IBEI
 

 

 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 BY 
 
 
 
 VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND. 
 
 Take heed how you place your confidence upon any other ground than proof of virtue. 
 Neither length of acquaintance, mutual secrecy, nor height of benefits can bind a vtclou* heart; 
 no man being good to others, who is not good to hiinaelf. 
 
 PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 inSTO, Publisher, 
 
 3 1 9 ' W A s ii i X o T o N STREET, 
 BOSTON.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1809, by 
 
 A. K. LORING, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UOCKWKI-L 4. CHURCHILL, 
 
 Printers and S t or eot y pers , 
 
 122 Washington St., Boatou,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " WAIT a moment, wait a moment, Ross, and I shall 
 stop crying and be brave again." 
 
 The voice, a young one, and smitten through and 
 choked and half-smothered by some sharp pain, but a 
 voice that still gave you faith in it, in a power be- 
 hind that would assert itself and redeem its promise. 
 
 Then the answer came, a man's voice this time, 
 yet with some subtle family likeness to the other, 
 shaken a good deal, so that you felt rather than heard 
 the inward struggle that it mastered. 
 
 "Well, Jessamine,- I'll give you another chance. 
 It isn't too late yet. Say the word, and I'll throw up 
 the whole thing and stay with you* But you know 
 what an awful fact this poverty is, what it has been 
 to us all our lives. It sickens me now to remember it, 
 one long, wearing struggle to make both ends meet, and 
 keep up a show of decent appearance and of the old 
 family respectability when the means had all melted 
 away. Just think for a moment of our mother's poor, 
 worn, anxious face; it looked quieter and happier in 
 
 3 
 
 2054491 .
 
 4 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 the coffin than I ever saw it anywhere else, and I just 
 thought to myself then, ' Poor heart ! you won't be 
 harrowed any more about the rent, nor have that 
 dreadful hunted look in your eyes which I remember all 
 my boyhood, as quarter day drew near. The little, low 
 roof over your head now won't cost anything !' ' 
 
 He paused a moment here, and the other voice sobbed 
 in between 
 
 "All that's over now, Jessamine, for her, but for 
 us it's the old tory again, for a number of years, at 
 least. There's no help for it. I've looked the thing 
 fairly in the face, turned it round on every side. It will 
 be only the old strain and scramble, wearing out youth 
 and hope for each of us. It's a long, hard pull for a 
 fellow in the city without friends or influence of any sort, 
 and there would be years of drudge . at some clerkship 
 on a pittance of a salary, before I < "d provide you or 
 myself with a comfortable home ana b< t the wolf from 
 the door. But. Jessamine, you're ail i ?e got in the 
 world now, and come to the point, it's so tough to leave 
 you, that, if you say the word, I'll give it all up and 
 stay here, and do the best I can." 
 
 This time the p'ause was longer, and into it there came 
 no sobs. There were struggling breaths though. You 
 knew she was girding up her soul to speak. 
 
 " I dare not tell you to stay, Ross. It is true all 
 that you have said. It, seems to me, though, now that 
 the time of parting has come, that it would be easier to 
 live in a garret and on a crust with you than in a palace 
 without you ! "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 5 
 
 '' I don't think it would quite come to that, Jessa- 
 mine," with a smile, half-bitter, half-sorrowful, on the 
 freshly-bearded lip. 
 
 That was his weakest moment. I think just then Ross 
 half wished tha't Jessamine would bid him stay. 
 
 Perhaps the girl dimly discerned it ; but, young as she 
 was, she had a conscience, and a will that obeyed it. 
 Her inmost self had spoken in those words, " I do not 
 dare tell you to stay." It was right Ross should go. If 
 he stayed, all the best possibilities of his future might 
 be paralyzed. So, though this parting tugged at her 
 heartstrings, held in it some of the bitterness of death, 
 she would not bid him stay. Give the girl credit for it. 
 Of such stuff are the real men and women made, whether 
 they stand in high places or low, whether the world knows 
 them or not. 
 
 " To the garret and the crust ? " trying to return 
 his, smile playfully, but making a pitiful failure of it. 
 "But it would, come to the long, slow toil and wasting 
 of youth and life, which, in the end, would be harder to 
 bear than to know you are so far away from me. I see 
 there is no place for you near me, Ross, and, after all, it 
 is God's world there as much as here." / 
 
 The momentary weakness had slipped from the youth's 
 soul too. 
 
 " So good-by, Jessamine. You and I know all that 
 is locked up in those words." 
 
 A sudden blenching, a scared look on her face, "Is 
 it quite time? " 
 
 " Yes, the train will be along in half an hour. I
 
 6 THE HOLLA^DS. 
 
 thought it best to make this as short as possible for both 
 of us, so I did not get in sooner. Will you walk over 
 to the depot with me ? " 
 
 She saw that he asked this for her sake, not his own. 
 " No, Ross, I could not have all that loud, coarse crowd 
 staring at us when I spoke the last word, had the last 
 kiss like this. Good-by." Her arms tight about his 
 neck, her warm, clinging kisses on his lips. 
 
 u Good-by, little sister ; oh, good-by ! " His face was 
 working, his very breath coming in hot gasps now. He 
 would break down if he stayed another minute. There 
 was a small lounge in the room. He laid her right down 
 on that, as if she had been a baby, her face away from 
 him, and rushed out of the room, out of the house, 
 going to life or death; all that would be as God 
 willed. 
 
 Jessamine Holland lay there a while as her brother 
 had left her. It seemed that she would never have life 
 enough to get up again, except when she felt those 
 dreadful stabs of pain that doubled her all up like 
 swift blows. Once in a while she wrung her hands in 
 a sudden spasm of ache, when she looked out to the 
 future, >and saw the long, slow, desolate years before he 
 would come again ; he, Ross, the only one of her race, 
 the only thing, too, she really loved on earth. 
 
 " How much better it would have been if they could 
 only have died," she thought in the hot, passionate 
 anguish of her youth, " than to be on different" sides of 
 the world ! " 
 
 Suddenly she heard the car-whistle, that long, sharp
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 7 
 
 cry, that, familiar as it may be, never comes to you in 
 certain moments, in soft twilights and dead wastes of 
 midnight, without seeming like the cry of some wild, 
 maddened thing in pain and terror. Jessamine Holland 
 sprang up and rushed out. Betwixt the hills there was 
 a bend just before they entered the gorge, where one 
 might get a glimpse of the cars. In a moment they 
 came thundering along. She snatched off a little crimson 
 scarf she wore and shook it in the air. Ross would 
 know just where to look for the house. In a moment 
 she caught sight of his figure on the platform. She 
 could discern it plainly, though he was half a mile away. 
 He took off his hat, swung it in the air ; and the long 
 train glided out of her gaze into the hollow, and Jessa- 
 mine Holland stood there all alone. 
 
 The house behind her was a kind of compromise between 
 a cottage and a farm-house. It was old ; but there had 
 been evident attempts to restore it, at least, give it a 
 certain appearance of homely comfort. The color was a 
 reddish-brown, dingy with years. A low veranda 
 across the front had evidently been an after-thought. 
 
 It was an afternoon late in October, the air warm, 
 damp, and still, the sky smothered all up in gray, 
 opaque-looking clouds. There had been terrible frosts 
 that year, you saw all that by the withered leaves 
 and grasses ; they had lain in the grasp of death, and no 
 warmth and light now could stir them out of the torpor ; 
 still it seemed that the air had lapsed into a faint dream 
 of her vanished summer, a mild, moist, still autumn 
 afternoon that had something pleasant and soothing in it,
 
 8 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 waiting between the frosts and the Indian summer. The 
 landscape which stretched away from the veranda was a 
 pleasant one, with no marked individuality. In the 
 distance the hills rose to the horizon, bearing great 
 pastures half way up to their summits. Nearer there was 
 a narrow river, with its dark tannery, and its mills and 
 roads -sloping here and there, after a picturesque, inco- 
 herent fashion, as country roads mostly do. The town 
 lay on either c side of the river, and the rusty cottage 
 perched on the top of the hill took in most of it ; the 
 stores, and the dwelling-houses, and the great town hall, 
 and the little brown depot perched on one side, a 
 pleasant, wide, airy scene, but with no especial power nor 
 grouping of anything to strike an artist. This girl, 
 Jessamine Holland, standing on the. veranda, is the 
 central ppint in the picture fof you and me. She is not 
 handsome, noi beautiful, still less does the word pretty 
 fit her, as in one way and another it does most girls of 
 her age. She is very young, loitering somewhere late in 
 her seventeenth year. Her hair is of a dark-broAvnish 
 tint, fine and luxuriant ; and her eyes large, clear, 
 truthful eyes match it; eyes that you can trust, and 
 that will never betray you, either with smiling or weeping. 
 There is a fresh, dewy youth of girlhood about the 
 face, and the red, fine, yet full curve of the lips, all 
 suggest feeling and force ; yet it seems to me this face of 
 Jessamine Holland never belonged to anybody who had 
 led a careless, happy childhood. There is a .certain 
 thoughtfulness pervading it, which hardly belongs to its 
 years, and makes it sometimes look older than she is;
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 9 
 
 yet when the sadness slips off, as it does in bright and 
 happy moods, the girl does not look her years, few as 
 they are. 
 
 If the word were not so worn out with a certain kind 
 of use, I should say this girl had an interesting face; 
 it has a life, character, sweetness, of its own. There 
 she stands, with her flushed face, and her wet eyes, and 
 her lips apart, listening to the train as its rumble grows 
 fainter and fainter among the hills. . 
 
 The brother that swift train is carrying away is un- 
 like her in looks as possible, and there is only a faint 
 thread of family likeness in their characters. Ross Holland 
 is now just twenty-one ; he had the reputation of a bright 
 boy at school ; was big and awkward, though he has 
 pretty much outgrown that, and has come up into a 
 large, stalwart young manhood ; nothing particularly 
 elegant or graceful about him however. 
 
 As for his face, the features are large and of an agree- 
 ible homeliness, with eyes blue, wide, and clear as a 
 lake, that waits in the deep heart of some forest for the 
 summer dawn ; and soft, bright yellowish hair, with that 
 elusive, golden tint which poets love. 
 
 The history of this brother and sister is common 
 enough, but always a pitiful one. They come of a sort 
 of broken-down race on both sides, though the old vital- 
 ity of the stock seems to have quickened in them once 
 more. The father, a dreamy, indolent, impractical man ; 
 a wood-chopper or a breaker of stones on the highway 
 would have done more real service to the world, so he 
 had been honest and diligent, than the father of Ross
 
 10 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and Jessamine Holland. The man somehow seemed sent 
 into the world to be of no mortal use in it, t was a 
 mere absorbent ; yet he did not lack intelligence, and had 
 the manner and conversational habits of a gentleman ; 
 had, too, his little stock of pet theories, which he was 
 ready to air with a rather tiresome loquacity whenever 
 he could get a listener, but set him to any work which 
 required promptness and practicality, and he was doomed 
 to inevitable failure. 
 
 There was some lack of stamina, some want of balance, 
 in the mental or moral structure of the man, or both, 
 which made his fate ; how much was his fault, no mortal 
 could know. 
 
 Such a man, of course, fun through with his property, 
 though he had inherited what, with ordinary care, would 
 have made him a large fortune ; but it slipped through 
 his fingers like water through a sieve, while its owner 
 mooned and dreamed among his books and pet theories. 
 
 Mrs. Holland was by no means the wife for this kind 
 of man. She belonged to the delicate, nervous, clinging 
 type, one whom troubles and emergencies, requiring a 
 prompt perception of the broad bearings of the case, arid 
 practical energy to meet them, would be likely to break 
 down utterly. In those great test moments of life, which 
 in one shape or another come to us all, Mrs. Holland was 
 liable to go down into tears and hysteric spasms. Still, 
 the burden was a heavy one, and the shoulders on which 
 it fell were not fitted to carry it. 
 
 Long before their boy and girl were born, for these 
 were the last of a large household that dropped into
 
 THE HOLLA!\DS. 11 
 
 small graves, the family fortunes had begun to de- 
 cline. 
 
 Ross and Jessamine Holland had been born into that 
 old, miserable struggle of pride with poverty. The hus- 
 band and father Avasted his days in dreams and theories 
 that did nobody any good, and his wife grew worn every 
 year with tears and anxieties and shifts of every sort. 
 So the children were defrauded of half the life and 
 brightness of their years in the dreary, depressing atmos- 
 phere betwixt the irritability ef one parent and the wear- 
 ing anxieties of the other. 
 
 Of course, every year made it worse ; the misery, 
 being the consequence of defects and feebleness of char- 
 acter, had no remedy. The wolf drew closer to the 
 door. One piece of land after another was sold to fur- 
 nish bread and shelter for the household, while all sorts 
 of sordid economies chilled the young lives coming up 
 in the midst of them. 
 
 If there had not entered into the making of the boy 
 and girl some of the stamina transmitted from the long- 
 dead generations, this cloud and darkness that hung so 
 heavily on their blossoming years must have fatally 
 dwarfed their natures; but there was a force in both, 
 though of a different sort, that repelled much which was 
 unwholesome in the influence gathered around the dawn- 
 ing of their lives, not that they escaped unharmed. 
 The boy was naturally obstinate, and the rainy day atmos- 
 phere of his home often made him sullen. The girl was 
 sensitive, and she became more or less moody and pas- 
 sionate ; but with all this, each nature would often assert
 
 12 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 its birthright to happiness. *And slipping off all their 
 troubles, the two would flash up into hours of such high 
 glee and wild sport, that the dark old home would shine 
 out brightly from its prevailing hues of mist and vapor, 
 settling back, of course, into its habitual tone after 
 a while. For it was a dreadful struggle, a sickenm*? 
 
 OO i O 
 
 one, with no steady hand at the helm, and that con- 
 stant strain to make both ends meet and keep up some 
 show of respectability on inadequate means. It came 
 down at times to penury, actual suffering, hunger, and 
 cold. And still Josiah Holland mooned about the house 
 with his hands in his pocket and his face in a dream, with 
 the poor worn wife, the hunted look in her eyes, and the 
 pitiful faces of his children about him. Even their 
 youth could not quite shake off the feeling of guilt and 
 shame which clung to them. 
 
 Ross had just attained his fourteenth year when his 
 father's life suddenly went out. The family was no 
 worse for that ; on the whole, a little bettered. 
 
 Some remote connection bestirred himself and found 
 Ross a position as errand-boy in a lawyer's office. The 
 salary wag a mere pittance, paid to the boy's mother for 
 his board, but trickled a steady rivulet into the small 
 stream that nourished their lives. 
 
 So three or four more years went on. The father of 
 Ross had been a scholar, and he had educated his son in a 
 miscellaneous way, and the boy had plenty of opportuni- 
 ties to indulge his natural craving for study in his inter- 
 vals of leisure at the lawyer's office. 
 
 At last, however, Mrs. Holland broke down with anx- 

 
 THE HOLLANDS. 13 
 
 iety and overwork, and went out of life almost as sudden- 
 ly as her husband. 
 
 By this time, the stream which, thus far, had kept soul 
 and body of the Holland family together, was drained to 
 its sources. 
 
 Ross taught district schools in the towns around for 
 two or three winters that followed, and at last he found 
 a place in the city as book-keeper, on a small salary. 
 They gave up the old home which they had rented long 
 before their father's death, and the sale of the faded 
 furniture boarded Jessamine at the home of a servant 
 who had lived with her mother in better days, and who 
 had married a small farmer in the town, and had always 
 retained a loyal attachment to the household. 
 
 This family history has occupied more space than I 
 intended. The last words of Ross to his sister tell the 
 rest. The young man had clearly discerned the situation, 
 and what his prospects were in the over-crowded city. 
 A long drudgery at the desk, and a slender salary for 
 years, was not inviting to a soul tired of the grip of 
 poverty. 
 
 An opportunity suddenly opened of a clerkship in a 
 commercial house in the East Indies. * The salary trebled 
 his present one, and there was every prospect of advance- 
 ment for talent and energy. You have seen what it cost 
 Ross Holland to make up his mind to go. and how at the 
 very last his will well-nigh failed him. The feeling betwixt 
 Jessamine and himself was something very unusual even 
 betwixt brother and sister. Probably the lonely, darkened 
 childhood of both had knit them closer to each other.
 
 14 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Jessamine Holland had, as you must have discerned, 
 no ordinary force of character when it was put to the 
 test. She was resolved on some self-helpfulness, and 
 through her brother's influence she succeeded in obtain- 
 ing some copying at the two law -offices in the town. The 
 remuneration was a mere pittance, and of an uncertain 
 kind ; but it gave Jessamine a blessed feeling of 
 independence. 
 
 She was to live still with the family where she had 
 found a home for the last two years. The household 
 atmosphere was not refined, and there was much that was 
 coarse and repugnant to a nature that had inherited fine 
 tastes and feelings ; but kindness of a certain sort, and a 
 comfortable shelter, made up for much that was lacking. 
 At any rate, this was Jessamine's only refuge, and here 
 her brother left her.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ' ' WELL, ma, you know Duke always was singular, and 
 he would express his gratitude in a way peculiarly his 
 own." 
 
 " Certainly, my dear ; and one can't say a word when 
 we remember what an immense obligation the whole 
 family rests under to the young man. It's really em- 
 barrassing. It makes me shiver yet when I think of the 
 peril from which Duke so narrowly escaped. What an 
 awful thing it might have been ! I'm ready to do any- 
 thing that is proper and generous to the preserver of my 
 boy's life, but I really wish it was an obligation that a 
 handsome sum of money would discharge." 
 
 " mamma, it would never do to suggest that 
 before Duke. You ought to have seen the way he 
 flushed up when papa suggested it after they had gone 
 over the whole thing together. 'Sir,' he said, and 
 you know how Duke can say a thing when his spirit is 
 up, ' if I were such a caitiff as to offer money to that 
 fellow for so nobly risking his life in my behalf, I hope 
 he'd tell me that he was sorry he had not left my miser- 
 able carcass to rot under the waves. I should certainly 
 deserve no better answer.' '
 
 16 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " And what did your father say ? " asked the'lady, 
 with a little smile, evidently half enjoying the high 
 spirit of the reply, and only half. 
 
 " Oh, he hemmed and hawed, and said he was ready 
 and glad to do whatever was proper, and that Duke must 
 find out the best mode of proving our gratitude ; but I 
 thought papa wished, like you, that it was something 
 which dollars and cents could pay for." 
 
 In one corner of the handsome room the mother and 
 daughter talked in a low undertone together ; in the 
 other was a group of girls at the piano, utterly absorbed 
 in their chatter over some German opera music, pretty, 
 blooming girls, with a year or two dividing their ages, 
 and a family likeness more or less decided running 
 through the whole group. 
 
 Mrs. Mason Walbridge, sitting in the corner, with the 
 bright crimson meshes of the shawl she was knitting 
 flowing over her lap, for she had nice little theories of 
 industry, looks just^what she is, the handsome mother 
 of this blooming group of girls ; a lady who, under all 
 circumstances, and in any position which she may occupy, 
 will be certain to reflect credit on herself, a woman of 
 respectabilities and fitnesses always. But if your line 
 arid plummet went deeper than this, into heart, feel- 
 ing, sympathy, into the things that are vital and eter- 
 nal, this woman, with her fair outside and her scrupulous 
 life, somehow failed you. The great trouble with her 
 was an excessive worldliness. It interpenetrated her 
 whole being, shaped all her life-purposes, colored her 
 thoughts and feelings even, though Mrs. Walbridge was
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 17 
 
 quite unconscious of it, people are apt to be of their 
 besetting sins. 
 
 The world had always been kindly to this woman, her 
 life flowing in broad, smooth currents ; no dreadful 
 ploughshares of grief and loss going down deep into her 
 nature, and turning up the good or evil to the light ; if 
 there were in her, too, hot, sulphurous passions of sel- 
 fishness, envies, malice, their fires had never flashed up 
 to her consciousness ; all seemed as smooth and polished 
 as her life. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge had married prosperously ; indeed, 
 you could hardly imagine her doing otherwise. Her 
 husband was a rather dull, pompous man on the surface, 
 with a good many obstinacies and angularities, but with 
 plenty of business shrewdness arid foresight, as a long 
 and prosperous commercial career abundantly proved. 
 
 Mason Walbridge was fond and proud of his wife and 
 family in his way. He indulged them, with a moderate 
 allowance of grumbling, in all frhc elegance and luxury 
 which his ample wealth afforded. He prided himself on 
 what he regarded as the solid things of life, money, 
 respectability, social and business reputation. He even 
 had some ambitions beyond that, ambitions for civil and 
 political distinction. He lived in one of the large inland 
 cities of Massachusetts, and had been three times nomi- 
 nated for mayor, and once elected. ' ' His Honor, Mason 
 Walbridge," as it always gratified the gentleman to have 
 his letters superscribed, lived in one of the quiet, but 
 most expensive localities of the city. The house would 
 have struck you at once, with its solid, substantial look, 
 2
 
 18 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 in the midst of pleasant grounds, an ample, rather pre- 
 tentious stone house, with a couple of couchant lions on 
 the steps, dark and grim, a kind of stern warder of the 
 respectabilities and virtues within. Then there were 
 terraces, arbors, walks with facings of shrubberies, arid 
 on every hand rare flowers that rejoiced the eves and in- 
 spired the air; and a fountain shooting up its waters 
 from an urn between two reclining marble naiads, 
 everything very elegant and in good taste, you see ; and 
 everybody conceded that Mason Walbridge had the finest 
 residence in town. 
 
 The eldest daughter of the house, Edith Walbridge, 
 had slipped off her school-days, and was now in so- 
 ciety. Her family -was very proud of her, and in 
 many ways she certainly justified the feeling; a hand- 
 some face, after the mother's type, fine bloom and deli- 
 cate mould of feature, with a wonderful brilliancy and 
 archness which made her very attractive in society. Her 
 character, too, in its 'general structure, was like her 
 mother's, with something more of force and individuality ; 
 a haughtier temper when it was roused, a stronger will 
 when it was opposed ; but these did not often indicate 
 themselves, for Edith had the natural good nature of the 
 family. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge trained her children after what she 
 believed to be the most exemplary pattern ; indeed, she 
 relished pet theories and maxims, and interfused them 
 largely into all those admonitions on which the young 
 lives about her were mostly reared.* She desired her 
 daughters to become, after her own ideal, perfect women,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 19 
 
 wives, and mothers, and that ideal was one of exemplary 
 respectability in all that the world values ; an ideal, too, 
 that the woman believed she herself realized r although 
 a modesty quite in keeping with the rest of Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge's character would have prevented her ever ex- 
 pressing any such conviction. 
 
 " There, girls, there; one really can't hear themselves 
 think, you make such a chatter," was Mrs. Walbridge's 
 mild admonition to the four girls about the piano, as the 
 talk waxed louder and louder, after the manner of school- 
 girls. 
 
 It was growing towards twilight ; the golden lights 
 haunting the shrubberies outside, until they burned up 
 suddenly with the last unearthly glory and beauty of the 
 day, almost, a poet might have thought reverently, as 
 though God walked in the cool of the evening among 
 them. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge and her daughter, looking out, how- 
 ever, over the pleasant grounds, certainly thought nothing 
 , of this sort. 
 
 It was not an atmosphere through which flashed the 
 sudden inspirations of poetic fancies, or across which 
 loomed sometimes vast horizons of lofty visions, which, 
 though they fade swiftly, leaving us only the flats of 
 our every-day life, still ^ haunt our memories like the 
 mighty mountain landscapes where our feet have stood, 
 or the vast solemn seas to whose shores we have gone 
 down. 
 
 In the Walbridge atmosphere you always felt some- 
 how that wealth was the greatest thing, and the most to
 
 20 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 be desired in the world, the one solid, substantial good, 
 before which all other things dwindled in importance. 
 What if it narrowed and crushed also all higher impulses, 
 with all Teachings of the soul after that life that is more 
 than meat or drink? 
 
 "There comes Duke," said Edith, suddenly, closing 
 the book she had been indolently attempting to read for 
 the last hour. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge folded up the soft, glowing meshes of 
 her knitting. "I'm glad to hear it," she said. "It 
 was very imprudent to go out so soon after that terrible 
 exposure. I told him so ; but Duke is like his sex and 
 his age ; he never will listen to reason." 
 
 You would not have been half an hour in the Wai- 
 bridge family without feeling that this Duke was some 
 strong force in the household ; not a pliant, nor perhaps 
 altogether an approved one ; nevertheless, a force. 
 
 The others were always quoting his sayings and doings, 
 often with a little touch of ridicule or sarcasm, frequent- 
 ly with perplexity and more or less admiration. 
 
 There was a hurrying of .feet along the passage, and 
 he burst into the room, a young man, looking his years, 
 and they were twenty-two ; nothing very remarkable in 
 his appearance at first sight, as I know of, for Duke had 
 managed to escape the general .good looks of the family. 
 
 He was- not particularly homely either ; a rather slen- 
 der, though broad-chested youth ; a well-knit figure that- 
 gave a comfortable warrant of health and strength, but 
 not a particle of Apollo grace in its movements ; indeed, 
 it had been one of the trials of Mrs. Walbridge's life
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 21 
 
 that her only son should have barelj escaped being actu- 
 ally awkward and clumsy during all his boyhood. He 
 had outgrown that, even the slouch in his shoulders and 
 gait, though his mother in her secret soul hardly felt like 
 insuring the latter now. A light complexion, a face that 
 did not strike you as remarkable at first sight, but that 
 somehow won you to turn and look at it over and over 
 again, and each time you would like it better, a 
 strong, rather grave, manly face, with gray, clear, honest 
 eyes ; and, over all, a mass of loose beautiful hair, a 
 rich brown hue, gleaming here and there into auburn, 
 is the best portrait I can paint for you of Duke Walbridge. 
 
 That of course was not his real name, which was 
 Philip, though his family had so far naturalized the 
 other, that they would never get back to his legitimate 
 title. Duke was the household name. It had become 
 fastened on the boy when he was hardly out of small 
 clothes, because of a certain dignity and independence 
 with which he used to carry himself when he was op- 
 posed or angry, and which sat in a wonderfully amusing 
 way on the small head and shoulders. From his baby- 
 hood there had always been some marked character and 
 individuality about the boy, to which no other of the 
 Walbridges, big or little, could lay claim. 
 
 So this : ' Duke " had clung to the solitary male rep- 
 resentative of the family, and it was bound up with him 
 now, for good or evil. Around it clustered so many old 
 household associations, with their strong, homely fra- 
 grance, so much that was pleasant, and odd, and amusing, 
 so much, too, of all that was tenderest and sweetest in the
 
 22 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 young life of the household, that, though the statelier 
 name might be aired on grand* occasions and worn for 
 strangers, the other had its roots far down in their 
 thoughts and hearts, and would hold its claim, slipping 
 over their lips and in their ears, the dear old, thread- 
 bare household name. 
 
 There was a little stir at the piano and in the corner 
 when he came. Duke always brought in one way and 
 another a fresh breeze into the family circle. 
 
 " Well, Duke, you do get over your ducking the easi- 
 est of anybody I ever saw," laughed Edith, who was 
 always fond of rallying her brother. 
 
 "Hush, dear!" said her mother, gravely. "It was 
 too serious a matter to speak of in that light way. I 
 declare, Duke, I never can bear the thought of your 
 going on the water again." 
 
 "Well, then, you must make up your mind to my 
 finding Death some time on the land then, mother. It 
 strikes me one doesn't make much by standing at guard 
 with Fate all the time, as Angelos did with envy. Death 
 is sure to have the victory in the end." 
 
 "Why, Duke," said Eva, the youngest of his sisters, 
 the pet, too, coming over and hanging on him ; 
 "one would think, to hear you talk, you were as ready 
 to die as John Knox. or one of the old martyrs." 
 
 " No," speaking very seriously. " I didn't feel that 
 way at all when I found myself going down and the cold, 
 salt brine gurgling and choking in my throat. Ugh ! 
 don't talk about it." 
 
 Eva drew nearer to her brother in a caressing way.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 28 
 
 slipping one arm about his neck. There was a moment's 
 lull at the piano. Duke's story had a dramatic interest 
 for the girls, that superseded the German opera for a 
 time. They were never tired of hearing him go over the 
 details, and it was not often they could get him to talk 
 about it. 
 
 Duke was dreadfully moody in this, as in most other 
 things. He went on now in a moment, half- talking to 
 himself, " I tell you it brought up all my past life, in 
 a single flash, as clear as broad noonday. I saw the 
 whole of it, little things I'd forgotten, that happened 
 long ago, standing out sharp and vivid. I've heard of 
 such things with drowning people, I felt it then." 
 
 There was a little pause here. Everybody looked 
 grave ; everybody, too, looked at Duke with some new 
 tenderness and interest for the awful peril out of which 
 he had barely escaped. It gave him a new importance, 
 a kind of hero aspect in all their eyes. Of this there was 
 no need though. Duke's individuality always carried 
 with it a certain power of self-assertion. He was not vain 
 however ; get to the bottom of him, underneath a certain 
 morbid pride and sensitiveness lay a profound humility. 
 
 "How long were you in that dreadful water? " ven- 
 tured Grace. 
 
 ""Two minutes. You know I am a tolerable swimmer 
 in smooth waters, but those great, roaring, hungry waves 
 rushed over me and sucked me down. I tried to fight 
 them, but it was little use. I was giving out and going 
 under for good, when something grasped me, and a voice 
 shouted, ' Hold on, and I'll save you.' '
 
 24 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 He stopped here, his voice working and breaking up 
 in his throat. There were tears in other eyes beside 
 Duke's. 
 
 "You did not stay long in the water after that?" 
 said Edith. 
 
 " Not very, though it seemed hours ; moments do at such 
 times. They stopped the steamer. I heard the shouts 
 of the men over the roar of the winds and waves. They 
 threw out ropes, and got a boat down and took us in, 
 though we were both pretty well exhausted." 
 
 " It was a heroic deed, saving my brother's life. It 
 seems just like a romance ! " rejoined Eva. 
 
 "Heroic! it was more than that, it was sublime! 
 risking his life to save mine in that way. The noble, gen- 
 erous fellow ! It stirs every pulse in me to think of it." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was not consciously disposed to depre- 
 ciate the character of the act, yet every word which 
 enhanced it only added to her uncomfortable sense of 
 obligation. "0 Duke, how could you risk your life in 
 ,that way ! " she said, reproachfully. 
 
 " It was foolhardy, I suppose ; but there was a terrible 
 gale, which grew as the night came on, and you know 
 what an intoxication a storm at sea has for me. I went 
 on the upper deck, and stood there, drinking it all in 
 with a strange, fierce joy, never dreaming of danger : 
 indeed, there was none, if I'd had my wits about me. 
 At last I fell to helping one of the sailors, who was 
 removing a mass of stuff which had somehow got piled 
 together on the upper deck 
 
 "What an idea. Duke, that you should turn deck-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 25 
 
 hand ! " put in here another of the sisters, with a little 
 amused laugh, touched all through with contempt, not 
 of the ill-natured sort though. 
 
