had been wont, when they happened to meet. I think Horatia set on the boy a spell of reverence, enforced by hers towards him she alone revered in all the world. Arnold Major was precise about the child ; never failed to 14* 322 ALMOST A HEROINE. examine me as to his j^rogress, periodically ; was ever asking my advice, which it would have been vain to give, since, under the circumstances, it could not be followed ; for I felt only the best of the best of public schools would be of any use ; the child, though still so young, being more than ready, for such a destination intellectually, while morally he wanted to be born again to boyhood. I have said Arnold Major was conscientious ; but for his anxiety, I can say nothing. None of us are perfect ; and perhaps a perfect man would partake more of the nature of prig than angel. So here I must insert that my friends at this time realized Lavater's phrase of " attention without in- terest," with reference to all persons and subjects except his wife. Starved long on hopeless love, held long in durance viler than despair, riven suddenly, as if by death, — trans- ported in an instant, as it were, into the innermost recesses of that mysterious Paradise, round whose very gates hang fragrances that make the shut-out strangers giddy even to breathe, — how could he be blamed if all humanity was veiled from his heart awhile — if cares and duties swept by him, unheeded, not unfultilled ? For, harder than he had ever worked before, he must have worked now, to get home every day an hour earlier than before his marriage. This was indeed the case ! Ilis work must have been done too, for the house of Brown, Jones, & Co. would have discharged any unfullilling or mis-fulfilling of its servants, at a moment's notice. How intensely happy he was ! — though no need to him of partings to heighten the bliss of meeting. I believe that those transient daily separations of this husband and this wife produced peculiar results, which would not have been brought to fruition in less developed natures than theirs, even if de- voted to each other. Such daily separations may have sharpened the bliss of restoration to him, but Iiis nature was too earnest to require intensifying, and the intensification of such pleasure was but pain. And for her — she was a ALMOST A HEKOLNE. 323 woman who could not but suffer from suspense, the very shortest, concerning him with whom she was made one. Also, there lay deep nestled in her bosom a strange but true instinct of having been unfairly judged by him — even un- fairly treated by him, (seeing how he loved her,) for several lonely years. When he was with her, her generous wife- hood rose superior over this dim darkling instinct, as tlie dayspring overflows the twiliglit ; but in his brief, frequent absences, it woke and fluttered like a wounded bird within her. I knew it by my gift of sympathy, — a kind of moral divination, — which gift I hope I never have abused, but sometimes used for good. It was nobler than any one would allow it to be, that she devoted herself to that child Philippa, for her Avhole nature was in a state of delicate irritability from the overshadowing presence of the absent, — if such a phrase may be used, — and her organization was thrilling from head to foot through every fibre, like the mimosa lately touched by the finger that pressed, then left it. They were in fact, both of them, beings who could not understand each other fully till every mystery was fulfilled, of sorrow as of love, of faith as well as passion. CHAPTER XX. CHANGE OF AVEATHER. TiiEY gave only four dinner parties that winter, — Hora- tia had been accustomed to give half a dozen every year ; this time, I fancy as much for her own sake as her husband's, she curtailed the number. Scarcely would it have been graceful on her part, if feasible, to entertain no friends at all in her own established fashion ; for such friends as formed her circle on those special occasions had been friends of her father and known her all her life. She was, I think, vexed with me because I would not accept her invariable invita- tions ; at all events, for the last time she would take no nega- tive, and I went down perforce. I was not sorry ; I had never seen her, rather, I should say, had never heard her, so brilliant ; and I recollect thinking in the midst that it would surely be as hard, even as unnatural, for her to abstain from society altogether, as for a fine dramatic genius to " cut " the stage. And certainly in the mere part of hostess, she was perfect, for she was kind, a rare concomitant even of the grandest courtesy. I only mention this dinner at all, because at it I remarked a guest who looked like an intruder, and whom, albeit, she treated with a special and distinctive kind- ness, almost implying gratitude or cause for gi-atitude on her part, or some peculiar connection between herself and him. "When I say he looked like an intruder, I don't mean he failed in self-possession, or did, on the point of the palate, make himself at home ; but he was so abstracted, cast such stealthy glances about, then, as it were, pulled himself up mentally, ALMOST A HEROINE. 325 and seemed doubly (as I foncicd) unconcerned with any but the passing engagement. Once he peeped at me, — I fear I have the knack of attracting eyes by mine, and, if I may use such a phrase, of eye-reading ; at all events I have made scores of individuals, whose gaze I had attracted with mine, avert their eyes directly afterwards, and never meet them again so long as I was in their company. Such of these per- sons as I had the chance of knowing in the sequel, I always found sly, dishonorable, or possessed of some doubtful quality or impure secret. But of an eye that turns not from me, I am certain God looks out of such with the soul. I only meant to notice, however, that this man peeped at me. I gazed full at him, and he shrank visually. I saw no more of his eyes, and could not tell their color afterwards, nor ever recall their expression. He was a dapper gentle- man, grave, gray, and rather reverend, who laughed much at the saUies of the hostess even when they were serious (a peculiar quality of Horatia's wit), but who never smiled — who had no smile, I thought. He was devoted to her in manner and action, however, and once, only once — as she passed out of the room at the head of her sister stars — " their sphei-ed music silent in her sphere," — I saw his face soften, a mournful pity quivered darkly over it an instant ; in an instant it was gone, and his face set harder than be- fore. I am certain no one else remarked it ; in general, men ai-e no Aviser physiognomists than they are jurors, perhaps not so good. He looked almost like a man preparing for a heavy ill- ness, who sinks into a pathetic languor, and rouses himself alternately ; and Avho will not give in till he must. This showed more to me after the men were alone (for as short an interval as might jiossibly be — an apology for etiquette, indeed ; this the fault of the polite but very imi)atient host ! ) Next day, of course, I sent to inquire after INIrs. Major's health. She sent for me thereon (I knew she would) and I went down, expecting by instinct a repi'imand. 32G ALMOST A HEROINE. " Why ? " asks the reader. Listen ! She always looked particularly interesting when tired, — a rare thing with women this sickly age. She was sitting back in a very easy chair, fitting some plain work for Philippa ; (she made her learn to Avork, all honor to her for that.) The fine lawn looked very snowy and pretty in her hands ; she had taken to rings again on the right hand, which glittered like an iris ; on the left the wedding glory shone alone, and right vain was she of that tiny circlet, twisting it every way while she talked — anon covering it with the other hand jealously, as if she thought I might suddenly desire to steal it. She was soft and saucy together, one of her happiest moods. " I always knew you were dreadfully unsociable, but I did think you would forego your prejudices for the sake of your friends," she began straight out. " What did I do ? " I asked, innocently. " Nothing — that was the miss. I never thought you vain before, — on the contrary, I believed you modest." "Vain! ami?" " You must be so ; I know not a person — certainly not among young gentlemen of my acquaintance — who can talk more prettily than you do, when you choose. You are neither slow nor ignorant when out of your ovm books," (did she mean I was slow and ignorant in them ?) — " as you would make people beheve. You carry the poet into prosaic circles at the risk of disenchanting them of the notion they have just managed to entertain, that possibly you are one. A poet, I mean." " I don't write poetry, I am sure." " You know I think that a mistake also — " (she was re- solved to lecture me.) " You clip and trim your ideas to make them march in prosaic lines ; whereas ' winged words ' fall sweetest, even on untuned ears." " Next time I write it shall be a poem, and I shall get nothing for it, even if it shall be printed, instead of getting ALJIOST A HEROINE. 327 seventy or eighty ikhuuIs for a clipped and trimmed 'ideal' tale, that in prosaic lines ' drags its slow length along.' " " I thought you meant to be very brilliant," she went on ; "you looked so unusually accoumiodating." " Mrs. Major ! There was somebody you wanted me to please, then ; pray tell me who ; pity you did not tell me beforehand." " I knew you wouldn't come at all then ! Don't be angry if I say that all men are not your admirers, for, in compen- sation, I know not one woman who is not your adoress." " Delicious ! llast thou found honey ? Eat so much as is sufficient, «&.c." " Did you remark the gentleman on my right hand ? " " Particularly. But if he be my admirer, he showed it curiously ; he would not look at me. And do you know, I thought he looked strangely uncomfortable, considering his proximity to yourself." " Are you serious ? I never quite know whether you mean more than you say, or simply say much more than you mean ? I should be sorry if he were even uncomfortable. And in a social sense, I know no one so capable of comfort." " Ah, it must have been one of my hallucinations, — per- haps that celestial soup disagreed with his mortal stomach. It did taste like the 'brains of nightingales' distilled in gravy from ' Balzac's ' game. Did you know he had a pre- serve fed on sugar and nothing else, and all for his own eat- ms V" She sat quite up. " I don't think I half like your fashion of rambling in by-ways of reading — it makes your books unfavorable to the matter of fact ? Now that man was one of the few who take a desperate fancy to your books, — he would have done anything — have bought any number I bade him — and he wanted to see you." " He didn't look as if he did ! Who is he, may I ask ? " "You would have known if you had been out as much as you ought. He is the great banker, Rupert Petres — per- 328 ALMOST A HEROINE. haps the greatest going, certainly one of the fastest and longest. He was my father's very dear friend for years and years ; and my mother's long before I was born." " No wonder you feel so strongly for him then — I can understand — but then you see he was not my father's and mother's friend, and didn't know me long before I was born, — I mean " '' You mean you are dreaming very far off the mark. Never mind ! It is certainly very mean of me to find fault with you, when I am just going to ask you the very greatest favor that " " That what ? — " for she hesitated — " that a lazy lady can ask a fast young gentleman. I want to give a children's party, just before Christmas, — on Christmas eve, I think, — I know so many little dears. They will have a tree, of course, and I shall look after that ; also a comical magic lantern and marionettes; but I w^ant something striking to begin with. You see I can't bear those little plays written for children, to curb their pi'etty tongues ; and yet for the first half hour, unless they are disposed of, they are apt to do dreadful things on a small scale, and not to amuse them- selves, as the Fi-ench say." I saw it all ! — the excuse veiling the design. In reality she wanted to do honor to Arnold Major in the persons of Hilary and Philippa ; he could not complain, either, that it was on their account, if she invited a party of her friends' children ! but the fear of " dreadful things " was of course as clearly founded upon Philippa's peculiar idiosyncrasy, as that of the non-amusement on Hilary's. However, I felt instantly I could help her here, and grateful to her that she asked me. "Will you leave it all to me, then — entirely ? " " Certainly not ! " quite indignant. " How do I know how much you will want to spend — choose rather — for I know you would just ruin yourself to produce a startling ephemera — or epheraeron — which is it, you know Greek ? " ALMOST A HEROINE. 329 " I beg your pardon, I slioukl not think of insulting you so far ; it would be indeed (in the words of a great AVit) ' rob- bing the poor-box to pay the bank of England ! ' I Avill either give you an estimate, or send you in an account." " I never have accounts — I hate them. Can't you give mc the least idea ? " " You shall give me ten pounds, and I will give you the residue." " Gracious ! you can't do anything with that." "Can't I?" I thought. "Indeed, Mrs. Major, I can, and no one ought to spend more on such a thing, — nay, no one need so much." She gave me tlie money then and there. How she de- lighted in being rich, — all generous persons do, particularly women, I fiancy; Avealth gives them, in their own opinion, an extra strength — until they experience its worthlessness, unless other support accompanies it. "Now," she said coaxingly, "do tell me what you are going to have ? " " A tableau (I hate the term) a picture, from the " Mid- summer Night's Dream — " " Oh, please, no — it will be so awfully flat — the dregs of all the pantomimes mixed together." " You will see ; — I shall have Mendelssohn's music to it.'' " I can't allow that — it would be absolutely dead." " Wait till you hear my rehearsal of it ; I shan't permit one to be seen." Next day I wrote a note to John, and asked him a favor on my own account. It was to lend me, for one day and night, a certain supei'b stuffed owl in the " collection," and a marvellous musical snuff box, item ; the latter had been manufactured by a German, who, it almost seemed, must have had a myriad fingers to make it, and at least, three brains to invent. It was as big as a street-organ, and it played Beethoven's " Ode to Joy," PurceU's " Hymn on 330 ALMOST A HEROINE. Charles I.," all tlie chorales from Bach's " Passione," Cinia- rosa's " Hochze it durch List," Weber's Jubilee, " Ranz des Yaches," and all the " Midsummer Night's Dream " of Mendelssohn. The man Avho made it had spent all his patrimony on it, — sold every bit of his furniture to finish it, save the bench it stood on in his garret, and the needful tools ; borrowed five pounds on it to come to England, and pawned his only coat to advertise it. My uncle had, of course, heard of it ; and finally bought it for five hundred pounds, with which the German bought a tiny tobacco business in the Minories, and died of smoking, three years afterwards, worth quite five thousand pounds. I bade John (if he chose to oblige me) let me know w^hen I might fetch it ; but lo ! the very next afternoon he came in a hired Uglyvillian fly with it and the owl, the latter in a game basket of the largest size, and the former in his own arms, wrapped in the library tablecloth ! I thought Horatia would have died of laughing when she saw him. Of course, having heard of him before, she was all her generous self to him — wanted him to come upstairs, but he persisted in sitting in the hall ; and also in believing it was my house, earned by my literary performances. Horatia could not make him move even into the dining-room, nor Avould he drink a glass of wine. Arnold Major passed through the hall -while he was sitting there, — stopped, as he ever did when attracted by her atmosphere, — said something about her catching cold, and drew her in his arm away. " Is that her brother, Mr. Ernest ? " " No, John, her husband." " She ought to have had you." I never heard him express the least feminine penchant before, and this was his method of denoting his enslavement by Horatia : — " She has a pretty tongue. She ought to have had you, or, otherwise, she ought to have had your uncle." ALMOST A HEROINE. 