 " I can't exactly account for it, but an instinct of help- 
 fulness, of practical activity, seizes me sometimes in 
 strange places and ways. I don't think I should have 
 been sorry, if I'd gone under, to remember that my 
 last act had been to relieve that poor fellow of part of 
 his load." 
 
 Nobody made any reply here, and Duke kept on : 
 
 " I had just reached the stairs when the boat gave a 
 great lurch, and I staggered, tried to regain myself, and 
 failed. The next thing I remember, I was going over 
 the side into the sea. Ugh ! the first cold plunge of the 
 waves. But, girls, you have heard all this before," 
 suddenly drawing back into his shell. 
 
 " Oh, dear, don't stop, Duke ! " chimed up half a 
 dozen young voices ; "it would be new if you told it a 
 hundred times." 
 
 'Of course they made an immense fuss over us when 
 they got us back into the ship." It was Duke's habit to 
 be light and satirical when he felt deeply, so they under- 
 stood him now, and that the memory of the scene tugged 
 at his heartstrings. "We were both pretty well used 
 up, but the passengers and the crew gathered about us, the 
 women talking and crying for joy. It was a great scene. ' ' 
 
 " I wish I'd been there ! " chorused the young voices 
 again. 
 
 Then one of them asked, " But what did you and 
 the young man say to each other? "
 
 26 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " Nothing until the next morning. The doctors got us 
 into warm sheets with cordials down our throats. And 
 what could I say when we met afterwards, only grasp 
 my preserver's hand, and tell him what was the simple 
 truth, he had done for me the greatest deed one human 
 being could for another, and placed me, too, under an 
 obligation which I and all those to whom my life was 
 dear must carry to their graves." 
 
 "Well, now, that was just the right thing!" said 
 Eva, admiringly. "I'm sure I shall remember the 
 young man as long as I live, and that he saved our 
 Duke's life, shan't we, mamma ? " 
 
 " Certainly, my dear," answered her mother. It was 
 the fit and proper thing, therefore she could not gainsay it. 
 
 " But what did the young man say?" asked another 
 of the sisters. 
 
 " Flushed up to the very roots of his hair, as though 
 instead of doing something to be proud of for all his life 
 to come, he ought to be ashamed of himself. ' Don't 
 put it in that light,' he said. ' I think you'd have done 
 as much for me under the circumstances.' ' 
 
 " Why, how manly and modest ! He must be a real 
 hero, like one of those grand old knights ! " remarked 
 Eva again, who had a girl's romantic fancies of heroism 
 and knight-errantry, and all that, though the household 
 temperament was hardly one to develop anything of this 
 sort. 
 
 "Daughter, don't interrupt your brother quite so 
 often with your impressions," said the soft voice of the 
 mother.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 27 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge's reproofs were usually of the gentler 
 sort ; yet there was always a certain dignity and pro- 
 priety in these, which gave them more weight and effect 
 than any degree of vehemence on the part of some 
 people. 
 
 " I told him in reply," continued Duke, " that I was 
 not quite so sure of myself as he seemed to be. I very 
 much doubted whether I should have had the generous 
 courage to jump into that boiling sea, and risk my life 
 for a man of whom I had never so much as heard. 
 
 " iThat is not exactly my case,' he said ; ' I sat next 
 you at supper, and we had some talk during the meal. 
 I saw your face as the light flashed on it when you went 
 over, and remembered it.' 
 
 "I recalled, then, some talk about the weather and 
 the boat, which we had at supper. It had quite 
 slipped out of my thought though ; and, as I told my 
 preserver, ' a man must be very magnanimous who felt so 
 slight a circumstance gave another any claim on him, 
 to the hazarding of his life even.' ' 
 
 " What did he say then ? " asked Edith, who, like all 
 the others, was absorbed in her brother's story. 
 
 " I don't remember precisely. It was easy to see that 
 my thanks embarrassed the young fellow, and, in fact, any 
 words I could say seemed so mean and small, so far 
 below the vast debt which I owed the preserver of my 
 life, that I, in turn, could find little to say. We took 
 each other's names and addresses, and so parted." 
 
 " Now, if you had been two women," said Eva, who was 
 a bright little girl, "you would have kissed each other."
 
 28 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Duke laughed, and drew the girl toward him with a 
 little sudden demonstration of tenderness, quite unusual to 
 himself ; in fact any instance of affection on his part was 
 always apt to leap out from a shy, reticent nature, which 
 it suddenly overmastered. "We didn't do anything of 
 that sort, Eva ; but we wrung each other's hands, until 
 both shoulders ached, I think. We men have to express 
 our feelings in rougher fashions than you do." 
 
 " And you said the name was Ross Holland? " said 
 Eva. 
 
 "It's quite a pretty one," said Edith. 
 
 "It will always sound more than pretty to me," 
 answered her brother. 
 
 After a little pause, he continued : "I've been to see 
 my friend this afternoon. He leaves day after to-morrow 
 for the East Indies; is engaged in some commercial 
 house there. I invited him up here to dinner to-morrow 
 noon. I thought my family would wish to see, at least, 
 the man who had saved 'my life." 
 
 ' ' Certainly we do. I should have sent for the young 
 man, Duke, if you had not first thought of it. I wish 
 there was something we could do for him," said Mrs. 
 Walbridge, who felt relieved to find the young man was 
 going so soon to the antipodes. 
 
 "How does he look and appear?" asked one of the 
 girls, naturally enough. 
 
 " He's rather a stout, well-knit fellow ; a little broader 
 and taller than I ; a good face ; not handsome, as you 
 girls would put it ; but a clear, open, manly face, one 
 of the sort that will make its way in the world."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 29 
 
 "Does he seem like one who has had advantages of 
 family or good-breeding, a gentleman, in short ? " asked 
 Mrs. Walbridge, who somehow had doubts on this subject. 
 
 " I should think he must have been well brought up ; 
 but he isn't one of your gloved and perfumed city fops, 
 by any means," answered Duke, who did not much relish 
 the question. " He's quiet and shy, I think ; but self- 
 possessed and straightforward. I haven't asked him 
 whether he was rich, or accustomed to the best society ; 
 but I should not be ashamed to introduce him to my sis- 
 ters, even if he hadn't just saved my life." 
 
 If anybody in the world ever made Mrs. Walbridge 
 internally wince a little, it was this queer son of hers. 
 He had a habit of turning around onlier some side of her 
 question which she had never thought it possessed before, 
 and which really seemed to carry a complexion of selfish- 
 ness and pretension, which always made her a little un- 
 comfortable ; for the lady had that inward self-satisfaction 
 and complacency to which she believed her virtues and 
 dignity entitled her. The truth was, she was a little 
 afraid of Duke, and could never exactly make up her 
 mind just how much he meant by these speeches, or 
 whether they were merely his habit of sarcasm. She 
 was glad, however, that just then the sight of her hus- 
 band's cabriolet rolling up through the drive spared her 
 the necessity of a reply, and Mrs. Walbridge usually 
 condescended to explain herself, and make her position 
 good after one of these speeches of Duke's, a kind of 
 self-defence, however, to which she was seldom obliged to 
 resort in her talk with others.
 
 30 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 A moment after, Mason Walbridge entered the room. 
 He was a rather portly gentleman, with a kind of solid, 
 substantial air ; just your idea of a prosperous business 
 man settling down into a comfortable old age. Not that 
 he had exactly attained this yet, though his hair was 
 quite frosted and his face had gathered up thick wrinkles, 
 a man with whom you instinctively felt all mere theories, 
 idealisms, enthusiasms, would find it hard to maintain 
 themselves. There was a stubborn practicality, a solid 
 materialism, suggested by the man's very presence ; and 
 this did not belie the character and temperament of 
 Mason Walbridge. 
 
 " pa, you ought to have been here," said Eva, who 
 you have already discovered was a talker, and petted 
 more or less, as the youngest of the family flock has a 
 prescriptive right to be. "Duke has been telling us 
 over again all about his falling into the water ; and he 
 has invited that young man who saved him to come up to 
 dinner to-morrow. I'm so glad. I want to see him so 
 much." 
 
 An invitation to dine at the Walbridges was regarded 
 by them as conferring a certain honor. Their massive, 
 carved front doors did not open indiscriminately to peo- 
 ple. Their guests must have some warrant of social dis- 
 tinction, wealth, or business position. some personal 
 weight which passed muster with the world. 
 
 The gentleman looked at his wife. He was accustomed 
 to refer all home matters to her opinion, having the high- 
 est regard for the lady's excellent judgment, and a pro-
 
 THE HOLLANBS. 31 
 
 found faith that she would always do the thing that was 
 proper and best under the circumstances. 
 
 ' ' That seems all right. What does your mother say 
 of it?" 
 
 "I've already told Duke that I entirely approve of 
 the invitation, my dear," answered the lady ; and that of 
 course settled the matter. 
 
 Look abroad, my reader, over the world of your ac- 
 quaintances, and see if you do not find more than one 
 family with a general moral likeness to these Wai- 
 bridges.
 
 32 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DUKE WALBRIDGE has told you already the story of 
 his escape from drowning, and of his rescue by Ross 
 Holland. 
 
 The latter had reached New York at the appointed 
 time, but some unforeseen circumstances had delayed for 
 three or four days the sailing of the vessel in which he 
 was to take passage for the East Indies. 
 
 Meanwhile, the house with which he was connected 
 having some business engagement to complete with a firm 
 in an inland city in Massachusetts, it was suggested that 
 Ross should relieve the partners of the journey. If the 
 matter was satisfactorily accomplished, about Avhich there 
 was little doubt, he was to receive a hundred dollars and 
 the payment of all expenses. 
 
 He thought of Jessamine. There was just time to re- 
 turn and give her a single day, which the poor child 
 would hail with rapturous delight ; but there would be 
 the terrible parting afresh, and Ross shrank from the 
 thought of laying bare that wound again. 
 
 If he accomplished his mission, Jessamine should have 
 all that came of it. He would sacredly devote the whole 
 proceeds to his sister, and there was no telling what a
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 33 
 
 hundred dollars would be to her, smiling a little over 
 that thought. 
 
 There was no doubt Ross would, in the end, be doing 
 Jessamine the greater kindness by making this journey 
 in her interests, instead of seeking her again. 
 
 So Ross Holland decided, and took the Sound steamer 
 that very night. ' You know what happened then. Ross 
 was a brave, impulsive fellow, and when he saw the face 
 of Duke Walbridge, the lights flashing on it as it went 
 over into the sea, all that was generous and heroic in the 
 young soul thrilled into life. 
 
 He did think of Jessamine a moment, for, though he 
 was a bold swimmer, that was a black sea, and it was at 
 no slight risk that he entered it. 
 
 But again the light streamed full on the face, with the 
 loud, hungry waves after it ; the face he had sat next to 
 a little while ago at supper, and been singularly struck 
 with some power and expression in it. 
 
 '< Perhaps he has a sister too," was the thought that 
 sent Ross Holland into that midnight sea, and God's hand 
 drew him wut and set him on the steamer again, him 
 and Duke Walbridge. 
 
 Ross Holland went to the Walbridges that evening a 
 little against his will. In the first place, nothing em- 
 barrassed him more painfully than any talk over what he 
 had done that night. It made a glow of grateful pleas- 
 ure about his heart to know how Duke felt over it ; for, 
 shy and reticent as Ross was by nature, something had 
 drawn him toward the young man, just as he had never 
 been drawn to any human being before.
 
 34 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 In the second place, he had an instinct that he should 
 not like his friend's family, or at least not be at ease 
 among them. 
 
 Perhaps Ross did not consciously admit this to 
 himself; nevertheless, there the feeling lurked. He had 
 learned during his stay in the town that the Walbridges 
 were wealthy, ambitious people, and this, with some 
 other careless remarks, had given him a little insight into 
 the family quality, and he shrank from it. 
 
 However, there was no way of declining the invitation 
 except by hurting his friend. Ross was to return that 
 night to New York, and he consoled himself, remember- 
 ing that the dinner must be a short one. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the Walbridges had their 
 secret embarrassments too, the elder members of the 
 family at least, the younger ones being quite too eager 
 with curiosity for anything of that sort. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Walbridge desired to do what was 
 proper, and to be expected of them under the circum- 
 sta:> - , but the trouble seemed to be to find out just 
 vhat that was. 
 
 Here they were, under overwhelming obligations to 
 the young man who had rescued their son from drowning, 
 and there was no way of cancelling the tremendous debt. 
 All their wealth could not do it. Nay. it would be an 
 unpardonable insult to suggest money in connection with 
 such a deed. 
 
 It Avas a most delicate and difficult matter to deal with ; 
 but there, like a great many other uncomfortable facts, 
 it stood.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 35 
 
 Great a sensation as Ross Holland certainly made, 
 when he presented himself at the Walbridges, there was 
 nothing very remarkable about him ; a moderately good- 
 looking, quiet youth, not lacking a certain self-possession, 
 if he did color easily to the roots of his hair. 
 
 The girls watched with a great deal of eagerness the 
 meeting between their brother and his preserver. 
 
 " I do believe," said Eva, afterward, in talking it all 
 over to her sisters, ' ' that they would have hugged each 
 other like girls, if we hadn't been present." 
 
 Mr. Walbridge, to whom his son presented Ross, made 
 a speech on the occasion, expressing his deep sense of the 
 obligations under which he lay to the preserver of his 
 son's life ; but the man really would have felt much more 
 comfortably when he got to the end of his remarks, if he 
 could have taken a check in high figures from his pocket- 
 book, placed it in Ross Holland's hands, and said, 
 ' ' There ! that makes all square between us ! " 
 
 Then it came Mrs. Walbridge's turn. That lady did 
 her part in a manner becoming the occasion. When did ' 
 she ever do otherwise ? No doubt there was some real 
 feeling underlying the finely rounded phrases, fitting into 
 each other like a mosaic. 
 
 When she came to stand face to face with the youth, 
 without whom the strength and pride of her household 
 must have been lying stark and cold in his unfathomable 
 ocean grave, and her own heart desolate with an unutter- 
 able anguish, no doubt the mother for a moment almost 
 overmastered everything else in the feeling of the woman. 
 Her voice swayed, the tears slipped into her eyes, she
 
 36 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 grasped the hand of Ross Holland in both her own, and 
 her pretty speech was not finished just as she had con- 
 templated. 
 
 Afterward, the introductions to the sisters were easily 
 gotten over. All the young ladies were disposed to be 
 cordial to their brother's friend. 
 
 Still, Mr. and Mrs. Walbridge felt, I think, a little 
 sense of relief when so much of the programme was gone 
 through with. Perhaps it was not altogether unnatural. 
 No matter how superficially one regards human nature, 
 one cannot help perceiving that this gratitude is a difficult 
 thing to deal with. Those who are largely entitled to it 
 generally regard themselves as wronged and neglected. 
 No doubt there is a great deal of truth in it ; but there 
 is something to be said on the other side. A burden of 
 obligation is apt to press heavily on the recipient, and 
 give him a certain sense of discomfort, unless there is a 
 very fine sense of sympathy between him and his bene- 
 factor. This is, perhaps, not oftenest the case. The 
 ' people who are the most generous in gifts have not always 
 the finest instincts, the broadest natures. They may be 
 ready to lavish gifts on you with one hand, and take a 
 pleasure sometimes so full of inconsistencies is human 
 nature in chafing you where you are weakest arid 
 most sensitive. 
 
 Now, no kindnesses can grant one indemnity for the 
 other wrong. There will only be secret chafing and in- 
 dignation, if not open revolt, all aggravated by the sense 
 of obligations ; for a blow falls doubly heavy from hands 
 that have bestowed much on us. A man may give you
 
 THE HOLLANDS. S7 
 
 all his possessions, may risk his life to save yours, and 
 yet in the closest sense you cannot call him friend. 
 
 I appeal to your own consciousness, my reader, whether 
 this be not true, whether the deepest love of your na- 
 ture does not take its root in a soil that lies deeper than 
 all gifts, whether any claims of gratitude can ever com- 
 pel your affection. But, for all that, a lofty and finely 
 tempered heart forgets much in those who have served it 
 keeps faith with itself in grateful loyalty to its bene- 
 factor. 
 
 Ross Holland was the only stranger at the Walbridge 
 dinner-table that day. The hostess had some internal 
 misgivings about her guest's being equal to the mysteries 
 of finger-glasses and nut-pickers : but she soon satisfied 
 herself that Ross was at home here ; and really, when 
 you came to compare them, he had quite as much the 
 look and bearing of a gentleman as her own son, neither 
 being an Adonis in face or figure. 
 
 There was, however, a natural refinement in the Hol- 
 land blood, which the last who bore the name had inher- 
 ited, some native instinct of the boy and girl always 
 shrinking from coarseness and vulgarity as from some- 
 thing whose touch soiled and defiled. 
 
 Anything so ambitious as the Walbridges' style of liv- 
 ing was, of course, quite new to Ross, and the ceremonial 
 was a little embarrassing to one unaccustomed to it. 
 
 But Duke sat next to his friend, and there was a mag- 
 netism in the young man that, when he chose to exert it, 
 would thaw almost any nature into life and ease. He 
 and Ross were soon launched on a full tide of talk, the
 
 38 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 others listening, complacent and curious, and inter- 
 spersing their own remarks. 
 
 Through all this, Mrs. Walbridge, it must be con- 
 fessed, felt a strong desire to know something of the char- 
 acter and position of the stranger at their board, who 
 had established his right there so clearly, and whom no 
 amount of courtesies and patronage could place in any 
 relation but that of creditor. Mrs. Walbridge was, of 
 course, quite too well bred to be inquisitive. Still, 
 there were plenty of proper and natural questions to ask, 
 which] might serve as chinks through which she could 
 get a glimpse into the antecedents of Ross Holland. 
 When the fruits were brought on, she attempted one of 
 these crannies. 
 
 "I think your family must be very reluctant to let- 
 ting you go off on this long journey, Mr. Holland. I sup- 
 pose, however, they regard it best to indulge a young 
 man's desire to see all sides of the world. The expe- 
 rience has its advantages too." 
 
 The young men had been talking, sometimes soberly, 
 sometimes merrily, with each other. Now the light in 
 Ross Holland's face went down suddenly. 
 
 11 1 have no family to regret my going, ma'am, except 
 one sister, the last that is left of our kin." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! how can she let you go? " put in Eva, 
 who sat on the other side of Ross. "If it was Duke, 
 now, I couldn't part with him, no matter if he could see, 
 as mamma says, every side of the world." 
 
 Now, if the truth must be told, Ross Holland was sore 
 over his family history. It was not singular perhaps.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 39 
 
 That long struggle with poverty could not fail to leave 
 its mark upon a sensitive nature. 
 
 Yet the morbidness was not of an ignoble sort. Ross 
 Holland's face flushed, but a kind of brave scorn looked 
 out of his eyes now. " I am not going to see the world," 
 he said. " I would not leave my sister alone here for all 
 it can hold. We are very poor, and I go to the East In- 
 dies solely with the hope of making a little money." 
 
 The words made a sensation at the table. People were 
 not in the habit of talking in just that way at the Wai- 
 bridge board. But, whatever Ross might say, they could 
 not take exceptions, as they might in the case of ordi- 
 nary guests. Their relations and his were anomalous, 
 and placed him in a large sense above criticism. 
 
 A little silence followed, during which Mr. Walbridge 
 said to himself, "Was that a hint now, forme to put 
 my hand in my pocket and take out something substan- 
 tial ? ' ' Then he met the eyes of his guest, and some 
 heat that blazed in them satisfied the gentleman that no 
 purpose of that sort had ever entered the soul of Ross 
 Holland. 
 
 The truth was, that young man had an instinct of the 
 estimation in which poverty was held by the people 
 around him, and it was this that had forced out his ac- 
 knowledgment of it. A brave soul, you see, whatever 
 its faults were. 
 
 However it might have been in ordinary cases, the 
 Walbridges treated Ross with more attention, if possible, 
 after the avowal, on his part, of poverty. There was 
 little time for further talk, as it was necessary Ross
 
 40 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 should leave almost as soon as dinner was over, in order 
 to reach the train, while Duke insisted on driving his 
 friend over to the depot in his father's buggy. 
 
 Those blooming girls in their fine dresses had not af- 
 fected Ross altogether pleasantly. It forced up a strong 
 contrast between them and his little sister Jessamine. 
 After all, she was prettier and just as ladylike, with her 
 soft, quiet manners. He had never seen her in anything 
 finer than a white dress, with a flower or a bit of bright- 
 colored ribbon in her hair. "He should like to get 
 some grand clothes on her," smothering down a sigh. 
 
 Then he remembered the hundred-dollar check that 
 would be on its way to her before the next sun had set, 
 snugly folded away in the letter he had been writing her 
 all day in his thoughts. He saw the fair face breaking 
 up into wonder and smiles and tears over it. 
 
 After all, the grand dinner had been a great bore, that 
 good fellow, Duke, being the only really pleasant thing 
 about it, these thoughts drifting across his mind while 
 he was going through his adieux with the Walbridges. 
 
 The elders were particularly cordial and lavish of good 
 wishes for his future welfare, " very fine speeches," 
 Ross thought them afterward, for the youth had a slight- 
 ly cynical way of putting things to himself, although un- 
 derlying this little " tortuous rind" of bitterness was a 
 sound mellow core of good nature, and the young 
 ladies beamed their brightest parting smiles upon him. 
 
 Mr. Walbridge took the address of the house with 
 which Ross was to be connected in the East Indies, and 
 informed the young man that any indirect influence
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 41 
 
 which he might possess with its heads should be exerted 
 in his behalf, one of those fine, vague promises which 
 serve the moment, and so seldom amount to anything? 
 
 The pleasantest thing about the whole visit was, how- 
 ever, the last that happened. Just as Ross was leaving 
 the room, Eva Walbridge hurried in from the conserva- 
 tory with a couple of moss-roses in her hand, all dewy 
 bloom and fragrance. The child hurried eagerly up to 
 Ross. " I've just cut them from my bush for you," she 
 said. " There were no more on it ; but I wanted to give 
 them to you for Duke's sake ; and and I thought 
 you might like to keep them, and some time when you 
 looked at them away off in that other part of the world, 
 you'd know I hadn't forgotten what you did for my 
 brother." 
 
 The eyes of Ross Holland warmed on the girl, as they 
 had only warmed on her brother that day. ' ' Thank 
 you," he said, taking the flowers. " I shall keep them 
 carefully among my few treasures, and when they are 
 faded and withered, they will be beautiful in my eyes, be- 
 cause, you know, they will be the flowers of home." 
 
 Then he went away. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Walbridge felt relieved now it was over, 
 and yet not just satisfied with themselves. It seemed as 
 though they ought to have done something more or bet- 
 ter if they had only known how. 
 
 "Really, my dear, that was very thoughtful and 
 pretty, giving the young man those flowers ; alto- 
 gether proper and graceful." 
 
 " mamma ! I never thought of being proper or 
 4
 
 42 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 graceful. I only wanted to give him something that I 
 loved, because of what he had done for us all," an- 
 SAfered the youngest of the Walbridges. 
 
 " What did you think of him, on the whole, .Edith ? " 
 asked another of the sisters, the elder's gauge of people 
 being regarded as final in the family. 
 
 " There's no fault to find with his appearance or man- 
 ners, as I know of; yet I somehow had a feeling all the 
 time, that he was not used to the best society." 
 
 " Edith ! how angry Duke would be to hear you 
 criticise him in that way! " said Eva. 
 
 " His saving Duke's life is one thing, and his breed- 
 ing is another. I can't see what possible connection 
 there is between them," answered the young lady, with 
 the air of one who perfectly understood what she was 
 talking about. 
 
 " But," answered Eva, who manifested, at times, a 
 little of Duke's uncomfortable tenacity of conviction, 
 " it does not, after all, seem quite generous and noble to 
 criticise the preserver of Duke's life, just as one would 
 any stranger, do you think so, mamma ? " 
 
 Thus appealed to, Mrs. Walbridge hardly knew what 
 to say, so she compromised the matter. ' ' When you are 
 a little older, my dear, you will see the matter as Edith 
 does. She means perfectly right, and SD do you." 
 
 Eva looked grave a moment, trying to discern the truth 
 through the mist in which her mother's speech enveloped 
 the matter. She did not succeed very well, and there was 
 no help for it, but to fall back on the future years which 
 were to make both sides seem right to her. Suddenly
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 43 
 
 the girl's face brightened: "I thtfught it was real 
 noble in that young fellow to own right up, in that out- 
 spoken way, that he was poor, and going off to the ends 
 of the world to make a fortune for himself and his sis- 
 ter. I know Duke liked it, too, by the way his eyes 
 sparkled." 
 
 " Of course he did," answered another of the girls, 
 with a little laugh. " Duke always likes outspoken in- 
 dependence of that kind." 
 
 "Well, who doesn't, with any sense?" asked Eva, 
 in her blunt, girlish way. 
 
 Nobody answered ; but the Walbridges were not quite 
 certain whether they liked these qualities or not, and had 
 a feeling, too, that it would not be to their credit to ad- 
 mit the doubt. 
 
 Meanwhile, the young men were on their way to the 
 depot. Of a sudden Duke gathered up the reins in one 
 hand and laid the other on his companion's shoulder. 
 " My dear fellow, there is so much I want to say to you 
 in these last moments, if I could only* get at it." 
 
 " Plunge right in then. That's the way I do when I 
 get stuck fast," answered Ross, the gayety of his air and 
 manner covering some graver feeling beneath it. 
 
 "If I could only do something for you, be of some 
 service to you. ^Be generous now, Holland, and place 
 yourself in my case. You've saved my .life. That 
 covers the whole ground of my debt, the greatest 
 one man can owe to another, and of course we're both 
 above looking at it in that light. Still, it's a comfort to 
 a fellow to do some favor to one who has received from
 
 
 44 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 another what I have at your hands, and I think it isn't 
 just generous to deny him that little crumb of pleasure." 
 
 " My dear fellow, I'd give you the whole loaf, if it lay 
 in my power." 
 
 *"" It does, Holland. You can let me serve you some- 
 how. You can find out some way. You know how 
 eager I am to do this." 
 
 Ross looked up in the face of his companion, and 
 caught the glow upon it, which lifted the face of Duke 
 Walbridge into new life and beauty, as some sunsets do 
 the clouds hanging dull and incoherent about a western 
 sky, gathering them all up in one grand blaze of color. 
 
 Ross mused a moment. ' ' There is- one favor you can 
 do for me, Walbridge." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Duke, with a kind of greedi- 
 ness, which at almost any other time would have made 
 Ross smile. 
 
 " There's my sister, Jessamine, it's been like tearing 
 the very heart out of her to give me up to go on this 
 long journey, with all its risks, you know. If we should 
 never see each other again " There he broke down a 
 moment. 
 
 "Anything, ask anything for her of the life you 
 saved, Holland." 
 
 Ross gathered up his voice, forced it into a kind of 
 husky steadiness again. " I should like you to be a sort 
 of brother to her, see that no harm comes to her. 
 Poor thing ! she's nobody in the world but me, a shy, 
 simple-hearted, loving child. It would break her heart 
 if anything happened to me."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 45 
 
 "Holland, answer me one question," said Duke, with 
 a kind of solemn authority in his tones ; " didn't you 
 think of your sister before you went overboard that 
 night for me ? " 
 
 "Yes; I thought of her, little Jessamine. And 
 then I thought perhaps you, too, had a sister at home, 
 and plunged in." 
 
 For a minute Duke did not speak. Then he added 
 solemnly, as one who takes an oath on his soul, to be 
 held through all the after life, " If anything comes to 
 you, Holland, I will take your place, as far as I can, to 
 your sister." 
 
 Ross smiled, a smile Duke would never forget. " I 
 shall go off with a lighter heart now," he said. 
 
 " I shall take it on myself, too, to go up and see your 
 'little Jessamine' right off," continued Duke, " and tell 
 her all that has happened." 
 
 Ross Holland's first thought grasped eagerly at this 
 offer ; but the second one convinced him that it would 
 not be well for Jessamine to learn at once of the peril 
 into which he had plunged. It would only fill the child's 
 heart with fresh forebodings and terrors. The hundred 
 dollars would seem like a sudden fortune rained down 
 upon her, and that would be surprise and delight enough 
 for the present. So he answered Duke Walbridge, 
 " Just wait until I get safe and sound at the East Indies 
 before you hunt her up, Walbridge. I'd rather she 
 shouldn't know just yet what we've gone through. You 
 can do her more good, and me too, by waiting a few 
 months before you go to see her. Meanwhile, I shall
 
 46 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 feel as though I left my little Jessamine in your 
 hands." 
 
 "Jessamine, Jessamine. That is an odd name, a 
 pretty one too," said Duke. 
 
 " It is more than that to me," answered her brother. 
 
 By this time they had reached the depot, and there 
 were only a few moments to spare. They wrung each 
 other's hands silently ; they thought of the long years 
 and the wide oceans that were to roll betwixt them be- 
 fore they should look upon each other's faces again. 
 There were tears in the eyes of both. 
 
 The bell rang. Then these two Duke Walbridge 
 and Ross Holland did what Eva had said they would 
 do if they had been women, kissed each other, and with 
 never a word more, each turned his own way.. 
 
 But Duke stood on the platform and watched the train 
 which bore away the friend that he loved best on earth, 
 the friend who had risked his life to save his. 
 
 Then he entered his carriage ; but, before he started 
 for home, he wrote down in his note-book the name of 
 Jessamine Holland, and of the old country town where 
 she resided. 
 
 " Just as though I should forget it ! " smiling a little 
 to himself as he slipped book and pencil back into his 
 pocket. " Little Jessamine ! I did not ask him; but 
 she must be a child, I fancy somewhere about Eva's 
 age."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THREE years and more had passed since Duke Wai- 
 bridge and Ross Holland had parted at the depot. Dur- 
 ing almost this entire period the former had been abroad. 
 His father had suddenly discovered symptoms of apo- 
 plexy, and the physicians had urged a sea-voyage for the 
 gentleman. 
 
 So it was suddenly settled that Duke should accom- 
 pany his father, and complete his studies in Germany, 
 while Mrs. Walbridge and Edith should make the grand 
 tour of Europe. Mr. Walbridge' s health had improved, 
 but his foreign business relations had detained him abroad 
 longer than he anticipated. 
 
 Duke had, however, outstayed all the others by nearly 
 two years. He was of just that age when foreign study 
 and travel are apt to turn young heads a little ; but his 
 family affirmed that Duke had returned just as he went. 
 They could not see that there was a particle of change 
 in the fellow. He had grown a little taller and better 
 looking, that was all. 
 