331 Did he think wives descended literally from one man to his heir ? Poor Horatia ! — well for her slie had her choice within her doom. John would only stop to give, as he expressed it, the " horse a smoke ; " by which I concluded he had pelted in style from Uglyville. Then he asked for a glass of water — " because it costs nothing." " Is there anything else I could do, Mr. Ernest ? " with his head on one side. " You can send me, not bring them, mind, a lot of ivy and holly, — all sorts of evergreens, — and a great deal of moss, that flat moss, you know, John, that lines the very bottom of the dell." I knew that would " cost nothing." And on Christmas- eve morning came a cart John had hii'ed of a carrier, quite full of such greenery. Enough to represent Birnam Wood on any stage. Mrs. Major wanted to hire a portable theatre, dresses, &c., but I could not bear such a thing, one sees them every day now. We quarrelled a little bit, and then she gracefully resigned. I saved her something in cost, and as for the materials, — a few sheets of rose-colored and azure tissue paper, two old oil lamps with globes, never used except by her servants, and a quantity of fresh flowers (I would none of artificial) were all I used or needed. I have not seen anything half so pretty as my rehearsal, either. Those irksome children ! I had to go almost on my knees to Hilary to take a part at all, and even then it only amounted to his setting the elfin orchestra to work behind the screen, which, veiled completely with evergreens, hid the rose-veiled lamps and other paraphernalia, necessarily kept out of sight. Philippa, wild with being made Oberon (leaning out of an owl's nest, with an owl on the top of it), behaved very well then, and acted capitally, of course, because there was no one to see, and it was of no consequence. But afterwards, just 332 ALMOST A HEROINE. as I was congratulating myself, she comes to me (all the wee actors behig gone) : — " Uncle, you ought to let me squeeze the flower." " Why so ? — nonsense ; you did it very nicely." " It says ' squeezes ' in the book, I looked at it, — I wanted so to squeeze it." " "Well, my dear, you can squeeze it if you like ! " Unlucky me ! I had selected one of those carnations made of Madeira feathers (Horatia had a quantity of them), a vivid crimson, to outstand the more forcibly in the picture, rather than with strict regard to the text ; and, justly, I did not think it mattered whether she squeezed it or not ; it might keep her more statuesque to do so. Unluckily also, she didn't like " Titania," a grandchild of the very Rupert Petres whom Horatia aflfected so much ; in fact it was at Mrs. Major's own request I made her Titania in the group, for all the other little creatures were fairer far than she ; only, she, being excessively small (puny), passed well for eltin, with her eyes shut, and recumbent on a thousand flow- ers (green baize under them, to carry out the moss-tints I had heaved into my sloping background). " I don't like that child," said Philippa to me, additionally, that night. " If I had been Oberon, she should have seen a great bear after the flower, to eat her np." " Never mind, and be sure to keep still ; it is only a pic- ture, you must remember," said I, " for if it was not a very pretty picture, I should be so ashamed." In the very middle of the sweet, sweet overture, tinkling as from all the leaves at once (the picture was only to last so long), when forty real fairies were dimpling, peeping, and shining in every attitude of baby art (I let them all smile, provided they didn't laugh), when the eight solemn little creatures who fjinned the queen with real palms (I got those through Horatia's universal interest at Kew Gardens) were fanning as if they would never tire, — when the audience, (all papas, mammas, and nurses) were breathless with de- ALMOST A HEROINE. 333 liglit and vanity, — suddenly Titania shrieked, jumped n[), ran down the bank, tumbling over all her attendants in front, snatched at the screen and pulled it over, still screaming, while her mother, a fasliionable young woman of the highest watei', sent her head nurse to see what was the matter. The matter was that Philippa had privily soaked the cai'- nation in Horatia's Bohemian flask of eau-de-cologne, and the feathers had retained the moisture like sponge, till the right (or wrong) moment, when Oberon had discharged it straight into Titania's eyes. I only mention this little incident, because it was like the initial misfortune to what came afterwards. I never saw Arnold Major (who, ardent as he might be, had the sweetest disposition — sweet as his wife's) in such a downright passion. While Hoi-atia, having carried off the squealing little patient to her dressing-room, and there estab- lished her with her nurse, was setting on the puppets in the play-room, lighted and prepared on purpose, — I, still stand- ing discomfited in the background, saw Philippa borne off by her uncle in her fantastic dress. He lifted her bodily, and vanished with his burden at a door behind the overtopped sci'een, Wondei'ing what he had done with her (all the children were cleared out of the drawing-room by this time), I be- thought myself to go and see, and left Hilary still sitting on the floor, in the middle of the moss, listening to the musical box. He would not go with the rest. On the second floor was the set of rooms I inhabited with Hilary, shut in by double doors of baize. On this landing was a lofty staircase window. There was no moonlight, or I should have seen in time, and retreated from, two flgures. They were whispering ; I knew them instantly, and was turn- ing on my heel to go, when one of them heard me. " Here," said Horatia, in clear but not untroubled tones, " come and help me, Mr. Loftus, to disenchant this monster — a child-ogre on Christmas Eve ! " 334 ALMOST A HEROINE. " Whatever lias he done ? " I asked, stopping warily a few steps beneath the landing. " Sent that poor ' child terrible ' to bed ! Nay, put her there and locked her in. I hiiow she didn't mean any harm, whatever monkeyism, for she has seen me bathe my head a hundred thousand times." There was silence. I could see him press her again and again to his bosom. Then I heard : — " Oh ! my darling, don't make me remember my selfish- ness too hardly, for daring to be happy. Have pity — " and then his silent kisses devoured his words again. The woman's instinct, never failing, any more than chai'- ity, felt my presence there, which in the tumult left by his late excitement, he felt not after the first moment. She plucked herself very gently away from him, and turned to me. I saw his arms stretch after her, but she eluded them. She chose to do so then. " Do ask him to let her come and see the marionettes. Material has more power over the poor mite than immate- rial. She meant no harm. He won't say yes to me." " — Did you really wish it ? I thought it only your be- nevolence — your tender heart — " " Hush ! " She put her hand over his mouth. She would not bear compliments from him befoi'e another man. " I do really and sincerely wish it, if you think it right," she added, in the tone of that deference the tyrant-hus- band crushes under his heel, the man cherishes in his heart as the most precious part of a treasure immeasurably pre- cious. " I did not know you cared so very much. She shall come down directly. Ernest," — he addressed me, without turning to me — " will you fetch her ? The key is only turned outside." I went readily, but in going I had to pass them close, and I heard Horatia shiver, — scarcely strange, the night was ALMOST A HEROI^^E. 335 Cliristinas-cold ; but it was scarce like her, I thought after- wards, to say : — " I liope nothing is going to happen. See that shooting- star ! " For my part I knew not any superstition connected with shooting-stars. Perhaps she did. Had no terrestrial trouble intervened, the celestial apparition would never have been remembered by me, but have faded as its own fair trail in space. Philippa came down. No more of her — nor of the chil- dren's merry evening, which was glorious — Horatia, looking quite herself again, only her pale self. Arnold Major look- ing himself also, as I had seen him look before his marriage, when, after his first flush of hope, earthly cares beset him with their thorn-wound fever. The next day but one, Horatia informed me that she and her husband were going to St. Leonards for a week or ten days, the extent of his leave of absence from business in fact. She said she required sea-air, which meant, of course, she thought he did, but that she was little likely to say to either of us. However, I was thankful to see them go, for they deserved more of each other's solitary companionship than they could well attain in London. The children were, of course, left to me. Fortunately a decided frost set in the very day the travellers departed, and my agonies lest Philippa should demolish the drawing-room furniture, or that of the dressing-room, still more desirable in her eyes, were suspended by her taking a violent fancy to the ice on the Serpentine. I took her there every afternoon and taught her first to slide and then to skate — for a marvel, Hilary took a liking to the dreamy exercise as well, so that I felt sure I had them safe at least ; and in the evenings (hey were both tired enough to go to bed betimes. The fifth day a great snow fell, — a white veil, dreary as 336 ALMOST A HEROINE. darkness, hid the sky, and as so often it seems to happen, the spirits of my charges sank with the thermometer — and so did mine. Hihiry barricaded himself with his books, but only laid his head on them. Philippa stretched herself on the hearth-rng and scorched herself redhot. I essayed tell- ing them one of Andersen's tales, but was sure they were not attending — and in the very crisis of it, dull enough even to me, we all started together at a most overpowering street- door knock. Who could it be ? for it was but half-past twelve, — the travellers returned, unexpectedly perchance. But no, — nor had I long to wait, for a servant (in undress, with exposed shirt sleeves) brought me a card — Mrs. Le Kyteler — and she must see me instantly. Mrs. Le Kyteler ! who lived all winter long as in a hot- house, — who had never effected a single free and easy en- trance since Horatia's marriage. I was awfully alarmed, — fear of I know not what constricted ray very heart. I flew down stairs, for she was in the dining-room — she would not come up. There she was, wrapped up like a Russian to her very mouth in sable — but on my appearance she tlu-ew off a heavy cloak and I could see her face. It Avore a deadlier anxiety than mine, — her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes glittered. Nor would she sit down — I therefore stood on the rug — she did not attempt to salute me, but began at once hoarsely and imperiously : — " In as few words as possible, tell me, do you know through your friend anything about the disposition of his wife's money ? " " I know nothing more than that he is as wholly inde- pendent of it as before his marriage." " Tush ! a good thing to say now he has housed himself here ! Have you ever heard him say whether she trans- ferred her property on her marriage ? for she made her will all over asain. I know that." ALMOST A HEROINE. 337 " I never knew where her money was, and I am pretty certain he did not, tliough he may know now, for I believe their mutual confidence is perfect — " " No sentiment, if you please, — it has ruined more women than play men. Heavens ! Avhat fresh disaster ? " It was another knock — in an instant a gentleman came running in, his military greatcoat whiter than his whiskers, scarcely whiter than his foce. It was Sir Verveyne Waters — I knew him instantly, though I had only seen him at the wedding — a man I liked exceedingly. " I use no ceremony," he said. " I am sorry to see you here, madam — how fast flies ill-boding news ! " " Is it quite true, then — certain ? no hope ? " " Dead-locked — not a shutter down — they say he has blown his hrains out. No such chance — I know better ! Mr. Loftus, how is Mrs. Arnold INIajor ? her people tell me she is at the sea — not ill, I trust." " No, as well as usual — they only went for ten days, and this is the fifth." " No good to question him, Sir Verveyne," said Mrs. Le Kyteler, petulantly, " young men never know anything that is of any use. I have asked him already — his conviction is, of course, that the husband is incorruptible — not much to the purpose." "A great deal to the purpose," said the officer gravely — " if misfortune falls heavy on a tender woman, well for her if her life's support is incorruptible. In this hour I am glad she made her choice thus." Then he turned to me : "I know you to be very intimate with Mr. Major, — did you ever hear him express disapprobation of the house she banked at ? I have done it many and many a time to her." " Never in a word — nor hint — " " Do you think you would alarm her if you went down to them — suddenly, and asked to see him ? " " I could prevent its alarming her, I am sure." " I will go with you in the train — we shall catch one in 15 338 ALMOST A HEROINE. three quarters of an hour, — and on the road I will tell you my worst fears." He just bowed to Mrs. Le Kyteler — who said (she must have been in extremity of alarm to be so un- selfish) — " Pray take my carriage, and send it back here for me, — I will wait, it is so much quicker than a cab." So we went in her brougham. Oh ! that journey on the snow-blocked line, when we seemed whirling on wheels of ice down some Alpine precipice ! anon were stuck as if frozen to the drift. I will not write down our conversation — it is useless to rack memory, nor does it teach endurance ; it was short and sad — and I began to think I had underrated real troubles in overrating spiritual woes. On reaching St. Leonard's, we drove first to a stationer's ; I bought a blank white sheet, enveloped and directed it to Arnold Major in a hand unlike my own. Then straight to the address they had sent me — one of those large pretty houses fronting the fair sea — now dim and smoke-tinted against the dazzling snow-shower. We stopped in fact four doors off, and I went to their door alone. They were in the drawing-room, — passing up the wide warm stairs I heard her laugh — it rang out as from the fulness of deep delight ; — I had sent up no card, for fear of frightening her, but merely my name, and a message that I had brought a note on business. Arnold Major opened the door, and I saw into the luxurious drawing-room, with its crimson long curtains and enormous fire, — Horatia, in a delicious easy chair, basked full in the golden blaze. I know not what he read in my face, but he came out and all but shut the door behind him. " Only a note from Brown, Jones, & Co. about some busi- ness — it seemed immediate, so having nothing to do, I brought it — particularly as it was not to come by post." I held it to him — but Horatia heard at least one word — for she rushed to the door and dragged it open : — "Did you say Brown & Jones had failed'^" — she asked vehemently. ALMOST A HEROINE. 339 " No, no, Mrs. Major," — I felt as if I should clioke ; — her first thought for her husband had inadvertently glanced so strangely near the truth for her. How should I get rid of her? — through her pride, of course. "They said you were to read it alone, and give your answer" — she retreated not, but cast a jealous eye at me, as to say, " Tou are not necessary to his solitude if / am banished." He saw something doom-like, I suppose, in my regard, for already his own reflected it. " We will go down stairs an instant " — this to me, he did not trust himself to look at her. " You cannot go down stairs," said she, excitedly, (I knew she fancied something too) — " for we have not engaged the dining-room, and there are people in it — I will go up stairs, if need be, and you can remain. Mr. Loftus, is it anything about my husband ? " She pressed close to me, and poured all the wife-love of her looks full into mine. " No — on my conscience — by my soul ! " " Still, it would seem something serious, that you speak so. Does it concern me ? " " I don't know — it may." I glanced at Arnold Major, and saw he did not disapprove my straightforwardness. " What is it ? — don't bore me, please ! " " Two friends of yours came to me to-day, to tell me that Petres had stopped payment, yesterday." A moment, she turned her piteous eyes towards him — eyes of the wounded hart; — she reeled into his arms, then tore herself away abruptly — I never saw her so ungentle. He Avould have held her yet — he did yet hold her hands. Great tears rushed into his eyes, veiling such tenderness as I never saAv expressed in mortal face before or since, but hers were dry and emptied of expression, while all the haughti- ness, all the waywardness, all tlie passion of her nature, seemed fighting in her face. 340 ALMOST A HEROINE. Again and again bis eyes of love, his longing arms, in- vited her — in vain ; she struggled only farther from him, her bosom heaving with deep long gasps, that would not melt — her eyes like stone. " You don't love me, then," he said, " half so much as I have loved youP This was all. But, loving as the words were, they were not %oise. She dragged her bands from bis enfolding ones, — her wrists were scarlet with the effort to release them, — pass- ed swiftly into the drawing-room, and locked the door — leaving us both outside. Even he dared not to follow, then. " Is it true, then ? " I ventured. « AH — every ftirtbing ! Ob, that I had been unselfish enough, brave enough, to advise her ! Others have done so, she told me; and that deterred me. What shall I do ? " he added, with a singular expression, that was not wholly sad, and going a few steps farther from the dooi". " What shall I do to make her bear it — brook it ? — and this is the wild spirit I thought I had covered with my wings ! " I could have been angry with him for the sudden echo of exultation in his tone. Can it be believed — this man adored her j90or, with sudden and manifold ecstasy ; it was what had been the desire of his desires, though he had never dared to dream it. Realization of the penalties included came soon enough. I could not grudge such a momentary triumph to a passionate and noble nature. " What shall I do ? " again he said, with pleasure fluttering on his lip. " Leave her to God and herself. It is bitterly hard for her — " " Leave her to God !' — God gave her to me, and she her- self — she is my own — weak wretch that I have been, to doubt an instant ! Go down stairs, please — she might not like — " '" To find me there again — quite true." ALMOST A HEROINE. 341 I ivent down stairs ; but on the way I heard him knock, not rudely, nor loudly — very low ; and in an instant the door was opened ! I don't think I ever admired her so nuich as at that very instant. But just in illustration of her character, I must add, that by no means could I persuade Sir Verveyne Waters to let her alone, nor leave her alone with her husband. " I Avant to give her a crumb of comfort," said the direct old boy, and went to call on her. I waited outside, of course. When he came down, and climbed into the cab : " I always said (along with her father, who meant her to have been a boy) that she was a soldier spoiled ; she is as plucky as a pigeon sitting on a cannon's neck (I once knew such a bird belonging to a fellow who had saved it, once on a time, from the sportsman's small shot). I don't believe she cares a stiver for losing all her thousands. Poor Standish ! it is enough to pull him out of his grave. I had no idea, either, it was half so much ; she can't be extravagant, like most women. I wish I had anything worth leaving her, but the little I have will be hers, and so I told her. She is a ■bao-o-ao-e — and nothing can mend it. What do you think she answered ? — stared at him straight, and held up her head — ' I think myself the richest woman in England, General, and have now for seven months and more.' " All very well, I thought — but the baggage is a parcel whose contents you do not know. CHAPTER XXI. LOVE IN A MIST. It was bitterly hard for her — I repeat it. Of course it was not only improper, but " undisciplined " (is not that the term ?), of Horatia to object to lose her fortune ; of course it was wicked of her to regret it bitterly — intensely; but such was indeed the case. Only to have lost favor in the eyes of the man she loved, would have been a bitterer and more stony fate in her esteem. Born generous through every fibre, 'and of an organization that almost demanded luxury and respite fi'om care, for its health and well-being, with a temperament susceptible even more fully to pleasure than to pain ; with a nature so intensely passionate that, with a proportionate imaghiation, she would have been the great- est poetess that ever lived, but which (failing that non-desir- able faculty) made her only the more perfect woman : — so far so good, so sweet, so honorable ; but, alas ! as a human being (whatever as a tvoman she might be), she was no more feultless than her lord. Therefore, if he exulted un- duly in the fact that her future support would fall on him wholly, — that every item of provision she consumed, every rag of raiment she put on, would be procured by and through his earnings, she — well ! her haughty spirit, which took the place in her noble nature that worldliness takes in a mean one, positively revelled in its own exceeding discomfiture ; it was as though she sat down with her misery and hugged it breast to breast. Tlic first time I saw her after the catastrophe (one involv- ALMOST A HEROINE. 