 But here the family judgment was superficial. Duke's 
 growth was not on the surface ; but during these yea.rs 
 his whole character had widened ; his thought, convic-
 
 48 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 tions, modified and shaped themselves. Contact with the 
 world, with people of varied civilizations and nationali- 
 ties, had changed and broadened the young man ; but 
 the sound, warm, steadfast nature held its own quality 
 still. 
 
 During this time he had kept up an intermittent cor- 
 respondence with Ross Holland. The first year in the 
 East Indies had not been very smooth ones to the young 
 American. His health and habits did not readily adapt 
 themselves to the foreign climate and modes of life. 
 Still, Ross Holland's soul was a brave one. It fought 
 the battle valiantly with homesickness and languor, 
 through two or three slow attacks of fever, among 
 strange faces and the fiery heat of the tropics. 
 
 Mismanagement, indolence, and extravagance had all 
 borne their part in sapping the prosperity of the house 
 with which he was engaged ; still, it had the substantial 
 foundations of an old name and reputation to uphold it, 
 and Ross did his part faithfully, as he would do it any- 
 where. 
 
 But his expenses were heavy in a foreign country, and 
 his salary allowed him little margin beyond them and 
 an occasional remittance to Jessamine. 
 
 During these years the girl has been just where we 
 left her, shut up in the homely old house whose rusty 
 brown front faced the hills. What else could she do ? 
 Jessamine Holland had no fortune, and no influential 
 friends. With the natural right of her youth the girl 
 hungered, fairly sickened, sometimes, for a life less 
 cramped and monotonous ; for some color, excitement ;
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 49 
 
 but it did not come, and so Jessamine settled herself to 
 make the best of what she had, which is the truest phi- 
 losophy for the wisest of us. 
 
 The copying, too, whose remuneration the girl fondly 
 hoped would defray most of the expenses of her board, 
 had largely disappointed her, affording her employment 
 only at long intervals, so that she was obliged to fall 
 back largely on the remittances of Ross, which it cost 
 her high spirit a good many struggles to do. 
 
 But Jessamine told herself, with that innate vigor 
 that some far dead ancestor had probably bequeathed her, 
 that she was no't going to rust out. It was lonely and 
 desolate enough, only her own soul and God knew 
 that, with her brother so far off, and she left stranded in 
 the old town with nothing to do. There was a great 
 world beyond, where she would like to take her part, 
 be of some service ; but its walls were high, and she 
 could not find a chink to creep through. Then, weary 
 as she was of the old town, she loved it, for it was her 
 birthplace; and though the people were of the nar- 
 row, conventional type, which one is too apt to find in 
 remote country towns, with little elevating social stimu- 
 lus, or breadth of thought or heart amongst them, 
 still they were the faces and friends of the girl's child- 
 hood and youth, all she ever had at least, for the 
 Hollands had mostly dropped out of such society as the 
 old town afforded. So the girl had buried herself in her 
 studies. There was a moderately good library in the 
 town, and from this, and from various other sources, she 
 managed to obtain most of the books she needed. 
 
 5
 
 50 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 It was no dilettante work with this girl either. She 
 made a solemn purpose of it, and studied like any school- 
 girl, setting herself no light tasks, and conscientiously 
 fulfilling them, mastering Latin with the help of the 
 clergyman, and plunging as deeply into natural sciences, 
 metaphysics, and history as her opportunities afforded. 
 
 It was, perhaps, a little too much the life of a book- 
 worm for a girl in the blossoming of her years ; but then 
 it was the salt which saved Jessamine Holland from the 
 frivolity and gossip of the little town ; and mind and 
 heart ripened together, and in the furrows of those slow, 
 silent days, she cast seed that brought forth their fair 
 harvest in the womanhood to come. 
 
 Then Jessamine fed her young soul through all this 
 time on the letters of Ross. These always turned the 
 brightest side of his lot towards her, never abating heart 
 or hope, and were vital with that brave courage which 
 was the very marrow of his character. 
 
 So there came an afternoon when Jessamine Holland 
 stood again on the veranda of the rusty b.rown cottage, 
 as she had, almost four years ago, when she watched, 
 white and breathless, for the train as it disappeared in 
 the hollow. But it was not October now, and the year 
 had no hint of chill or death in it. It was a June day, 
 one of a cluster that had gone over the earth in golden 
 pomp, dying in nights of starry splendor. But at this 
 time the loneliness, the homesick ache seemed to have 
 eaten deeper into Jessamine's soul than ever before. 
 The singing of the birds, all the pomp and glory of 
 the summer, failed to lift her out of the darkness into
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 51 
 
 their own mood of joy and strength. She had a kind of 
 hunted feeling, like one who sees the walls close in on 
 every side, and pants for fresher air and wider horizons. 
 What was she in God's world, stranded there in that 'old 
 house, with people whose kindly thought and care of 
 her did not give them any wide sympathy into her moods 
 and needs ? It seemed to the girl sometimes that the 
 chafing and the aching would drive her mad. Do not 
 blame her. Think what her life was, and how long and 
 bravely she had borne it. 
 
 She wore a white dress this afternoon, remembering 
 how fond Ross was of seeing her in that, a bit of blue 
 ribbon at her throat. When he was a boy he always 
 admired that color too, and she had broken off two or 
 thre red roses from a bush on one side of the house, and 
 twisted them in her hair, smiling a little to herself. As 
 she surveyed the whole in the mirror, the smile, however, 
 drowned itself suddenly in bitterness. "As though 
 there was anybody in the world would care how you 
 looked this day, Jessamine Holland ! Ross would, but 
 he can't see across all these leagues of land and 
 ocean." 
 
 Then she went out on the veranda, trying to find some- 
 thing in that June day, remembering that God had set 
 it in the world as a sign and token of his love and bounty ; 
 but just then how far off he seemed ! Yet she stood there 
 in her sweet, delicate youth, looking the lady that she 
 was by gift of that same God. 
 
 She heard the gate. She remembered afterward that 
 she was too listless even to look out and see, through
 
 52 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 the curtain of climbing vines, who was coming, taking it 
 for granted it was some neighbor or child on an errand. 
 
 So she did not look up until the stranger stood on the 
 steps. The girl gave a little start then, her cheeks 
 flushed, and at the moment Jessamine Holland probably 
 looked prettier than she ever had done in her life before. 
 
 A gentleman stood there, she knew he was that with 
 the first glance, in a brown travelling suit, a good 
 deal dusted. He lifted his hat. "Will you be kind 
 enough," said a voice, so clear and pleasant that one 
 liked to hear it, " to tell me where Miss Jessamine Hol- 
 land, the sister of Ross Holland, resides? " 
 
 Jessamine was shy ; her temperament and life natu- 
 rally made her so ; but for all that she held possession 
 of herself. 
 
 " I am Ross Holland's sister," she answered, her wide 
 brown eyes on the stranger. 
 
 Great, in turn, was Duke Walbridge's surprise. His 
 family were at the Springs, some thirty miles off, and the 
 young man had remembered his promise to Ross, and kept 
 faith with it at last. 
 
 He had come up here to see the sister of his benefac- 
 tor, with a general idea of a rosy, unformed country 
 girl. He had debated in his own mind whether some toy 
 would not be acceptable to "little Jessamine," and had 
 thought a pretty set of jewelry would probably dazzle 
 the eyes of a school-girl. 
 
 But the Springs, though they had a reputation, were 
 in an out-of-the-way place, where jewelry of any sort 
 was quite unattainable.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 53 
 
 u No matter. I can judge for myself, and get what is 
 most appropriate afterward, " settling the matter, and 
 not quite certain but a wax doll would prove the right 
 thing after all. 
 
 And this was " little Jessamine," this girl with the 
 fair, delicate face, so unlike any he had ever seen before ; 
 not the beauty, certainly, that strikes men in a crowd, but 
 that had a power and meaning of its own. There she stood, 
 among the vines, in her simple white dress, with the bits of 
 color at her throat, something with whom it was quite 
 impossible to associate anything coarse or hoydenish, and 
 her birthdays had not quite clasped their twentieth. 
 
 The stranger smiled, and came closer now. " I am 
 Duke Walbridge, Miss Holland. I hope I am welcome 
 for your brother's sake." 
 
 The girl gave her hand at that word, but there was no 
 gleam of recognition at the name-. She had evidently 
 never heard of it. 
 
 "Did he never tell you?" asked Duke, surprised 
 enough in his turn. - 
 
 She shook her head. " I never heard that name." 
 
 " It was like him never to speak of what he did, Miss 
 Holland. I owe your brother more than I do any living 
 man, for he once saved my life." 
 
 " You ? Ross did ? " the sweet face more amazed 
 than ever. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Holland. The dear, generous, lion-heart- 
 ed fellow jumped into the sea one night, and dragged me 
 out of it at the peril of his own life ; and I have come at 
 last to tell you of it."
 
 54 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Her face all alive now " How was it? When was 
 it?" hardly knowing what she was saying in her 
 eagerness. 
 
 So Duke Walbridge began at the beginning, and told 
 Jessamine the story as no other could have told it. He 
 had a remarkable gift of expression, but if he had not 
 owned this, the depth of his feeling must have given a 
 wonderful power to his tale. 
 
 One saw it all, the wild night, the awful sea, the 
 life going down into the hungry waves, the shouts of 
 the men, and then the brave rescue. Jessamine lived it 
 all over in a shuddering horror. It was quite soon 
 enough for the tender heart to hear the story, nearly 
 four years after it all happened. Ross had judged wise- 
 ly. Once she caught hold of Duke's arm, .not realizing 
 what she was doing. " Ross, my brother ! my brother ! 
 if you had been drowned then ! " her face in a shower 
 of tears. There were tears in Duke's eyes. 
 
 " But he did not, you see, and here I am, with the 
 life that he saved." 
 
 " I am glad of that, glad that he went to you, only 
 you cannot know what he is to me, all I have on earth, 
 and what life would be to me if I lost him." 
 
 There was a lounge at one end of the veranda. She 
 went and sat down here a few moments, and Duke knew 
 she was crying. He was almost sorry he had told her. 
 
 But she came back in a little while, and asked him to 
 go on with the rest. " She's got some of her brother's 
 pluck," thought Duke Walbridge. But she swayed 
 again when he came to tell her how Ross had said that he
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 55 
 
 drew back at that awful time thinking of ' ' little Jessa- 
 mine." 
 
 The rest of his story, however, was easy sailing. Duke 
 told the girl about her brother's visit at their house, and 
 their talk at parting, and the promise he had made, and 
 why he had been so long in fulfilling it. 
 
 After this, all ice of formalities, such as requires, in 
 ordinary cases, a good many interviews to melt, vanished 
 betwixt these two. 
 
 Duke Walbridge had one of those natures that never 
 forgets its gratitude. The memory of the .vast debt he 
 owed would alone have made the sister of Ross Holland, 
 whatever might be her intrinsic character, an object of 
 keen interest to Duke, one whose welfare and happiness 
 he would have been eager to promote at almost any cost to 
 himself; but he had come utterly unprepared to find the 
 girl what, the more he saw of her, she proved to be. 
 The more he saw of her, too, the more she perplexed 
 him,, by the sweet, genuine frankness and grace of her 
 speech and manner. ' ' As much better than the showy, 
 artificial girls he met in society," he said to himself, " as 
 a wide, fresh morning heath shaken with dew, and full 
 of fragrance and the gladness of sunshine, was better 
 than all the perfume and glitter and display of some 
 splended drawing-room." 
 
 She was like her brother, too, in a good many little 
 subtle ways, difficult to analyze, and yet very readily 
 felt. 
 
 How the girl could live there in that out-of-the-way 
 place, shut up in a kindly but wholly uncultivated fam-
 
 56 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ily, and be the instinctive lady she was, puzzled Duke 
 Walbridge more than anything had ever done in his life. 
 The more he talked with her, the more she interested 
 him ; and, if the truth must be told, Jessamine Holland 
 never had looked and appeared quite so well as she did 
 this afternoon. 
 
 When she came to think it over after Duke had gone, 
 the whole thing seemed like a dream. He called her 
 " little Jessamine," and then apologized several times, 
 corrected himself, and said, " Miss Holland." But the 
 other name was sure to come first : and at last he said, 
 with a laugh, "There is no use; I have thought of 
 you so long as 'little Jessamine,' that no other name 
 will come to me without an especial effort." 
 
 And Jessamine answered, and wondered and scolded 
 at herself afterward for doing it, "Do not try to. It 
 is the old name that I have not heard since he went 
 away, and it sounds pleasanter than the first robin's song 
 did when I heard it last May." 
 
 Their talk went a great many ways. Duke Walbridge 
 had that reverence for womankind that I think is born 
 in the soul of every true man ; but, for all that, his ideas 
 of young ladies had been shaped more or less by his sis- 
 ter's acquaintances, and he had a kincl of feeling, which 
 his fidelity to his ideal of womanhood had always pre- 
 vented his expressing, that girls were, as a whole, super- 
 ficial, gossipy, selfish. Anything really frank, loyal, 
 genuine, it seemed to him he had yet to find among the 
 young girls with whom he was thrown, with their foolish 
 rivalries of dress and social distinction.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 57 
 
 Even to these there was a better side ; but Duke did 
 not find it ; partly, no doubt, because he did not try, 
 being in a state of disgust with young ladyhood in 
 general. Indeed, his strictures here were so wholesale 
 and bitter, that his sisters did not hesitate to call him- a 
 bear, and to avow their belief that, " Duke was born to 
 be an old bachelor." 
 
 But here was a young girl who had no airs, who 
 evidently had not the faintest notion how to carry on a 
 flirtation, with all the charm, brightness, spontaneity of 
 earnest, intelligent young womanhood. How alert she 
 was, too ! how full of eager curiosity about the great 
 world which he had seen ! her questions slipping out in 
 a soft, breathless, child-like way, that amused him. Once 
 through, she stopped of a sudden, the bright color com- 
 ing into her face as it had a habit of doing. "Do for- 
 give me," she said ; " but it seems as though I was talk- 
 ing with Ross." 
 
 " I Avant it to seem just so. You know what I prom- 
 ised him." And he went on, taking up the thread of 
 his talk where he had left it, telling her all about his sail 
 down the Rhine, through the golden girdle of just such 
 a week of June days last year. 
 
 " I wonder how you manage to live here, ' little Jessa- 
 mine' ?" Duke really spoke to himself, and wished he 
 could call the thought back the next moment. 
 
 A swift pain flashed into the girl's face. " It is very 
 hard sometimes. It seems as though it must kill me ; 
 but I don't think God will let it come to that ; and when 
 the %-orst happens, I try to brave myself against the
 
 5 8 THE HOLLA NDS. 
 
 thought of the time when Ross will come back, and we 
 shall be together once more." 
 
 Just then they caught, faint and far off among the 
 hills, the sound of the coming train. There was only- 
 time for Duke to reach the depot ; and he had an en- 
 gagement with his sisters that night. 
 
 "Next time for I intend to come again I shall 
 stay longer, Miss Holland, and meanwhile, I shall take a 
 brother's privilege, to write you." 
 
 And her answer was like herself : ' ' When you come, 
 you shall be welcome, either yourself or your letter." 
 
 She walked down to the gate with him, and watched 
 him as he went a\f&y ; and long after he was out of sight 
 she still stood there, rubbing her eyes, and wondering 
 whether his coming and his going, and all the story of 
 Duke Walbridge, had not been a dream.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DUKE WALBRIDGE had something on his mind. In 
 fact, this had been the case with him for several days, 
 ever since he had received a letter with a foreign post- 
 mark on it, in reply to one which he had written to Ross 
 Holland. Not that Duke regretted the letter which he 
 had sent to his friend, but he had a purpose to carry out, 
 and this involved a good many delicate relations and 
 feelings on the part of others ; and, although he was the 
 prime mover in the matter, his own position must, in the 
 very nature of the case, be a subordinate one. 
 
 The real truth was, Duke did not feel quite certain of 
 the human nature with which he must accomplish his 
 work. Most people have to take this into account in all 
 their dealings with each other ; -and Duke, like the rest 
 of us, had to make the best of his materials. 
 
 These last reflections passed through his mind, he 
 had a quaint, humorous habit of putting things to him- 
 self, like a good many thoughtful, reticent natures, 
 while there was just a hint of a smile upon his lips as he 
 looked from one member of his family to the other. He 
 did not know it, much less did they ; but he was weighing 
 each in the balance, and something seemed wanting.
 
 60 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 This plan of his furnished a kind of touchstone, and 
 before it the quality of parents and sisters seemed some- 
 how to fail the son and brother. 
 
 Duke sat there, his book on his knee, a paper-cutter 
 between the leaves, which he took up and played with 
 every few minutes in an absent kind of way. Plainly, 
 he was in no mood for-reading ; and Duke's silences and 
 little eccentricities were an accepted fact in the family, 
 to be made the subject of good-natured criticism and 
 merry jest, oftenest to his face. 
 
 His sisters had been to a millinery opening that after- 
 noon, and were eloquent over the new styles. One of 
 the girls had been particularly fervid in her description 
 to the less favored of her sisters of a hat which had par- 
 ticularly attracted her fancy. She concluded her account 
 of the arrangement of flowers, plumes and ribbons, with, 
 "0 -girls, it was such a love of a bonnet ! " 
 
 " Gertrude," said Duke, with a flash of emphatic dis- 
 gust in his face and voice, "don't ever use that ex- 
 pression again. It is suited to the lips of only a silly, 
 frivolous, afiected woman. If I should once hear that 
 remark, I should never want to Hum and look at the 
 woman who made it. I should know there must be 
 something weak or wrong in her head or heart." 
 
 " Who ever thought you were listening, you old book- 
 worm?" said Gertrude, more amused than provoked. 
 "This is the first time you've spoken for half an hour, 
 and now you're like a bear coming out of your den, and 
 shaking yourself with a growl." 
 
 Gertrude was next to Edith. She had her full share
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 61 
 
 of the family good looks ; a graceful, stylish girl, with the 
 bright bloom of-her race. 
 
 The other girls laughed ; but Duke would never hear 
 that speech again "in his household. His own family 
 paid a certain tacit deference to his notions, having an 
 instinct that there was something right and sound at the 
 bottom of them. 
 
 There was a lull in the buzz of voices. The millinery 
 and its collateral subjects had been pretty thoroughly 
 exhausted. Then Duke went over to his mother, and 
 stretched his limbs on the lounge by her chair. 
 
 "Mother ' He stopped there; he wished it was out 
 and over, he could hardly tell why. 
 
 "Well, my son." 
 
 Perhaps she spoke that name a little oftener, because, 
 of all the world, she could only use it to this odd Duke, 
 of whom she was very fond, and in many ways very 
 proud, and in some a little afraid. 
 
 " Pve heard you say, you and all the girls, that you 
 would be glad enough to light upon some plan of proving 
 that you remembered gratefully what Ross Holland did 
 for me one night. 
 
 " Yes, Duke. I never felt quite easy about the way 
 we let that matter rest ; neither, I think, did your father ; 
 but there seemed no help for it." 
 
 " It strikes me that I have found a way in which you 
 could properly and delicately express that you held in 
 grateful remembrance that grand deed of his." 
 
 "How is that, Duke?" Mrs. Walbridge's manner 
 showed no lack of interest.
 
 62 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "You could invite his sister to pass the holidays, or 
 the winter, with us. She is all alone, as I told you, shut 
 up in that country-house, and I know it would do her 
 good to see something of the world. * I think you owe 
 the girl so much attention as this ; and that anybody who 
 knew the circumstances would wonder -you had not 
 thought of showing her some courtesy, provided my 
 life was of much value to you." 
 
 This speech would have proven, to a shrewd observer, 
 that Duke Walbridge was not deficient in diplomatic 
 ability ; although, at present, he had no wider scope than 
 his mother's drawing-room. He certainly had set the 
 whole matter before her in a light most likely to influ- 
 ence Mrs. Walbridge. 
 
 ' ' I never thought of that before, Duke. I am not 
 certain but this is a bright idea of yours. Still, I should 
 like to turn the matter on all sides." 
 
 " I can't see that it has more than one ; but, I suppose, 
 it is natural that, as my life was saved, I should take a 
 stronger interest in the, matter than any of the rest of 
 you." 
 
 Was that some of Duke's "irony"? Mrs. Wal- 
 bridge was not quite certain. The whole subject was 
 one about which she felt a little uncomfortable ; in short, 
 not quite as secure of the ground which she occupied as 
 she did of the most of her relations with all mankind. 
 
 " What are you and Duke talking about? " asked one 
 of the girls, with a natural hankering for a secret. 
 
 " On a little private suggestion of 'your brother's, 
 that is all. Go on with your nonsense, girls."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 63 
 
 Mrs. "VValbridge's speech had just the effect of quieting 
 the "nonsense" effectually. Girls in their teens have 
 always a greediness for a mystery. 
 
 " ma, do let us know now ! " chimed several voices, 
 while the group gathered about the lounge. 
 
 Duke felt a little anxiety to learn how his sisters 
 would receive the proposition ; for upon their secret com- 
 plaisance with this plan must pivot Jessamine Holland's 
 real pleasure in his household. 
 
 " Let the girls know it, mother. It concerns them as 
 well as us." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was not unwilling to get the impres- 
 sions of her daughters ; for, to tejl the truth, she was 
 herself dubious about this plan of Duke's. She was hos- 
 pitably enough inclined. But, after all, there might be 
 some inconveniences in receiving this stranger, who came 
 with such claims to make good her place in the family. 
 
 " Well, then, Duke has just been proposing to me 
 that we invite Miss Holland here for the holidays. He 
 thinks it the proper thing to be done;" and you know we 
 have all felt that we owed her brother some further ex- 
 pression of our gratitude. It strikes me that this atten- 
 tion to the young man's sister is the proper method 
 of manifesting our feelings." 
 
 The girls looked at each other. It was a novel idea. 
 They hardly knew, at first, how to entertain it. 
 
 "Of course she would have to go out with us, mam- 
 ma? " asked one of the daughters. 
 
 " Of course ; Miss Holland would be our guest, and we 
 should treat her, under all circumstances, as such."
 
 64 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "I'd like to see her, any way," added one of the 
 younger of the group. " I was so interested when Duke 
 returned from that runaway call of his while we were at 
 the Springs." 
 
 They had all been this, for that matter ; making him 
 go over and over with his description of Jessamine Hol- 
 land's looks and manners, while the young man had sus- 
 tained, with rather unusual amiability, a ceaseless round 
 of questions. It was remarkable, the interest and curi- 
 osity which Jessamine Holland had created in the Wai- 
 bridge family ; and, somehow, Duke's replies to all their 
 questioning rather stimulated than allayed the feeling. 
 It was Edith's turn to speak now. Her opinion would 
 weigh heavily in either scale. 
 
 "I'm not sure, mamma, but it is about the best thing 
 we can do. So much depends, though " 
 
 " Well, go on, my dear." 
 
 ' ' We have so many engagements for the holidays, and, 
 of course, Miss Holland would always accompany us. 
 We should want somebody who was nice, and presentable, 
 and all that, and sufficiently used to society to show no 
 particular gaucherie." 
 
 " But Duke says she's a real lady." 
 
 " One of Nature's making," added another of the 
 sisters. 
 
 The Walbridges, however, were not absolutely certain 
 about the quality of that stamp. They had an idea that 
 the best society was a necessity to the perfection of lady- 
 hood. 
 
 " Duke is the one to know, as he has seen the young
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 65 
 
 lady ; and, even if she were riot aufait in all social mat- 
 ters, she would soon learn whatever was necessary," gra- 
 ciously added the mother. 
 
 " I don't think you need have any trouble on that 
 account," answered Duke, in his most frigid tones. 
 
 The subject, once started, did not die easily. It was 
 discussed, on all its sides, by the feminine Walbridges ; 
 and, on the whole, the more the invitation was^ agitated 
 the more they inclined toward it. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge did not say, but she reflected that if 
 Miss Holland should prove herself an awkward, uncul- 
 tivated girl, the gentility of the Walbridges would by no 
 means be affected by her propinquity ; for it would be 
 easy enough to have the matter thoroughly understood 
 in their set, and the claims which Miss Holland had on 
 their gratitude. This thought made her, secretly, more 
 inclined to the invitation. 
 
 As for Duke, he listened, for the most part, silent- 
 ly. ,The current was setting in the way he had desired, 
 and, in fact, foreseen ; but the whole tone of the conver- 
 sation grated on him. It seemed to have a hard worldli- 
 ness about it, that half irritated, half saddened him. Yet 
 these women were dearer to him than any other in the 
 world, they were his mother and his sisters, and 
 he wished he had not been born with that faculty for div- 
 ing down through the surface of things into purposes 
 and motives. 
 
 "After all, were not all women like these? If they 
 were, he, Duke Walbridge, might as well make up his 
 mind to remain a bachelor to the end of his days. There
 
 66 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 it was, cynical and bitter again; " his thoughts hunting 
 vaguely up and down, turning suddenly in sharp revenge 
 on himself. 
 
 When the matter had been as good as decided that 
 Mrs. Walbridge should write the letter of invitation, for 
 the winter, to Miss Holland, in which every member of 
 the family was to join, for if the Walbridges concluded 
 to do the thing at all, there was no doubt they would do 
 it handsomely, somebody suggested that perhaps the 
 young lady might hesitate to come before informing her 
 brother, as the compliment was, after all, indirectly to 
 himself, and no exchange of letters could take place 
 between New York and the East Indies before the holi- 
 days, now at hand. 
 
 It was Duke's time to speak now. " I forestalled all 
 that. Before I left the Springs I just wrote to young 
 .Holland, relating my visit to his sister, and entreating, 
 as an especial favor to us all, that he would urge his 
 sister to make this visit. You know he is not the sort 
 of stuff that takes favors easily, and I had to feel my 
 way cautiously. But I succeeded in getting the consent 
 in his reply ; given, though, I see clearly, with some in- 
 ward doubt or reluctance. I suppose that, however, 
 will not crop out in his note to his sister, which he 
 encloses with mine, and which is to satisfy her about the 
 propriety of this visit. I shall enclose hers with the 
 invitation." 
 
 " I cannot help thinking,, Duke, that it would have 
 been wiser to consult us before you had proceeded so 
 far in this matter. Circumstances might have made
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 67 
 
 it inconvenient to receive your friend's sister at this 
 time." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge's tone showed that lady not very well 
 pleased at this summary way of passing her over. 
 
 ' ' I could hardly conceive of any circumstances strong 
 enough to prevent a courtesy of this kind to one where I, 
 at least, owe so much. In that case, however, I knew 
 my friend, and could make it right with him ; so I con- 
 sulted nohody." 
 
 "It was just like one of Duke's odd ways of doing 
 things, mamma," volunteered the youngest but one of 
 the daughters ; and Mrs. Walbridge was obliged to be 
 content with this explanation. 
 
 After the matter had been settled, and Duke had 
 gained his point, he went back to the table and his arm- 
 chair ; still, he did not feel satisfied, as a man naturally 
 would who has carried a delicate bit of diplomacy to a 
 successful issue. A good many of those miserable doubts, 
 which come to chill us all, after we have achieved some 
 purpose on which we have strenuously set our 'minds, 
 came now to harass Duke Walbridge. 
 
 Would this visit of Jessamine Holland's be really 
 pleasant to her, after all ? Shy, sensitive, impressible, 
 would she not feel the family atmosphere, and apprehend, 
 if she did not comprehend, the observation and criticism 
 of which she certainly would be the object? He had no 
 fear on the score of attention and politeness ; but there 
 was something that went deeper than that : would there 
 be any generous and hearty warmth in welcoming to their 
 home the fair and bewildered young stranger, setting her
 
 68 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 at her ease, in the midst of the luxury and splendor, and 
 giving her a sense of dropping into some downy-lined 
 nest of shelter and comfort ? Thinking these thoughts, 
 Duke Walbridge gave a sudden blow with his foot to a 
 small ottoman at his feet, and turned it over, an ebulli- 
 tion of the doubt and irritability that was in him. 
 
 Eva noticed the movement. "You pushed that over 
 as though you were angry at somebody or something, 
 Duke." 
 
 " Perhaps I was at both a little," with that grim look 
 on his face, which never came without something wrong 
 lay beneath it. 
 
 "Is it because Miss Holland is really to come and see 
 us? " asked" Eva, trying a bit of joke. 
 
 She had no answer. Duke turned and looked at his 
 sister a moment, with that look peculiar to him, and that 
 always went deeper than one's face. " Are you glad she 
 is coming, Eva? " he asked, at last. 
 
 "Why, yes; I'm delighted, Duke. Aren't 'you ?" 
 
 " I'm not certain." 
 
 " Why, I thought you'd quite set your heart on it, 
 and was the prime mover in the whole affair." 
 
 " That doesn't prevent my being doubtful whether it 
 is a wise experiment, whether the sister of my friend 
 will really enjoy herself among us." 
 **" Why, how can she help it ? " asked Eva. as though 
 the family hospitality was somehow attacked. " I'm 
 sure we shall do all we can to make it pleasant for her." 
 
 " Yes ; but you know we are peculiar people, Eva." 
 
 " Peculiar ! How do you mean, Duke? "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 69 
 
 " We're very polite and genteel people ; and no doubt 
 \ve shall do all that is proper ; but I think, too, we shall 
 be a little patronizing, and that Miss Holland will feel it, 
 and be chilled by it." 
 
 " I think you are rather hard on your family, Duke," 
 said Eva ; but she said it as one upon whose mind a new 
 light is beginning to dawn. 
 
 "Well, doesn't it strike you so, little sister ?" hia 
 lookgrowing.less grim. " Just think, now, for a moment, 
 that you are in Miss Holland's place, a young girl, 
 born and reared afar from cities, and shy as wood-birds 
 and fawns and all those pretty, graceful creatures ; but 
 a lady, one of Nature's making to the core. Now, just 
 imagine yourself suddenly launched out upon a new life. 
 a timid, lonely girl, among people whom you had 
 never seen before, would the handsome house, would all 
 the formal civilities, satisfy your heart? Wouldn't that 
 want something more to put warmth and ease into it? " 
 
 " Yes, it would, Duke." 
 
 " And supposing you should feel all the time that the 
 people among whom you had fallen were watchful, ex- 
 acting, critical ; that, when your back was turned, they 
 discussed you with a well-bred pity and contempt for 
 any little local breach of etiquette of which you might 
 be guilty; though a lady, mind. I say, in all essentials, 
 would you be really at ease and happy, would you 
 ever feel quite yourself, wouldn't there be a lurking 
 loneliness and homesickness in the midst of all the 
 splendor? " 
 
 Eva drew a long breath. " I think there would be,
 
 TO THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Duke ; but then I never supposed we were people of that 
 sort. Why, mamma would be quite shocked." 
 
 "Very likely; but aren't the facts on my side? 
 Mamma's girls are so very genteel, that their hearts 
 have taken an awful chill, as their toes do sometimes in 
 their dainty slippers." 
 
 Eva laughed, as a girl would be likely to, over this 
 conclusion, but she saw some precious marrow of truth 
 hidden deep in the jest. 
 