343 in"f the ruin of scores less able to bear the nakedness of poverty than she), I was surprised at her cheerfulness, her lofty air — it was almost grand ! Even he trembled at it, who only saw it through the mist of beauty that bathes the beloved one ever for the eyes that love ; but I — well, I thought she would be ill afterwards from the violent sup- pressed excitement (all the wilder because suppressed) which evidently possessed her. The shock fell on her nerves instead, and smashed her energies awhile ; I do not believe they would ever have recovered their tone, had not the sharpest remedy of bosom-pain, of anguish cradled in the blood, struck through all the outworks of sense and pas- sion to the heart, — the human heart, not the romantic one. If she rebelled in secret against the edict of what was certainly needless fate, she never showed it by word or strongly evidenced emotion. But, as I have said, she was not faultless ; I must note that her worst error was against her husband ; she could not reconcile herself to the dependence on him, which after all, had been as absolute before, if less palpable ; she raged inwardly against her impotence to be his almoner and financial fountain-head ; not tliat actually she had been either yet with his permission, but I knew she always had it in her mind that she excelled him on one ma- terial ground ; she was content he should surpass her on all the rest- As for him, he had never before been miserable. " I was lost for want of her when I had her not ; now I have lost her, for if she does not love rae, she exists not — there is no such being." These were a few of his words to me one evening, while she was, vivaciously and most rationally, super- intending the disposition of her personal effects. That same hour she came down while we were together, and re- marked : — " Don't you think that you might go back to the same house you had before ? — for they say it is not yet let, and it seemed to suit you so well." 344 ALMOST A HEROINE. He had been discussing with me quite desperately, whither he should remove. How she had found out about the house, we could neither of us tell, but I appreciated, even as well as he could, the virtue of her volition in alluding to it first. In fact, we returned there. I believe in her first, fresh bitterness, Horatia sought to mortify herself as much as j)ossible (like Job when he sat down among the ashes), for nothing could be much more repug- nant to her habits, taste, temperament, than that same neigh- borhood. But one part of her — and a vital one — was her exceeding philosophic aptitude to make of the worst the best. And, however she might fret and chafe at the conditions which bound her generous hands, and made void her natural impulses to give, she never sacrificed an iota of her rights as wife and mistress. Certainly they lived in the same house, but who could have recognized it ? She had sold all her furniture, save tliat of the room she had shared with Jdm, and that transferred made the new one a lesser model of the old ; but she had conserved certain articles of ornamental furniture, a number of drawing-room toys and books, her splendid piano of course, and the exquisite foreign filigree flower-stands that had adorned the stair windows on every landing, now filled every window in the house ; their plants, so carefully tended all along, bloomed brighter than ever, there. For the rest, — six weeks had not passed before Ar- nold Major said to me : — " It is inconceivable, and must be done by magic. She never even spends what I give her, and see the diiference between this time and ours." Ours in the past tense, because, of course, nothing — neither his powers nor her smiles induced me to remain in their house. One can get apartments fit to live in at Islington — the best part of it — at a reasonable rate, which, I fancy, can be said of no other region in or near London, whatsoever ; and thus, ALMOST A HEROINE. 345 on my own account merely, I was thankful to escape from an extra debt of gratitude, — what I owed already could never be repaid. Besides, I could almost rid them of Hilary altogether ; he stuck fast to me, and even remained with me at night. Meantime, Philippa was the solid incubus of the household yet, and I coidd not hope to rid it of her, though I had some small share in intercepting her rash inquiries and remarks as to the changes she beheld and experienced. For in the first ferment of excitement in the household before it was broken up, I had taken her alone with me for a long walk, and explained to her very seriously what had happened to her benign, sweet friend. No one knows how much children can understand, and how needless it is to invent fibs for them in order to disguise either natural mysteries or chance facts, from the pure vision of their undistorting innocence. This child was a rough diamond enough, yet the beams struck forth from her at the first touch of the light let in. When I had told her about the bad man, who had been wasting and spending other people's money for ever so many years, her eyes gor bright and rigid. I worked up the tale as highly as possible with side truths ; but when I reached the plain foct about Horatia, she burst out crying violently, and went into premature hysterics. The only way to quiet her, after giv- ino- her a very large shaddock to which she had been at- tracted in a fruiterer's window, was to make a secret of it, as between herself and me, and bid her not to reveal anything I had told her. "No one who is in trouble likes to be talked to of it, because it makes them cry, and no one likes to be seen to cry," was my suggestion. " No," said Philippa, and dried her eyes abruptly with her gloves, grasping the shaddock yet more firmly. I wondered whether I had produced any effect. Positively, yes! That very evening, just before her husband's return, Horatia stood by the fire in the beautiful drawing-room she was so soon to leave ; — nothing could draw Arnold Major from his daily duty now, it had become his pride and his glory. 15 * 346 ALMOST A HEROINE. Philippa marched in, trying to be quiet, and, of course, making every one of lier own footsteps doubly audible. She went up to Horatia : — " I say — you don't like me to call you aunt ? " Even " aunt " started ! So did I, — for it was a fact I knew inductively ; but Philippa could have only known in- stinctively, — she did not like it. "I want to kiss you," adds Philippa. Horatia was not one of your universal woman-kissers ; in fact, I hardly ever saw her kiss any person ; her embraces were reserved for one, at present. She stooped her cheek a little, however, and Philippa climbed on a stool. " Shall I call you Sliss Standish ? " Horatia laughed, — what a melancholy laugh — though born of momentary mirth. " I am not Miss Standish. No, certainly you may NOT call me so." " Then may I call you ' dear ' ? " " Oh, certainly, it is a very charming word." So Philippa did ever afterwards — and as she had never chosen to give Arnold Major the name of uncle, and had always persisted in giving it me, I possessed it solely, and possess it to this day. Arnold Major was quite right about Horatia's management — it was miraculous, and it proved, in one of the most tri- fling instances, how lost and imposed on are men without wives to care for them, not only like them — a vastly differ- ent thing — though in that, as in many examples, the "greater includes the less." I do think her pride may have helped her a' mere little, where style was the point in ques- tion ; but it never infringed on the tender forecast of her love where his comfort only was concerned. Horatia found " o|)portunity in extremity." Of the room opposite the parlor which Arnold Maj'or had used on the sup- position that it was necessarily the o?^/fy sitting-room — yes, of the room which had been given up to the children and ALMOST A IIEROINK. 347 their desires, she made the most exquisite drawing-room. In fact it was a long room, running the whole depth of the house. But Arnold Major, maidike, I myself after him also, had always underrated it because it had a hideous-pat- terned, sick-hued papering. Mrs. Arnold Major " changed all that ; " she re-papered it with the very simplest and tiniest moss-pattern in gold on white ; for here be it recalled, she had sold her personal effects to such purpose, that on the in- terest of the sum realized, she proposed to dress herself entirely. This paper was the only gift she bestowed on the house, — that is, bought for it ; — for, with the residue of fair-shaped and brightly-tinted articles she had reserved, she made that long, if somewhat narrow, room lovelier than the high echoing saloon in Wilton Crescent. No wonder Arnold Major was amazed ; — with the sum he had spent, or half wasted, weekly, his wife not only set up, but maintained a page, besides the woman-servant (Arnold Major's own orig- inal one) ; the boy, a nice little creature, clean, clever, sharp as steel, — nay, a very fast "■ buttons " indeed, who yet adored the shadow of his mistress so devotedly that he did not even hanker after the flesh-pots of Wilton Crescent, — for he had been bred there, and was the butler's first grand offspring. I know that (light weight as he w'as) he " sat heavy on the soul " of Arnold Major, the whole of the first year he was there, until the end of it. And then, " Positively we are not in debt ! " said my friend to me when I called on literary business of my own, and he could not help praising her to me (of course I don't know how much he covered her with laurels under the shadow of the rose). " Not only we are not in debt, but have saved something — so she says." Then came a pause filled by a sigh, which, had I not been tolerably discerning, as well as deeply interested and somewhat expe- rienced too by this time, I should have wondered at. How- ever, this is getting on too fast. If ever there is romance, as well as love, in a marriage, it deepens hour by hour, like the love. In fact, the grand dif- 348 ALMOST A HEROINE. ficiilty in delineating the life of real marriage (not formal and factitious, veiling hate, disregard, or unsuitability) would be ever to leave off'. Had one the right as well as the power to depict it, cui bono ? for, as is the case with all the few in- teresting subjects of discourse or scripture, so very rare is the interest it excites ; or perhaps rather, so few human beings can look up Avith marriage glory on their faces, because so few have married without some cause, remote or proxi- mate, of shame. In this iny marriage there was romance enough ; I believe the exceeding romance of both their dispositions saved them both from various small collisions with minute obstacles of fate, but it could not help either in the governing circum- stances which impeded for a time — not too long for good — their perfect vinion. Were they not married then, and happy ? Happy as never man or woman can be out of mar- riage ; nay, their intense and vital realization of the bliss of their positive existence had a tendency and close approxima- tion to pain, because it was so keenly jierfect. I have noth- ing to do with that, save to notice it, for had not their happi- ness been summer bright, the negative troubles (that impeded what I call their perfect union) would not have been excited either, any moi'e than motes can dance in the sunbeam when the sun is under cloud. I think Arnold Major believed that a few weeks, if not a few days, would restore her completely to him as she had been before. This was not, and could not be, because she herself was changed. Lovely as her disposition was, and noble her nature to its inmost core, she had never been tried in the manner she herself appreciated most painfully, until the instant when the terror fell on her. To call the loss of wealth a terror may sound absurd, but is really rational, be- cause our greatest terrors are not the most absolutely and abstract terrible thing or fancy, but what we dread the most. Then again, there is something in the quality called Taste which is little comprehended, because in this country it is ALMOST A HEROINE. 349 scarcely ever possessed. And to a person of taste it is very difficult, not only disagreeable, to be poor. Again, there are persons M'ho, without overvaluing money either as misers or spendthrifts, have a taste for it, which is quite as rational as one for eating olives or laver, — nay, as natural as an instinct for the chase. And Horatia, had she possessed the largest fortune in the world, — not the new world, but say the old sumptuous Koman one, — would have done more good with it, and created for a greater number more enjoyment out of it, than any woman that ever lived. I say woman, not man, because women are proverbially and openly extravagant whei-e men are secretively and slyly so. Thei-efore, knowing so many persons richer than herself, Horatia had never con- sidered herself rich, though she had been perfectly contented until the flush of pride had bloomed out of her love, — pride in being able to bestow even the credit of a richer wife than was he a husband, on Mm. If a greater personal trouble could have befollen her (which I doubt), I fear she would have behaved exactly as she did behave, full-facing all the world, as one unconscious of having imperilled her safe position in her social niche. In public so, I say ; and in pri- vate, turned, not restive (too womanly even for that), but shy and heart-veiled towards her husband — a little while, that must have seemed hoiv long to him. Of course, Horatia's afternoons were forever over, ab- ruptly cut out from the current and the future calendars ? Not at all ! They still ivere, — and were, of course, unat- tended? Nothing of the kind. In fact, any man, of any age or standing, who could fancy them made null and void, must be a greater muff than I myself (who, notwithstanding, did expect that no one would continue to call on her, having learned such old-fashioned and selectly narrow notions of my kind from my uncle, in the days when impressions are apt to be deep, if not ineradicable). Horatia's afternoons were crammed. I went to about six of them out of curiosity, and I should have been amused, but 350 ALMOST A HEROINE. for the face of the hostess. The struggle of her personal pride — it went no deeper, and was just as naughty — kept her erect, brilliant, desperately witty, but as calm as the frost, forging in white furnaces the myriad-moulded icicles. I fancy she was resolute to keep her intellectual ground because she had willingly surrendered her musical position ; nothing would induce her to sing in the long loic room, except to her husband ; I think she was afraid of her voice being too strong for it when it was full, as it always was ! and of being laughed at, which no one likes, — and she ! She could sing to her husband, though, while he wrote in the room across the passage ; and once or twice I was by his side, or near him ; and on those occasions her voice was like the sea when "It shakes the ■niiite pillars of the Orkneys." And he was like those trembling but eternal columns. His whole frame quivered, and his eyes streamed glory that the fiery strains alone preserved from dissolving into those great founts it is dangerous to break up, — the teai-s of manhood. " I cannot write ! " he said on one of these occasions, and dashed down his pen ; then grasped it hardily ; with the red light fixed on his cheek, that in a face like his is not a symp- tom of perfect health ; grasped it, and gathered up his whole mental energy and will to do what none can go on doing, — two things at once ! Even I was horrified at the stress upon his countenance, — his soul embracing hers, his ear drinking deep draughts of her voice, sweeter to him, and more intoxi- cating, than the fresh-pressed " blood of the grape ; " and his brain bent, bowed from its highest exercise to an em})loy which microscopically engaged it, yet was of its powers totally unworthy. What strain of nature can last forever, without reacting on the flesh ? And there was more. I suppose men always take men's parts ; but I could tell, and did not wonder, that it was a fearful disappointment to hitn she did not slip quite easily into the consciousness of being ALMOST A IIEROI>JE. 351 his own now, to provide and labor for, as well as to worship and to lend. He had no right to have expected that she would, but that he had expected it was evident. I could gather from his mere manner — nay, his mere expression — that, unfailing in the sweetness of wifely duty, she treated him rather more like a lover than a husband now ; I mean she did not open, through all her deeps and heights of nature, so fully and freely to him as before the misfortune had de- scended. Indeed, I ibund out from revelations of sickness, that all-revealer, afterwards, that she had not only haughtily, if smilingly, rejected all consolation from him on the (/round of the misfortune, but had laughed it off into pretended insignificance, and steadily forborne from