 " Mine haven't, either toes or heart," thrusting out her 
 foot, and displaying a handsome kid walking-boot. " I 
 see what you mean, Duke ; and I shall do my part to 
 make Miss Holland feel real happy and at home with us. 
 I'll leave mamma and the girls to do the politeness ; but 
 she shall feel my heart is in my welcome." 
 
 Duke smiled down on the girl now. " That is my 
 brave little sister ! " he said. " I like to hear you speak 
 like that, Eva." 
 
 "And then, just think, Duke, what we owe Miss Hol- 
 land through her brother. Where would you, where 
 would we all, have been at this time, if his heart or cour- 
 age had failed him once? " 
 
 " There is not a day of my life, Eva, in which I do 
 not say this to myself." 
 
 Eva drew closer to the young man, with a swift sort 
 of caressing movement, as though the old terror of Duke's 
 drowning moment came over her again. "Well, you 
 are here, Duke ; and oh ! when Miss Holland comes 
 won't I do everything to make her feel just as happy and 
 easy as she would in her own home, and prove to her
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 71 
 
 what a heart of gratitude I have, because her brother 
 saved mine ! " * 
 
 "That's my darling, noble little Eva!" And the 
 glance of his gray, clear eyes, with the wonderful light 
 which they held only at rare times, shone full upon the 
 girl's face ; and in his thought, Duke Walbridge from that 
 time depended more for Jessamine Holland's real happi- 
 ness on his young sister, who was regarded a mere baby by 
 the rest of the family, than he did on his lady mother, 
 or her elegant eldest daughter. 
 
 The next day the letter of invitation was written, a 
 model of its kind, and it was cordial enough to satisfy 
 even Duke. Each of the daughters added her name to 
 the mother's, and Mrs. Walbridge begged that Miss Hol- 
 land would do her friends the honor to come as early and 
 remain as long as possible ; and out of her extreme 
 graciousness, the lady even went so far as to add that, if 
 Miss Holland had no travelling companion, she would her- 
 self provide a cavalier for the occasion. 
 
 " That means you, Duke," said one of the girls, with 
 a laugh, when the letter was read in family conclave. 
 
 "That was a happy thought, mother. I shall be 
 ready on a moment's warning." 
 
 After this, Jessamine Holland was a frequent subject 
 of conversation and curiosity at the Walbridges. The 
 girl little suspected all this, in the lonely cottage off 
 there among the hills, her youth beating impatient wings 
 against the walls which imprisoned it in on every side. 
 The more they thought of the young stranger who was 
 coming to be their guest, under circumstances so pecu-
 
 72 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 liar, the more kindly disposed the Walbridges; old and 
 young, felt toward her. 
 
 Of course, in all this there was a patronizing element ; 
 but the Walbridges resolved that Miss Holland should 
 be inducted into all that the city had to oifer in social 
 gayeties and unaccustomed splendor. 
 
 Her appearance and manners were matters, too, of 
 much curiosity, Edith condescending to hope that Miss 
 Holland was a presentable young person. 
 
 " But don't' you remember what Duke says about 
 her? " asked one of the sisters. " I asked him if Miss 
 Holland was stylish, and he said, ' She's something a 
 great deal better than that ; she's a simple, ladylike girl. 
 J. only wish there were more just such in society.' " 
 
 "Oh, well," replied Edith, "you can't depend alto- 
 gether on Duke's statements in this matter. The girl 
 would be likely to wear in his eyes some nimbus that 
 ordinary mortals could not see, as she is the sister of Ross 
 Holland." 
 
 "Well, really, I don't know as it is to be wondered 
 at," spoke up another voice from the blooming group. 
 
 And nobody answered.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JESSAMINE HOLLAND stood by the kitchen window in 
 the country house, and watched the first flakes of snow 
 heating down through the sharp air. It was only a 
 squall, she knew by the looks of the sky overhead, 
 where little cold gulfs of blue were constantly revealing 
 themselves betwixt the gray bulks of cloud ; but she al- 
 most wished that a long winter snow would set in, one 
 of the kind which would block up the roads, and thus 
 make the journey to-morrow impossible. 
 
 It was a large, homely room, that old kitchen ; but the 
 light' had a pleasant, cheery way of looking in through 
 the small, old-fashioned windows, and Jessamine Hol- 
 land gazed around the room now with a certain feel- 
 ing of tender regret, as the time drew near for her to 
 leave it. That rusty-brown cottage was all the home which 
 she had in the world, the great world into which she 
 was to be launched so soon ; a vast, vague world on whose 
 threshold she stood now, with a sudden thrill, half of 
 dread, half of fear. She heard the children outside shout- 
 ing in the snow, two round, stubbed, freckled-faced boys, 
 for whom Jessamine had a certain affection. There was 
 a third in the cradle ; a little bald-headed, fat, dimpled 
 
 7
 
 74 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 bit of humanity. By. the cradle, in a small rocking- 
 chair, intent over a small, blue flannel coat which she 
 was finishing for one of the little urchins outside, sat a 
 woman with a faded, anxious face, one of the kind 
 which grows old early. You saw at the first glance that 
 her life had lain in narrow, toilsome grooves, out of which 
 it Avould probably never be lifted. When the smile came 
 out on the worn face, it showed a warm, honest heart be- 
 neath it ; and into its warmest corner, years ago, Ross 
 and Jessamine Holland had found their way ; and there 
 were some strength and tenacity in the woman's tempera- 
 ment, you felt this in the way in which her right foot 
 jogged the cradle, in the very tone in which she hummed 
 her lullaby over her sleeping baby, whatever got into 
 this woman's heart would be likely to stay there always. 
 
 At last the humming voice stopped ; there was no 
 sound in the wide kitchen save the faint drawing of the 
 thread through the fabric. The woman glanced at the 
 figure by the window, a quiet girl's figure standing 
 there, and yet it concentrated all the fine color and grace 
 of the old kitchen in itself. 
 
 "Them flakes of snow won't come to anything, Miss 
 Jessamine. Wind isn't the right way. You'll have a 
 good day to-morrow." 
 
 The woman had a rapid, somewhat downright way of 
 speaking, like one accustomed to dealing with the stub- 
 born facts of life ; her sentences short and to the point, 
 clipping off the redundant conjunctions and prepositions. 
 Her character had its angles as well as her talk. Jessa- 
 mine had tact enough to keep clear of the former.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 75 
 
 She turned now. " No, Hannah, I was not thinkin^ 
 
 ' J O 
 
 of the storm, but of leaving you all here." 
 
 A softer look came into the worn face. It smoothed 
 something there that was not just pleasant, a little 
 sharp, set line about the lips. 
 
 "You've been with. us so long, child, that it's hard to 
 let you go ; only I know it's for the best." 
 
 Jessamine came around now, and took her seat on a 
 low stool just in front of the woman, and looked at her 
 with those broad, clear eyes of hers, their brownish tint, 
 like her hair, vanishing often in black shadows. " Han- 
 nah," she said, " now the time has come to leave the old 
 home here, I find I begin to dread this visit, and to shrink 
 from the strange people I shall meet there. All my 
 courage is oozed out of me. I'm just a baby instead of 
 the woman I ought to be." 
 
 Hannah looked at the girl, all the hard lines, all the 
 little wintry sourness of her face disappearing in that 
 look. " It's no wonder that you dread it, child, going 
 out so in the world all alone, among those strange, grand 
 people ; but, for all that, the chance's a great thing. 
 I've seen for a long time that this wasn't the place for 
 you ; that it was hard enough for you to be shut up here 
 in the heyday of your youth with us plain, common peo- 
 ple. You needed something finer and better, and it's 
 been a long time coming to you." 
 
 Jessamine thought of the old, restless, chafing days. 
 She did not want to draw back into their prison-houses 
 again ; and yet the world was such a vast, crowded, aw- 
 ful thing to her. She drew a long sigh, and then looked
 
 76 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 up again, her face in a gravity which never comes to 
 those who have not thought and sorrowed. 
 
 "One never can tell where impressions come from; 
 but mine is strong enough to amount to a conviction, that 
 these grand people, as you call the Walbridges, are cold 
 and haughty. I've tried to get rid of the feeling, but it 
 clings to me. It crops out, too, in Ross's letter, the 
 darling fellow ! I can see, through all his urgency that 
 I should make this visit, a certain doubt or reluctance ; 
 a kind of desire to put me on my guard against some- 
 thing, without^ alarming me, and thus prevent my going. 
 His instincts are keen, as you well know, and Ross 
 would not have written as he did if he had felt I was 
 going into a kindly home-atmosphere, where any defi- 
 ciencies of mine would be excused and overlooked ; he 
 would not have said, ' You will find the Walbridges 
 very nice people, very elegant and refined, and all that ; 
 but I think none of them resemble Duke, unless it is 
 that little sister of his who gave me the roses.' 
 
 ' ' Now, Ross would never have written in that way, if 
 he had not wanted, without seeming to do it, to prepare 
 me, not only for an entirely new sort of life, but for .peo- 
 ple who would criticise closely the way in which I car- 
 ried myself there." 
 
 " Well, anyhow, you're a lady ! " said Hannah, look- 
 ing at the girl affectionately. "You always was, from 
 the minute you was born." 
 
 A smile flashing through, and breaking up, for a mo- 
 ment, all the gravity in a face gifted with a rare elo-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 77 
 
 quence of expression, "Ah, Hannah, if everybody 
 would only take that partial view of me ! " 
 
 "Everybody will, who has eyes, child; so don't you 
 trouble yourself if these grand people take on airs. 
 They'd better think what would have happened to them 
 if it hadn't been for your brother." 
 
 Of course, Jessamine never would have said this, 
 never have " put it " so, even in her thoughts ; but there 
 was a kernel of truth deep in the coarse rind of the 
 words, which nobody could gainsay. 
 
 " I am sure Ross's friend feels all he should on that 
 -matter, and his family must, or they would not have sent 
 me this cordial invitation to visit them." 
 
 "I don't see as they could do any less," answered 
 Hannah, in her sharp, decided way, which it was, often- 
 times, not best to oppose. 
 
 She went on, in a softer voice, a few minutes later, 
 laying down her work, and looking with a kind of ten- 
 der seriousness into the face which sat opposite. 
 
 "I've had it on my mind, of late, Miss Jessamine, 
 child, that something's going to happen to you. I don't 
 know how, but I'm certain it's to come of this visit. 
 Anyway, you'll never come back to the old house as you 
 went from it. You'll have been into the great world, 
 and looked with your own eyes on its pride and splen- 
 dor ; and that harms some folks, and others it don't, and 
 you'll be one of the last kind, 'cause it isn't your na- 
 ture to spoil ; it never was, or you'd have turned sour 
 long ago under some of the skies you and I remem- 
 ber."
 
 78 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 A quick look of intelligence, a swift shadow on the 
 young face those last words had touched the quick. 
 
 " Yes, Hannah. You and I remember." 
 
 Hannah had been with the Hollands through some of 
 their seasons of deepest poverty and suffering. 
 
 "But, child, I want you to remember that the old 
 house waits for you with a warm welcome, and always will, 
 * until John and I have passed over its threshold for the 
 last time. There's a place always at the table, and a 
 room always under the roof for you ; and though both 
 are plain and humble, maybe the thought will make your 
 heart warm sometimes when the chill comes down on 
 it." 
 
 Hannah was little given to speeches of this sort, but 
 her feeling now carried her quite out of herself into a 
 kind of homely eloquence. 
 
 The great tears shook in Jessamine's eyes. She laid 
 her little, warm hands in the hard, brown ones of the 
 faithful serving woman. 
 
 " Hannah ! you are the best friend, the dearest, I 
 have in all the world, except Ross." 
 
 Hannah said nothing this time, only the head before 
 her was suddenly blurred. She lifted one of her hands, 
 and stroked the delicate face as she had done when it 
 lay in her arms under its soft baby's cap, and she her- 
 self was a blooming-cheeked girl, instead of the faded 
 woman she was now. 
 
 And if she did not speak any words, Jessamine knew 
 it was because she could not. The two understood each 
 other/ And through all this, the white-haired children
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 79 
 
 had tumbled and shouted together in the squall of snow 
 outside. Afterward, there was other talk between the 
 two in the kitchen ; Jessamine had, in accepting the invi- 
 tation of the Walbridge family, declined the cavalier 
 which had been offered to her. 
 
 Hannah's husband had relatives living but a few miles 
 from the city where the Walbridges resided, and as he 
 had been talking for a year of making them a visit, and 
 as this season was the one which afforded him the most 
 leisure, it was decided that he should accompany Jessa- 
 mine to the city. 
 
 A friend of the young girl's, who had fashionable 
 relations in New York, and who passed part of every 
 season among them, and whose taste amounted almost to 
 genius, had been duly consulted regarding Jessamine's 
 wardrobe. * 
 
 The result had been a black silk for dinner-parties, 
 and a white alpaca with blue trimmings for evening dress, 
 the finest garments which Jessamine Holland had ever 
 worn in her life. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "the Walbridges will know at 
 once, if they do not already, that I cannot afford to dress 
 elegantly ; and if they are ashamed to take me out with 
 them, why, I can stay at home : " a speech which indi- 
 cated a remarkable degree of good sense and moral cour- 
 age on the part of a young girl about to make her first 
 advent in fashionable life, on so slender a capital. 
 
 "A simple, genteel dress will carry one through a 
 great deal ; and yours is both," said her friend. 
 
 And so, with a new travelling suit, and fresh touches
 
 80 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 to the rest of Jessamine's wardrobe, she was fain to be 
 content. 
 
 Even the small outlay these involved cost the girl a 
 pang. Ross had sent her a hundred dollars for this 
 visit, and she feared the "dear fellow had pinched him- 
 self to the last dollar " to transmit such a sum to her. 
 
 If at any time the heart of Jessamine Holland half 
 failed her, thinking of this visit, the thought of Duke 
 Walbridge, her brother's friend, had come to steady it. 
 She felt certain that he was at the bottom of this invita- 
 tion, even though his influence might not be apparent there. 
 
 His visit, as you must know, had formed a grand epoch 
 in the lonely life of the girl. That Duke Walbridge 
 must feel an interest in the sister of the man who had 
 plucked him, at the risk of his own life, from the very 
 jaws of death, seemed so natural, so inevitable under the 
 circumstances, that Jessamine would never for one mo- 
 ment draw' any flattering unction to herself from any 
 attention which he might offer her. Ross was the bond 
 between them ; no light one on either side. 
 
 Jessamine Holland was romantic ; but she was not 
 vain. There was a fresh simplicity about the girl which 
 struck its roots into the very mould of her nature ; it gave 
 a certain earnestness to all she said and did ; and, as it 
 was a part of her life, this quality would lend a freshness 
 and charm of youth to her old age. 
 
 You- have seen such natures ; they are sometimes ab- 
 rupt ; but Jessamine had delicate instincts, which would 
 always be swift to spare the feelings of others. So much 
 salt there was to savor the character of Jessamine Holland.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 81 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 
 
 IT is an afternoon late in December. The sky is 
 warped all over with dull, heavy, clouds. The wind 
 cries out fiercely sometimes, as the day settles itself 
 sullenly into night. The air is stung through with a 
 sharp chill, which smites into your marrow, and down 
 into your heart, and mingles with any other chill, if so 
 be it is there. 
 
 Just at this time a carriage drives into the Walbridge 
 grounds and up to the door, and the lights from the win- 
 dows gleam brightly upon the couchant lions on each 
 side of the steps, until they seem to look larger and 
 grimmer than ever. 
 
 Jessamine Holland alights from the carriage, and her 
 first glance rests on the stern stone warders. Is it that 
 sight, or the wind, or both, that makes her shiver as she 
 walks up the broad front steps ? The coachman rings 
 the bell, and the door* of the splendid home opens softly, 
 and Jessamine goes in. She walks through the wide 
 hall and up the handsome staircase to the sitting-room; 
 where, as the door opens, she sees in the radiant light 
 the Walbridge family assembled to receive her. 
 
 And now" pause and think of her a moment, as she
 
 82 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 stands in their midst, a lonely, shrinking girl, the only 
 relative she has on earth such wide spaces of ocean away. 
 There she stands, a quiet figure, in a gray travelling 
 dress, something dainty and graceful about her, even in the 
 midst of all those elegant people. There she stands, and 
 heart and soul seem about to fail her ; for it is an awful 
 moment, one she will never forget in' all the time to 
 come. 
 
 " Now, Jessamine Holland, steady yourself," says the 
 failing courage in the fluttering heart, girding itself up, 
 and then Mrs. Walbridge steps. forward to do, as becomes 
 her, the honors of the house. She does them well. 
 
 " Miss Holland, I am most happy to welcome you to 
 our home," is said, in the lady's softest, most gracious 
 manner ; but she is not thinking, ' ' Poor, young, lonely, 
 motherless thing ! how trying all this must be for 
 you ! " She is quietly but keenly noticing Jessa- 
 mine's air and figure, and the fabric of her dress, 
 and that warmer welcome of the heart it is not in the 
 nature of Mrs. Walbridge to give.* 
 
 Then Edith comes forward, with her fair, proud face, 
 the rustle of her elegant dress following her path along 
 the rich carpet, and her smile is bright ; but Jessamine 
 does not warm under it. And each of those fair, bloom- 
 ing girls has gone .through her part, until it has come 
 Eva's turn. 
 
 She steps forward. She has been admiring the 
 way in which "mamma and the girls" have gone 
 through with their parts, and intends that hers shall not 
 suffer a disparaging comparison with the others ; but a
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 83 
 
 swift thought of a stormy night, and a vt)ice shouting out 
 through the darkness and the rush of the waves, "Hold 
 on, and I'll save you ! " sweeps upon Eva Walbridge. 
 Her face trembles as it lifts itself to Jessamine. Instead 
 of one hand, she puts out both, and grasps the stranger, 
 " Miss Holland ! I am glad to thank you, at last, 
 for what your brother did for mine." 
 
 The words strike through the chill in Jessamine's 
 heart. The tears slip, in spite of herself, into the eyes, 
 that even Edith has decided are remarkably fine, and for 
 the first time Mrs. Walbridge feels a little secret unea- 
 siness. 
 
 Eva's welcome seemed to shed some new light upon 
 hers, that made it, by contrast, appear lacking in cordial- 
 ity. She had intended to say all that was required 
 respecting their obligations to Miss Holland's brother 
 when a fit season occurred, which surely would not be on 
 the young lady's first arrival. 
 
 But 'Eva had anticipated her mother, and really Mrs. 
 Walbridge could find nothing to censure, in speech or 
 manner, of her youngest daughter. At that moment the 
 maid appeared, to conduct the new guest to her chamber, 
 and as she followed the young girl up the winding flight 
 of stairs, Jessamine Holland thought of Eva's welcome, 
 and it seemed the only really pleasant thing in the splen- 
 did home to which she had come. 
 
 4-S soon as she left the sitting-room, the inmates gath- 
 ered into a corner, and a brisk conversation ensued. 
 " Well, now, what do you think of her ? " asked one girl,
 
 84 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 as though it was absolutely necessary to decide Jessa- 
 mine's status in the household without loss of time. 
 
 " She isn't exactly stylish, as we call it, -mamma? " 
 asked another, sufficiently doubtful to need the maternal 
 confirmation of her criticism. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge, not quite assured of the character of 
 her welcome, desired to be generous in her criticisms on 
 the young stranger: " Style, my dear, is not the only 
 desirable attribute in a young lady. There is certainly 
 nothing in her manner to find fault with." 
 
 "-She was a little embarrassed during the introduc- 
 tions," commented Edith, who prided herself on her sang 
 .froid, under most circumstances. 
 
 ' ' But, my dear, ' ' said again the mild voice of the 
 mother, "you must remember how trying it was. I 
 wonder she went through it so well." 
 
 ' ' Her dress was simple enough : but then it was in 
 good taste; nothing of the backwoods-air about it," 
 added another of the sisters. 
 
 " Anyhow, I like her ever so much," broke in Eva, in 
 her decided way ; "and I'm sure she's handsome ; nobody 
 can deny that." 
 
 " Nobody wished to, I presume, if it be true, my 
 dear," suggested the mother. 
 
 " But is it true? that's the question," said another. 
 
 "Not exactly," replied Edith. "She has fine eyes 
 and very good features, and, in full dress, I should think 
 might look well. Her eyes are, really, something un- 
 common." 
 
 " It's a delicate face, what I think people would call
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 85 
 
 interesting. I shouldn't wonder if she made quite a 
 sensation in society ; for there's something a little unlike 
 the ordinary type about her, I fancy," added Gertrude. 
 
 Into the midst of this feminine conclave Duke hurst, 
 panting. The criticisms would have to be a little more 
 guarded now. 
 
 " Has Miss Holland arrived ? " he burst out. 
 
 " Yes, and has just gone upstairs," answered several 
 voices. 
 
 " I'm glad to hear that ; I was just about starting for 
 the cars, when an old chum of mine, from Germany, 
 burst into the office. Of course I was glad to see him ; 
 for we had footed and staged over half the continent to- 
 gether, and the sight of him started a flock of old mem- 
 ories, of climbing up the Alps, and moonlight boatings 
 at Venice, and pretty peasant-girls at Italy. 
 
 " The time just spun off; and when I looked at my 
 watch, I saw I was too late ; the carriage must have gone 
 without me. I rushed away from my friend, as quick as 
 I could with any sort of decency, and hurried up here." 
 
 "I certainly expected and desired, my son, that you 
 should meet Miss Holland at the depot ; but the coach- 
 man said he knew she was the right young lady as soon 
 as he laid eyes on her; so there was no difficulty," re- 
 plied Mrs. Walbridge. 
 
 "Well, Pussy, what did you say to her?" asked 
 Duke, to Eva, who had come over to him, with plenty 
 of talk in her face. 
 
 "Not much; but I think she knew what I meant 
 when I told her that I was glad to thank her for all her
 
 86 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 brother had done for mine. I saw the tears come in her 
 eyes then." 
 
 "You did?" 
 
 "Yes; and Duke, I like her ever so much. I 
 am sure we shall get on nicely together. They were all 
 discussing her when you came in." 
 
 " Well, what did they say about her ? " 
 
 " Pretty good things. They all thought she was lady- 
 like and good-looking." 
 
 Duke said nothing, and, after a moment, Eva contin- 
 ued : 
 
 "I haven't forgotten our talk, Duke. I intend to do 
 all /can to make Miss Holland happy." 
 
 "I shall not forget it, Eva," smiling on her now. 
 " It will be a kind of test of the value you set on me." 
 
 Eva made some playful rejoinder, and, in the midst of 
 the talk, her father entered, and she darted off to ac- 
 quaint him with Miss Holland's arrival. 
 
 Just as the dinner-bell rang, the young lady entered 
 the room, a magnet, again, for all eyes. 
 
 Jessamine Holland was a young girl, and very human. 
 She had made her toilet that evening with a good deal 
 of trepidation, smiling a little to herself as she gazed 
 around the handsome chamber, and thought of its im- 
 mense contrast to the little room she had under the roof 
 in Hannah Bray's cottage. The hair was brushed back 
 from the low, wide forehead, in the only way she ever 
 wore it ; the dark, -heavy folds giving their own effect to 
 the delicate face. She wore her black silk, with the fresh 
 lace at the throat. Poor Jessamine ! she had not put it
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 87 
 
 on without a little pang at the extravagance of wearing 
 it at a simple home-dinner, but she thought of the group 
 of handsomely dressed girls downstairs, and she remem- 
 bered the remark of the friend who had superintended 
 her wardrobe, ' ' That there is a great deal in first im- 
 pressions." 
 
 Mr. Walbridge came forward, and received his guest 
 with stately courtesy. No? so Duke. His greeting was 
 so cordial, his welcome so full of frank eagerness, that 
 Jessamine began to feel at her ease at once. His ques- 
 tions came so fast, that she could only find space to reply 
 in monosyllables. Had her journey been pleasant? 
 Was she tired ? and then followed explanations and apol- 
 ogies for not meeting her at the depot. 
 
 There was the elegant Edith on one side ; there were 
 all those pretty, blooming girls about her ; and yet, I- 
 half fancy, the eyes of a stranger entering the room, at 
 this moment, would have returned oftenest to the quiet 
 figure in the simple black dress, and the delicate face 
 under the shading of the. beautiful hair ; though I sup- 
 pose that would depend largely on the character and 
 taste of the gazer. 
 
 Duke took Miss Holland out to dinner, but Eva 
 claimed a seat by the side of her. 
 
 Of course Jessamine's manner at the table underwent 
 something of the same covert inspection that her broth- 
 er's had done before, without, however, affording any 
 salient points for criticism. 
 
 The family was all gracious, although Duke and Eva 
 seemed to feel that the new guest belonged, especially, to
 
 88 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 themselves, and there was something in the young man's 
 manner which could thaw any chill in the Walbridge 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Jessamine Holland, too, had latent conversational gifts, 
 which she never suspected, but which the world would be 
 likely to develop ; and eager, timid, expectant, she stood 
 now, on the threshold of that same marvellous world of 
 which she had so often dreamed, a quiet, girlish fig- 
 ure, not without something pathetic in its silent back- 
 ground, in its youth, and its loneliness.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE visit which launched Jessamine Holland into a 
 new world placed the girl secretly on her mettle. Per- 
 haps she was hardly conscious of it ; but it was inevitable 
 that a visit of this sort must prove a fine touchstone of 
 whatever social powers were latent in her ; a touchstone 
 which would be likely, too, in subtle ways, to try some- 
 thing of one's real moral fibre, and to enable a keen and 
 broad observer of human nature to discern pretty accu- 
 rately what sort of qualities went to the making of the 
 whole character. To any girl brought up as Jessamine 
 had 'been, this visit must prove in many ways a severe 
 ordeal. 
 
 A soft, absolvent nature, with natural refinement of 
 taste and feeling, would have been permanently shaped 
 and impressed by the influences which now surrounded 
 Jessamine Holland ; a stronger, coarser nature must have 
 taken on a superficial varnish, while retaining beneath all 
 its own strong individuality. The time had come now, 
 as, sooner or later, I suppose it comes to all of us, to 
 test what power was in this girl, wKat sort of a woman 
 had come at last out of the shadowed childhood, the lone- 
 ly, defrauded youth ; and when these tests came in forms
 
 90 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 she looked not for, her own deeds are her witnesses for 
 good or for evil. 
 
 At any rate, the Walbridges, who ought to be good 
 judges in these matters, came to the conclusion that Jes- 
 samine would be worth patronizing ; which a shy, common- 
 place girl would hardly have been. Not that they shut 
 their intentions in a word, which has something offensive 
 about it ; they disguised all that under graceful terms of 
 hospitality and courtesies. They had, however, an in- 
 stinct that Miss Holland would be interesting, and might 
 create a sensation which would redound more or less to 
 their own glory. 
 
 , So far and near circulated the story of Duke's rescue 
 from drowning by Ross Holland, making of the latter 
 quite a grand hero, and, of course, investing his sister 
 with a certain atmosphere of romance and interest. Peo- 
 ple always like to hear new stories ; and this one had a 
 charm of peril and intrepidity which attracted every one. 
 And so Jessamine Holland produced quite a sensation in 
 the Walbridge circle. The family, too, were quite will- 
 ing that everybody should discern their sense of obliga- 
 tion to the sister of Duke's preserver ; for the feeling was 
 one which everybody must Approve. 
 
 So, within two or three days after Jessamine's arri- 
 val, everybody had heard the story of her acquaintance 
 with the family ; and, meanwhile, that young lady her- 
 self was making her first acquaintance with the city, 
 having daily rides," and little shopping expeditions, and 
 visits to the picture-galleries, and to whatever else was 
 famous or interesting in the city.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 91 
 
 She expressed her delight rather more energetically 
 to Eva than to any of her sisters ; but the young girl's 
 answer dashed cold water upon Jessamine's enthusi- 
 asm. 
 
 " Oh, we haven't anything in town worth showing at 
 all ; but you should go to New York or Boston, Miss 
 Jessamine. There you'll see something in pictures and 
 statuary." 
 
 Jessamine wondered if she should ever have such 
 good fortune as that ; and then she thought of the time 
 when Ross was to return from the Indies with the for- 
 tune he had made, and they would not only go to all the 
 great cities, but visit the Falls, and the Mountains, and 
 the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 But that was a long time to look ahead, and, mean- 
 while, she must make the most of what she had now. 
 A very few thousands, in Jessamine's eyes, were to make 
 the grand fortune for Ross and herself; most men and wo- 
 men would have smiled with a good-natured contempt over 
 it ; but then Jessamine had been educated in a very stern 
 school of economy, and she knew just how far a little 
 money would go ; how much comfort, grace, luxury it 
 would afford, which is a greaj; thing for anybody to learn 
 wisely. 
 
 In two or three days the girl made her entrance into 
 society, at a grand party, a sort of opening of the 
 season. The whole thing was so entirely strange and 
 novel to her, that Jessamine quite forgot herself in 
 the bustle of preparation at the household. 
 
 She was bending, in breathless delight, over a basket
 
 92 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 of flowers which had been ordered for the occasion, when 
 Mrs. Walbridge, who was discussing with her daughters 
 some of the details of the evening toilet, turned sudden- 
 ly to Jessamine with, "My dear Miss Holland, per- 
 haps you will like Jane to dress your hair for the even- 
 ing ? She has a wonderful art at doing those things 
 well.'; 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Walbridge," answered the soft, 
 steady voice, which they all had learned to recognize 
 now. " I am in the habit of dressing my own hair, and 
 I always wear it in one way; so I will not trouble 
 Jane." 
 
 Of course this left nothing more to be said ; but Jes- 
 samine was only well out of hearing when Gertrude 
 spoke. "I wonder what she will wear this evening. 
 In all our talk over our dresses, to-day, she has not said 
 one word about her own. I wanted to ask her ; but I was 
 afraid it would seem a little like taking a liberty, though 
 everybody talks freely over such things." 
 
 " She can't have much of a variety to choose from in 
 that small trunk of hers," added Edith. "Why, I 
 should no more think of going to New York to pass a 
 week on a wardrobe that could be stowed in such small 
 quarters, than I should of undertaking a journey to the 
 moon." 
 
 " No, I should think not, Edith, from the amount of 
 trunk-room you manage to occupy," added her mother, 
 who considered Edith's views regarding dress rather ex- 
 travagant, even for*the daughter of so rich a man as 
 Mason Walbridge.
 
 'THE HOLLANDS. 93 
 
 "Well, I have a kind of feeling that, whatever Miss 
 Holland puts on, she will look well in it," added Ger- 
 trude. " Some people have a gift in that way." And 
 from this general remark the discussion of particulars 
 was resumed again. 
 
 An hour later, Jessamine Holland came downstairs in 
 her dress of white alpaca, terminating in a soft frill of 
 lace about her throat, which dropped in a fine, gauzy 
 scarf over her shoulder. 
 