further allusion to it. This of course might have been philosophy on her part, but I fear it was only pride. She knew her place as a wife, however. Arnold Major said to me one day, — " I cannot get her to go out, and she must miss it. Indeed it is as necessary to her as sun to certain flowers." " Why will she not go ? " was my natural rejoinder. " Because / cannot, — positively it is impossible for me to spare the time, — which is all I have ; I tnust push for the next ten years, and then, perhaps, we shall both rest and have time to love." With one of his heavenly smiles. " Do you really mean that she requires to go out ? " "I am certain, — she is so used to it; and in such organi- zations habit is not only second nature, but the very child of the frst." " If you really do want her to go out, ask her as a favor and kindness to yourself, and you will see." I was curious to see. Certainly he was right in consider- ing that her idiosyncrasy demanded great freedom and space to expand in, but it had only really done her good afler her marriage, when he had gone with her. To go alone was not only to her a fruitless trouble, but a positive nervous shock. Still, as I had expected, (I did not know how he persuaded 352 ALMOST A HEROINE. her, bat I believe he rather ordained it,) she did resume her old fashion somewhat, for about half a dozen expei'iments, — tliat is to say, she went out a little, returning very early ; but left off on a sudden. I don't think she told him why, because he did not ask her. I know I was frightened at both their faces one night just about this time, and yet the woebegone expression on both, so pale, so indrawn mutually, would have been positively sneered at by most persons, even the most poetical. For what cause did they suffer ? it might have been asked then, — no mist of envy defiled their sum- mer, nor abyss of the hell of jealousy yawned between them, yet the jealousy existed somewhere in their heaven. Ah ! if it be true that the " more delicate and exquisite a flower of joy, the tenderer must be the hand that plucks it," I think the same may be said of certain flowers of sorrow, — frail blossoms that will never come to fruit, yet fling their bitter perfume out awhile to fill the soul that loves with faintness, nay, with even sickening fear. Certainly the vanishing of wealth, " taking to itself wings," into the empyrean of non-existence, can be, must be, no trifle, or it could not so bereave certain persons of more than itself. People who have lost crowns, have borne it easier, — but then they had not the sensation which beats in the very blood of the child of a noble and wealthy parent, that the gold was as though coined — or, if not coined, conserved by love for the heir of all. Howbeit, it is rare to see sincere devotion, — always to be respected, if not admired and imitated, — rare especially to find it in persons of that caste, which, if it abjure not passion, as the Hindoo curses pork, yet certainly condemns the life of love as one to be avoided, unless enormous external advan- tages compensate for and cover its multitude of tender " weaknesses," that are never sin. It was Horatia's fate to have excited and preserved such devotion. Her loss of wealth, if it was a blow to herself, a ALMOST A HEROINE. 353 blow to love, through its twin passion, pride, — was a death- blow to another. It positively killed Mrs. Le Kyteler, who seemed to liave no disease before save that of worldliness, which Heaven is kindlier to, and death medicines much more gently and surely, than sectarians ever dream of. Iloratia's loss fretted her old friend to constant and vital-feeding fever, and not only her actual loss m her own person, but what she had further sacrificed through her ingenious generosity on behalf of her same old friend. This death, very sudden, if very easy, was a dreadful shock to Horatia. I never saw her (as I have said) shed tears positively, but her husband told me then (in half- despairing confidence) that she had cried all night after she had seen her friend die, albeit in such a gentle and unsufFer- ing end. I saw Horatia next day. It was true that nothing could be done between them, yet a third person could a little be- guile each of thera, when apart, from the speechless brooding over the mortal troubles that are real, which waste the nervous energy so fatally and fast. I sounded a few fathoms of the trouble in her case this time. " How are you ? " I asked, rather condolingly — awk- wardly, I dare say. She looked white as ashes and weary with weeping ; her very eyelids clear through at their edges with the fretting of the salt tears so unlike the dews, sweeter than those of morn- ing or of evening, that distil from love alone. But I had mistaken her if I dreamed she needed, or chose to accept, condolence. She was " perfectly well," had " never been better," — " what had I been doing?" — "she hoped I was not going to have many deaths in my present book," — the one I was now engaged upon, — "I was too fond of kdl- ing people ; would I like to see Philippa, who was growing an immense child ? " I refused the honor. " Should she (Horatia) sing to me ? " Ah ! I could not refuse that. 354 ALMOST A HEKOINE. So she sang to me superbly, but rather too forcedly, — sang about a dozen " new " things. " Lord Wilders brought them me," she explained, — lent them, I mean." " He does not sing with you now ? " " No," she answered, " there is not I'oom enough. I do not choose to ask him, — I mean, let him." " My friend must be very glad there is not room enough," I observed, out of perfect simplicity — still from a very strong impulse. Slie turned round, facing me. " I do not understand you," she said, in her coldest voice, still a very sincere tone indeed. As for me, I am born to have to do with secret things, though I do not tamper with them, I fancy. And when with a person noble-natured all through, I fear not my own audacity. " Don't be angry with me, Mrs. Major. I only mean that if I had a wife who sung as you sing, I should not he jealous if she sung with another man, (though I fear I should envy the fellow his voice,) but I should simply be very glad if any chance circumstance interfered with, or stopped, their singing together. Breaths mingle in singing when so near ; and such music is apt to upset a weak-headed, but excitable man, while it takes no effect on a woman whose temperament is unexcitable, save under the influence of 07ie — that one her husband." " Gracious ! Do you know what you are saying, and do you mean it ? " " Truly and honestly. If you w^ere not altogether a woman, you -w^ould comprehend my prejudice, and even share it." " I can only say that you would make a desiivable husband for the most jealous woman living — which I am not. Do you wish for any further entertainment, or shall I shut the piano ? There is a factory of some kind near, and the blacks are fond of settling on the keys." " Only one thing more — not a ' new thing.' Do ' say' me ALMOST A HEROINE. 355 «Tn questa tombca oscura,' as you pretend to sayiiuj songs rather than singing thera." This was a fact, a little affectation of hers ! She sang it ; and made me (though I am not superstitions) shake to my heart's centre with the loving fear, the awful love of death. As she finished, and was dreamily dispersing the symphony from her fiery finger-ends, she said, abruptly, — " But my husband disapproves of nothing I do, Mr. Loftus ; if he did, he would tell me immediately and I should alter it. One advantage men have over women (proper to their sex of course) is that they may disapprove of anything in their wives they please, and express it openly, without compromis- ing either their conjugal kindness or their " " Pride," for she hesitated. I went on, — " Do you mean a wife cannot object to whatever she chooses in a husband's conduct out of his conjugality ? " " IIow could you guess what I meant ? " she asked, evi- dently amazed. " You gave me to understand just so much as that you were anxious, and did not choose to express it openly to him, not that I think you right. But yet I would fain relieve your anxiety if I could." I saw her give me a stealthy side-glance, — she was jealous herself of somethmg, and very desirous to be sure I did not suspect her of anything beyond anxiety. I bore the scrutiny unflinchingly ; I never change color, save to grow paler, in any extremity, and this was not yet one, thank God ! " Don't you think he looks different the last month, — mrfuJhj tired and thin ? pray tell me as a stranger — I mean friend — at least as one who does not see him constantly" " I saw him yesterday, and then I had not seen him for a week. I saw no difference since the time before. Is he ill ? I only know he looks desperately happy, and as I have seen him look desperately unhappy, I am so far a judge." She smiled exceedingly — she liked to hear that — but still held her peace. ooG ALMOST A HEROINE. " But you surely don't reflect upon the fact that, loving you as he does, and as I believe no man living loves besides, he cannot help being sad to see you suffer, even from a trifling cause." " A trifling cause ! " " Is not a loss like yours a trifling cause for wasting and wearing grief ? I don't mean your new loss, — your late one I mean, which you don't seem to recover. Now / was very unhappy to lose what I expected, but it was because I found my uncle had loved me little and misunderstood me quite ; — I did not like being poor, but now I have ceased to care about it, — am even glad to be, since it has given me what I should never have attained without." " So you have taken upon you to lecture me, but your — premises are wrong. I had forgotten all about what you term ' my loss,' and was reflecting on something of much more consequence. I should not tell you, if I did not think you might help me in it. I cannot know what my husband does, but I hwiv he is working too hard, and that presently he will be ill if it goes on. I have no right to inquire of kirn, as he had not given me so much as a hint. And cer- tainly — now I think seriously — I ought not to have men- tioned it to you — even. So do not say one word about it. Men have of course the right to kill themselves if they choose, and if it is not against their principles to commit suicide." I could not quite make out her mood, — she bewildered me. Rather, I was puzzled by its duality, forever and anon, through her paleness ; and from her eyes, dull with tears, like a cloudy sky whose rain has ceased, beamed an expression of unconti'ollable and insatiable pleasure, a doting look as of a heart dreamy with drinking too deeply of its own delight, — a look I had never seen on her face or any other, for it Avas the first time I beheld the beauty of that fairest mystery, — maternity revealed. Well, it baffled me even more than the sadness ; and both ALMOST A HEROINE. 357 the grief and bliss were inexplicable in their intensity. I was not going to betray her, and yet I was resolved to dis- cover the cause of her fresh anxiety, (that was not jealousy.) I recollected the tale of the man who was made ill by a cer- tain number of his friends agreeing to meet him 'in different places and tell him one and all that he looked ill, and I was cautious. Horatia and her husband were worthy of each other for innocence, (that not being ignorance,) and the very next day he came to me, pale as he had looked the day befoi'e, but radiant, — too bright and blissfully at ease for smiles ; soft rather, and earnest, — earnest as love and death. Short time as it was since her marriage, yet even before her mercenary bereavement, Horatia had worried herself, as only such true women worry, at her want of promise to become a mother; nay, I myself lieai'd her, be- fore she had been a wife a year, declare she was certain she should never have a " baby." Her tenderness for children was indeed a passion most peculiar and innate — not created nor even formed by wifely love. CHAPTER XXII. BITTERNESS. However, the sweetest bliss that bears the " brand of sorrow " was hers at last, I could scarce find it in my heart to question him on any other subject ; yet felt as though it were a kind of duty to do so. I did not really think he looked ill, so I pretended to think it. " What have you been doing to yourself.-"' I said ; " you are overworking, beyond the mark, and it will never do." He started. " What do you mean ? Has she said anything ? " Certainly she had, but at that precise moment I did not choose to say ; so I rather waited, restrained by respect even for such shadowy confidence as hers, which betrayed to her husband by another man, might make a misunderstand- ing which had, not shadowy, but vital consequences. " You look ill, — very fagged and worn ; — is there any- thing I could do ? " At the least touch of humanity his heart always vibrated ; he was so human where even most unlike the human average. " You are very kind, you always are. No, I have not at all too much to do, but, I am thankful to say, more than I had, which was most insufficient." " Are the Browns going to scrape together the ashes of the Alexandrian from under their ages' accumulated dust- heap? Perhaps (like peat, in the case of human bodies) such refuse has not only covered, but preserved them ! " ALMOST A HEROINE. 359 " Ah ! I don't mind liow much you laugh at me ; I am too happy and thankfid to Heaven, and to my diirhng, darhng ^vife ! " His o-ratitude knew no limits; his noble nature recoiled not from the full confession of its gladness — where it was fully understood. Only I was anxious in the recollection of her anxiety. " How then about having more to do than you had ? — and tliat much having been ' insufficient ' ? " " Only that they are going to superannuate their account- ant, and, of course, pension him, and that I am trying for the situation, and hope to succeed." I stifled my desire to exclaim in any interjection which might divert this rare confidence of his. I could have groaned though. If thei-e was anything not only uncongenial to, but improper for him, it was figures. I don't speak with any nauseous, nonsensical notion that anything is improper to do which (being pure in itself) is j)ossible. But before I could keep books myself I should be in a strait-waistcoat, though I were to try with all my might. And he! — how much less fit than I ! — particularly because his general and chief occupation was trying to him in the extreme, and it induced constant mental tension, whereas my chief occupation was to me congenial. " But may I ask — does the ' game seem worth the can- dle ' ? — I mean, forgive me, do they pay enough to make the labor worth the love ? " " Oh, if I can only get it ; it is two hundred a year, you know." If he only got it ! I looked at him a moment in his manhood, so glorious in its j^urifi/ and strength, his intellect so masterly that disdained no duty, how inferior soever to its power ; his knowledge, that could (had it been matched in him with equal cunning, avarice, or worldliness) have com- passed any political place in the broad road of power. Yes, it was better thus, — he lost nothing, save a few paltry frag- 360 ALMOST A HEROINE. meiits from hands that reeked with the hard-wrung sweat of universal injustice. " I am sure you icill get it." (I couldn't say anything else.) " But can't I help you the least ? — I think I could." " No, no, — I'm not ungrateful ; but see, Ernest, would it not be strangely divarjing to learn one's Latin accidence or premier Greek grammar now ? I, for one, have absolutely forgotten mine ! It is merely creeping on one's hands and knees a little, however, to get up the equally foi*gotten figures, and it does me no harm, but you have wings, and it would be impossible in your case. Oh ! how I should lie down in blissful consciousness that I deserved it ! " he added, spreading wide his arms with that peculiar gesture of his I had always remarked, though seldom seen, — a kind of stretching towards the infinite, most when most human. "But surely it is not so difficult," said I ; " and when is it to be decided ? " " Presently, — in one month, I hope ; but they have many candidates already." " Heavens ! And they would dream of another, when you were on the list ? " " Of course ; they consider me the least eligible ; that is natural, for I am," quite calmly he went on. " Ah ! And you have to try your paces in the evening, I suppose ? " "Yes, — and that is hardest, — is it not hard? I don't mind saying so to you. It takes me from her, and it must. She does not know why, and I cannot tell her. She never would believe it is entirely for our baby — as it is." Strange revelations ; but how sweet is nature, shining through the truth ! " Ah ! you think she would imagine it was for hei' — for her only you toiled extra, and would fret and beat her wings against such ' walls of fate.' " " Of course she would ! She has behaved so generously, and has given me such cause, beyond even my desert in ALMOST A HEROINE. )G1 loving her, (I don't think either tliat is smull.) to trust her, that I dare not tell her I am trying to make more money, — she would be certain (nothing could unconvince her) that it was on her own account. And it is not, — she needs so little, takes so little for herself, and is so wonderfully content in her fresh, unexpected trust in me alone; that — not only I cannot thank her ibr that, but I camiot tell her the other." His face belied his words, as to the certainty that she liked the sole trust in him, (albeit, it was all the more generous if she liked it not.) " Why can't you tell her?" I asked abruptly, though I fancy it was a natural question. " Because you forget — she has lost so much that she her- self would have given to her child! Ernest, I have never confided so far in any mortal creature as now in you, — I don't mean anything I should confide to her — though I should tell her all, were it the time to do so. She would suffer more than needful if she knew I worked to remedy her child's loss in hers, — worked she would, of course, term it, for she has no idea of the slightness of the occupation, albeit it takes timer " How long ? You are two hours later every evening, I suppose ? " " Oh, no, not more than one — scarcely an hour later. I could not bear more myself, and I think she could not." I thought, moreover, that her pride compelled her to hide from hira how much she suffered in the one hour's