 Not an ornament did she wear, except the little gold 
 brooch at her throat, which had been her birthday gift 
 from Ross. She had twined a few cape-jessamines in 
 her hair that Eva had brought her fresh from the con- 
 servatory that morning, "for her namesake," the child 
 playfully said. 
 
 The white drooping clusters shone like stars through 
 the dark hair, and there she stood among the richly 
 dressed group, with their lustrous silks, their glitter of 
 jewels, their glow of color; *and I think the eye of any 
 true artist would have rested longest, and with a certain 
 fine relish,. on the cool, quiet figure of the girl. Of 
 course she underwent a minute inspection on all sides, 
 and then Mr. Walbridge and Duke came downstairs to 
 join the ladies ; for the carriages were waiting. 
 
 "A party is Duke's absolute abhorrence," said Ger- 
 
 . trude, confidentially, to Jessamine. " He's been more 
 
 amiable over the prospect of this one than I ever knew 
 
 him. When he's particularly cross we always know a 
 
 party is impending." 
 
 The young man's eyes took in the group standing in
 
 94 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 the front hall; a picture of youth, grace, bloom, such as 
 one, it seemed, might never tire of beholding. He had 
 a fine discernment of beauty wherever he found it, and 
 his thoughts, stirred by the sight, went thus to his own 
 soul : " A ' very dream of fair women.' How all that 
 glow of color dazzles one, like the light in some of those 
 still Eastern sunsets I used to love ! How like a water- 
 lily she looks among the others ! white, still, graceful, 
 as though she had been gathered up suddenly from the 
 broad, slow current where her life had ripened, silent 
 and serene, into a great white purity and fragrance, and 
 the dew is on her still, and the sunlight ! " 
 
 If Duke could have looked at these thoughts of his, 
 'printed in a book, he would have been mortally ashamed 
 of them ; but, I suppose, Duke Walbridge was not alone 
 in that matter. 
 
 People are apt to bS in a good-humor going to parties. 
 These flowed down the steps, full of merry excitement ; 
 so the carriages rolled over the drive, and, a little later, 
 Jessamine Holland made her first entrance into fashion- 
 able life. 
 
 Late the next morning, the family met to discuss the 
 party in what Edith, rather ambitiously, termed her 
 "boudoir." 
 
 " I really think she made quite a sensation," said one 
 of the girls. "There is something peculiar and at- 
 tractive about her, and people like anything which is not 
 the cut-and-dried pattern one always meets at parties." 
 
 "Duke spoke through you then," laughed Edith. 
 " But I think the interest Miss Holland created is part-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 95 
 
 ly owing to that matter of Duke's, which everybody has 
 heard of by this time." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said her mother. " I had to repeat 
 the incident at least a dozen times, myself, during the 
 evening. Still, I must admit that Miss Holland did her- 
 self remarkable credit for a young person who had seen 
 so little of the world." 
 
 " She is a kind of a riddle anyhow," added Gertrude. 
 "I watched her curiously last evening, for I knew she 
 had never been at a grand party before in her life. Yet 
 she carried herself through it without a solitary blunder 
 of any kind ; and really there were several gentlemen 
 who were interested in her. She doesn't dance or play ; 
 but she does talk well, and she does look remarkably 
 pretty when she is animated. Did you observe her while 
 she was conversing with those people at the supper- 
 table ?" 
 
 "I did," replied Edith. 
 
 ''' Well, there was more than one gentleman who was 
 struck with her. Really, mamma, now the best thing 
 we could do for Miss Holland would be to get her a rich 
 husband this winter. "We should feel then that we had 
 done something for her in our turn, and it would pay off 
 part of the debt. I do hope somebody will fall in love 
 with her." 
 
 " I should be exceedingly gratified, my dear, at any- 
 thing which would advance Miss Holland's welfare ; but, 
 Gertrude, I do not like to hear you speak as though 
 riches was the only desirable quality in a husband." 
 
 ' ' I did not mean that, mamma ; .but you know how
 
 96 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 important they are, especially for a young lady in Miss 
 Holland's circumstances." 
 
 " I was telling over the story of Duke's drowning to 
 some young girls last evening," said the younger but one 
 of the group, " and they all insisted that it would be such 
 a delightful romance in real life, for Duke to marry the 
 sister of his preserver ; in fact, that it was the proper 
 thing for him to do." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " said Mrs. Walbridge. " Girls will 
 say all manner of foolish things." . 
 
 "I thought last night," said Gertrude, "that she 
 made almost everybody else seem overdressed, she 
 looked so pure, and white, and noiseless, like a kind of 
 snow-drift ; and yet it was nothing but a white alpaca, 
 after all ; but it seemed as though nothing else would 
 suit Miss Holland." 
 
 "I suspect she has had little chance of trying vari- 
 ety. White alpacas are inexpensive, you know, and 
 seem especially designed for people who can't afford to 
 wear colors. It's my private opinion, that Miss Holland's 
 party wardrobe is confined to that and her black silk 
 dress," said Edith. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, she looks like a real lady in them; 
 and you can't say that of everybody who wears velvet 
 and diamonds," put in Eva. 
 
 " Nothing would afford me more pleasure than to make 
 some additions to Miss Holland's wardrobe ; but that is 
 a dblicate matter," said Mrs. Walbridge, who had already 
 discerned that all patronage of Jessamine Holland must 
 be skilfully managed.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 97 
 
 "But, mamma, you know Christmas is close at hand, 
 and each of us then can give Miss Holland something 
 nice," again suggested Eva, whose tongue always bore 
 its share in the family conclave. 
 
 " That is a bright idea, my little daughter. We will 
 have an especial reference to what will be of most service 
 to Miss Holland in our selection of Christmas gifts." 
 
 Meanwhile the subject of all this talk sat in her cham- 
 ber, for Mrs. Walbridge had very considerately insisted 
 that Miss Holland, after her late hours, should take her 
 breakfast in her own room. 
 
 Jessamine Holland sat there, her head resting upon 
 her hand, thinking over her last night. What a new 
 world it was into which she had had a glimpse, a world 
 of gayety, splendor, luxury, that seemed like Prospero's 
 magic to her. She thought, too, and the smile grew 
 about her lips and a glow came into her cheeks, of all 
 the nattering attentions she had received. She was no 
 angel, as I have told you before, moving amidst others 
 with sweet unconsciousness, or lofty indifference to any 
 admiration she might receive. On the contrary, Jessa- 
 mine Holland had a large share of approbativeness, and 
 was keenly alive to the opinions of those around her. 
 She had made her entree at the grand party with a great 
 many flutterings of heart ; but before the evening was 
 over she had found that she possessed some latent forces 
 which she had never suspected in herself. She had 
 felt their awakening as she stood in the midst of that 
 group of men and women, conscious that they looked and 
 listened with a pleased surprise of admiration. She
 
 98 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 lived all that over now in a few moments, and the flash 
 in her eyes was the flash of newly awakened vanity. 
 
 It was a dangerous time for Jessamine Holland. It 
 always is for a woman when she first learns that she 
 possesses some subtle power of attraction for men and 
 women. The delicate head poised itself with a new 
 pride ; there was a new triumph in the smile that curved 
 the red lips. The future was before her also. In its 
 intoxicating atmosphere there was the homage of men, 
 the envying admiration of women, the dazzling illusions 
 of youth and vanity. The conquests which her charms 
 should win, the triumphs which her arts should achieve, 
 spread themselves before her. If there were pitfalls 
 along that path, how could she know it with the flowers 
 blooming gayly along their brink ? 
 
 Yet suddenly, in the midst of all the flush and glow 
 of the moment, the city clock struck, the loud chimes, 
 one after another, rolling out their silvery waves into the 
 silence. 
 
 It started the girl -walking up and down the room in 
 the charmed atmosphere of her fancies, and a new gravi- 
 ty came into her face. 
 
 It brought back to her the old, rust-tinted cottage, the 
 wide, pleasant kitchen, where, at that very hour,' she 
 used to guide the slow passage of those two tow-headed 
 boys down the alphabet. It was painful work at the 
 best. She used to lose her patience sometimes, though 
 their mother or the boys themselves never suspected this, 
 remembering how nimbly Ross and she had sailed 
 down the current of those letters.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 99 
 
 Other thoughts slip in behind this last memory. She 
 sees the old childish home, and the father dreams about 
 the house, and the mother's pale face looks worried and 
 scared. She remembers the nights when she and Ross 
 cuddled over the bit of fire, and went supperless to bed 
 and tried to think they were not hungry; -and how she 
 cried to herself one night, softly, her head hidden away 
 in the pillow, because she had read that people sometimes 
 lived a week without food, and that it would take such a 
 long time for her and Ross to starve, and mamma had 
 said they must all do that before they could beg. 
 
 The tears come into her eyes now, thinking of those 
 dreadful times, and she glances, around the elegant cham- 
 ber, at the silver and china breakfast-service on the table. 
 If she could only have looked forward to all this, and 
 seen herself here, how much it would have seemed like 
 Cinderqlla's slipper, and all that came of it ! 
 
 The pride has all gone, and a soft tremulousness has 
 come around her lips instead. 
 
 She sits down now, and the ' ' long, long thoughts ' ' 
 of her youth come again, not as before. 
 
 "Jessamine Holland, for shame!" they say to her. 
 " Are these the things to delight your soul? Is this the 
 womanly ideal you will go seeking after ? Will you set 
 no higher aim before you than the homage and flattery 
 of men, the praise and envy of women ? 
 
 " Take all the comfort and pleasure that is the right 
 of your youth in this new life that has come to you. 
 But. beyond that, see that your soul possesses itself in 
 courage and strength, in sweetness, and gentleness, and
 
 100 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 truth. If you are happier, seek also, by so much, to 
 be better. 
 
 " If you find that you have new powers to attract and 
 influence others, remember always that God has left 
 these in trust with you. You know you are vain, Jes- 
 samine Holland, and that admiration is very sweet to 
 you. See to it, now, that it does not eat into your sin- 
 cerity and simplicity. Try and not think too much of 
 the impression you are making on others, and a little 
 more of the good you may do to them, of the happi- 
 ness you may confer upon them. 
 
 " Many sharp sorrows have taught you their wisdom, 
 and though you are in the midst of the days of your 
 youth, you know these do not stand still, but slip and 
 slip as the waves of the river do going to the sea. 
 
 " Keep faith with your youth, Jessamine Hol- 
 land ! " 
 
 So her thoughts spoke to this girl, and her soul stood 
 still and listened. Afterward, in the press and burden 
 of life, other voices came and sang sweetly to her soul. 
 Whether she listened and heeded again, I leave her own 
 life to tell you.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 101 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 "THEY were all too old for a Christmas-tree now, 
 with its wax tapers and sugar-flowers," Mrs. Walbridge 
 averred, with half a sigh and half a smile, looking at 
 her family of big girls and bigger boy. But after 
 breakfast the household went, in high spirits, into the 
 library, which had been for the last two or three days 
 the scene of many private conferences, and the key of 
 which Mrs. Walbridge had sedulously kept from all but 
 privileged fingers. The whole programme was, of course, 
 entirely new to Jessamine Holland, and. she enjoyed it 
 with the keen relish of novelty. 
 
 In one corner, on a table, was a huge pyramid of pack- 
 ages of all sizes, in white wrappings, with cards at- 
 tached. 
 
 Duke took the post of honor on one side, and his 
 mother the opposite one, while the latter read the names 
 on the cards, and the former distributed the packages to 
 their respective owners, amidst little shrieks of curiosity 
 and delight. 
 
 The whole thing was altogether new to Jessamine 
 Holland. She enjoyed the scene with a keener relish, 
 though all its warmth and color lay against a background
 
 I 
 
 102 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 of other Christmas mornings in the girl's memory ; some 
 of them gloomy and sorrowful enough, but some of them 
 bringing the marvellous wonder and delight of a china 
 doll in a painted cradle, stuffed into the toe of her stock- 
 ing, or a little box of small dishes with pewter spoons, 
 and a row of wooden soldiers or a spinning-top for Ross. 
 Her head is all astir and tremulous with those old, 
 plaintive memories, and though she laughs with the 
 others, she is not quite certain but that she wants to run 
 away and cry. 
 
 She starts suddenly, for somebody calls her name, and 
 the next moment something tumbles into her lap, a 
 large, soft, long^package, which she sits a moment star- 
 ing at helplessly, in a way which amuses everybody. 
 
 "Let me help you, Miss Holland," says Eva, coming 
 to the rescue ; for it is the fashion to speedily divest 
 every gift of its wrappings, and expose it for general in- 
 spection and admiration. 
 
 Jessamine's fingers were dreadfully awkward that 
 morning; but Eva's snapped the cords gayly, and rus- 
 tled away the papers, and lo ! a silk fabric of a soft, 
 rich, lustrous brOwn, dark and quiet, and yet with a 
 certain glow and warmth about it, as though it had just 
 escaped a flood of sunlight. The texture was of the 
 very richest and heaviest. Jessamine Holland could not 
 imagine herself in anything of that sort ; yet one gifted 
 with fine taste in such matters would have seen it was 
 just suited to her face and figure. 
 
 "Why, is this really for me?" half fancying there 
 must be some mistake.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 103 
 
 "Why, of course it is," went Eva's prompt, silvery 
 little tongue. " Don't you see, there's papa's name, too, 
 on the card. That's his Christmas gift. Isn't it beau- 
 tiful? " shaking up the rich folds in the light. 
 
 Before Jessamine could draw her breath freely again, 
 another package tumbled into her lap ; a small one this 
 time, but you felt instinctively there was something very 
 nice and dainty inside of it. Eva's. fingers were ready 
 for service again, and a purple velvet case peeped out, 
 and then, touching a spring, a lady's watch and chate- 
 laine, chaste and simple as possible, and as exquisite too, 
 flashed up into the eyes of Jessamine Holland. She 
 could not speak a word. Eva took up the card and read 
 it: "Ross Holland, through his friend, Duke Wai- 
 bridge." 
 
 That was Duke's way of making his Christmas gift ; 
 then such a gift, too, and such a way, giving the beauti- 
 ful watch a double value ! 
 
 Jessamine tried to speak ; but if she had uttered 
 a word, its path lay right through a sob, and in all the 
 strong feeling of the moment she felt she must not lose 
 herself before those people. But thick tears were in the 
 eyes she flashed up to Duke Walbridge, and he took in 
 all they said to him at that moment. 
 
 Afterward, there were other things fell into Jessa- 
 mine's lap : a brooch from Mrs. Walbridge, a rare 
 Florentine mosaic in a rich setting of gold, and some 
 costljr laces from Edith, and pretty and tasteful things 
 from the girls. Each one had remembered the sister of 
 Ross Holland on this Christmas morning, and though
 
 104 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 each gift had, no doubt, been selected with a certain ref- 
 erence to her wants, and would have an immediate ser- 
 viceable value to her; still, the most delicate sensitiveness 
 could not be pained at the character and time of the 
 
 gift- . 
 
 When it was all over, the girl tried to stammer out 
 
 some thanks to the givers ; but Duke interrupted her 
 with some unusual feeling and earnestness in his voice. 
 "Ah, Miss Jessamine, it is not for you to talk about 
 paltry gifts ; it is for us to remember that if it had not 
 been for you and yours we should not to-day be the 
 unbroken Christmas household we are ! " 
 
 If there was any danger of the Walbridges forgetting, 
 in the light of their favors, that they were the debtors, 
 Duke took care to hold the fact before their eyes in the 
 way most certain to keep their remembrance vivid, and 
 to relieve Jessamine from any overwhelming sense of 
 obligation, which was heavy enough at the lightest. She 
 had her cry though, all alone to herself, upstairs that 
 day, when she went to dress for the Christmas dinner. 
 How good it was to be alone, after all ! 
 
 There lay the beautiful things on the bed, worth more 
 than all she possessed in the world. What would Ross 
 say to see them ? He would be thinking, now, of the 
 old home Christmases, under that tropical sun, with the 
 moist, heavy fragrance of Eastern groves all around him. 
 As the slow winds slipped among the great plantain- 
 leaves, as the sweet, mournful songs of the natives at 
 their work* rose, and quivered, and died in the sultry 
 stillness, would he think longingly of the cold Christmas
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 105 
 
 mornings at home, of the snows on the hills and 
 the skatings on the river, and of the little sister who 
 clung to him, half in terror, half in delight, in her. 
 brown cloak and bit of a pink hood, out there on the 
 ice? 
 
 But she struggled out of all these memories into the 
 present. There was so much to be thankful for this 
 Christmas. She had never felt so tenderly toward the 
 Walbridges collectively,' as she did at that moment. 
 Every day she said to herself, in a half-chiding fashion, 
 " How kind, how good they all are ! " 
 
 Yet, for all that, the heart of Jessamine Holland held 
 itself back from these people who lavished their favors 
 upon her. Motherless, lonely girl though she was, she 
 could never have gone to Mrs. Walbridge with any vital 
 joy or grief. The soft, measured tones, the very smile 
 forbade that. A feeling that she must be always on her 
 guard, that she was watched and scrutinized, clung un- 
 comfortably to Jessamine, whenever she was in the pres- 
 ence of the lady and her daughters. It neutralized, to a 
 large degree, Jessamine's happiness in the elegant home. 
 She was never just at her ease except when she was with 
 Duke and Eva. 
 
 The child had taken an ardent liking to Jessamine. 
 She was always certain to be at the girl's side in the 
 drawing-room, and in their walks and rides. 
 
 Jessamine, too, was singularly fond of the youngest 
 of the household. With Duke and Eva she was thor- 
 oughly at home, and she found her highest enjoyment in 
 those times when they three gathered themselves in a
 
 106 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 corner, away from the others, and had their evenings 
 together. 
 
 Then Jessamine Holland was mostly herself, her- 
 self as not even Ross or Hannah Bray in the old home 
 knew her. All her thoughts were alive and alert with 
 Duke Walbridge, and yet she was less a talker than 
 a listener. 
 
 All his tmvels and experiences opened to her the 
 gates of a new world. She went everywhere with him 
 in these talks. She stood in the awful silences of the 
 desert, under the vast shadows of the pyramids ; she 
 floated with him, in long, slumberous, sunny days, down 
 the Nile ; she gazed, rapt and awe-struck, upon those vast 
 Gothic cathedrals, whose awful mystery of power and 
 genius were revealed only to the Middle Ages ; she hung 
 upon pictures, whose trances of glory have enriched the 
 nations, and she learned some of their grand meanings 
 of form and color ; she toiled up wild, snow-bound fast- 
 nesses of the Alps ; she dropped down in the nest of 
 green valleys hung among the . mountains ; she gathered 
 grapes, which poured themselves, in heaps of purple 
 foam, along the hills ; she heard the songs of the Tuscan 
 peasant-girls ring, in their silvery sweetness, through the 
 golden sunset air ; she swung in Venetian gondolas over 
 the black waters, and heard the slow dip of the boatman's 
 oar break the delicious silence ; and she came back, at 
 last, from all these scenes with her whole soul stirred 
 into living power and beauty in her face, starting new 
 depths in the brown, shining eyes, quivering about her 
 lips in a new sweetness, whether of smiles or pathos, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 107 
 
 flushing her cheeks with a bloom like that of clouds be- 
 fore the sunrise. 
 
 But the talk slipped everywhere, like summer winds 
 coming and going at their own sweet will. The sunny 
 deeps of the girl's nature would flash out in mirth and 
 playfulness, with a certain quaint originality through 
 all ; then a sudden gravity would steal into her face, and 
 the shadows would fall into her talk, as they never do 
 into those- who have not thought and felt strongly, 
 whether the souls be old or young. 
 
 It was strange, too, into what grave topics the talk had 
 a tendency to stray sometimes. Neither Duke Wai- 
 bridge nor Jessamine Holland had the sort of natures 
 which is always content to dwell in the surfaces of 
 things. All the wide circles of human thought and life 
 had a keen interest for both the young souls, and Jessa- 
 mine, in her lonely home among the hills, as well as 
 Duke, in his wanderings over half a planet, had pondered 
 deeply the profound mysteries which underlie all being 
 here, the silent past, from which we came ; the solemn 
 present, with which we deal ; the jws&l future, to which 
 
 And, in one way and another/Tnese thoughts came 
 out in the talk, sometimes on the man's side, sometimes 
 on the woman's ; but, in either case, they were sure to be 
 met by sympathy of kindred thought and doubt. Each 
 had battled with the same perplexity ; each understood 
 the feeling of the other. Fragments of this talk floated 
 sometimes, through the hum, into another part of the 
 room, and, after the manner of girls, his sisters rallied
 
 108 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Duke mercilessly on the matter, when Miss Holland 
 out of hearing. 
 
 "Duke has, at last, found a young woman after his 
 heart," said Gertrude, merrily. "I caught a few scraps 
 of their talk last night ; but, dear me ! it was entirely 
 too recondite for ordinary mortals' ears. I heard some- 
 thing about the old Brahmin's search after truth, and 
 the Greek philosophers ; about Ahrimanes, and Oromas- 
 des, and retired in dismay. No doubt it was highly 
 edifying and sublime for anybody who has a fancy to 
 dwell on Mount Olympus, among the gods ; but my am- 
 bition is humbler. What a dreadful blue-stocking Miss 
 Holland must be to relish that kind of discourse ! " 
 
 A laugh went around the circle ; for Gertrude could 
 say very bright Jthings, and, when she was in a good 
 humor, they nevl^MRng. 
 
 "Well," answered Duke, whom none of his own 
 household ever yet put down, "it is a comfort to find, 
 at last, such a thing as a really sensible girl, one who 
 cares to talk about something but dress, flirtations, and 
 fripperies of that sorj^" 
 
 " Oh, well, Duke, youth must Jhave its day," an- 
 swered Mrs. Walbridge. " Because you happened to enjoy 
 an argument on the science of government before you were 
 out of small clothes, it is by no means fair to expect that 
 everybody else must." 
 
 " I think you are putting my precocity rather strongly, 
 mother," answered the young man, who perfectly compre- 
 hended her secret pride in the matter. "Rattle-boxes 
 and rocking-horses certainly divided my affections with
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 109 
 
 all profounder matters at the period of which you 
 speak." 
 
 "As for Miss Holland's being a blue-stocking, it isn't 
 one word of it true," subjoined Eva. "If .you could 
 only hear her when she's funny, you'd never say that 
 of her again." 
 
 Eva's admiration of Miss Holland was an accepted fact 
 in the family. Indeed, it was somehow tacitly understood 
 that Miss Holland was, in some especial way, the prop- 
 erty of Duke and his youngest sister. 
 
 It may seem singular that Mrs. Walbridge, with all 
 her worldly wisdom, had no fears of the results to which 
 such an intimacy might lead. In any other case she 
 would have been watchful enough ; but Jessamine was 
 Ross Holland's sister, and in this light she fancied Duke 
 regarded her. She was, in some sense, especially his 
 guest. Whatever attentions he paid her, Mrs. Walbridge 
 regarded them as offered for the brother's sake. Duke's 
 very gratitude would cause him to invest the girl with 
 graces of person and character, and perhaps the unac- 
 knowledged consciousness that something was wanting in 
 her own feeling toward Jessamine Holland made Mrs. 
 Walbridge peculiarly indulgent toward the intimacy of 
 her son and her guest. She did not really admit it'to 
 herself ; but she did not the less feel that her compla- 
 cency here made ample atonement for whatever was 
 lacking in herself. 
 
 Then, too, no ordinary conventional rules suited the 
 present case. Duke's acquaintance with the Hollands 
 had been made under peculiar circumstances, and must
 
 110 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 always be of an exceptional character. The gratitude 
 which he felt toward Ross was, no doubt, the secret of 
 his liking for the sister, and it would not become the 
 mother to -prevent 'their being so constantly thrown to- 
 gether. Everybody in the house seemed to* regard the 
 matter from Mrs. Walbridge's point of view ; so Duke, 
 and Jessamine, and Eva went riding, sleighing, walking 
 together. There was nothing worth seeing in the city 
 to which the young man did not introduce their guest; 
 and when they were not out themselves, or there was no 
 company at home, the trio often had the evening almost 
 entirely to themselves. Then Mrs. Walbridge's mind 
 was unusually preoccupied at this time. Edith had 
 several lovers to be regarded, and the mother began 
 to suspect the choice to which her eldest daughter in- 
 clined. 
 
 It was evident, too, that Miss Holland had taken in 
 society, and Mrs. Walbridge hoped, before the winter 
 was over, that the young lady might make some eligible 
 match, and intended to use all her influence for the fur- 
 therance of this scheme, the lady having no small tact 
 in such matters. That would pay off, as well as one 
 could, her son's debt, and with an elegant wedding under 
 her roof to conclude the matter handsomely, and a rich 
 trousseau, Mrs-. Walbridge would feel that she had done 
 all that eould be demanded of her. 
 
 As for Duke, he had been just like nobody else from 
 his birth. His mother did not think him particularly 
 susceptible to youthful charms. Indeed, like the girls, 
 she very much doubted whether he would not be an old
 
 THE HOLLANDS. Ill 
 
 bachelor. So the mother reasoned; not unlike most 
 mothers perhaps. 
 
 Jessamine Holland, upstairs, dressed herself, as I 
 said, with some new warmth of feeling toward all the 
 Walbridges that Christmas day. There lay the beauti- 
 ful gifts on the bed, and every few moments she turned 
 to look at them with smiles coming into her eyes, and 
 tears, too, now and then. How much thought and kind- 
 ness each gift proved, and how much delicate taste and 
 tact each showed too ! Everything was just what she 
 wanted, and just what she could not buy. She was an 
 ungrateful thing, to stand aloof as she did, in her heart 
 of hearts, from those people. It was a foolish, misera- 
 ble pride, not a high, generous spirit, which held her 
 back from them all. 
 
 "And, Jessamine," she said to herself, pausing a 
 moment before she went downstairs, "you are not to 
 think of yourself, you know, or of the impression you 
 are making on others. That last will be very hard, be- 
 cause you are so fond of admiration ; but while you are 
 determined to have a good time yourself, you are to 
 seek, also, to make one for others when you are among 
 them." 
 
 After dinner that evening, the family did not disin- 
 tegrate into groups as early as usual. The day and its 
 associations had some attractions which held them to- 
 gether. 
 
 The winds sprang up fiercely as the night shut down, 
 and, if one listened, their cry outside was an awful thing 
 to hear. One and another spoke of it with a little shiver,
 
 112 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 11 How the wind does blow ! Just hear that ! It's like 
 the bellowing of a gale at sea ! ' ' and comments of that 
 sort. 
 
 Inside there was nothing but glow, and warmth, and 
 luxurious ease. Jessamine wondered if there were any 
 homeless creatures abroad in the storm, or any cowering 
 in miserable homes, cold and hungry, on the Christmas 
 night, to whose souls it had brought no "glad tidings." 
 
 " Did anybody there ever think of the poor, or know 
 there were such in God's world?" Jessamine won- 
 dered. Mrs. Walbridge did, of course, because she was 
 the president of a benevolent society. 
 
 What a good thing money was ! What a difference it 
 made in human lots ! looking on the scene before her, 
 which was brought into stronger relief by the cold and 
 darkness outside. They were all in their best humor to- 
 night. Mr. Walbridge called for some music, which was 
 rather unusual for him, and the girls played some of his 
 favorite airs, and Duke went and sat down at his mother's 
 feet, and laid his head in her lap, as he used to do when 
 he was a little boy, as he on very rare occasions did now. 
 The long, loose hair hung all about her lap'. She took 
 some of it up, and played with it, and stroked it fondly. 
 
 " my big boy," she said, "I used to play with it 
 just so years ago, when you were hardly higher than my 
 knee. I wish you were just that little boy now." 
 
 ' ' Why do you wish that, mother ? Have I disap- 
 pointed you so much,. growing older? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Not that, Duke. Still, you seemed closer 
 to me then. I could take you up in my lap ancl sing to
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 113 
 
 you, and be pretty certain you would not do anything I 
 should disapprove, though you were a stubborn little' 
 rogue ; you always liked to have your own way, Duke." 
 
 He lifted his brows archly; under them all the time 
 the eyes had been smiling at the mother while she 
 talked, with that rare tenderness in them which they 
 only saw who knew Duke Walbridge intimately. . 
 
 " Yes, I know," catching the look, " you have not 
 outgrown that liking still. It's an odd way, Duke, but 
 it has never yet been a bad one." 
 
 " Thank you, mother dear, for so much grace. I 
 mean it shall never be that last ; that, at least, I shall 
 always keep faith with myself." 
 
 " I have no doubt you will, my boy. I cannot 
 imagine you ever doing anything which would make me 
 blush because it was unworthy of you. And yet I can 
 fancy your doing some things which might pain and dis- 
 tress me deeply." 
 
 " What are some of those things? " 
 
 "Do not ask me, Duke. I am sure I cannot tell 
 what led me to speak of them to-night." 
 
 He looked grave a moment, pondering something in 
 his thought, and his mother said : 
 . " You have the old wise look which I remember 
 when you had only three or four Christmases on your 
 -head." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was in an unusually tender mood, 
 and there were springs in the past that flooded her 
 memory to-night. 
 
 " Wht a homely little cub I must have been among 
 10
 
 114 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 all these handsome sisters of mine ! ' ' said Duke, in his 
 bantering way, "A black sheep in the lot." 
 
 It was true that Duke's boyhood had no beauty to 
 boast of. Even his partial mother must admit that. But 
 she had always consoled herself with thinking that the 
 boy made up, in other directions, for anything that was 
 lacking in one. 
 
 Jessamine Holland, among the girls who were having 
 a merry time on another side of the room, saw the tab- 
 leau of the mother and son. The sight was almost more 
 than she could bear. If Ross only had a mother that 
 Christmas night into whose lap he could lay his head, 
 and who would stroke his hair with her soft fingers ; 
 if he was only where she could do it a little while, 
 her eyes clouding with tears. It seemed so very hard 
 that they two, who so loved each other, must waste their 
 youth apart. 
 
 Then she remembered the purposes she had formed up- 
 stairs, and, looking down, she caught the gleam of the 
 watch she had fastened in her belt when she came down 
 to dinner. That started a new train of thought. The 
 clouds cleared in her eyes, and the smiles came about 
 her lips, and after a while she joined in the general mer- 
 riment, light, breezy talk, none of it worth writing 
 down ; and yet it sounded very pleasant with its swift 
 gushes of laughter, and Duke and his mother, sitting 
 apart, listened to the bright, young voices, and enjoyed 
 them. 
 
 Jessamine bore her part in the general fun, and her 
 playfulness seemed infectious, for even Edith, with some-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 115 
 
 
 
 thing of the school-days she had left behind her, joined 
 in the merriment. 
 
 Late in the evening, Duke came over to Jessamine's 
 side. " I hope you've enjoyed all this nonsense as well 
 as you seemed to," he said. 
 
 "Just as well. I entered into it from a by-path of 
 very pleasant thoughts." 
 