defection, — nay, I was sure of it. Veiy wrong, of course, — still, perhaps, pardonable. I also knew it would be useless to try and persuade him to tell her his secret ; for, not to name him by so harsh a term as obstinate, he was immutable in his least resolve when taken. The eyes of love strike deeper than those of knowledge, and see, how infinitely further ! — the eyes of a wife's love are infallible. She knew him better and his future, where I 16 3G2 ALMOST A HEROINE. saw 110 evil, nor dreamed the dimmest shadow of impending Avoe. After our little lonely conversation, Horatia rather avoided me, never asked nor permitted me to see her alone ; nay, I fancy she detected that I had not strictly obeyed her in- junctions "not to say one word about it," and it was just like her not to question me as to the results of my intermed- dling-. As for him, he obtained the accountantship. Of course they were glad enough to get him, and rather ashamed to pay him so little ; though slightly helped out of their confusion by the certainty he would tell no one lioio much (or how little) it actually was, except me (for whom they had no reverence at all) and his wife, their respect for whom had been founded upon her fortune solely. If I saw thus little of her at this time, I saw less of him ; but I understood that perfectly. He could not have time to call on me. At last there Avas a gap of full three months between one of his flying visits and the next. Various re- mittances had meantime reached me, on the boy's account, through the post, — sent from the city of course. I was just then Avriting very desperately, and Hilary occupied all my leisure. As for him, I never could persuade him to take little messages to, or make inquiries at, his uncle's house, and indeed the only moments he saw Philippa were when they met out of doors, as happened now and then. It was about ten o'clock that day ; — how well I recollect it ! Hilary had just fetched out his books and put them on his own little table in the window. I was at my writing- desk, answering a mysterious note dictated by John, — he Avas always dictating mysterious little notes to me now, — I could never imagine Avhy, unless it was because we Avere noAV in the third year after my uncle's death. John's amanu- ensis Avas not great at spelling, and I Avas puzzling over a long word, Avhen a knock at the street-door thrilled through my very mai'row, a curious phrase, perhaps, but any one who has heard a trembling hand (not trembling Avith emo- ALMOST A HEROINE. -"f^-^ tion, but pain or illness) raise a knocker loosely hung, will understand me, — a low, uncertain, ominous vibration. I looked up and waited, and the short moments seemed very- long. As I had expected to see him, knowing his knock per- fectly by heart, I was not surprised when Arnold Major entered, but shocked inexpressibly, for he reeled rather than walked, with that ghost of an expression, vague, blank, yet passionately sad, which is only seen in illness, but only seen in illness on certain faces. He threw himself on the sofa, and could not speak to me at first. I took Hilary very gently, but firmly, by his shoul- ders, put him out of the room, and locked the door. Whether he would listen or not, I could not tell ; but it did not signity, he must be got rid of just then. I went back to my friend. He smiled — tried to smile — a wan and wasted phantom of his smile, indeed. "I believe in you — you will see," he said. " I want you to go out for me, this one day, and let me stay here quietly. I shall then be all right, and she will know nothing." One day of repose to repair such ravages ! And she - — surely she must have seen them. It was but the beginning, too, I knew that ; my heart sank in me, as hearts unll sink sometimes. " I would go to a doctor," he continued, " but I have no confidence in any. I never was positively ill in my life. Besides, this is not illness." " What then ? " for he hesitated. " Only fotigue, I think. I cannot know, of course ; it may, of course, be death ! But I have not slept for such nights and nights, and now have tried everything." " Thoughts of her made you sleep once, I recollect, before you had her too, when you two were far apar:." I wanted to touch him deeply, to quench the still fires within his tearless eyes, that perchance they might bedew the burning brain with their refreshing waters. It was of no use, his cheek only glowed more desperately ; his glance 364 ALMOST A HEROINE. seemed devoured and dried up by the drought that preyed on his whole frame. " You really mean that you have never told your wife ! — that she does not know, nor guess about these nights, — she so vigilant and tender ! I cannot comprehend it." " I could not find it in my heart, for then I must have ex- plained the cause. And she looks so ill herself; I fear it is the bond between us makes her reflect my misery. She is — I cannot say — I must not speak of her. No ! just tell me, can you go for me, or not ? " " 1 will go, certainly, this moment ; " and so I did, though he knew not whither. As for Brown, Jones, and Co., they might have been blown up by a powder-train laid privily in the cellars, or carried across the Atlantic bodily, and left on the Andes, for all I thought or cared about them in that hour. I went straight to her. She came down to me from her room ; she w^as changed, but not as he. She was pale to her lips, with the passion of bitterly suppressed suspense. I would not lengthen it an instant, nor would I frighten her, I thought. She did not hold out her hand, but stood, white-foced, wavering-footed, before me, a good way off. " I don't think your husband is very well ; he wants per- fect rest, and I think, if you were with him, he would procure it. — No worse ; nothing to see — except such dead fatigue, and that will be mended by repose, you know. He has taken none so long." Such wild wandering glances round the room ! I went a few steps towards her, for I feared she would fall. Still dry were her eyes as his. Had she caught the infection of that tearless fever ? Still she said nothing, but sat down in a chair. Such per- fect anguish of despair I never beheld ; it could not happen twice, no, not in the hour of death's short, but real separation. That she had given him up already I was sure. ALMOST A HKKOINE. 3G5 " I must tell you tliat he came to me and told me, because he wanted to spare you, whom he loves perhaps too well for his own peace. I will further tell you that there is good cause for all this ; he has been overworking, just that he might get two hundred a year more, you can tell for Avhom ! and his brain won't stand figures. All beings delicately, if finely, organized, must have such a crisis once." She got up abruptly, — turned coldly from me to the table. " Don't talk," said she, " wait for me ; " she wrote two notes with a hand that shivered to the very sight, tossed them over the table to me, " Please direct them, I can't clearly." She then dictated to me the names of the court physician and chief surgeon. I did not like that, but let it pass that moment. She rang tlie bell, and when the boy came, made a sign to me, she could not then speak. I ordered him to carry the notes instantly ; then I wrote a telegraphic mes- sage, — she eyed me wistfully an instant when I began, but left the room before I had ended, and came down in a minute with her bonnet on. " It is a long way," she said, with a sigh too deep. " A little Avay indeed, only round the corner." " He came to you then, actually to you first ! Oh, what have 1 done to deserve it ? yet I do deserve it, I know ! I know ! " She sat down and sobbed violently, hysterically, still with- out a tear. " You scarcely deserve his love, if you cannot understand it," I said. I actually felt angry tor the moment, for I had seen him in his extremity, which had in fact been too sudden (as are all shocks after long preparation) for her to define and perceive, whatever she might have dreamed or dreaded. Her agitation became awful, because so helpless for the time, and she so humiliated, — it seemed strange indeed. " I know I do not deserve his love ; I never did, I always knew it. I ouglit to have flung myself under his feet and stayed there till he told me all ; I ought to have thrown my 366 ALMOST A HEROINE. hands round him and held him fast every day, kept him at home by hanging to his neck like a millstone ; I ought to have made him weary of me and wish me dead ! " Her whole frame was as if in a convulsion. I gave her some water, she could not swallow it. I tried one of the old- est fashioned and best recipes with women, — for example : — " You must think of your child, or you will hurt it, and that would break his heart." " Oh, it is safe enough, no fear ! what is it to me in com- parison with him ? It does not exist, — or it lives where nothing can harm it — out of the life he has filled." It roused her though, — she got up and went down stairs before me. We drove quickly, silently. " Shall I go in first and tell him ? " was my question. " Certainly not." She went in alone, I dared not follow then, but went straight to the nearest telegraph office, having written for Lord Lyndfield on my own responsibility. Why did I write for Jiim ? I cannot say, except that when an impulse strikes through me directly, piercingly, I always obey it, for I never find it wrong in its result. Had I been ill myself, I should never have consulted any one else ; but I had no guarantee, not even any intuition, that he would understand all constitutions as he had done mine. I had not heard from him for quite six months, though I knew he was alive, for I had heard very lately from some one else ; she and I always wrote to each other once a month. I went straight back to my rooms, and found them already void of Horatia and her husband. There, however, sat Philippa on the rug dressing her cat in a black silk cravat of mine, and her own black silk apron. " What are you doing, child ? " I asked. Surely there are sand-grains of comedy in the base of the floods of grief. " '■Dear ' is very miserable. I should not be, if he was my husband, I should be glad. Is he going to die ?" ALMOST A HEROINE. 3G7 Rather awe-striick the last words. " If he is, you and I had better pray to be as good as he is, before our time comes, as it ivill " She tore the bUick rags off. " I didn't mean anything ; but I can't be so fond of kiss- ing as she is, nor ever sliall be, not if I married you, uncle ; and I don't like kissing Mm at all." Hilary — curious child — Avas sitting in the window, pale and grave — unlike himself ; as the girl spoke, he came to me and said, — " I hope he is not going to die, because I have behaved badly to him, and it would stop near me all my life." Strange power of the celestial gift men call conscience — where it is unsullied and unseared. " You may make some muflfms," said I to Philippa, " for I am going out." This to divert her from her mournful play. Making muf- fins was to cut out small rounds of bread with a thimble and toast them on a darning-needle. It was Philip[)a's favorite game, and I had the credit of inventing it. I borrowed the feminine implements from my landlady and placed them on the table, with all due appliances of bread, &c. ; but, as 1 was shutting the door, I chanced to look back and see Phi- lippa moistening the future mutrms with her (unfrequent) tears. How I yearned to go and see, or hear, what was happen- ing — had happened in this short time. But I feared for the future, if there should be a mortal future, and that too much (if how little) would be lost, were no explanation offered at the house of business. So there I went directly — first. Business knows neither sickness, sorrow, passion, love, sus- pense, nor — death. Everything was going on straight- forwardly, but evei-ything was dull. The handsome partner was very much disgusted at any reader daring to be ill, and very nearly told me so, — I saw him first ; — the unattractive 3G8 ALMOST A HEEOINE. senior was " very sorry," he said, (he didn't look so,) but my whole trust was in the partner who had furthered the ad- vance of Arnold Major lalehj, and who had a heart of flesh inside his heart of gold ; — he was very rich, and petted by the firm accordingly ; of good family, and feared by them in proportion. A very few words sufficed to establish me in Arnold Major's room "' until he should have recovered — " vague term, dimly veiling the possible fact of something other than recovery. And this partner procured me respite from attendance the rest of that day, — a kindly favor which made me fancy he too, perhaps, had lost — a friend. It was well he gave me even that short leave of absence. Horatia's passionate anxiety and helpless lovingness might have done some harm, or prevented some good, in the case of her beloved patient. She had been nearly doctored to death herself more than once, and yet in her optimism, not to say charity, (the optimism I have already taxed her with,) she could not believe that any physician and surgeon of high-sounding repute and vast practice — large fortune too — could err, at least be at fault, if not downright ignorant. They were both by his side, his bedside — I found, — could not even name the attack in plain English, and diametrically differed as to treatment ; but that the case was emergent they both knew, and looked (to me) inwardly appalled at their own fallibility. The physican prescribed opiates, the surgeon depletion. Of course I got Horatia out of the room for a minute, — it was like wrenching a limpet from the rock, even for that minute. " You mvst attend to me, and not look Avild," I said. " I can't help looking wild," she said, touchingly ; " it does not make me deaf. I can listen, — now, directly." " If you allow them to put on leeches, he Avill die. Die for want of the life that is in tlie blood, — it is so little, and all he has left. His pulse is almost indetectible, though so ALMOST A HEROINE. 3G9 rapid ; liis veins are almost empty. Besides, I heard him say once, when he was ill with excitement, that a French sui-geon ordered him never to be bled." " That is enough ; if he said so himself, it shall not be done, whatever happens. Tell me then, — advise me." " Take the prescription from the other, and give the pa- tient half. That is my intuition, and I should follow it blindly. I have written for some one in whom I have faith wlien I can trust at all." I gave her a glass of wine, not into her hand, for she could not have held it, but put it to her lips and she swal- lowed it like a child — then flew back into his room. I waited in the drawing-room, heard one of the arbiters of health descend, and then the other. Both carriages I'olled away. There was no going out for the remedies ; Horatia was never without a medicine-chest, and the prescriber had mixed them himself. So I waited. Then my pulses began to spin with the hastening of the crisis of suspense. Lord Lynd- field might arrive within an hour. An hour, and no mortal coming, — no voice in the strange house, which sickness, the sickness of the "just," makes solemn beyond all temples. Half an hour, and now my pulses tolled in my ears. Then seemed to leap up before my own a vision like a tongue of light, for Hora- tia opened the door ; spirit-quiet, awful-looking, she fled to me. " Come ! " she said, and not another word. That word was crushing. It made me blind with tears a moment, but her eyes were dry as dust. She was right in her instinct, though, when she told me her child was safe. It luas safe, isolated in its own soft paradise of love, amidst the great deep of conjugal passion that was now torn up with tem- pest. I thanked God that through my own exceeding ignorance, my instinct too had pierced with one ray of the truth. Well 370 ALMOST A HEROINE. for him, for her, and for me, that she had only given him half the overpoweringly strong dose of opium and other narcotic trifles, such as aconite and henbane, Avith a dash of hydrarg., a squeeze of lettuce, &.Q,. Had he retained the whole, he would have been poisoned, drugged to stupor, — the stupor next to death, — which must have followed it. Healthy as he was in every vein, the purity of a virtuous and temperate life could be no match for the violent means that are for the extreme of disease, whether inherited or from intemperance acquired. And his intensely reserved sufferings, trodden down and dormant in his former lonely life, would have (as nature will) reaction in the very freedom of perfect life and happiness. Therefore, much of his strength had been spent of late in very bliss, — how much more of his vital energy in occupa- tion that had worn his nerves, and strained their strong and subtile powers bej'ond the lawful mark. Then, too, there had been a misunderstanding between them, delicate, un- spoken, but how little of that bitter leaven leavens perfect love ! — spousal love — none other. She had called me only, because she could not hold him down. He was wildly delirious — as such a brain will be in the grasp of opium. A light dose might have acted differently — I do not know — on a brain wholly balanced and active, with not (naturally) the slightest morbid ten- dency. In his case there was no heaviness nor indolence of tem- perament to keep furled the " wings of thought." His palms burned as though each were redhot ; his eyes were each a living blaze that saw no human sight ; yet his brow was bloodless white, and not a vein stood out above the surface. I flung both my arms across the sheet which alone covered the bed, and made of them an ai'ch ; she sitting on the bed, beside the pillow, held one arm under his head, and never left her hold ; but Avith the other hand she grasped (rather ALMOST A HEROINE. 371 than veiled) her eyes. I did not wonder. I beheve she was, even in that extremity, thankful I was with her, and no other man or woman to hear his muttered passion, — the " real man " outspeaking in the hour when art and pride lie low. I had known all along he was jealous, but had deemed him so within the bounds of right and justice belonging to a hus- band. Now, the human weakness — woe to us all, we all share it in the flesh ! — burst from the living grave built over it so carefully by art and pride. He raved, — not loud, but in his own strong tones, sharpened «nd rarefied till they pierced the ear, — raved of secrets sweet as love, made sad by his suspicions, of mysteries half divine in their veiy hu- man excellence, darkened nearly to despair by selfish and all-exigent idolatry. Not a man Iloratia had sung with, or conversed with, or been acquainted Avith, or had amused, since, nay before, her marriage, but was recalled and condemned, in language wild indeed, but which seemed to shiver through her being with some marrow-piercing aiTOW of conviction, invisible to me that hour, perchance winged from the visible abyss of truth for her. Then the agony of remorse that clutched him, (conscience seeing in the dark,) because he had withheld one little secret from her ! It was a lesson certainly in the duties of love, whether towards God or one's fellow-creature. Still awake — so awfully awake — too vivid an awakening of every power, faculty, conception, instinct — no rest in any nerve, through any organ ; but all in anarchy, and the lord of all discrowned and clothed with weakness. It could not last, and mysterious as the struggle was, a greater mystery must end it. And now — strange words — more strange than any, prompted by such thoughts as made light-headed saints, in darker times, call them temptations of another than the self in every man ! He believed himself dying in that Avaking 372 ALMOST A HEROINE. dream ; cast glances on her that might have struck her to the ground hke lightning, — spoke of her forgetting him and being another's wife ! He had forgotten all about his child. I heard steps outside the door. She had crept to the bot- tom of the bed now, and hidden her face above his feet. I drew her away rather roughly. Alas ! there was no time for gentleness. " Kiss him," I said, " stop his lips ! some one is coming and will hear." She threw her face on his, gently enough, too gently ; she pressed his head against her bosom — so held it — buried it ; the wild words passed into her heart and only there. I knew something was at hand, — a sort of wild hope, fresh as the cold breeze before the rising sun after a whole night's fever, swept my spirit, — seemed to sweep my veiy brow. I opened the door. There stood, and entered, my first friend. How wonderful is Life ! A doctor, to be one truly, should be pure of all disease ; should radiate health, I think ; or, if I be in error, I felt it so that hour. " A healthy mind in a healthy body" expresses exactly the temperament and con- dition of Lord Lyndfield. It always struck me as the high- est proof of his knowledge and sympathy, that he could penetrate and feel for, even medicine, torments he could not understand. He Avent to the bed — the benign breath of healing seemed to float round his aspect. I felt superstitious ; I fancied for the instant his very touch would cure. Alas ! she knew better, for she searched his face with her despairing eyes, and when / saw his own — I saw he had no power — and knew it. " The chief symptom ? " he asked me, in a whisper ; " is there another symptom I do not see ? " "No sleep," said I, "for eleven nights, nor in the day. They gave him this," — and I handed him the paper. He ALMOST A HEROINE. 373 scarce looked at it, — threw it noiselessly on the table behind the curtain. " No time for delay or ceremony," he whispered still ; " I have but one chance ; but if you choose, you can lose me that. You must leave the room." I had no heart to marvel ; besides, he followed me. " Miss Hope is here ; she has saved more brains than I. But if she sees you, I will not answer for her skill. I sus- pected something of this sort, and brought her. Sleep he must, or die, — and not many hours off." " She shall not see me." Who can answer for himself in human extremity when it is one's oion? That moment I could scarcely grieve for; could barely recollect — the sick, perhaps the dying, to see her ! — for that I must, saw she me or not. Lord Lyndfield passed me, and went down stairs. He did not see me creep back into the bedroom, but I did, and hid myself entirely behind the heavy chintz folds of the curtain that drooped along the bed on the side opposite Horatia, where yet she sat — and looked half dying, too — as calm as death. His eyes had fixed themselves suddenly on the high can- opy ; she could not follow them. I knew she thought they would not stir again ; but again the new hope fluttered at my heart, — I thought they would, I knew not how. The curtain was double, and there was a slight chink be- tween its two divisions ; through it I saw all. There was not a sound of footsteps as Erselie glided in. She had altered, I knew not how, though I knew her again too well. Even in that hour her aspect smote Horatia through and through ; an eager terror, vague as death, and as awful, filled the wife's face ; she looked wild as a mother whose only babe a stranger seeks to snatch from her breast, — more closely she bowed to him, still with her arm under his head, but her eyes, dilated with dread, and brimmed with jealous tenderness, could not or would not cease from gazing 374 ALMOST A HEROINE. full at the other woman, — devouring her very looks, it seemed not lovingly. And Erselie, whose yearning goodness absorbed her pride, only looked with compassion, with supplication, with humility, at Horatia, who did not relent. I forgave her though, for I was to the full as ignorant of what my darling willed as she. And, oh ! how surprised at this new crotchet that had made its nest in Lord Lyndfield's healthy brain. Erselie only appealed by her looks a single instant to the tortured wife, and while she looked, she stood exactly at the bottom of the bed. Still poor Arnold Major lay, with those unseeing, upturned eyes ; then Erselie crept round close to Horatia, and even touched her dress, which in that very hour Horatia had thought (or woman's instinct) enough to pluck from contact with her. But Erselie took no notice, — only a heavenly sadness, soft and pale as moonlight, but nothing like it, overspread her noble fjice. Then she bent over him, and looked close into his eyes, looked steadfast- ly. I could not see hers, only the lovely lids on which peace seemed to pillow passion, and the lashes, like the shadows of an angel's wings resting dark upon the vault of night. His eyes fell from their fearsome stare instantly, by her mysterious power, or at her pure volition, I knew not which. They met hers — a dim ray, like recognition in despair, seemed radiating from that vague distressful glance. She raised her right hand — that hand whose fingers seemed alive with spirit, and in whose veins light seemed to dance and thrill instead of blood. "Well I knew her hand, but I did not know this gesture. As she lifted it, she bent the fin- gers towards hira slowly. That moment, that very instant, he gave a thrilling scream, and tossed over, like a poor, weak weed on a tremendous billow, towards Horatia's breast, and woman, wife-like, she was no spirit in that hour, nor angel either. Haughtily, and cold as death, with her arms, her bosom spread over and covering him, she surveyed the little ALMOST A HEROINE. 375 dark-haired thing with starry eyes, and brow a seraph might have carried in the seventh depth of heaven. "How dare yon hurt him?" said poor Horatia, low-voiced enough. She took care her tones should not so disturb him. In^desperation, I looked towards the door. Lord Lynd- field was not there — not coming. Where was he ? — should we all be lost ? " I wanted to make him sleep," said Erselie, in those won- derful tones of hers, so very innocent, so infinitely earnest. « I have made so many, worse than he ; and you will not let me, liecause you love him so." "ToH cannot make him sleep," said Horatia, restlessly, "only God can," still covering him with her arms and speak- ing very low. "There is something wrong besides; some one else here. I must be alone with him. Oh, let me!" said my darling, with anguish, with aspiration. The sick man heard — or felt it; — he turned half round, thou-h he could not escape Horatia's arms, with such heart- meltrng moans ! It was eiiough - wretch that I had been to hide myself; the other hnew me there. I had never heard this gift of hers spoken of; she was little likely to speak of any good she did — the greater the less likely. I understood it though ; I was not ignorant of natural miracles, though my faith had been long time weak. I passed out of my corner, went behind Ersehe, and so strai-ht to Horatia, — drew her by main force away from him, — she struggled as if for life,— took her almost m my " If you make a sound, it may IciU him," I whispered. Exhausted by her long suspense and sudden-stricken pride, she had no -strength left to resist me ; and she was never very strong, — always a looman in very weakness as well as love ! She couldn't walk now, and I quite carried her down stairs. There sat Lord Lyndfield, — no, he did not sit, he was stand- ing bolt upright, like a sentinel on duty. I was glad to see 376 ALMOST A HEROINE. him there, because, before a second man besides myself, I knew Iloratia would (outwardly if not physically) rally. I just laid her on the sofa, and went up to him — began talk- ing to him as though she were not in the room. " I don't understand animal magnetism, spiritualism, affini- ties, nor any jargon — no more does she,'' said Lord Lynd- field, not noticing Horatia; he had the wisdom to do, or rather not to do, that. " But it is wonderful^'' he went on gravely. " You know my chief patients, and what a lot they are ; she goes among them like Daniel into the lion's den — with much such results. She isn't afraid; and yet — that can't be the whole reason ! " I knew Horatia was listening, though she made no sign. " How did she find it out in herself?" I ventured. "Like all grand discoveries (as they say), by chance. She met one of my poor fellows, who had torn a hole in the brickwork with his hands and nails, and climbed over my wall into her garden (it happened, of course, when I was ab- sent, — I had gone to see a sick friend). He was running at her with a great knife in his hand (the knife he had secreted at a meal — I was not there, you see). She told me she felt a strange power pass into her or come over her — she didn't know whether she stood still or went forward, but she looked at him. ' I looked into him,' she said, ' and I felt as if I saw his soul.' He not only quailed, you know, as they all will under a steady sane eye, but fell on the gravel-walk. Still she looked — she was a little bit afraid of his stirring — and presently a gardener came by. She called him to come and look. They looked together — behold ! the patient was asleep ! " After that, she felt a strong desire to affect others. She read no nonsense — talked no trash to other women — but practised. There seems absolutely no art in the case, though there must be a born gift — as that of surgery." He half winked at me ; he had taken my cue, and was trying to amuse Horatia. Slie was still attending, and sitting up too, now. On a sudden she stood up — came with her ALMOST A HEROINE. 377 peculiar step towards us, and in a tone half hauglity, but also half repentant, — " Why choose women ? " she inquired of him, not me — she did not look at me. " We don't choose them — Heaven does, or whatever does choose human beings their part in life." " Will she — save him ? " How clear that voice, how heart-piercing ! Its calm had passed all hope, I thought. " If she makes him sleep, most probably she will." " / could not make him sleep." How wearily; her very wildness was worn out. Oh, woman, woman ! why not be content with wifehood, with the perfect worsliip of him you perfectly obey? Why not? Because she is immortal, and we all aspire who love, wheth- er love be hidden or revealed. Then over her face fell, pallid-dark, that shadow of wretchedness, that mock phantom of degradation, seeming real, which arises to haunt the good when they have foiled in love's least duty, or failed to fulfil its irrefragable laws in the very lightest particular. I could see she was wrestling with this dim trouble as an enemy, and that she had not strength to lay it. I should never have hinted such a fact to Lord Lyndfield (he was not a man ever to comprehend or to appreciate a being like Horatia), but I got him out of the room by a little management, and put him into the other with a box of cigars, a bottle of sherry, and the " Illustrated London News." If her husband's delirious complaints were sacred and are sealed from repetition, — far more must be the wife's. Suf- ficient to say that, to my knowledge, and in my presence, she drained the very dregs of her own pride, and touched in her bitterness the edge of death, — its sword ran keen along her spirit, like a naked dagger pointed to the flesh, — its cold but divine temper searclicd her through and through, and she must have been healthy and sound of mind and soul, or such 378 ALMOST A HEROINE. a probing liad surely drawn some poison from the wound. It did not ; — but oh, the bitterness ! — her own bitterness all poured forth on herself. Such self-accusations ! — she so loyal and passionate a wife — such turning the blunted arrows of self-suspicion against her own soft nature. I believe in that extremity, and long, long afterwards, she took to herself all the credit of his illness — or rather all the blame. And I be- lieve that for every particle of attention or of time she had bestowed on other men, she expected to lose in retribution whole ages of his presence in eternity. The questions she asked me — wandering and desperate — the strange terrors she conjured up — I could not answer her, for unnaturally exaggerated and embittered as was the truth they held or hinted at, it was still truth's essence, dissolved in overflow- ing draughts of woe. And bitterest of all was the fresh-steeped wormwood of her jealousy — her jealousy that another woman served him — was with him in her absence and her powerlessness. This jealousy she tried to hide from me, a man, but it en- veloped her as a garment — her face lost all its sweetness — her very figure seemed altered — strained, as on a rack, out of its form ; her eyes looked blind. Still her whole hody listened for the slightest sound up stairs. To me it felt two hours ; to her I doubt not like a drag- ging, darkest night. In reality (I knew afterwards) we were not a full hour together so. There had been no warning rustle, no footfall, no creaking door or stair. The door opened as in a dream, and noise- lessly, swiftly, Erselie entered on a sudden. Not like a spirit ! a woman, from the finest tress of all her silken head down to the tender feet that trod the " path of sorrow " as softly as if on flowers. No fancied halo encircled her ; she fancied none herself; her glory was the consciousness that, in sacrificing her happiness to Right, she had not need to sacrifice one gift, except that power to make another's joy ; ALMOST A HEROINE. 379 she marred not, nor mortified, the flesh sucli a soul made pure. Her cheeks, so clearly pale before, were touched as with a rose reflex, from the blood that the intensity of volition had driven too swiftly through licr brain ; her eyes were brimmed with a lustre as intense, — pale, yet vivid, like a lovely comet ; a radiance that shook over the dark pupils a silvery veil from the bright iris ; such eyes one sees not often, such glory saw I never. Unconscious of her fair and startling aspect, she passed me by ; but Ifelt hevfeel me as she passed. Straight up to Horatia she went, and took her hand ; that hand more than ever helpless, and more than ever fiiir. " He sleeps," said Erselie ; then knelt down by the sofa, put her head on her two hands, (withdrawn now both from the other woman's,) and broke out weeping. Horatia looked at me in white despair — despair that she had been told no more. I called on Heaven to sustain me, and went to my beloved. " She is anxious. May she see him ? go to him ? " " How selfish of me ! " said Erselie, rising with her sweet eyes clouded of their glory, and turning her wet face to Ho- ratia. " But I was so glad. Never have I tried so much. Because he is your husband ; and oh, if I had a husband, and he was sick, I should not be able to help him, because I should love him too much — like you ! " Poor Horatia ! The " broken heart and contrite spirit ; " but still the pride was there, and the jealousy, though put away and hidden, for gratitude for very shame. CHAPTER XXIII. "SyiLL WITHIN WILLS. A WOMAN was the only companion for a wife in that hour ; a Avife who might not even watch her husband sleeping ; for Erselie was firm as rock, and told Horatia she would kill him if she did not leave him so. I saw Erselie press her sweet hands on Horatia's pallid brow — a moment — saw Horatia shrink from that touch, then saw no more, but left them both together. Lord Lyndfield, with the window open to the back garden, Avas smoking out into the air ; a gi-ave face enough he Avore under the Aveedy influence, and hopeless enough he Avas ; but I could tell he respected Avhat he comprehended not in the mysterious sleep. "• All humbug in tin's case, of course ? " taking a morsel of unfinished Manilla from his lips. " If sleep be humbug, yes." " You don't mean he is asleep ? " " He is though, and alone." " Then I say no more. I had Avashed my hands, and I noAV deliver up my responsibility. He was not a stone's throw from the undertaker's." "I thought so" (I had indeed.) "Will he positively re- cover, Lord Lyndfield ? " " Nothing Avill positively be except to-morrow. But there is good chance if his Avife do not pet him, nor he coddle himself too much, nor starve himself, — equally absurd things to do." " Arnold Major ' coddle I ' " ALMOST A HEROINE. 