 " I saw you smiling to yourself as you sat over there 
 on the lounge, and I said to myself, ' Ah, Miss Jessa- 
 mine, you are having some very happy thoughts just 
 now. I wonder what they are ? ' 
 
 "I will tell you, Mr. Walbridge. I was thinking of 
 all I should have to write to Ross about my Christmas 
 gifts, and what a nice, long letter my next one would be. 
 I am frequently writing Ross letters in my thoughts, 
 and I sometimes think they are a great deal better than 
 those I send him." 
 
 "Dear fellow! I have been wishing, more than 
 once, that he was here among us to-day," said Duke, 
 earnestly. 
 
 She smiled up at him at that, a sweet, grateful smile 
 coming out all over her face. 
 
 " I have been wondering, all day, what he was doing, 
 and certain that he would remember the old Christmases 
 when he and I were boy and girl at home." 
 
 "I should like to hear something about those too," 
 said Duke. 
 
 "There doesn't seem very much to tell. But what 
 was wanting in the reality, Ross and I used to make up 
 with imagining the time when we should be grown up,
 
 116 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and have plenty of money, and could make beautiful 
 Christmas gifts to each other. 
 
 " I remember that Ross used to fancy me tricked out 
 in gold and jewels, until I must have resembled nothing 
 quite so closely as the wife of some chief of Otaheite, 
 while my ambition was to bestow horses and hounds, and 
 a little sail-boat on him, the things in which I well knew 
 his soul took chiefest delight." 
 
 Duke listened, but hardly spoke. All this was open- 
 ing a new world to him, and the vision of those two 
 lonely children beguiling their Christmas hours with 
 dreams like these moved him more than Jessamine would 
 be apt to suspect. 
 
 But something in his look or manner drew out another 
 of these memories, its shy face beaming down to Duke a 
 moment from out of the mists of Jessamine Holland's 
 childhood. 
 
 " There was nothing, though, on which Ross had quite 
 so strongly set his heart as the gold watch which I was 
 to have as soon as the fortune came in. There was an 
 old one in the family, a kind of heirloom, which belonged 
 to my great-grandfather, and Ross and I were allowed 
 to hold it in our hands sometimes, as an especial grace, 
 when we were just outside our babyhood. That old 
 watch had a wonderful fascination for us both, with its 
 low ticking, that went tireless all day like the katydids 
 through the night, and its slow hands, which we had to 
 hold our breaths and watch before we could be certain 
 they were moving at all. 
 
 " The old heirloom went the way that all things of
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 117 
 
 that sort did incur family ; ^but I think neither Ross 
 nor I ever got over our childish associations, and ' Jessa- 
 mine's watch ' came to be the general sign for all the air- 
 castles in the family, and we children were not the only 
 ones who built them. 
 
 " Ross had his joke over the thing to the last, for I 
 remember he said to me the day before we parted, 
 ' Well, Jessamine, I shall have to go to the East Indies 
 for your watch, after all ; but, though the way is . a long 
 one, it's, shorter, in the end, than it would be to wait for 
 it in New York.'" 
 
 " And I know you said something in reply, Miss Jes- 
 samine. I think I see you doing it now." 
 
 The bright, cool eyes looked up at him in their pleased, 
 surprised way. " How do you know I said anything 
 then?" she asked, with just a touch of that pretty 
 peremptoriness which was her habit at the time when 
 Jessamine had been the youngest pet of the family. 
 
 '" Because it is like you to do it. I can almost imag- 
 ine the very words of your reply." 
 
 "What were they?" 
 
 "I think they must have been something after this 
 sort : ' Ross ! I had rather have you here than all 
 the watches in the world ! ' : 
 
 She looked at him with a wide amazement in her 
 brown eyes. "Why, those were the very words I did 
 say!" 
 
 He was a little surprised in his turn. " I did not ex- 
 pect that my bow would just hit the mark, only come 
 somewhere near it," he said.
 
 118 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " But it is very funny ! I don't understand it ! I 
 am half afraid of you ! " speaking under her breath, and 
 looking at him as though she almost fancied he must be 
 some necromancer, against whose spells she must guard 
 herself. 
 
 Her look amused him vastly. "Don't fancy I am a 
 professor of the black art, Miss Jessamine. I come by 
 all my presciences by perfectly legitimate means. So it 
 seems I have anticipated Ross in this matter of the watch. 
 Do you think he will easily forgive me? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I am sure he will." 
 
 ' ' I had a right to do that, also, because you know 
 what I promised him about taking his place in our last 
 meeting?" 
 
 "I am sure you have fulfilled your pledge. How 
 good you have all been to me ! I never felt this quite 
 so much as I do to-night." 
 
 Duke looked at the gift a moment, with something in 
 his eyes which she did not understand. Then he spoke, 
 in a grave, solemn tone, utterly in contrast with the one 
 which he had used a moment before : 
 
 "Whenever you say anything of that sort, I always 
 seem to hear those words of Ross' stealing across your 
 speech : c Yes ; I thought of her, little Jessamine, and 
 then I thought perhaps you, too, had a sister at home, 
 and plunged in.' ' 
 
 She had no more to say after that, only he saw a look 
 of pain come over her countenance, and her lip quiver a 
 moment. Just then Eva bounded up. 
 
 "What in the world is the matter with you two?
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 119 
 
 You look as sober as though it was not Christmas night, 
 and it wasn't everybody's duty to be happy ! " 
 
 " People may be happy and look sober sometimes. 
 Only foolish little girls would fancy that one must be 
 always on a high tide of joking and laughter to be com- 
 fortable." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I suppose that 'foolish little girl' was 
 intended to quite extinguish me, Duke Walbridge ; but I 
 am not so easily put down as you may imagine." 
 
 "Experience has taught me that fact long ago, Eva," 
 answered the young man, with his longest face drawn 
 on. 
 
 "Now I shan't forgive you, Duke, until you tell me 
 what you really were thinking of when I came up; " 
 dropping herself down a moment on the arm of his 
 chair. Duke smiled a moment, and glanced over to 
 Jessamine. "There, now, Miss Jessamine! it was 
 something about you, I am certain!" following ihe 
 look. 
 
 " So it was," answered her brother. " I happened to 
 be comparing the real Miss Jessamine with the one I had 
 in my mind when I went up in the country last summer, 
 to find her." 
 
 "Oh! what was that last Miss Jessamine like? I 
 should like to know, and so would she, I am certain." 
 
 "Yes, I should," replied Jessamine, curious and 
 amused. 
 
 "Well, then, she was a little girl, hardly so tall or 
 slender as you, Eva, with the roundest -cheeks, and a big 
 pink rose in each of these ; and a mouth that was always
 
 120 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ready to laugh, and a dimple on one side ; and bright 
 blue eyes ; and a little, decided-looking nose, with a 
 plentiful sprinkling of freckles all over it ; and a mass 
 of bright, yellowish hair with a wave all through it, and 
 a pleasant, open forehead beneath." 
 
 "Why, that is not one particle like our Miss Jessa- 
 mine," said Eva. "You've just drawn a ruddy, rather 
 nice-looking little school-girl." 
 
 " And that's precisely what I thought she was," added 
 Duke, while Jessamine laughed in quiet enjoyment over 
 this portrait of herself. 
 
 " But what did you think when you came to see the 
 real Miss Jessamine? " asked Eva. 
 
 " No matter what I thought, only this much: c "Well, 
 Duke Walbridge, you've been making a great fool of 
 yourself all the way up here ! ' 
 
 " Mother ! girls ! it's almost midnight," said Mr. 
 Walbridge, rousing himself from his nap, and looking at 
 his watch. 
 
 " What a strange Christmas it has been, and what a 
 happy one ! " said Jessamine Holland, a little later, in 
 her chamber, going over the events of the day.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 121 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE Young Men's Lyceum laid itself out for an unus- 
 ually brilliant course of lectures that winter, " the high- 
 est genius and ability of the country," the advertisement 
 declared, ' ' triumphantly sustaining itself by a brilliant 
 list of names." The Walbridges did not greatly affect 
 lectures. That could hardly be expected of people who 
 were familiar with whatever was choicest in New York 
 and Boston literary and operatic entertainments, and were 
 disposed to class any talent imported to thefr own town 
 with all articles of American manufacture, "of an infe- 
 rior quality." 
 
 Mason Walbridge, however, being a public man, felt 
 it incumbent on his position to patronize all worthy insti- 
 tutions and organizations in the town, and he had been 
 relied on from the beginning as one of the stanch sup- 
 porters of the lyceum, which had now attained a vigorous 
 life. 
 
 It seemed desirable that some of the family should 
 manifest their interest in the lectures by an occasional 
 attendance, although any suggestion of this kind was apt 
 to be met by plenty of unanswerable excuses. 
 
 Jessamine, to whom a really brilliant lecture was 
 11
 
 122 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 something entirely new, was as eager for one as for "a 
 grand party." In Duke's opinion there was no compar- 
 ison between the two, and Eva took a fancy to go with 
 her brother and her friend. She liked the excitement, 
 and to watch the crowd of gayly dressed people, just as 
 she liked to go to church on Sundays, " no matter who 
 preached." All that Jessamine enjoyed, too, with the 
 keen relish of novelty, but she forgot everything else 
 when the lecture commenced. The theme was, " The 
 Flight of the Huguenots on the Revocation of the Edict 
 of Nantes ; " and the speaker brought to this subject all 
 his profound historical research, the splendor of his 
 genius, and the powerful magnetism of his sympa- 
 thies. 
 
 The light, humming audience were fascinated by the 
 power of the man's eloquence. The blackness of that 
 night of persecution of men and women, and little chil- 
 dren hunted to the death, driven to the galleys, worried 
 and tortured for conscience' sake, swept its awful trag- 
 edy along the foreground for one moment, and all that is 
 beautiful in faith, resignation, and self-sacrifice, under 
 cruellest suffering, flashed out the next, the pictures re- 
 minding one of John Knox's stories of Scottish Life in 
 the sixteenth century, shining and quivering with laugh- 
 ter and with tears. It was a kind of eloquence to which 
 "Jessamine Holland had never before'listened in her life, 
 and it wrought like magic in the girl. At times the rapt 
 audience would draw its breath, and cheer the speaker, 
 and Jessamine, who had drawn off her gloves uncon- 
 sciously while she listened, brought her soft, pink palms
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 123 
 
 together, and clapped as eagerly, if not as audibly, as any 
 of the others. It was a pretty sight to see her, if any- 
 body was taking notice at the time, a kind of childlike 
 grace and downrightness in the movement that was 
 amusing enough. 
 
 "None of my sisters would do that," thought Eva, 
 "but I like to see Miss Holland, anyhow; " and then 
 she looked at Duke, who was evidenly enjoying their 
 companion's enthusiasm. 
 
 Somebody else, too, was quietly observing the girl, a 
 gentleman who sat on the other side of the aisle. He 
 was past middle life, with a grizzled beard and hair 
 about a fine, thoughtful face ; if its youth was gone, 
 there was something left which atoned for the loss ; the 
 eyes, sharp and penetrating, under the bushy brows. 
 They watched Jessamine keenly now, the owner thinking 
 to himself, in a kind of loose, disjointed fashion : " Wom- 
 en are so polished and artificial nowadays, no getting 
 to any sound core of what is in them. I like that girl 
 over there ; fresh, simple, natural as a brier-rose growing 
 near a mountain stream. Quite a fanciful simile for 
 an old man like you. John Wilbur ; but the heart in you 
 hasn't grown cold yet, only steadier, steadier." 
 
 Afterward, the gentleman turned many times to look 
 at the face of Jessamine Holland that evening. Hers 
 followed the speaker ; all its power brought 6ut that night 
 the light in the clear, wide, brownish eyes, with deeps of 
 blackness in them ; the sensitive mouth, with the flush 
 and the quiver all over it ; a glow on the cheeks that was 
 not exactly color, but something better than that, a sud-
 
 124 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 den smile breaking and steadying itself on the unsteady 
 lips, as sunlight on a heap of fiery peach-blossoms, over 
 which the wind has gone a moment before ; a smile, with 
 the bright sweetness of a baby's ; and then, the upturned 
 face on the speaker's, the smile would be dashed out, a 
 grieved tenderness would settle upon it, and you would 
 need no looking to know that the eyes above them were 
 thick with tears. 
 
 There are such faces as Jessamine Holland's in the 
 world, but they are rare. Two such seem to shine before 
 me while I write. I cannot think that the soul behind 
 such a face could ever be anything but a fine, beautiful, 
 womanly soul ; not that only, a nature whose birthright 
 of all gracious gifts had been widened and deepened by 
 culture. Yes, I repeat it, there are such faces as 
 this of Jessamine Holland's in the world, but they are 
 rare. 
 
 After the lecture, this strange gentleman inquired of a 
 lady of his party who that girl was with young Walbridge 
 and his sister ? 
 
 1 ' A Miss Holland, who is stopping with them. It 
 appears that her brother saved young Walbridge from 
 drowning, at the risk of his own life. It was very heroic, 
 and the Hollands have invited the young lady to pass 
 the winter with them. Quite an interesting face, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Quite." The gentleman was disposed to be mono- 
 syllabic on this occasion, but he remembered that he 
 had an invitation on the following evening to a large 
 party, where, no doubt, the Walbridges would be present.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 125 
 
 The gentleman had resolved to decline the invitation, 
 for, like most men of his age, he considered parties a bore ; 
 but he now resolved to go. There would be a chance of 
 his meeting this Miss Holland, and he wanted to know 
 more of her. 
 
 The next evening Jessamine Holland was presented to 
 Mr. John Wilbur. They got on wonderfully well from 
 the start. Jessamine always liked sensible men, and here 
 was one, certainly : a man of good deal of culture too, 
 and extensive travel, and who had something to say ; a 
 polished gentleman, with a little touch of courtliness in 
 his manners, which savored slightly of the old school, 
 although Mr. Wilbur was not an old man yet, looking 
 at the grizzly hair, and the fine, strong face under- 
 it. 
 
 " How much better he was," Jessamine thought, " than 
 those dainty, perfumed gentlemen who were full of their 
 silly, vapid talk and unmeaning flatteries, which had a 
 sickly odor to her taste, much like flowers that have stood 
 too long in water. This sort of men seemed to have a 
 notion that any sensible conversation was as foreign to a 
 woman's tastes as it would be to a parrot's, and so they 
 dealt in a stock of silly compliments, which were worn 
 threadbare with long use." 
 
 But the two got on wonderfully together, Jessamine, 
 bright, frank, earnest, as she always was when anybody 
 gave her a chance. 
 
 The lecture of the evening before proved a stepping- - 
 stone to a great deal o interesting and instructive talk. 
 Mr. Wilbur having recently visited France, and several
 
 126 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 of the cities which had witnessed, at the close of the sev- 
 enteenth century, some of the fiercest of the Huguenot 
 persecutions, had a rare stock of information, which he 
 had gathered there and in England regarding the fugi- 
 tives ; and he found it a strong pleasure to talk to this 
 girl, who sat before him, with her wide eyes on his face, 
 her breath going and coming, with her questions as swift 
 and as curious as any child's. 
 
 Mr. Wilbur took Jessamine out to supper, and would 
 have offered to escort her home had not Duke arrived at 
 the last moment. 
 
 Mr. Wilbur's attentions had not escaped Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge, but she kept her own counsel, only going over 
 in her own mind all the points unquestionably in the 
 gentleman's favor. They were not a few, intelligence, 
 family, wealth, position ; everything, in short, except 
 youth, which weighed very lightly in the scale against 
 so many advantages. 
 
 Many a young girl of fortune and family has been 
 taken to wife by an older and far less personally attract- 
 ive man than John Wilbur. One, too, -did not run 'those 
 terrible risks which every mother must feel her daughter 
 did in marrying a young man. In this case the character 
 was shaped, the wealth and position defined, not spurs to 
 be earned and won. 
 
 Then, rich husbands, in New England, were not as 
 thick as bees in swarming-time. Any mother, who had 
 daughters whose future settlement in life must be a source 
 of more or less anxiety to her, must have considered all 
 these things. A young lady in Miss Holland's position
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 127 
 
 would have a rare card fall to her share if she caught 
 John Wilbur. 
 
 So the lady reasoned ; meanwhile resolving to keep 
 her eyes open, and visions of an elegant wedding, and 
 Mason Walbridge giving away the bride in his usual 
 stately fashion, floated before her'as a most desirable 
 finale to this embarrassing business of the Hollands. 
 
 After this, in one way and another, John Wilbur 
 and Jessamine Holland were brought frequently together. 
 
 The Walbridges had a series of small dinner-parties, 
 at which Mr. Wilbur was always a guest. The more 
 Jessamine saw him the better she liked him. Their ac- 
 quaintance grew rapidly into a certain kind of friendship. 
 The approval of so intelligent and cultivated a man was 
 really a great compliment to her, she told herself, with a 
 little touch of vanity that was quite pardonable. But 
 she had a relish for his talk. There was always some- 
 thing new and solid about it. He made her talk, 
 too, grave and serious sometimes as a little nun, and 
 then brought to the surface the latent sparkle and play- 
 fulness of her nature. 
 
 She talked with Duke about the man, praising him in 
 that natural, frank way which would have been impossi- 
 ble " if she had had the slightest notion of his being a 
 lover," Mrs. Walbridge thought, who overheard the con- 
 versation. 
 
 Duke assented warmly. " Wilbur was a fine, intelli- 
 gent, noble-hearted fellow," he said. "He had known 
 him from a boy as the gentleman, and his father had some 
 business relations at one time which had brought the fain-
 
 128 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ilies on an intimate footing. He went abroad, and his 
 wife died there, and he had only been at home at inter- 
 vals since that time." 
 
 " Love makes people keen-sighted. If Duke had any 
 interest in Miss Holland beyond the fact of her being his 
 friend's sister, he would have observed Wilbur's attentions 
 to the girl, though nobody else had. She, too, has no 
 fancy that his attraction is of a serious character, although 
 I am well satisfied of that ; but a great many matches 
 are nipped in the bud by meddling. I will let things take 
 their own course." 
 
 And Mrs. Walbridge fell to musing over Edith and her 
 matters, in which just now the heart of the mother was 
 more absorbed than in anything else. Duke was safe, 
 she wanted to believe, and did. 
 
 Meanwhile things took their own course, a very 
 smooth one, Mr. Wilbur and Jessamine getting on a 
 more friendly footing all the time. She told him in one 
 way and another many things about her past life, and 
 talked over Ross with him to her heart's content. Mr. 
 Wilbur had once passed a year in the East Indies, and 
 here was another bond between the two. Jessamine was 
 never tired of hearing about the strange, mysterious, 
 wild, lavish life of the tropics. Its slow, hot winds, its 
 fiery, throbbing life, its dazzling hues, seemed fairly to 
 encircle her as she listened, her eyes darkening, her face 
 uplifted. Mr. Wilbur saw it all, and had his own 
 thoughts about it, which, being a reticent man, he kept 
 to himself. 
 
 The circle in which the Walbridges moved was quite
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 129 
 
 as alive to gossip as any beneath them ; but the intimacy 
 betwixt Mr. Wilbur and Miss Holland was so far removed 
 from anything like a flirtation, so straightforward and 
 friendly, that nobody happened to dart on it. People 
 who once heard fragments of their conversation fancied 
 they liked to talk together ; and it was not singular ; 
 Miss Holland had a wonderful gift at talking, and Mr. 
 Wilbur was a man who liked sensible women. 
 
 One evening, at a little quiet supper-party at the 
 Walbridges, the gentleman said to Jessamine, "I have 
 had letters from Paris, which will take me there a month 
 earlier than I expected. I regret it very much just at 
 this time." 
 
 ' ' Are you really going abroad ? I am very sorry to 
 hear that, Mr. Wilbur," voice and face touched with 
 a real regret. 
 
 The gentleman looked at her, with something in his 
 eyes that brought a faint color into her cheeks. u I am 
 glad to hear you say that, Miss Holland," he said, just 
 as he had never spoken to her before. 
 
 In a moment, however,"he went on to talk about the 
 journey, and how he was going to take a trip into Wales 
 that summer ; and Jessamine listened as only those listen 
 who have a real hunger for knowledge, growth, life ; and 
 at last, drawing a little sigh, she said, as a little child 
 might say it, "I wish I could go too." 
 
 The gentleman smiled on her. You felt he had a 
 pleasant smile under that grizzled beard of his. It 
 entered the dark, penetrating eyes, and gave them a new 
 softness.
 
 130 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " I wish you could go too, Miss Holland. What is 
 there to prevent ? ' ' 
 
 "Oh, a great many things," answered Jessamine, 
 thinking that, after all, the want of money was the 
 chiefest obstacle in the way. "Perhaps some day my 
 brother will come home and take me ; though I never 
 get so far as that, Mr. Wilbur. A little nest of a 
 cottage, with Ross and me together, fills up all my 
 world." 
 
 Jessamine thought that evening, more than once, how 
 sorry she was Mr. Wilbur was going to leave so soon. 
 How much she should miss him ! It made her manner 
 kinder to him than ever. Gentlemen in middle life, or 
 a little past it, were so much more agreeable than young 
 men, excepting Ross and Duke Walbridge ; but neither 
 of these were like other young men. 
 
 "Mamma," said Gertrude, next day, "I really believe 
 Mr. Wilbur has taken a fancy to Miss Holland." 
 
 " What makes you think so, my daughter ? " 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Edith, who coulc^not 
 imagine that two people could fall in love with each other 
 without a certain amount of flirting, and an atmosphere 
 of airs and graces on the woman's side, at least. " Mr. 
 Wilbur likes to talk with Miss Holland ; but there's no 
 more falling in love than there would be if she and papa 
 were to have a chat together. Indeed, theirs is on pre- 
 cisely the same footing." 
 
 "But I hardly think it is," answered Gertrude, her 
 opinion evidently a little shaken. "I watched them 
 last night closely, and I thought Mr. Wilbur showed
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 131 
 
 a sort of interest in Miss Holland which papa would 
 not." 
 
 "In love with Miss Holland!" ejaculated Eva. 
 "Why, Mr. Wilbur's old enough to be her father." 
 
 " Many a man who is that, marries a young woman, 
 and makes her a most excellent husband," added Mrs. 
 Walbridge. 
 
 "In every respect but that of years it would be a 
 great catch for Miss Holland," added the second daugh- 
 ter. "Mr. Wilbur is rich, influential, arid all that." 
 
 Jessamine's entrance at the moment put an end to 
 the discussion of Mr. Wilbur's qualifications for matri- 
 mony. 
 
 Two or three evenings later the individual in question 
 called. It happened that most of the family were out, 
 the gentlemen having gone to some corporation meeting, 
 and the ladies to a concert. 
 
 It therefore fell to Jessamine's part to entertain her 
 friend alone. Their talk went on smoothly as ever, and 
 after a while touched again on the gentleman's impending 
 journey. 
 
 " You said something last evening, Miss Holland, which 
 I liked so much that I have repeated it to myself many 
 times since." 
 
 ' ' You have ? I cannot imagine my saying anything 
 worth all that consideration ; ' ' her little indrawn laugh 
 along the words, which he had come now to know, and 
 like too. 
 
 "It was that you wished you were going abroad 
 also."
 
 132 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "Oh, I often wish that, Mr. Wilbur ! There is such 
 a world of novelty and splendor and beauty on the 
 other side of the ocean ; and yet it is quite absurd, my 
 wishing to see it, when it is as practicable as entering in 
 at the gates of the moon." 
 
 " Are you quite certain that you do not exaggerate 
 the difficulties in your way, Miss Holland ? I, too, wish 
 that you 'were going abroad." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Wilbur. It is very pleasant to have 
 friends who wish one good things. But I do not exag- 
 gerate the difficulties that stand in my way here. If I 
 was rich, it would be quite another thing." 
 
 John Wilbur looked at the sweet face upturned to his. 
 Its fine, delicate beauty had never struck him so forcibly 
 before. 
 
 " Jessamine," he said, " I am a blunt man, and I can- 
 not now go seeking for fine and dainty phrases into 
 which to put my honest meaning. I wish you would 
 let me take you with me when I go abroad as my 
 wife ! " 
 
 
 
 She stared at the man, not comprehending what he 
 said. 
 
 "I don't think I understood you, Mr. Wilbur," she 
 said. 
 
 " I asked you if you would marry me." 
 
 A blankness, then a great heat all over her face. 
 "Why, I never dreamed you thought of anything like 
 this." 
 
 ' ' I kriow you did not, my. child. I was certain all 
 the time you saw in me only a friend, who had something
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 133 
 
 to say that interested and amused you. You could not 
 easily regard a man so old and grave in the light of a 
 lover. But, Jessamine, my heart is not old, and if you 
 will come and nestle in it you shall find warmth and 
 comfort there!" 
 
 The heat in her face still, the brown eyes clouded with 
 confusion and perplexity. She put her hand over them, 
 her mouth all a-tremble. 
 
 "I it is all so strange and so sudden," she stam- 
 mered. 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to have waited, and smoothed the 
 way to a declaration of this sort, ' ' he said ; ' ' but I had 
 rather you would take time to think. You are a sensible 
 little girl, and I will trust your instincts to point you to 
 the truth." And from that the man went on to speak for 
 himself, of his boyhood and youth, of his early manhood, 
 of the wife tenderly loved, whom he laid to sleep in a 
 foreign land, and of the years that had followed, lonely 
 years, with all their worldly ease and prosperity. 
 
 From this he came -to speak of their future together. 
 It was no worn, old, withered heart that he offered her. 
 If she trusted it, she would find it tender and thoughtful 
 for her to the last. Then he dwelt on the new life ii 
 would be his delight to open to her, a life of grace, ease, 
 luxury, whose tale lingered in her ears like the music of 
 fairy bells. She should have her day now. All that the 
 fine, eager young soul panted for should be hers ; the Old 
 World, with its wonders of Nature and its mysteries of 
 Art, its pictures, its sculpture, its palaces, and its temples, 
 should open its doors to her. With her own eyes she
 
 134 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 should see what she had been told, as in a vision, by 
 others. They would drift from one city to another, stop- 
 ping to take inflow draughts of what each had to offer. 
 He Avas certain that her heart, like his, must be lonely 
 for a friend such as he could be to her ; she, with only 
 that one brother, and the wide land and the wider sea 
 betwixt them. Perhaps Ross could come to them, some 
 time, and they could all dwell together and be happy. 
 
 She had taken her hands from her face now ; the glis- 
 tening eyes out of the paleness showed plainly enough 
 how the words moved her. She was dazzled and con- 
 fused; and through all she heard John Wilbur's voice, 
 telling her what a tender, faithful friend he would be. 
 Then a cloud of tears came into the soft brightness of her 
 eyes ; for, after all, this friend was what the lonely, tired 
 little heart needed most of all. 
 
 "Will you come to me, Jessamine?" John Wilbur 
 said, and rose up and put his hands out. 
 
 Her look went all over the man as he stood there, 
 over his large, shapely figure ; over the fine, strong face ; 
 over the grizzled hair and beard. He offered her every- 
 thing after which her youth had gone thirsting to cis- 
 terns that held no water. The future spread before her ; 
 the glittering slopes of the years, the gold and the 
 purple. Then the friend who stood there, generous,, 
 manly, noble, with his magician's wand. She did not 
 mind if his years more than doubled her own. Was not 
 this what she wanted, a heart steadfast and strong 
 against which hers could lean its youth and weakness ? 
 Had not God sent him ?
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 135 
 
 Her breath came in quick, hot gasps ; she half rose, 
 her limbs trembled. 
 
 " Can you not trust me, my little friend? Can you 
 not give your heart to me ? " 
 
 Her heart; yes, he would want that. She had no 
 right to take his without giving hers in turn. She drew 
 a long breath. " I ought to love you a great deal, 
 better even than Ross, and and " 
 
 ' ' I will not press you, child, for an answer. Let me 
 come to-morrow or next day. I should want your heart, 
 I should not dare urge you to come to me without you 
 could give me that ; but young girls do not always un- 
 derstand. That might come in time, you know." 
 
 " In time* yes," she said, doubtfully, as though it 
 had not come yet, the face looking at him full of pain 
 and perplexity. Then she caught eagerly at his promise 
 to wait. 
 
 "It had come so suddenly," she stammered again. 
 "He must not be offended with her. As a friend, he 
 was very dear to her ; and for the rest, only give her 
 time, and she would deal truly with him." 
 
 " No airs nor vanities of any sort," he noticed ; but a 
 trouble in her face that unbent it like a child's. Yet it 
 was her first offer, and, despite the difference of their 
 years, one that she might be proud of. 
 
 She put up her hand now. in a tired, fluttering sort 
 of way, to her forehead, the gesture showing, more than 
 all which had gene before, how deeply she was moved. 
 
 Then she held out both hands toward him ; her eyes 
 were darkened with tears. "When a man offers a
 
 136 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 woman all you have me to-night, it seems like an insult to 
 thank him. Ah, my friend, you have made me feel 
 humbler than I ever did in my life before." 
 
 11 1 had rather hear you say you felt proud and glad, my 
 child," taking the hands, and hiding them away in his 
 warm ones. " But it is an honest little heart. I can 
 trust it. Whatever its answer is, it will be true to itself, 
 to me also." And he went away. 
 
 Jessamine was tired in every nerve of her body. She 
 could not think now ; and she went upstairs, only add- 
 ing to the prayer which Ross and she used to make to- 
 gether at nightfall, and which she always said to herself 
 in any time of joy, or trouble, or perplexity, because it 
 seemed to bring the fresh child-heart into her "again, only 
 adding to that a prayer that God would show her the way 
 which was best and wisest for herself !Lnd for him also ; 
 and then she laid her head on her pillow, and fell into a 
 sleep that was like the sound, sweet slumber of her child- 
 hood. 
 
 The next morning, Jessamine woke up with a vague 
 feeling that a great crisis- of her fate was at hand. In a 
 few moments all that had passed the night before cleared 
 itself to her memory. 
 
 " John Wilbur's wife ! " She said the words over once 
 or twice to herself before she rose, trying how they 
 sounded, with a little smile and blush ; but there was no 
 thrill in her pulses, no transport at her heart. 
 
 She thought of all this man had offered her, home, 
 wealth, luxury, tenderness, all that her youth had 
 pined for. She felt unutterably grateful to him. How
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 137 
 
 beautiful that new life which he had promised looked to 
 her, like a fair country into which her soul could go 
 and take possession, saying to itself, "No more loneliness 
 and poverty, nor longing 4 ! " 
 
 "But did she love this man? That was the vital 
 question," moving her limbs restlessly. He must have 
 her heart, his words coming back, '" he woulcl not 
 dare to urge her to come without that." He ought to 
 be first and dearest; and John Wilbur could never be 
 that to her ; he could never be what Ross was ; and she 
 had a vague prescience that her heart held some depth 
 of tenderness and devotion which even Ross had never 
 sounded. 
 
 Yet she liked Mr. Wilbur very, very much : liked to 
 be near him, to hear him talk. It would be a very de- 
 lightful thing to go all over the world with him, to see 
 everything that was worth seeing, and. after all, would 
 she ever find anybody else whom* she could care for more 
 of than she did for this man, who never bored her, 
 whose presence was always agreeable to her? 
 
 Jessamine dressed herself that morning with a great 
 doubt in her soul. Mrs. W r albridge watched the girl 
 narrowly at breakfast. The lady was keen-scented in 
 matters of this sort, and Eva had told her that Mr. Wil- 
 bur had been there the evening before, and there had 
 been nobody but Miss Holland to entertain him, as the 
 family were out, and Eva had been occupied with her 
 lessons. Miss Holland had gone upstairs almost imme- 
 diately after Mr. Wilbur left, saying she felt tired. 
 
 "How long did he stay, dear?" while the girls
 
 138 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 were chattering like magpies over the concert, and paid 
 no heed to what Eva was saying. 
 
 " I don't know precisely ; but it might have been a 
 couple of hours ; at any rate, a good while." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge said no more ; but she put Eva's ti- 
 dings with some observations and suspicions of her own, 
 and the joints fitted nicely. The lady's keen scrutiny 
 of Jessamine confirmed her impressions. The girl was 
 restless and abstracted. Mrs. Walbridge felt that Jessa- 
 mine's youth and inexperience needed a friend now; 
 all young girls did at such junctures in their lives, and 
 the lady had no doubt of being fully qualified to act the 
 part of judicious confidant and adviser at this time. She 
 had never felt quite so friendly toward Jessamine Hol- 
 land as she did that morning. She recalled the fact 
 that here was a young, motherless girl under her roof, 
 who had now to decide the most important question of a 
 woman's life. 
 
 Of course Mrs. Walbridge could not offer her advice 
 unsolicited, and Jessamine might shrink from a disclos- 
 ure of her secret ; but the lady would bide her time, 
 and make the way easy for the girl. There was a severe 
 snow-fall that morning, which kept them all in-doors. 
 It was a day for warm, cosey home-nestling in corners 
 and groups, one of those days which bring to the sur- 
 face of household talk many a hidden sympathy, feeling, 
 conviction, that has never seen the light before. 
 
 Everything aided Mrs. Walbridge's purpose. The 
 girls brought their books, drawings, and dainty attempts 
 at sewing, into a corner. Some gossip about engagements
 
 THE HOLLANDS. . 139 
 
 started the conversation, and Mrs. Walbridge availed her- 
 self of this to make some general statements about love as 
 young girls fancy it, which sounded very sensibly, and 
 might fit the case in point. She was not mistaken : Jes- 
 samine put down her sewing, and turned toward the lady 
 with a half-suppressed eagerness in her face. 
 
 Edith, however, was not done with the gossip. She 
 went on, heedless of her mother's remarks. " She has 
 had so many offers, and. to my mind, she has taken up 
 with the poorest of the lot." 
 
 The elegant Edith sometimes seasoned her remarks 
 with a little coarseness, which surprised Jessamine. 
 
 The girl turned a shocked face on the speaker. " How 
 very unpleasant it must be for the lady to feel the world 
 knows all about the offers !" 
 
 Edith's light, sceptical laugh answered with her words, 
 "I don't think the lady would be at all distressed 
 over that fact, as she has confided each offer to hosts of 
 her friends." 
 
 Jessamine's face flushed indignantly. " I should think 
 it most dishonorable to betray a man's confidence in that 
 way." 
 
 " Those things, of course, are not to be made public," 
 answered Mrs. Walbridge. ' ' But all young ladies, at 
 such times, need the counsel of some friend of wider 
 knowledge and experience than themselves ; and if they 
 do not choose wisely, the whole thing is very likely to 
 be made common gossip." 
 
 " But, mamma, I thought young ladies told their offers, 
 and had a great deal of pride in it. I know some who
 
 140 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 do, anyhow," with a significant glance in the direction 
 of her elder sisters. 
 
 "Daughter," said Mrs. Walbridge, with unusual 
 severity, " it is better for little girls never to talk upon 
 matters about which they know nothing." 
 
 Jessamine's look had turned on the lady a moment, and 
 rested there. The lonely, perplexed heart within her 
 needed some friend stronger and wiser than itself to trust 
 in this great strait. She thought of Hannah Bray, with 
 her strong native sense and warm, motherly heart, and 
 wished she could go and lay down her head on the coarse 
 gingham apron, and tell her story, sure of getting up 
 steadier and clearer at the end. There was a motherless 
 pain in the girl's heart at that moment. 
 
 There sat the lady with her mild, pleasant face, and 
 her modulated tones. She was certain that Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge would listen kindly and interested to all Jessa- 
 mine might say. 
 
 But a little shiver came over the girl as she looked. 
 There was something which she wanted that was not in 
 this woman to give. She could hardly define what, but 
 she felt it ; something homely,, real, tender. Jessamine 
 drew a long breath. Wherever the truth lay, she must 
 seek it for herself, alone. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge had seen the look, and fancied she 
 divined its meaning. In a few moments she rose and 
 went into the conservatory, and her voice presently came 
 back. " Won't you do me the favor to walk in here, Miss 
 Jessamine ? I want to show you how the orange-trees 
 have blossomed within a few days."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 141 
 
 
 
 Of course, Jessamine went. 
 
 There was something a little unusual in the bland 
 kindness of Mrs. Walbridge's manner, while the two were 
 in the "conservatory together that morning. 
 
 As the girl stood there, in the midst of all the color 
 and fragrance that made a bit of hot midsummer in the 
 heart of the stormy winter day, the lady said, "with. her 
 pleasantest smile, pointing to the clusters of snowy blos- 
 soms among the dark burnished green of the leaves : 
 
 " You know the tradition of orange-flowers, -my dear. 
 For myself, I must own I have an affection for them on 
 that account, and I never see a heap of these in full 
 bloom, without feeling an impulse at my fingers' ends to 
 twine them into a bridal wreath, fancying, too, some fair, 
 young face all smiles and blushes beneath them. Some 
 day, my dear Miss Jessamine, I hope I shall have the 
 pleasure of twining my blossoms here ; " and she actually 
 touched the soft hair with her fingers. 
 
 Certainly this was "opening the door" with a tact 
 worthy of Mrs. Wajbridge. Jessamine glanced up at 
 the lady again, some feeling flushing and stirring her 
 face. 
 
 She was on the very point of speaking ; but something 
 held the words back, for which Mrs. Walbridge, seeing 
 the movement, stood confidently waiting. 
 
 Jessamine half drew and smothered a sigh. It seemed 
 as though her words were stubborn.. and would not come 
 though she wanted them. They would have come quick 
 enough to Hannah Bray though. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was a good deal chagrined, when, after
 
 142 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 
 
 a little further talk over the flowers, Miss Holland went 
 up to her room. 
 
 " I thought she certainly would speak then," said the 
 lady to herself. " She seemed on the very point of it 
 too. What could have held her back ? If, after all, she 
 should let John Wilbur slip, what a golden chance she 
 
 would lose! I wanted to tell her this; -but one could 
 
 
 
 hardly venture so far as that without the slightest en- 
 couragement. There is doubt at work in her mind, I see ; 
 probably his age, or some romantic notion about love, 
 which young girls are very apt to have. I hope she will 
 act wisely for herself in this case ; for, of course, it is her 
 own interest solely that I regard." 
 
 Meanwhile the object of Mrs. Walbridge's solicitude 
 was walking up and down her room, her hands behind 
 her, as had been her habit from her childhood, when in 
 any trouble or perplexity, a habit which sat with such a 
 quaint, odd air on the small figure, that it had been 
 vastly amusing to older people. 
 
 Jessamine heard the crying of the winds outside, and 
 sometimes she went and looked out through the thick 
 driving of the snow, and up to the gray solid mass of 
 cloud overhead, a sweet, troubled, delicate face at the 
 window-pane ; the girl thinking how, under all the blasts, 
 and cold, and darkness, lay waiting the wonderful Eden 
 of summer, the green leaves, the slipping of streams 
 among the hill-sides, the springing of grass, the glory of 
 flowers, the singing of the birds through the <rolden air. 
 If all that could afford to wait God's time, so could she : 
 neither storm nor darkness should chill her.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 143 
 
 Under the drifting of these thoughts was another, not 
 coming and going, but asking her soul all the time : 
 " Jessamine Holland, are you going to marry this man, 
 John Wilbur?" 
 
 She turned and faced it now, as it loomed up before 
 her, resuming her walk, her soft palms locked together 
 behind her. 
 
 Did she love him ? She began to see that her fate 
 hinged on that point, that respect, friendliness, trust 
 even, were not that other thing. 
 
 She did not love that man as she loved Ross, never 
 could. If that brother of hers should come to her with- 
 out a friend or a dollar, forgotten and forsaken of all men 
 and women, her hungry heart would still cling to him 
 out of all the world, holding him crowned, beloved, and 
 precious. 
 
 But strip John Wilbur of all the world gave him, 
 wealth, position, influence, and what would he be to 
 her ? A friend whose character she might honor, whose 
 sorrows she might pity ; but beyond that, nothing. 
 Why was it, then, that the prospect of being John Wil- 
 bur's wife had in it something very pleasant ? Because, 
 .and solely because, he could give her what her soul and 
 senses craved, wealth, luxury, ease. For these things 
 she would marry him, and not for himself. Her way 
 began to clear now. For these things these flesh-pots 
 of Egypt she had no right to sell herself. It was 
 giving up, it is true, something that only God and her 
 own soul knew how much she hungered for. Once the old 
 life at Hannah Bray's rose, in all its bare, stark dreuri-
 
 144 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ness before her, barer and drearier than ever, now she* 
 had had a glimpse into this new one. 
 
 The tears came into her eyes. It seemed so very 
 hard. If she could only love John Wilbur just a little. 
 But it was no use to try. She had no right to share his 
 wealth, the grace and splendor in which he would set her. 
 They were not hers. She would not sell her birthright 
 for them. Could she go to the altar, knowing in her secret 
 soul that it was the man's wealth, not himself, whom she 
 married ? It would be sin. She would not lift herself 
 out of her poverty and her loneliness by a false marriage, 
 any more than she would help herself to heaps of un- 
 counted gold which lay in her path, and which belonged 
 to another. In either case she would be a thief, and she, 
 Jessamine Holland, might go mourning to her death for 
 the good things of this life ; but she would come by them 
 honestly, or not at all. 
 
 So she had come into the light at last. This was the 
 wisdom for which she had prayed last night. Yet it is 
 not always given to women in such straits as hers. 
 
 There came a time long afterward when Jessamine 
 Holland looked back and saw that her soul would not have 
 answered so promptly and absolutely her solemn ques- 
 tion, if, altogether unconsciously to herself, there had not 
 hovered over her the prescience of what a real love meant. 
 
 Mr. Wilbur came the evening of the following day. 
 Jessamine was talking with Duke at the moment, Eva 
 fluttering between them as usual. 
 
 The waiter came toward the group, and said, in a low 
 voice, that Mr. Wilbur desired to see Miss Holland in
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 145 
 
 the parlor. The man evidently had an intuition, that, 
 friendly as was the gentleman's footing in the Walbridge 
 family, this visit was intended solely for the young lady. 
 
 Duke and Eva stared, and Jessamine, feeling, with a 
 sudden sinking of heart, that her time had come, made 
 some apology, and hurried up to her own room a moment 
 to collect her thoughts before she went down into the 
 parlor. 
 
 You must remember that.it was this girl's first offer; 
 and Jessamine was very much of a woman, with all the 
 truth and courage which lay wrought up in that warm 
 little heart of hers. She would have been more or less 
 than one, had she not felt keenly the great compliment 
 which Mr. Wilbur's choice had paid her, choosing the 
 little, quiet country girl from amid all the accomplished 
 and elegant young ladies in the Walbridge circle. 
 
 She stood a moment before the mirror, ^ind she realized, 
 as she had never done before, that the face which smiled 
 on her was a very fair one. She smoothed the dark hair 
 about it ; and then, opening her drawer, took out a puff 
 of Valenciennes lace, which had been one of her Christ- 
 mas gifts, and gathered the snowy laces about her throat. 
 Then her conscience, swift and sensitive, called to her, 
 "Jessamine, Jessamine, what are you doing that for? 
 Why do you seek to look fair in the eyes of this man, 
 whose offer you are now to refuse? Are you weak 
 enough to try to enhance your value and his loss at this 
 moment ? It is your duty to take no pains with yourself 
 this night; it would be nobler to try and look as homely 
 as you can." 
 
 13
 
 146 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 There was a little struggle, she was very human, as 
 I said, then she took up a plain linen collar and 
 pinned at Tier throat ; not even the bit of color there 
 which she usually wore ; but that was atoned for by the 
 flush in her cheeks as she went downstairs. 
 
 "I believe," said Eva, drawing near to Duke as Jes- 
 samine left the room, " that what Gertrude said the other 
 day was true, after all." 
 
 "What did she say, Eva?" 
 
 " That she thought Mr. Wilbur had taken a real fancy 
 to Miss Jessamine. It looks like it now, his just calling 
 and asking for her alone, leaving out all the rest of us.. 
 I think it would be sort of nice if if now " 
 
 " If what? " asked Duke, in a very curt tone. 
 
 "Why, if they should like each other, and something 
 serious should come of it,", answered Eva, who had a 
 young girl's natural fondness for lovers and weddings, 
 and who had been brought over to her mother's way of 
 thinking, "that the age was no great matter, after all." 
 
 "It is too absurd to enter anybody's thought," an- 
 swered . Duke, in his most positive and provoking way. 
 " A man old enough to be her grandfather ! When 
 girls get to talking, they never show common sense." 
 
 Eva bridled a little at this sweeping condemnation of 
 her sex. 
 
 "Girls usually see a good deal quicker into such mat- 
 ters than men, anyhow ; and as for Mr. Wilbur, if he 
 isn't young he's everything else that's nice and good, and 
 I would sooner marry him to-night than most of the gen- 
 tlemen whom I know."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. . 14 7 
 
 Mr. Wilbur and Eva hadf from the beginning, been on 
 excellent terms. 
 
 " You're a child, Eva, and don't know what you are 
 talking about." 
 
 Eva's amiability was a good deal nettled by this time, 
 and it must be admitted not without provocation. " If I 
 am such a child, Duke Walbridge," she said, very 
 spiritedly, " I am just over fifteen, and I don't think that 
 is a very infantile age anyhow." 
 
 " Nobody would suspect that from your looks or ac- 
 tions." 
 
 What had come over Duke to-night ? He was not in 
 the habit of talking in this way to his favorite little 
 sister. Eva felt a little hurt ; looking up into her brother's 
 fac.e, which had settled into something stern and hard as 
 his voice. There was no use talking to him now ; and 
 she went off to join her sisters at the other end of the 
 room, and communicate Mr. Wilbur's arrival. 
 
 Meanwhile, Duke Walbridge sat still, as though he had 
 been turned suddenly to stone in his chair. But beneath 
 all the hard whiteness there was a hot life and pain, such 
 
 as he had never known before. It had come there in the 
 
 j 
 
 last few moments. What could it mean ? He thought 
 of John Wilbur with a sudden flash of hatred, as though 
 the man had done him some horrible wrong ; the man 
 who had been an especial favorite of Duke's all through 
 the latter's boyhood. He heard Jessamine Holland's 
 feet coming down the stairs. He thirsted to go out and 
 drag her inside the door, from the very presence of the 
 man who was waiting below. He drew his breath hard
 
 148 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 
 
 as, listening intently, he heard her enter the room and 
 the door close. 
 
 What did it mean that the sister of Boss Holland had 
 power thus to shake his soul to its centre ? Was she 
 something to him beyond this, the sister of the friend 
 who had almost given his life for him ? 
 
 Duke Walbridge winced under this question which rose 
 in the silence of his soul, and he covered his eyes with 
 his hand, while the blood came darkly into his cheeks, 
 and his heart throbbed like a frightened woman's. Then 
 he thought of Jessamine, and something unutterably 
 strong, and sweet, and tender, flooded his soul. Whether 
 it was bliss or pain he could not tell ; but it was an ex- 
 quisite delight, which' made him feel manlier and braver, 
 and yet humbler and tenderer toward all the world. 
 
 " What does it mean? What does it meln ? " The 
 question going restless and hungry to and fro in his 
 thought, like winds that fall and rise before a storm; 
 and at last he answered, softly, with some feeling which 
 brought the tears into his" eyes, ' ' It means that I love 
 you, O Jessamine Holland /" 
 
 Mr. Wilbur came straight toward the girl, as she 
 entered the parlor ; he gave her both his hands, his intent 
 eyes on her face. Despite the linen collar and the lack 
 of color, he thought he had never seen her look quite so 
 pretty before. 
 
 " Well, my little friend, have you decided? " he asked. 
 
 All the surface vanity and flutterings had slipped 
 away now. She -was a woman, with a solemn duty before 
 her. She felt very sorry for him very sorry for her-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 149 
 
 self, too, wondering which" would find it the harder to 
 bear. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Wilbur,", said the sweet, steady, sorrowful 
 voice, "I have decided." 
 
 He knew then that it had gone against him. His face 
 changed ; he drew back from her. " You will not come 
 to me, Jessamine ? " a great regret in his tones. 
 
 Then she told him the simple truth ; that she could not 
 come without her heart ; she had tried to bring him 
 that, but it could not be. 
 
 He tried to argue with her. "Young girls were ro- 
 mantic ; and a grave, practical man, such as he was, 
 could not expect to inspire the ardent affection that a 
 young lover would. But he would be content to wait for 
 that, and he. believed his tenderness and devotion could 
 make her happiness, and win her love in time." 
 
 She feared she was swaying as she listened. All that 
 he said seemed so natural, so true. The color went 
 'down in her face, the tears came into her eyes. There 
 was something yet which she had held back. She told 
 him that now ; held up before him her past life, with its 
 loneliness, deprivation on every side ; and then she showed 
 to him what the life he offered to her must be in contrast ; 
 all the ease, grace, luxury, the world abroad, the sights 
 and sounds for which she hungered. 
 
 "Yet," lifting up the moved face, bright through all 
 its paleness, " do not tempt me, Mr. Wilbur ; I cannot do 
 you and my own soul the great wrong to take what I 
 have no right to, bringing you no heart in return. All 
 the time I should be certain that I was selling myself for
 
 150 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 your wealth ; that it was that and not you I married. 
 You are a strong man. Be pitiful to me. Help me to 
 be true to myself." 
 
 - He was walking up and down the room drinking in 
 every word. He came now and stood before her. 
 "Jessamine," he said, "I will love at the beginning 
 enough for us both. You will give me your confidence, 
 your friendship. I will be content with that at first, 
 believing that in due time my reward will come." 
 
 For a moment she swayed toward him again. That 
 warm, glowing life beyond stood smiling and waiting for 
 her. She had dealt truly by him, and if, out of the 
 abundance of his love and generosity, he was willing to 
 take her as she must come, why should she hesitate ? 
 
 But as she sat there looking at him, with her pale, 
 perplexed face, some other thought came to her help ; a 
 moment afterward it was embodied in her answer. " No," 
 she said, shaking -her head slowly, -" it is I that must 
 speak for both of us, I that must be' too truly your 
 friend, Mr. Wilbur, to let you do yourself this great 
 wrong. You are worthy of a woman's whole heart; 
 your tenderness and devotion deserve it. Be satisfied 
 with no less. If, tempted by all you promise me, I should 
 consent to be your wife against my highest convictions, 
 it would not be myself that you would take, but some- 
 thing lowered, untrue, false forever afterward. 
 
 ' " I am tired for rest, I am sick for freedom. I am 
 starved for life's grace and beauty, and the old life makes 
 me shiver as I think of going down into its cold and bar- 
 renness, and the one you offer me lies fair as a very
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 151 
 
 garden of Eden before me. But I dare not go in ; before 
 God, I dare not ! Have pity upon me. Be a man, and 
 help me ; for you can never know all it costs me to refuse 
 this you have asked." 
 
 Her hands clasped, her wet face shining up to him 
 through its tears. It roused whatever was generous and 
 noble in the man. He came toward her, he took her 
 little hands in his : 
 
 ' ' My little friend, whom I would have more to me, 
 but it cannot be, you have been true and brave to-night, 
 and God will bless you for it. It has been a hard dis- 
 appointment to me ; but for all that I feel that you are in 
 the right, and that in the end I could never be happy 
 with the wife who did not bring me her heart." 
 
 He stopped here and looked at her ; he longed to tell 
 her how freely his ample means were still at her disposal ; 
 how it would delight him to set her youth in pleasant 
 paths afar from those lonely, barren ones, where she had 
 walked so long, but something in her face held his words 
 back. 
 
 He drew her to. him, kissed her forehead tenderly, put 
 his cheek ttown to hers, and said, " Good-by, Jessamine," 
 in a way that told her it was for the last time, and then 
 went away. 
 
 Duke knew that Mr. Wilbur had been gone more than 
 an hour, when Jessamine re-entered the sitting-room. 
 She came back in her soft way, with some little serious- 
 ness in her face. Everybody looked up, for everybody 
 had a suspicion what John Wilbur's errand had been that 
 night.
 
 152 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was secretly uneasy and curious ; that 
 lady having been out when Mr. Wilbur called ; but the 
 girls had confided the fact to their mother, on her return, 
 with characteristic comments. Jessamine's manner had 
 
 * 
 
 of late puzzled the lady a good deal t Mrs. Walbridge 
 prided herself on her discernment, but she could not make 
 up her own mind whether Jessamine Holland was going 
 to accept Mr. Wilbur or not. She had a kind of feeling 
 that the girl would do her a personal wrong by refusing 
 him, although she never admitted this to herself even. 
 
 " Has Mr. Wilbur gone? " said Eva, almost as soon as 
 Jessamine entered; a question which nobody else had 
 courage to ask. 
 
 " Oh, yes; he left more than an hour ago," was the 
 quiet answer. 
 
 Then everybody knew. Mrs. Walbridge was secretly 
 exasperated. 
 
 "That girl must set a very high value on herself, to 
 refuse a man like John Wilbur. Why, if he had wanted 
 my Edith, I don't think I should have demurred." 
 
 Happily Jessamine suspected nothing of what was 
 going on in the thoughts of the people about h*er. 
 
 " I began to think you were not coming back this even- 
 ing, Miss Jessamine," said Duke, as she took her seat. 
 He said it in his kindest way, but then she was used to 
 kind sayings from Duke,-because she was Ross Holland's 
 sister, she supposed. 
 
 Just now, however, she felt singularly forlorn and 
 homesick ; remembering, too, that the only home she had 
 was the little bare room under Hannah Bray's roof.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 153 
 
 "Why, have you missed me?" she asked, half ab- 
 sently, as perhaps she would not had she stopped to 
 think twice. 
 
 " Oh, yes; I have missed you very much, Miss Jessa- 
 mine." He spoke the word low, and with some singular 
 emphasis of tone that roused her. 
 
 She looked up in his eyes, and he smiled on her, his 
 own rare smile of lips and eyes. 
 
 It entered her heart like light. It brought the soft 
 flush into her cheeks. 
 
 Somehow Duke felt quite at ease now about John 
 Wilbur. 
 
 Then they all three fell into the old mood of talking, 
 only softer and graver than usual, it seemed to Jessamine ; 
 and she went to her room that night with a heart com- 
 forted and lighter, she could not tell why.
 
 154 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 AGAIN there was company at the Walbridges. This 
 time the arrivals were from New York. A young lady, 
 the only daughter and heiress of a retired banker, ' ' a 
 man whose figures would not foot up short of a million." 
 to quote Mr. Walbridge literally. The young lady was 
 accompanied by her aunt, her mother having died several 
 years previous to this visit. Mrs. Ashburn, sister of the 
 lattej, herself a widow, had long resided in the elegant 
 home of her brother-in-law. 
 
 The lady had been a youthful companion of Mrs. 
 "Walbridge, and the intimacy between the families had 
 survived the tests of matrimony and maternity. 
 
 This aunt was a pleasant, conventional woman of the 
 commonplace type. Given the antecedents of wealth, 
 good-breeding, and fashionable society, and the ordinary 
 material is pretty certain to turn out the mould of Mrs. 
 Ashburn. The lady had no children of her own, and 
 her sister's daughter was her idol. Indeed, Mrs. Ashburn 
 was just fitted to act the role of a doating, most indul- 
 gent aunt. 
 
 Margaret Wheatley, sole heiress of the banker's million^ 
 now in her early twenties, was held in society a very
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 155 
 
 irresistible girl: indeed, she was of the sort to which 
 young men always apply inflated adjectives. 
 
 I never could bring myself to call her beautiful, in 
 the highest sense of that term ; yet I confess to sitting 
 for a half hour together watching the girl, and trying to 
 analyze the charm of her face and manner. She always 
 perplexed me. Even now I find it difficult to paint her 
 physical and. moral lineaments for you. Yet, come to 
 test her by anything which she would ever accomplish 
 in the world, Margaret Wheatley was not remarkable. 
 There were no strong forces of heart, soul, mind, in the 
 woman. 
 
 But there was softe subtle personal charm about her, 
 a charm of speech, motion, manner, which must be taken 
 into large account. She was all glow, grace, life. The 
 white skin, with its clear, wonderful bloom; the blu^e, 
 large eyes ; the deep gold of the hair ; the lithe, graceful 
 figure, made their own picture. 
 
 There was a brightness, a piquancy in her talk and 
 laughter, which trebled the effect, and which seemed as 
 purely natural as the fragrance which a newly-opened 
 rose pours out from its life into the sunshine of some 
 June morning. 
 
 How often I have watched Margaret. Wheatley, asking 
 myself whether this bright, singular attractiveness of hers 
 was a thing of nature or of art, never without a little secret 
 twinge of remorse before I left the question ; and to this 
 day I have never answered it to my own satisfaction. 
 But, at any rate, it served its purpose in the world. 
 
 Perhaps, if you come to look closely into the matter,
 
 156 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 the long preservation of the Walbridge and Wheatley 
 friendship owed itself as much to the social prosperity 
 and dignity of both houses as to anything else. Adver- 
 sity on either side would have been likely to chill it ; but 
 it flourished greenly during its long summer, the ladies 
 seldom visiting the city without passing a few days at the 
 elegant up-town mansion of the banker. 
 
 This visit of Margaret and her aunt, though long solic- 
 ited, occurred rather unexpectedly. The truth is, the 
 father had taken a sudden alarm at the gay life and late 
 hours in which his daughter was indulging. 
 
 The season was not half through, and, looking up the 
 splendid vista, the banker saw a vast%,valanche of -gaye- 
 ties and fashionable dissipations about to overwhelm his 
 daughter. That, at least, was the way in which it 
 looked in his ey^s, and the man resolved on a sudden 
 retreat. 
 
 ' ' The child will be broken down before the winter is 
 over," he said to his sister-in-law. " Get her out of all 
 this." 
 
 So there were a few telegrams exchanged ; and so it 
 came to pass that Margaret Wheatley came in midwinter 
 to the Walbridges. 
 
 No girl, unless it might be Jessamine Holland, in a 
 totally different way, had ever got on so well with Duke 
 as did this Margaret' Wheatley. She was not just .like 
 other girls ; she amused and interested him. She talked 
 with him just as freely as she did with his sisters, without 
 any apparent affectation, certainly without any morbid 
 self-consciousness ; for all of which Duke liked her.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 157 
 
 Then there was the old family friendship, which was a 
 tie of more or less strength between them. 
 
 Margaret, it is true, had not visited at the Walbridges 
 since she was a little girl, when Duke had been her 
 cavalier on all occasions. They had hardly met since 
 that time, but there were old memories to renew, which 
 Margaret did, bringing out their lights in that pleasant 
 sparkle of talk, which, if you came to remember it after- 
 ward, or to write it down, would sound very trifling ; but 
 then Duke enjoyed it at the time, and so did everybody 
 else. 
 
 It was gayer than ever at the Walbridges. What a 
 bright, long holiday life was, Jessamine thought, with 
 such people as these ! She never could have conceived 
 anything like it in the old days in Hannah Bray's cot- 
 tage. She must go back to that^_before long, with a 
 little shiver. ' ' But I will take what the good God sends 
 me now," bravely, and wisely putting the rest behind 
 her. ' 
 
 She was glad, too, that Margaret Wheatley had come. 
 The two girls got on remarkably well together, though I 
 think they were both something of a perplexity to the 
 other, provided Margaret Wheatley ever could be per- 
 plexed about anything; and here again I am in the 
 dark. 
 
 A million of dollars, however, was something that 
 Jessamine's thought was forever tugging at, but never 
 grasping. It seemed to her such an infinite amount 
 of money, that the wonder was, anybody could be 
 comfortable under its weight, could go to sleep in the
 
 158 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 nights and rise up in the mornings, and sail smoothly 
 along the days under such overwhelming possessions and 
 responsibilities. It was evident nothing of that sort 
 disturbed Margaret Wheatley; "but then she was nur^ 
 tured in riches, and I in poverty," mused Jessamine 
 Holland; " that makes the difference between us." 
 
 It seemed to Jessamine, too, about these days, that 
 there grew up something fainter than a shadow betwixt 
 her and Duke Walbridge. She tried to shake off the 
 impression, would not admit it even to herself, but we 
 know how very faint a film of cloud will blur out some 
 of the stars; and sometimes, it seemed* to Jessamine 
 that she missed some of the stars, a very few, from her 
 sky.* 
 
 Duke's care and attention suffered no abatement ; but 
 was it fancy that their talk did not flow quite so easily 
 as before ; that there was some re'serve in his manner ? 
 " Of course it was," Jessamine said to herself. 
 
 But she was not correct here. From the moment 
 that Knowledge, awful in its' power and meaning, had 
 shone upon the soul of Duke Walbridge, some new 
 reverence and awe toward the woman, whom of all the 
 world he loved, had taken possession of him. He could 
 not look at her, treat her with quite the old freedom, 
 when she was so sacred and set apart in his thought, in 
 his heart. 
 
 He felt, too, a new sense of unworthiness in Jessamine's 
 presence, as though he had been guilty of temerity in 
 daring to love her. Should he ever take courage to tell 
 her of this ? his breath always choking when he thought
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 159 
 
 of it, and so there was a certain relief in turning to Mar- 
 garet Wheatley, and taking in the cool, fresh breezes of 
 her talk, though all the time l}uke's ear was strung to 
 the slightest note of one voice, to the sound of one foot- 
 fall ; he knew when it went and when it came, and what 
 it brought and carried with it. 
 
 , Meantime other eyes and ears were alive to Duke's 
 intimacy with the heiress of a million. The words 
 sounded very pleasantly to Mrs. Walbridge. She knew 
 all they represented of splendor, influence, power. 
 
 "Mother," said Edith, one day when the two ladies 
 were alone for a half hour, "a bright idea has popped 
 into my head." 
 