381 " Certainly. I tell you what, I do not understand you neio young men, any better than the Puseyites, or spu-it-rappers, or table-turners ; nor do I fancy you will, any of you, make healthy parents for the next generation." " I am exonerated, for I shall never be a parent at all." He shook his head. " It is very fine, but, I repeat, neither natural nor healthy. What sort of feelings can a man have given way to and persisted in, to fall positively \\\ from them and nothing else, — a man Avith an affectionate wife and fair prospects, as prospects go ? And as for you, young one, I understand you. still less. You are not ill — delicate enough, but keep going — yes, are well. Yet you will neither make your fortune nor get married." " No." I knew this rallying was the expression of extreme phi- lanthropy, and a little materialistic doubt. " You can't live on angels' food, these stirring, striving times," he said again. " Multitudes of men did once, and wanderers too, in the pure air of the eastern wilderness ; and as long as they kept the ' sapphire tables ' unfractured in their hearts, it suited them, it was sweet to them to feed so. But my manna is not the old-fashioned sort, but the new — not all sweet, quite suificiently bitter, — nor do I walk in the appetizing air of Liberty, yet would I die a slave — if it must be." " Good powers ! I shall have to carry you back with me a bit. Yet, your mind is clear — strange images as it reflects. And you and my good child would seem to have a strange conn(;ction somewhere. You have both turned against me together, and soared out of my reach or help, poor things. Beware of dreams, though." " Dreams don't hurt the good — only the evil." " What kind of a woman is it our friend has married ? " he went on, after a few futile putf-^. Fancy describing Ilora- tia to Lord Lyndfield ! As well liave read Bailey's " Mystic " to the late Hugh Miller. 382 ALMOST A HEROINE. It is good not to know the future even when it is not dark ; the steps of progress to he lived, if foreseen, M'ould write wrinkles to remain, instead of shadows to vanish, on the bravest brow. Marvellous in its psychological simplicity is Harriet Martineau's depicture of the child who cried because she should have to wash and dress and have her hair done every day, her life all through ! Above all, how tedious to the tender hearted is the long, long lapse of convalescence in those they " love the best." Poor Arnold Major ! snatched from the grave and heaven, how tardy and struggling was his return to earth, and how he hungered fully to return ! How he hungered for health, and yearned for the strength that would not be commanded! He did not awake from that first miracle of sleep for hours upon hours, and then looked even more like dying than when he was so. Here, however, Lord Lyndfield's remedial craft stepped in, and how he glorified himself! He even forgave the new young men for being unlike the old, as soon as he could be of use, I think. And as for his devices to nourish the pa- tient, they were innumerable. Poor Horatia ! from the moment she was allowed to be with her husband, she believed he would mend " too-fast for time," — how he tried to mend, and how touching was his pretended energy when he could hardly draw his breath, nor bear the light upon his vision — when a whisper shivered through him like a ray of lightning down a lightning-rod. She knew it all, but locked her knowledge from him, — and for such a woman, at such a time, to conceal her passive anxiousness, was a more heroic effort than to have bound down her active anguish in extremity. Erselie went back to Lyndfield the moment he was out of danger ; I did not see her again, — by her decision, not my own, — but I readily believed she was a wiser judge than I. For days I took my seat at Arnold Major's desk, yet never for an hour filled his place, — I could not, it was not in me, though I did my best and was condescendingly overlooked. ALMOST A HEROINE. 383 It was all very well, this coiiH)Iaccnt lull in the house of business for six weeks or so, just so long as it had not hap- pened to signify, not being the " height of the season " for literary exposition, and the books I had to decide on in the mean time happening fortunately to be by known names, and fames (however small) aeeredited. As ibr the accountantship, that throve better with me than him, I had a brain less fragile and refined than he. Still, such a state of things could not last, I knew — so did they at Brown, Jones, and Co.'s ; so, alas, did he. I was hor- rified to find out (so easily, the moment I Avas alone with him) how this fact preyed on and wore him. " I cannot possibly get quite well," he sighed, " because it eats into me that they will not wait — they will choose another in my room, never will they retain you, because they will believe you, as an author, prejudiced in favor of your class." " Hold your tongue ! " I said. (Well I recollect the day.) " Something will turn up, it always does in the case of young ravens, authors, and readers ! If only you would accept the providence Lord Lyndfield offers, and persists in offering — rare circumstance for him." It was true Lord Lyndfield had written almost every day since his departure, (for this weakness of Avhich I speak was not constitutional, only nervous, and what doctor cares to watch or can medicine that ?) Every day had sent abrupt, but really serious, notes to me, to the effect that he desired (lie said ordered in the notes, but I didn't tell my dear friend that !) that he desired his late patient (he would call him so) and his wife (incomprehensible and uncomprehended) would come to Lyndfield without any nonsense, stay with him awhile in his vacant home side of the chase, and get all tlieir non- sense taken clean out of them by the extraordinary influence of the " fattest air in Britain." Of course, the grand allurement and prospect of recovery rested in the cream and camomiles of that northern Canaan. 384 ALMOST A HEROINE. But in this instance I really did think both those agents of " health, the natural religion," would serve iinperceptiblj to restore the wasted energy and enrich the attenuated blood. Then, I knew at the bottom that the intense vigilance of ihQ husband — not the patient — (awakening in revenge for its sick suspension tenfold strong) wore him more than all the other causes and l^ejit him low. I had not seen Hoi*atia since Lord Lyndfield went away ; woman-like, I fancy she was glad not to meet me ; but now I resolved to face her and win her over to my views for him, which were my only hopes. She w^as altered ; not in face, nor had she lost one jot of spirit, one trick of fascination, one particle of character. But a new light lay on her eyes, like the reflection of some twilight-dawning star, melancholy, not mournful, trembling in its very calm. Great sorrow had swept her ever tender conscience, and left it cold, not scarred or seared ; and had purged her bosom of its haughty self-reliance, made her trust in God and her human master greater, and her trust in men far less. Her very love seemed more human, more womanly it could not be ; and as for his love for her, oh, how she clasped it now ! how it folded her from head to foot, and veiled her inmost spirit from the vision of any other man ! " Certainly," — in reply to my long address (I always use too many words I am afi'aid) — " certainly, we shall go to Lyndfield, as those who know it recommend it ; I mean decidedly to beg him, as soon as ever I am straight ; I know not how soon that may be, but soon, I think. It is of no use for even me to ask him to go alone, and then" with a sweet expression, " I can pretend it is on my account, you see." I " saAv," I understood her. Right or wrong of me to do so, I wrote a letter to Lord Lyndfield, explaining her wifely scruples. Came there then a missive truly in keeping with him. " She was a foolish woman, or a selfish one ; she meddled with her husband's mending, and her child's well-doing after that. It was infinitely better for a baby to be born in the ALMOST A HEROINE. 385 country than in town ; the first breatli its lungs drew avjis sui-ely more adapted to fill them if it was air than if it was smoke." I never expected Horatia would hear such an arrangement, but she did; all honor to her! And she carried it through with downright courage, physical and moral ; she disdained her own natural frailty in the time of her husband's unnat- ural weakness — honor to her again ! It was really very good of her to go ; because Lord Lyndfield and she had not taken to each other, as the phrase is ; they were not persons, either, ever to do so ! Besides, she knew very well Erselie lived at Lyndfield, or close " thereby," and she could not forget, though she had forgiven, the hour of her own discom- fiture and powcrlessness, and the other woman's power and glory. So, a third time, honor to her ! Horatia went, and once more, to laud her justly, it was far more meritorious in her to go to Lyndfield, disliking it, than it would have been to accept the shelter (not proffered at the right time, I 7nust say) of any one of the other fair country mansions she had adorned so often, and to which she had so often been bidden, in former days o? fairer fortune, as men call it. Indeed,,! Avas glad and thankful when they were gone; yet I felt, how dispirited that day, or rather evening, for I returned from the city to find them vanished. I was to " take care " of the house, and the children had come home with me there. I could not pardon myself for the heavy weariness that descended on me, and wrapped my faculties ; no mist, but thick as London fog. Then the children — they were growing daily a heavier harass, for it was daily more difficult to do one's duty by them, and this difficulty, under present circumstances, would not diminish with time. I had kept them both with me, and out of their uncle's house, until that very day, at some cost (trifling enough to any man with a settled income, but much to me just then), as I was obliged to hire an extra room, and an attendant for Philippa, which 38G ALMOST A HEROINE. attendant, chosen in desperate need and the thick of all- absorbing anxieties, innoculated the child with all kinds of tricks through her unfailing imitativeness. This night they came home. I speculated much and long on their destinies, and the destinies of children born as they, to whom it seems as though Heaven, in its inexorable justice, is forced to deny the tempered wind it breathes on the shorn lamb. They didn't look much like shorn lambs, either the haugh- ty boy or the hardy girl ; and it was to me a mystery of the future how they would receive the tender stranger they had no dream of; I dreaded their cool or rough reception of it for its mothei''s sake. Anniversaries are not agreeable, I think, and not the dis- like of growing older, but the dread of going farther from any very dear point in the past, makes one, if one is not very sanguine, prefer all the unnoticable days to them. It felt incredible to me, for my part, to have gone so far from a certain epoch in my own life, which was a distressful blank, if not a positive grief But on it came in its recurrence, sure and slow — slow even to me, for I wished it over : the third return of the date I had learned my poverty, and taken on myself the doom of insignilicance. I do not quite know why I wished it over, for I expected no result from it, nor chano-e. It seemed incredible that mcorruptibility could per- sist in keeping itself intact ; and for even some months now I had not heard from John, nor of him, — he had ever taken care to keep himself informed I was alive, as I have said before. And so I Avas mean enough to expect he meant to shirk his responsibility in the matter of the iron box after all. Scarcely need I say that, if he had done so, I should never have appeared against him, troubled him, or inquired after him. Ten days after the wafe and husband had left town, this anniversary would occur. On its eve the children had been very troublesome indeed, — Hilary especially, who needed a ALMOST A HEROINE. 387 stronger hand than mine, and a more experienced head. How utterly self-disgusted I was ! I recollect wishing my- self a street-sweeper, like John in the olden times, and think- ing how pleasant it would be for a little while to have one's business and duty far below one's intellectual level instead of so much above one's moral one. I dreamed of John that night — all night, — which was, perhaps, not strange ; and yet, it is true, that I no more expected to see him or hear of him next day than to wake up in Australia. And if ever his idiosyncrasy dreamed in its life, I dare say John dreamed about me that night too. In the morning I was obliged to leave the children wholly to their own devices, even before I left tlie house, — nay, I could not go down to breakfast, for I had a double " leader " to carry out with me all ready, in consequence of some home-mess in Parliament making a devil's brew rechauffe out there two months afterwards. And I left the house thinking of nothing else but it — far less a dreamer than in the night. I think it must have been about one o'clock, when one of the minor bookkeepers (with a large ink-smear splashed on his forehead from surprise), opened my desk-door and looked in. He had not even knocked, and all the men at Brown, Jones, and Co.'s were as respectful as their masters were respectable. " The carriage, please sir." " What carriage ? " I exclaimed. " The two gentlemen said they were sure you would know their errand. And they have been first to Islington — that is why they are so late." " Just ask one of them to be so good as to come and speak to me." Generally, of course, I should have gone out myself to speak to any " gentlemen " — something withheld me now. One gentleman entered half a minute afterwards, bowing and saliiming, spick and span polite. Still I could not un- derstand it the least; though I had, I felt sure, seen the 388 ALMOST A HEROINE. man's face at some time or other, I had " clean forgotten where," as Mrs. Arnold Major might have said. " Excuse me," I observed, trying to be decently polite on my side (though without the least inclination), " I have not the remotest idea of your business ; will you oblige me by explaining it instantly, as mine, though slight, is urgent." He gave me a card out of a " city purse," in which was a place to carry such credentials. " Mr. Osborne," he said, as if reading it, while handing ; " I was present," he went on, awfully slowly, " at the reading of the Loftus will, three years since, on this very day, together Avith my friend, who is at present with me — outside, of course. We had not been legally employed by the testator, but were consulted by youi-- self after the demise — you were very young at the time." "And I'm not so very much older now. What would you have me do, Mr. Osborne ? I should be sorry to have to leave this just now, it being a friend's post." " Yet your presence is positively, immediately, and legally necessary." " Stop here, then, one moment, please." I blessed all the stars of the fortunate that the handsome head was wanting in the establishment that day, as to his bodily presence, having gone to Aldershott, (quite a new time-killer then,) so I could speak to my favorite, the part- ner who always looked exhausted beneath the pressure, not only of business, but o^ feelinr/s ; a curious man who might have been a poet, if he had been born minus the bump of acquisitiveness and the hump (?) of self-esteem ! He let me go immediately, and pretended it was convenient, though I knew it was not. John had sent the largest glass-coach, the only one left then, I believe, in the livery stables of the largest Ugly- villian inn. It had two large horses, as fat as prize sAvine, that moved like sloths in harness. Solemnly, albeit — we were all three solemn, and if only we had had on hatbands, &c., it might have been actually the funeral over again. I ALMOST A HEROINE. 389 thought we should never get there, and I suppose solicitors ■would no more think of making themselves companionable while in the throes of a professional catastrophe, than judges would shave themselves in their wigs. It was a good two hours before we got to the Roman Villa; and then, in the first instance, there was no John, he having left the street-door wide open, and run away — or rather, gone into the library, where he waited for us. He would not shake hands with me — would not even speak — would not even so much as turn towards me a single lash of one of his eyes ; but handed a little round- warded key (standing in front of both the lawyers, and ex- actly between them), as though he were anxious to divide the key between the two. One of them took it, the other inclined his head solemnly, and off we all moved in pro- cession up stairs, he heading us, and John last. Through the corridor none had trodden for three years, and past the doors of sleeping chambers where none had slept so long. Past my own bedroom door, which I shrank from and hankered after at the same moment (if any one can understand me). Into my uncle's bedroom — its corner — that iron corner. Next moment the key turned in its lock, soft as velvet, — it was open, the iron door, just large enough to permit its con- tents to pass through into the air. Then John produced the other and smaller key. But the legal gentlemen shook their heads, and both laying hold of the little box, they bore it down stairs again between them, like a miniature sarcophagus, placed it on the library table, from which all else had been swept away ; then plied the second tiny patent sesame, softer, more velvet-fitting than the first. Of course the legal gentlemen were about to address me in a proper professional exordium, in the act of opening (but still before opening) the box. But John aroused, vi- vacious as a canary bird at five o'clock in the morning. " Hold your tongue, sir ! What do you mean by keeping Mr. Ernest waiting ? " he cried so loud and shrill that he 300 ALMOST A HEROINE. frightened away their intention. In another instant the key- was turned, the box opened ; within it lay a small parch- ment roll, whose very red tape-twist was sealed with ex- quisite elaboration, — my uncle's coat-of-ai-ms in full, (of wliich, as John informed me afterwards, the signet and the die had both been destroyed after this their final affixture.) I really thought, now realization was at hand, that it was all an invention of dream together ; it even struck me that John might have contrived the trick himself. They did not think so, the two examinants, for they fastened on it like a couple of leeches, having opened it between them furtively. Very disinterested, as it could not possibly concern them. For ten minutes or so there was silence. Then, — "A curious document," observed one, " The most singular, to be regular, I ever perused," the othei*. " It is regulm^" John asserted, rather than questioned. " Most certainly." Then they whispered another minute or two, and unfixed from the open parchment a double sheet of large writing paper ; it had been simply wafered to the parchment edge, and rolled up with it. " This is private, I believe," said they (or one of them, I forget which) and handed it to me. It had on its upper side these words in my uncle's hand. " For my nephew and heir- at-law, Ei-nesto Loftus." The first light autumn brown, that creeps with time on ink, had even so soon touched it. " Pri- vate " was marked in the corner, I forgot to say. And like leaves of latest autumn, the sheets, in turning them, shook and rustled in my hand. On the inner page was written (it was like reading an epistle from the other world ) : — " I loved you well, my child, but certainly not wisely. I treated and restrained you in my tenderness as though you had been a woman Avho was never to meet or do battle with the world. I saw my error too late to mend it in my mortal life, but by that time I had discovered that existence would ALMOST A HEROINE. 391 last a very little while to me. I had not strength of mind to banish you while yet I lived. When dead, you will first re- gret, then detest me, and after that become indifferent as to whether I had lived or died. Not finally, for in the hour you read this, you will first leai'n to know me. If the years I shall then have given you for probation (few enough — had I been more courageous and less fond, they would have been twice as many) are tests of what I think you are integrally, you will thank me for them, and I also, I know not how, rejoice ! But if you be not what I think you, by that time it will be known to your own soul — and mine ; and then the blessing I have left you will change to bitterness — no need for me to curse you." A sort of wild rapture, irrespective of all but the fact that, little as I had been tried indeed, I was at least no hypocrite, rushed through my brain. I felt as though (without wings) I could fly — giddy with the amaze that had no taint of an- guish. I wanted nothing else that hour, felt no human pres- ence in the room (only a spirit still human, that was and must be absent). I don't know how long the suspension from the outward lasted, and I am sure I did not swoon; but the first pulse of resuscitated consciousness awoke to the sense of comedy in me, which, I fear, will never die. Thei-e was an awful smell, not as of a " tortoise boiled in brass," but of sheepskin roasting. The men were scolding John too, but he was outrageous, and didn't care ; his voice rose to a positive scream as it roused me. " Sure I may burn my own Avill ! " was the first remark I heard. " You said the other one was regufar." " It is not regular to burn it till it has been duly compared with the former under the eyes of the real legatee." " Never mind ! " again screamed John. But one of them pushed him oiF the rug and held his ai'ms back, while the other picked the thing out of the fire with the tongs, — a huge fire, quite filHng the library grate, but fortunately very clear ; so that, smutty and scorched as 392 ALMOST A HEROINE. was the document, it was, to all legal intents and purposes, still " intact," for it was presently " laid on the table," like a map, side by side with — u'hat ? My uncle's 7~eal will, made, drawn up, and dated, the very day after the false one, — his own too ! Copied by the same solicitor, and signed by the same " parties ; " to wit, John and the lawyer (as in the first instance), the lawyer as knowing as the other was ignorant of what he did. The will was precisely the same as in the former case, saving and only these trifling alterations — that my name was in the place of John's this time ; and a hun- dred a year for life to him, with five hundred pounds down to the legal gentleman employe, or to the lattei''s next heir in case of his own decease, were clearly and unmistakably as- signed. Quite as clearly and unmistakably came lastly a codicil, a charge to me myself, or so it seemed, — a great and solemn obligation, though it was, in fact, but the suggestion of a heart remembering its own weakness in the flesh, and together with that remembi'ance, realizing that univei'sal charge of the Maker of all, to " love." My uncle (perhaps touched deeply with the truth that he could not carry his images and idols of beauty even where beauty is eternal) expressed in the plainest words his great desire — for it was no command nor condition — that the whole Collection should be forthwith sold for some especial purpose of (what men call) charity, — the sum it should re- alize to be applied as I might think fit within such limits, if I complied with such desire. It being stipulated that the " charity " should be one wholly distinct from any so-called existing ones, except a hospital. Also stating (there are no hints in law, but in undress language I should have called it a hint) that he should prefer me altogether to use my own discretion in the matter. What discretion had I, Ernesto Loftus? I know not whether any. Dear Arnold Major told me I was a " child " in some things ; and I believe I must be, for my whole being sank down in a trance of wonder and terror at the responsi- ALMOST A HKROINE. 393 bility placed in my hands. I could not shirk it. I knew that. How I wished the lettei- had been all that was left to me ! For the first rush of joyful recollection that now I could really and substantially serve my best and dearest friend sank low — sank leaden-deep — Hke a waterspout in its explosion. For him I dared do nothing — for his wife less than nothing ! if such a phrase be permissible. To send one lightest right of his away from him would be sacrilege if not sin. Never shall I forget that night. Musing is wholesome, perhaps, but, when unfruitful, it is melancholy. I thought on and thought out — my feelings swept humanity. Here was a great boon granted me — to me, to whom all wealth was personally useless. And, oh, how immense a duty ; if pleas- ure be a duty — for oh, how delicious it is to give ! The one temptation besetting those of generous hearts and large means is to give in the right way. I knew this way not, how should I ? I must wait, as all those wait who love. At Uglyville again. I stayed there a few hours, but could not leave the children longer, and was thankful to have an excuse in them for leaving my old home. Perhaps this gratitude was morbid ; but I am sure it wasn't wrong. However, I did not leave my dear good old crony of a John for a little bit. What a mercy that nothing can alter tem- perament, the heaven-bestowed, I think — for its veil, or mask, or atmosphere shelters a good many souls. John's gratification was not the least noisy. On the con- trary, he assumed to have guessed the truth all along, for this is what happened between us; Avhen the lawyers had departed, finding me impervious to compliment or cajolement, I went to look for him. He was sitting before the kitchen- fire, smoking very slowly, and looking, as I can fancy those prematurely emparadised beings are said to look who chew (or swallow) the oriental hemp. " Why, John, do you enjoy it so much ! " " Don't I, Mr. Ernest ! it's my first." 17* 394 ALMOST A HEROINE. " First what, John ? " " First pipe, sir, since " Here he commenced to smoke again — or rather went on. " Is it possible ? You're half a hero, John ! But now I want to speak to you ; you needn't leave off smoking while I do, and you can take your time to answer. What do you intend to do now ? " He didn't take his time ; he took the pipe from his lips, and held it out before him. " I mean to take to meat again, Mr. Ernest." " Meat ! You don't mean it was anything but a joke about the bread and cheese ? " "Thi-ee years, Mr. Ernest, have passed, since butcher's meat or poultry has passed my lips." " But why, my dear, good man ? " " That, having made my will, you might the sooner enjoy it, Mr. Ernest." " But the tobacco, John ? that would not make you live any longer, would it ? " " It makes me sleepy, sir, and sleep makes fat, they say." " But now, John, you will come and live with me, won't you ? " " If you please, Mr. Ernest, — providedly you take charge of the money, — my money, — or else I shall go and spend it all at once." "What on, John?" " There seems many ways, sir, but I rather think the best would be on little children without parents, Mr. Ernest." Curious words ! How they dropped in my heart. I be- lieve in modern oracles, and half believe that the simple, not the foolish, are at times oracular. Children "without" — not children who have " lost " — their parents. What might this not mean ? Lord Lyndfield had declared that none of the " new young men " would make " healthy fathers for the next generation." ALMOST A HEROINE. 395 But some of them have healthy cliildren, and that is as good. The babe of Horatia and Arnokl Major was a prodigy of size, symmetry, sweetness, and serenity, — alHterative quah- ties belonging to it, and I can use no other terms. I know nothing so terrible, so unnatural, so bewildering as a funny, unshapely, cross, or restless infant ; albeit pitiful enough. I fancy the old fable of changelings came from the awful fact of hereditary weakness or imperfection developed by unlaw- ful marriage, — for such a thing there is. However, this child is still the most exquisite creature " going," and full of promise as a rosebud of veiled bloom. Being born at Lyndfield, the very dawn of the day I re- covered my rights, the master of Lyndfield Chase held it to be quite as much indebted to that surpassing climate as though it had been "thought of" there as well. As for Iloratia, she made up for her indifference (?) to it ante- natally, by her motherhood's perfection afterwards. She never went out in the evening — nay, never at all save when the weather was fit for it also ; she never danced nor sang save into its tender ears, till this same babe was weaned. She fulfilled the greatest duty of a woman's life triumphantly, for she preserved her own health in exactest balance for its sake, — not so very selfish a proceeding, or it would not be so exceptionally rare, I think ; — she pre- served her own health, I repeat, by strict adherence to the old laws of nature, so fast becoming obsolete, but which are eternal as the stars, as the hills, and — love. So her reward was — the natural result — an offspring healthy in body and in brain, the darling of nature and the grateful child of Heaven ; for is anything so grateful as the pure enjoyment of Heaven's best gift, Existence? Still, I said she fulfilled her highest duty perfectly, but I did not name it her greatest pleasure. Still, as before its birth, the cliild is as nothing to her, in comparison with him, its father. I think that ever growing, passionate, persistent, and glorious love of hers for her husband will teach her son 396 ALMOST A HEROINE. a lesson few sons have been taught before, namely, that in perfect conjugal love and union such bliss is to be found, such " full repose ; " that to put up even temporarily Avith its counterfeits would be something even more absurd — not to speak morally — than to exchange the very kingdom of Heaven for a mess of pottage. And as for my friend, — my darling brother, I may call him now, for bis own boy calls me " uncle," and is even named after me, — as for Arnold Major, I fear the only charge that can be brought against him is a certain quality ineffably lovely to those who love it, but which worldly per- sons call '■'■ futility r In revenge for his strained and set position in practical life, never let go by him, (I have else- where spoken of his tenacity,) he does become more romantic, in regard to Horatia, every day. He is, as a parent and a " new " man, at once proud and jealous of his child. I be- lieve he considers himself a hero not to repine at the num- ber of kisses which Horatia bestows on the baby ; for truly it is still a baby, and will not be forced out of babyhood ever, so may look forward to several baby years as yet. It was as hard as the lovingest being in this world can imagine, not to pour out every golden drop of all that sud- den gold-flush that had fallen on me on those, — so few ! — I loved. But I loved them, and they each other, far too well. If Arnold Major had not recovered from his distressing illness, it would have been diflPerent. I should not have had to force anything on him, for he would have token all he wanted, — I know that, — and so would she. But he did recover ; the perfect and entire relief from toil, and the necessary suspension of all responsibility, wei'e the means, so said the doctor ; but I greatly fear that being completely alone with his wife, where no one coidd get at her, was the crown of the result. Delicate he ever will and must be. Sometimes I have a dream I shall doctor him some day, and more effectually than any one else has or ever could. To explain this last vain speech. If I have a dream of ALMOST A HEROINE. 397 doctoring one man, it extends to mankind. I am studying hard, they say, but I find it easy work, because every bit of me responds to it. An idle man with a large fortune needs positively some superhuman pride, some seraphic Mentor, to prompt his every step and handful of largesse, and such guides are fsibulous these days. I don't know whether my uncle's idea of selling the " Collection " for a hospital prompt- ed me, but it may have done so, to endeavor to become a physician ; but I do know how all my faculties and long- ings stretch towards such an end. Meantime, tliere is plenty for all of us, if we want it ; but I only restrict myself to necessary expenses, though I " learn of all who know," and there is not a master of medicine in Europe, or the East, with whom I do not communicate. Having bequeathed my possessions, I care not what betides, only I should like to live long enough to he the first " Medicine-man " in all the world. Arnold Major did not heep that blessed accountancy, for I went to Brown, Jones, & Co., and refused it for him. In- stantly they were treated with, they skulked, (I can only use such an expression,) and the next thing they did was to offer him two hundred a year more for his readership, which this time he accepted, knowing he deserved it, and knowing also that he could not help the other officials being paid after the old regime, because I had placed a certain sum for their benefit in the firm. Anyhow, he and his wife want no more now than they own and possess, for the two children are my charge wholly, belonging to me altogether, and the highest proof of regard so conscientious a man could confer was be- stowed on me in the hour he gave them to me. Quite free of them, of course, the husband and wife are free of /tome at last, as they never were, or could be, while such children were in their home. All Arnold IMajor's savings are safe for his own, nor are they small. Also, if his wile should be the mother of " ten," (happy ten, if so,) the I'uture lacks not promise, ibr, to judge 398 ALMOST A HEROINE. from the Bank of England note for a thousand pounds, which Sir Verveyne Waters sent baby Ernest ■with his blessing, I think the soldier's " savings " are not so small as he made out to me. Then Yalliance Major's idiot child is dead, the only blessing that could befall it ; he has no other children, and perhaps Horatia's husband will have Castle Valliance after all ; if they have not money enough to " keep it up," as the saying is, they can at least, in that case, have plenty of beautifully built rooms for the " ten," should they dawn and bloom after the fashion of the ^r*^ Hilary and Philippa are getting on, each better than could have been expected. Philippa's woful and length- ened sense of bereavement, when taken from Horatia, was good to see, and made her better, too, I do beheve. Hilary still talks of the " diggings," and I don't discourage him, for I have learned one or two little things. For instance, my great desire, when first he became my charge, was to send him to Harrow. There he could not he entered, because not a legitimate child. That fact staggered me a little, but the shock brought wisdom to me, I believe, and hope. " The poor ye have always with you." Yes, and not only the poor. I am no purist of the school which denies all classes (virtually) except its own, nor do I affect the phi- losophy which is blind to such sorrows as are the fruits of selfishness or vice. I fear we shall ever, till this " sick earth grows young again," have the innocent children of the guilty among us, quite as thickly as the poor. Days and nights I brooded over this subject, but my first impulse was the best, I think, and in its fulfilment it has not played me false. In the old house, where I was never positively happy, if only negatively uncomfortable, I have made a home for such. There is nothing in it like a school, which my very soul abhors. But inasmuch as no man that ever lived could accomplish the least purpose of humanity quite perfectly without the aid of woman, so I am indebted for the ALMOST A HEROINE. 399 arrangement and management of this home to the two best women in the world. I don't half like calling it a Home, because that precious word has passed into slang some time ago ; and we are deluged with homes, sacred and secular, Puseyitical and Jesuitical, the length and breadth of the land. But there is no other name for it, and (unlike those its contemporaries) it is actually and indeed a home. A home of almost infancy as yet, so short a time has it been founded ; and I fervently believe that the children in it will grow up to call it so. Many persons from various places thought me very mean because I would not suffer a single article of the " Collec- tion " to be bought (or bidden for) under its exact and utmost value. They didn't only think me mean, but called me so. I did not, and do not care. All the good the richest man among us all can do, in this short life, is such a drop in the ocean, that it reminds one of the journey of a single ray of light through space, — or of the eternal truth — that Love is patience. THE END. D:^ Any books in this list will be sent free of postage, on receipt of price. Boston, 135 TTashington Street, August, 1859. A LIST OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY TICKNOR AND FIELDS. Sir Walter Scott. Illustrated Household Edition of the Waver- LEY Novels. In portable size, 16mo. form. Now Complete. Price 75 cents a volume. The paper is of fine quality; the stereotvpe plates are not old ones repaired, the type having been cast expressly for this edi- tion. 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