 "Well, dear, what is it? " 
 
 " If our Duke now, would only fall in love with Mar- 
 garet, what a splendid thing it would be ! a million of 
 dollars doesn't often come with a bride's hand; but it's 
 locked up in hers, and some family must have the fortune, 
 and I don't see why we haven't as good a right to it as 
 anybody else." 
 
 " I see no reason why we have not ; but Duke is such 
 a curious compound I can never fancy him falling in love 
 with any woman, and long ago I devoted him to old 
 bachelordom." 
 
 "He's so odd and obstinate, one wouldn't dare to ap- 
 proach the matter with him, just as one would with most 
 people, I know," said Edith; "but, with such a chance 
 as this, it is a burning shame to let it slip, just think, 
 mamma, a million of dollars ! " 
 
 " I know. Nothing would gratify me more than to
 
 160 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 have Margaret Wheatley for my daughter-in-law. She 
 is in all respects the kind of wife I should select for 
 Duke ; but sons do not often consult their mothers' tastes 
 in that regard, and Duke must choose for himself.." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was not aware that the banker's mil- 
 lion gave additional lustre to the daughter's virtues and 
 graces. 
 
 " Do you mean, mamma, that you have ever suspected 
 Duke fancied Jessamine Holland? " 
 
 "I have never made up my mind that he did ; .although, 
 if the relations betwixt them were not just what they 
 are, I should long ago have feared the result of their 
 intimacy. But under the circumstances I could not in- 
 terfere." 
 
 " Well," said Edith, with a great deal of tart decision, 
 " nothing would provoke me more than to find the wind 
 set in that quarter. If her brother did save the life of 
 mine, that is no reason I should want her for a sister-in- 
 law, as I can see." 
 
 " That is very true, my dear. I was strongly annoyed 
 at Miss Holland's declining the offer which I am per- 
 suaded she received the other night. I have felt some 
 anxiety lest a regard for Duke had something to do with 
 the refusal." 
 
 if' She's not coming into the family if I can prevent 
 it," complacently surveying the small foot encased in 
 an elegant slipper. "What would she bring to us? 
 Neither family, position, wealth, anything that we natu- 
 rally desire for our only son and brother." 
 
 " It would be the keenest of disappointments to me to
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 161 
 
 have anything of the sort happen," added the mother. 
 "I have tried to think there was no reason to apprehend 
 it." 
 
 " I don't believe there is, mamma. Duke and Marga- 
 ret seem to be getting on finely together, and I know he 
 is a great favorite with her aunt." 
 
 " Ellen would no doubt take into account the old friend- 
 ship, which would make a union between the families 
 doubly pleasant," supplemented Mrs. Walbridge. 
 
 " How proud and delighted I should be, mamma, to 
 have the thing really happen ! It's a wonderful chance 
 for Duke, if he only knew it. How well, too, it sounds : 
 ' My brother's wife, the heiress of the millionnaire ! ' I 
 don't intend Jessamine Holland, that little country girl, 
 from some obscure town that nobody ever heard of, shall 
 frustrate all^pur designs and ambitions." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge might sometimes have reproved such 
 energetic language as this ; but she was now a good deal 
 displeased with Jessamine, and secretly a little uneasy 
 too. 
 
 " Duke's likings are very stubborn things! If he 
 should take a fancy to Miss Holland, it would be no easy 
 matter to manage or circumvent it." 
 
 There was a look in Edith's handsome face at this re- 
 mark of her mother's, which would have startled one 
 familiar with it. There was some latent power in the 
 girl, with which it would not be well to collide, a strong 
 will not easily daunted, a passionate force which would 
 probably never have much scope or development in her 
 quiet New England life and training, but which three
 
 162 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 centuries ago, in the court of Catharine de Medici, would 
 have offered a field of intrigue to her talents, and made 
 her a power in the splendid courts and stormy cabals of 
 that age, and perhaps added her name to that company 
 of beautiful, gifted, bad women whose names echo down 
 to us across the centuries, alike the glory and the misery 
 of their time. 
 
 "At any rate, I have set my mind on having our 
 family win this prize, if I can accomplish it ; and Jessa- 
 mine Holland shall not stand in my way." 
 
 " Don't start on a crusade against any imaginary foe, 
 Edith. I am still inclined to think that Duke and Miss 
 Holland regard each other only as friends, and it is quite 
 absurd to waste any feeling over phantom evils. Then, 
 too, you know Miss Holland will leave us now in a few 
 weeks." f 
 
 " Yes ; and she will descend into the original obscurity 
 from which Duke's jumping into the sea seems to have 
 lifted her for a time." 
 
 " Sh sh you shock me, ' ' replied her mother. ' c I 
 never saw you so ill-natured. That is not the way to 
 speak of the sister of the youth who saved your brother's 
 life." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge, to her honor, was more energetic in 
 her reproof, because she had a secret sympathy with her 
 daughter's feeling. 
 
 Edith, too, had the grace to be a little ashamed of her 
 speech. "I will own I was aggravated, mamma, or I 
 should not have expressed myself so strongly ; neverthe- 
 less, Jessamine Holland, I'm ready to help you to a hus-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 163 
 
 band, so that it be not my brother ; for I have set my 
 heart on Duke's marrying Margaret Wheatley." 
 
 When her daughter echoed so fully the sentiments of 
 her own soul, Mrs. Walbridge could not find it in her 
 heart to dissent, and changed the subject. 
 
 Jessamine Holland and Margaret Wheatley took, as I 
 said, a fancy to each other, and the former was always 
 content to sit still and listen to the playful sallies which 
 frequently ran high betwixt Duke and his guest. 
 
 Jessamine enjoyed their talk Over the old childish days 
 when they were little boy and girl together, and Marga- 
 ret had made her first visit at the Walbridges. She 
 would sometimes contrast her life at that time with that 
 of these people. It was only a little while ago, her 
 memory slipping down the years softly as boats slip from 
 the wide harbor down to the great sea. The price of 
 one. of Margaret Wheatley's dresses would have made 
 her household rich as princesses in that old time when 
 the 'dreadful problem to be solved day by day was, how 
 to keep soul and body together, and a shelter over their 
 heads. 
 
 It made her feel sadly, sometimes, to think she had no 
 merry childhood to talk about as other people had ; every 
 scene was enveloped in that dark atmosphere of poverty, 
 of which Margaret Wheatley had no more idea than the 
 birds whom God feeds, or the French princess who said, 
 "The people starving for bread? Why don't they eat 
 cake then?" 
 
 Duke Walbridge seemed all this time in wonderfully 
 high spirits. The truth was, there was some new life
 
 164 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 entering his soul, which quickened all his faculties ; and 
 there was a certain pleasure and relief in jesting with 
 Margaret Wheatley; his thoughts going sometimes to 
 himself: 
 
 "You 'are bright, and pretty, and piquant, old play- 
 fellow, and I like you; and it's a wonder that they 
 haven't spoiled you utterly, betwixt all the praise, and 
 pleasure, and prosperity ; but I have my doubts whether 
 one would find much heart, brave, and strong, and ten- 
 der, under all the charm" and the brightness. 
 
 1 i Ah ! my one lily, with whom all women cannot 
 compare, you sit quiet to-night, and the stillness is upon 
 your face, which tells me your thoughts are touching 
 close upon pain ; they have gone down into your lonely 
 childhood, or far off to Ross. Your thoughts do not 
 come to me, and mine do not reach your heart ; but for 
 all that, Jessamine, your influence is all about me, tender, 
 and sacred, and exalting. You are the woman to 
 strengthen, purify, redeem, my manhood. You inspire 
 me with a new life that is better than the old, with its 
 dreams and disgusts, its weakness and incoherence. You 
 are the angel passing by the gates, and the air is full of 
 myrrh and spikenard. Jessamine, if I should unlock 
 the doors and call, would you come in? God alone 
 knows ; but he has sent me the vision ; and I am stronger 
 and better for beholding you whether he gives you to me 
 or to another." 
 
 You would not have guessed these thoughts were 
 thronging in Duke's soul, hearing the badinage that was 
 going on betwixt him and Margaret Wheatley.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 165 
 
 Suddenly. Mr. "Walbridge's rather sonorous voice lift- 
 ed itself above the hum in the drawing-room. "This 
 has been a hard winter for the poor," he said. " Manu- 
 factories closed don't pay to keep them running. 
 Thousands of men and woman in our great cities turned 
 out of employment ! " 
 
 Mr. Waibridge was not a great talker ; but his speeches 
 were always to the point, and had that practical quality 
 which showed itself in everything the man said and did. 
 The family always listened with great respect when 
 "pa" spoke, all his opinions being held in high estima- 
 tion by his household. 
 
 Margaret Wheatley and Jessamine Holland listened 
 too. One could hardly have imagined a greater contrast 
 than there was between those two girls, with not a birth- 
 day between them ; the one, with the brightness, color, 
 glow ; the other, with the quiet, strong, delicate face. 
 
 Margaret really felt as little personal interest in the 
 subjects of Mr. Walbridge's remark as she would in a 
 hive of bees or a flock of sheep. Not that she was 
 really hard-hearted. She gave away all her dresses and 
 finery, as soon as she wearied of them, to cooks and 
 serving-maids, and really thought it was too bad to throw 
 them in the fire, as one of her intimate friends did, " be- 
 cause serving-people should not wear the clothes of their 
 superiors." But poverty she always associated with 
 rags, ignorance, and vice, and it had never entered the 
 soul of the rich banker's daughter that there was any 
 tie of human kindred betwixt her and "that class of 
 people. "
 
 166 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Jessamine had listened too. Those words, "out of 
 work," always hurt her. She knew what awful depths 
 of struggle, pain, hunger, cold, what dreadful shifts of 
 denial and poverty were in them. 
 
 She turned now to Margaret Wheatley, speaking out 
 of the fulness of her heart : ' ' What do you suppose 
 will become of those people? " 
 
 And Duke, sitting by, heard the question : waited for 
 the answer. 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure ; but they will get along as 
 they always have done. There are the benevolent socie- 
 ties and the soup-houses, you know." 
 
 ' ' Those will do their part ; but there is a class whom 
 these can never reach. I mean those to whose pride and 
 sensitiveness charity is bitter' as death." 
 
 "Oh, my dear Miss Holland, those interesting, unfor- 
 tunate people are never found out of books. Plenty of 
 people who are in the habit of dispensing charities as- 
 sure me they never came across one of those fine speci- 
 mens of poverty ; that the real ones are always coarse, 
 stolid, ignorant ; the other sort are only author's ideali- 
 zations ; but they do make a story delightful." 
 
 Jessamine looked at the girl in a kind of a mournful 
 amazement. Could anybody live in God's world, ajnd 
 hold such a faith as that ? 
 
 Still, it was all, no doubt, Margaret Wheatley's edu- 
 cation. .Jessamine did not easily believe evil of anyone; 
 and the banker's daughter had been singularly cordial to 
 her from the beginning. 
 
 "I think," she said, "one might dispense charities
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 167 
 
 through a whole lifetime, and- never meet with one of 
 those cases of what you call ' interesting poverty ; ' but 
 for all that they are in the world as well as in story- 
 books ; though they will not be likely to haunt soup- 
 houses or benevolent societies." 
 
 "I wish some of them would; I should be so very 
 glad to assist such people out of their troubles ; ' ' not 
 dreaming she was addressing one, who, without any great 
 elasticity of imagination, might even now be included in 
 the class of whom she spoke. 
 
 Jessamine made one more effort. " It is pitiful, too," 
 she said, " to think of the young girls employed in those 
 great cities, wearing away their youth and hope, their 
 very lives, in toiling early and late for a mere pittance, 
 just enough to give them food, and a bit of dreary back 
 attic for a shelter. I think of them in stores, and shops, 
 and factories, shivering through the early dawns to their 
 long days' toil ; I think of them going to their comfort- 
 less- homes, weary and faint, at night; and they are 
 women with souls and hearts like yours and mine, Miss 
 Wheatley." 
 
 The young lady moved a little uneasily. Nobody had 
 ever talked to her in just that way before. She thought 
 Miss Holland a little singular ; " but, then, poor thing, 
 she had never been in New York." 
 
 " Of course those things are very bad," she answered, 
 feeling that she must say something. " But those people 
 are used to it, and it doesn't seem to them at all as it does 
 to us." 
 
 Jessamine smothered a sigh. She thought she could
 
 168 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 understand: now how very gracious and beautiful women, 
 of whom she had read, queens and princesses, with vast 
 wealth and power, had no pity for the people, because 
 they could not understand them. 
 
 Duke Walbridge had listened to the taljc too, and had 
 his own thoughts about it, which would have greatly 
 amazed everybody else. 
 
 Mrs. Ashburn, Margaret's aunt, happened to overhear 
 the conversation also. That it made some impression 
 on her was proved by her remarking, the next day, 
 to Mrs. Walbridge, when Jessamine happened to be 
 away, "Isn't your young friend a little singular, Hes- 
 ter?" 
 
 " I think she is, Ellen. The fact struck me the first 
 time I saw her, and the impression has always continued ; 
 but then the circumstances did not admit of our being 
 critical, a^s we might be in the case of most young 
 ladies." 
 
 " Of course not," answered the lady. She had heard 
 the story of Jessamine's introduction into the Walbridge 
 family.' 
 
 Mrs. Ashburn was a pretty woman, with very lady- 
 like manners, and a face which still looked youthful under 
 its becoming lace and flowers. 
 
 '"I think, mamma, Miss Holland is really pious," 
 said Eva, who had an instinctive feeling that " singular " 
 was not an adjective Mrs. Walbridge would regard as 
 complimentary applied to her own daughters, or Mrs. 
 Ashburn to her niece. 
 
 "I hope we all are that, my daughter," answered
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 169 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge, with a rather amused but benignant 
 smile. 
 
 " Oh, but, mamma, I don't mean pious in the way you 
 do ; but really so, away down in her heart ; not nice, 
 respectable piety, but the sort that makes one conscien- 
 tious in word and act, that makes one pitiful and tender 
 to all who are in suffering, and that would dare sbme- 
 thing and sacrifice something for what was right and 
 true." 
 
 Eva had gone on in her earnestness, not considering 
 whom her words were hitting. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, as she paused, and 
 then Gertrude said, half satirically, half reproachfully, 
 " Why. Eva, do you mean mamma's piety is not of the 
 right kind?" 
 
 ' Oh, no, indeed ! I wouldn't of course say that ; only 
 it is not of the same kind as Miss Holland's ; that is 
 I mean I mean 
 
 Poor Eva ! she began to see the conclusions toward 
 which she was stumbling, and could not find her way 
 out. 
 
 "You mean, Eva," said her mother, "that young 
 girls, when they talk too much, are apt to get themselves 
 into deep waters." 
 
 " But, mamma," still feeling that she owed her mother 
 an apology, "I did not mean to say anything against 
 your sort of piety." 
 
 It was said so earnestly that, taken together with the 
 words, there was a general laugh, in which Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge could not help joining, though Eva's speech had 
 
 15
 
 170 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 been far from pleasing to the mother. It seemed to the 
 lady that her self-complacency had a good many shocks 
 of late, and in one way and another she associated them 
 with Jessamine Holland, innocent as the girl was of any 
 connivance in the matter. But Eva's speech did not 
 increase Mrs. Walbridge's regard for her young guest ; 
 and, although the lady would not admit it to herself, she 
 had a little secret feeling that perhaps Eva had stumbled 
 on a truth. All this time you must fancy to yourself the 
 liveliest of households, some new excitement going on 
 all the time : parties and drives, dinners and suppers, for 
 the advent of the New York guests had brought a new 
 element of gayety into the household ; and amid all this 
 swift flying of weeks, the winter, began to turn its face 
 toward the spring, the days lengthened, and Jessamine 
 Holland told herself it was time to begin to think of turn- 
 ing toward the russet cottage whose front faced the hills. 
 How she could take up the old dreariness of that life 
 again Jessamine could not conceive, contrasting it with 
 the present, so smooth and fair, despite a few drawbacks 
 which Jessamine tried to put in the background, gather- 
 ing the honey from her little flower of life while it was 
 yet summer time.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ONE day, at a little lunch-party given by the Wai- 
 bridges, who were fond of improvising things of this sort, 
 Jessamine met a new guest. It had cost the Walbridges 
 a little struggle to invite her, the former was well aware ; 
 but the lady held a golden key, which proved equal to 
 unlocking the awful front door between the carved lions. 
 
 Jessamine had heard the lady's name frequently this 
 winter, her antecedents having been fully discussed in 
 the Walbridge circle ; and the gossip floating in Jessa- 
 mine's way, there had grown around it a half-curious, 
 half-pitiful feeling for its subject. Mrs. Kent was young, 
 and extremely pretty. She owed to that last fact her 
 prosperity and social elevation. 
 
 She was not coarse, as some people tried to intimate, 
 a graceful figure; a fair, girlish face, full of fresh bloom; 
 eyes like the sky in some sunny May day that hangs close 
 upon June,- and soft, golden hair about it, it was a 
 face which vaguely reminded one of the last queen of the 
 house of Valois. 
 
 Mrs. Kent was the wife of a man richer, report said, 
 even than the Walbridges. Three years before, she had 
 been a factory girl in an adjoining village, and her bus-
 
 172 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 band was a man at least twenty-five years her senior, a 
 shrewd, good-natured, portly man, with a wonderful gift 
 for turning everything he touched to gold. He had risen 
 from poverty and obscurity by dint of this faculty ; he 
 had been all over the world, engaged in varieties of busi- 
 ness, which had been uniformly successful. 
 
 Mr. Kent saw the girl as she came by chance into the 
 counting-room of the foreman of the factory, with whom 
 the former happened to be conversing in the absence of 
 the owner, whom he had called to see. The young girl 
 was a little excited, and the blue eyes, and the fair 
 cheeks, and the golden hair dawned like a vision of al- 
 most unearthly loveliness on the gaze of Richard Kent. 
 
 He was not a man of much sentiment ; but, to use his 
 own words, " he could tell a pretty woman whenever he 
 saw her;" and of late the man who had tumbled all 
 around the world, intent only on making his fortune, but 
 with a certain good-nature at the bottom, whose salt had 
 saved him from turning into a mere grasping miser, with 
 no love but gold, no thought but gain, of late this man 
 had begun to wonder in a vague sor ( t of fashion whether, 
 after all, it would not pay better to anchor himself down 
 somewhere in a pleasant home, with a pretty little wife, 
 and enjoy in a new fashion some of the money which he 
 had been tumbling over the world all his lifeto win. 
 
 The face of the little factory girl, with its sunny 
 brightness, shone upon him at just the right time ; that 
 visit to the counting-office settled her future. 
 
 The girl was a favorite with the foreman, for her pretty 
 face and her bright, modest ways, and when he found the
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 1Y3 
 
 rich gentleman staring at her. he good-naturedly intro- 
 duced the two, and there were some very becoming blushes 
 on one side, and some rather clumsy attempts at conversa- 
 tion on the other. 
 
 But the matter did not end there. The bright eyes 
 and the pretty bloom haunted the dreams of Richard 
 Kent as persistently as though he had just scaled the 
 high wall of his early twenties, and supplanted the bar- 
 gains on which his thoughts had successfully revolved 
 for so many years. 
 
 The result was, that, one evening at the close of the 
 working hours, the gentleman appeared at the door, and, 
 jo her infinite amazement, walked home with the young 
 factory girl. 
 
 The acquaintance progressed swimmingly after that. 
 
 The factory girl was an orphan, lonely, homeless, and 
 with only distant kin in the world. She had been 
 brought up in a back country town, with her widest 
 knowledge of life gathered during the year in which she 
 had been employed in light work at the factory ; her 
 keenest interest had been to save money enough from her 
 board to indulge in an occasional cheap dress, and bright 
 flower or ribbon to set off the pretty face. 
 
 All this appealed to some chivalry and tenderness far 
 down in the blunt, good-natured soul of the man whose 
 life was settling toward its fifties. 
 
 Richard Kent was a shrewd man, and, though he had a 
 homely bronzed face, and his thick, dark hair and beard 
 was all overshot with gray, he succeeded very soon in 
 making himself look handsome in the eyes of the factory
 
 174 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 girL In a courtship of this sort, there were no long, 
 conventional preliminaries to go through with. 
 
 The man told the girl one day, in his blunt, straight- 
 forward fashion, that he wanted her for his wife, and 
 though he was not a young, dapper lover, he had a good, 
 strong, honest heart that was ready to take her right into 
 it, and make her as happy as a faithful, manly love ever 
 could make woman, provided she could take him on trust, 
 without any of the fine speeches which they said were the 
 things that always won quickest the ear and heart of a 
 woman. 
 
 The factory girl listened in a confusion of amazement, 
 delight, bashfulness, that made her look prettier than 
 ever. She glanced at the broad, stalwart figure by her 
 side. Then the true woman in her woke up for the first 
 time. She placed her hands in the strong, large ones, 
 the tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a sudden 
 seriousness and dignity altogether new to the factory 
 girl, "I'm very ignorant; I've never had any chances 
 to make anything of myself; but if you're willing to take 
 me as I am, I'll try very hard to be a good wife to you." 
 
 There was better promise for the womanhood to come, 
 in the simple pathos of that answer, than there would 
 have been in the one which many a fine lady might have 
 had ready to the suit of the rich man, and he knew it. 
 In less than a month they were married. The sudden 
 transition would have tested the grain of any nature, and 
 it was not strange that the factory girl's head was a good 
 deal turned by the unaccustomed splendor. She was 
 vain and foolish sometimes, dizzy and dazzled at the sud-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 175 
 
 den height to which she had mounted. But she kept her 
 husband's love and respect through it all, which was cer- 
 tainly to her credit, for he had a native shrewdness at 
 the bottom which was not easily deceived in its estimate 
 of people. 
 
 Richard Kent lavished diamonds and handsome dresses 
 on his bride, and she had good taste, which had showed 
 itself in the old days of her factory adornings, and which 
 kept her from any gorgeous displays of toilet, in the 
 midst of all the sore temptations which her husband's 
 loose purse-strings afforded her. Richard Kent's . boy- 
 hood had been passed near the town where the Wai- 
 bridges resided, and as he had certain agreeable associa- 
 tions with the vicinity, he purchased a delightful site 
 outside of the town, and here, in the midst of pleasant 
 grounds, he built himself a spacious home, and settled 
 down to enjoy his wealth with the young wife, of whom 
 he grew every day fonder and prouder. 
 
 Here, in a little while, a baby came to steady the 
 mother's heart and brain. Nature, at any rate, had 
 dealt kindly by Mrs. Kent, and beneath the pretty face 
 there were thought and feeling, which would assert them- 
 selves when her eyes should grow a little accustomed to 
 the new dazzle of her position. 
 
 She had been learning many things since she left the 
 factory, too, and among these were a very stinging, but 
 perhaps not unwholesome, sense of her deficiencies. 
 These were, in truth, deplorable ; the backwoods' school 
 having inducted her into a little reading and spelling, 
 and left her there before her tenth birthday. Mrs. Kent
 
 176 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 grew slowly awake to the fact, that she sometimes made 
 mistakes in conversation, and mispronounced words, 
 which the gracious ladies who invited her to their parties 
 waxed merry over when her back was turned. This 
 knowledge galled Mrs. Kent to the quick. She was 
 angry over it, and humiliated, too, and the poor young 
 thing, in the midst of her elegance, had no friend to 
 advise her, and she shrank from telling her husband the 
 trouble over which she brooded, and it was one which 
 the kind, blunt nature of the man would hardly under- 
 stand. 
 
 " If she could only sing and play," Mrs. Kent 
 thought, pondering the matter ; but she had no gift 
 there, and, if she told the unvarnished truth, she had 
 enjoyed the opera quite as much for its display of fine 
 dresses as she did for the music. 
 
 That there were some forces in her of energy and 
 resolution, Mrs. Kent proved by setting herself to study ; 
 but it was very slow work with no teachers of any sort. 
 
 Meanwhile the lady's tact and observation preserved 
 her from many egregious errors, but sometimes, despite 
 her care, they would slip out ; and as her wealth made 
 Mrs. Kent conspicuous, it became fashionable to criticise 
 her in a small way, and there were people mean enough 
 to indemnify themselves for admitting her into their 
 society by repeating her mistakes. At any rate, Jessa- 
 mine Holland thought no fault could be found with Mrs. 
 Kent's deportment, whatever were the defects of her 
 education. She was as thoroughly ladylike in presence 
 and bearing as any of the young ladies in the company.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 177 
 
 During the talk somebody ambitiously quoted a pas- 
 sage from Dante's " Inferno 1 ; " and another lady, quite 
 innocent of Mrs. Kent's antecedents, turned to her, say- 
 ing, playfully, " No doubt that is all very fine; but I 
 must have Dante turned into a mould of Anglo Saxon, or 
 else he is all Greek to me." 
 
 Mrs. Kent was a little nervous. She must make some 
 reply, and fancying that the lady's remark had given her 
 the clew, and that she was sure of her ground this time, 
 she answered, ' i I am no wiser than yourself. I never 
 read your poet. I only know he was one of the old 
 Greek authors." 
 
 The next moment Mrs. Kent became conscious that 
 she had made a tremendous blunder. The ladies around 
 her plumed themselves on their good-breeding, but, for all 
 that, there was a stir, a significant lifting of eyebrows, 
 an amused smile about the circle, and the poor little lady 
 felt stung and humiliated to the quick. 
 
 'Jessamine sat near her. She saw, with a sudden flush 
 of indignation, the smile of the ladies. She knew how 
 shallow was the cultivation of most of the elegant women 
 before her ; - a little music, a smattering of French, a few 
 of the surface accomplishments which pass current in 
 fashionable circles, and your line had struck the bottom 
 of these women's culture. What right had they to self- 
 complacency or scorn over the factory girl, who had im- 
 proved her small opportunities far more wisely than 
 they? 
 
 Jessamine Holland had a courage that, when roused, 
 would have made her dauntless in the presence-chamber
 
 178 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 of kings. Her eyes, in a blaze of indignation, went 
 around the circle, and then she turned, with her clear 
 voice and her quiet grace, to the lady : " Mrs. Kent, I 
 think you did not hear the name. We were speaking of 
 Dante, not of a Greek author," she said. 
 
 " I beg your pardon; I did not understand," replied 
 Mrs. Kent, and there was a sudden flash of gratitude in 
 the blue eyes that looked up at Jessamine. 
 
 After that, of course there was no more to be said ; 
 and although each lady present understood, as before, 
 the fact of Mrs. Kent's ignorance, each one felt, too, a 
 secret uneasiness. The courtesy which had not presumed 
 on the ignorance of a guest, and which had so gracefully 
 turned it into a misapprehension of the right name, was 
 something finer and higher than anything to which Jes- 
 samine's hearers had attained. But the lesson was not 
 without its service ; for Mrs. Kent's setting Dante among 
 the old Greek poets was never alluded to again, as it 
 would have been with plenty of contemptuous laughter 
 and pity, if Jessamine had not come to the rescue. 
 
 "That first sentence was not just the truth," said 
 Jessamine's conscience a little later. She had not 
 thought of that at the moment. 
 
 Several times, so many indeed that Jessamine was 
 quite ashamed of herself, her eyes met Mrs. Kent's. 
 " How singularly pretty and attractive she is ! The only 
 wonder,, that with her antecedents she carries herself so 
 well. Poor thing ! Even wealth does not bring all one 
 wants ; and she must be in perpetual fear of mortifica- 
 tion, from women whom her husband's wealth has forced
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 179 
 
 to acknowledge her. How that smile of theirs stung me, 
 as though it had been a personal insult! " went Jessa- 
 mine's thoughts. 
 
 Mrs. Kent was perfectly aware how Jessamine had 
 flung herself into the breach, in hearty defence of a 
 stranger. It stirred all that was grateful and generous in 
 the little woman's nature. A few commonplace remarks 
 only were interchanged before the company separated. 
 When Mrs. Kent had made her adieux to her hostess, she 
 approached Jessamine, and said, with a pretty kind of 
 eagerness, " Miss Holland, I am strongly desirous of 
 knowing more of you." 
 
 Frankness of this sort would be sure of being met 
 half way by Jessamine Holland ; and she replied, play- 
 fully, ' ' Your desire granted, my dear Mrs. Kent, might 
 produce quite the opposite effect." 
 
 "You will allow me to be the judge of that," an- 
 swered the lady ; and then she added an urgent entreaty 
 that Jessamine would give her the pleasure of an inter- 
 view at her own house. She would send the carriage at 
 any^ hour Miss Holland would appoint. 
 
 With a crowd of engagements which occupied the days 
 and evenings, Jessamine found it difficult to command 
 two or three hours outside of the family. Time was so 
 absorbed by this butterfly existence, whose only aim was 
 a vivid, aesthetic enjoyment of life. Was it very much 
 better than the butterfly's that flashed through the golden 
 summer air the purple beauty of its wings, and gladdened 
 the eyes which saw it hovering among the flowers ? 
 
 But Mrs. Kent was so thoroughly in earnest that Jes-
 
 180 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 samine appointed a time for the visit, a couple of days 
 later. Her going might be unceremonious ; and the 
 Walbridges might have their opinions about it, she re- 
 flected ; but for all that she would go. 
 
 The Rents lived several miles out of town. However 
 people might criticise them in some ways, they could but 
 admit that the owner had displayed good taste in the site 
 he had chosen, and the home he had reared on it. -It 
 was quiet, substantial, elegant, and Jessamine sighed a 
 little to herself as she mounted the stone steps, and won- 
 dered whether she should ever have a home too, a real 
 home, with nothing so grand as this, but a bit of a cot- 
 tage, with half-a-dozen rooms, and balconies, a cottage 
 among green hills, half smothered in vines. 
 
 I suppose we all have some time our horizon outside 
 of the real daily world in which we live. This one of 
 the cottage was Jessamine's. 
 
 Inside, too, amid the general elegance, there was little 
 to find fault with. The colors were rather too fresh and 
 bright to suit people of quiet tastes, but nothing vulgar. 
 
 Mrs. Kent's greeting was more like that of an^old 
 friend than an acquaintance whose knowledge of her 
 guest was confined to a single interview. The lady had 
 secured herself from interruptions this morning, and it 
 was surprising how much the young matron and the 
 young maiden found to say to each other. 
 
 Jessamine felt as though she was breathing a draught 
 of her native country air ; and it was 'very pleasant, for 
 the Walbridge ceremonies sometimes grew a little irk- 
 some.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 181 
 
 Mrs. Kent took her guest at last into a small cosey 
 side-ropm that opened out of the parlor. 
 
 " We can talk better, and I always feel more at home 
 than I do in those great parlors." 
 
 " So do I," said Jessamine. " How nice this is ! " a 
 pleasant home-feeling coming over her as she settled her- 
 self down in one of the low easy-chairs. 
 
 Mrs. Kent looked at her guest a moment with some 
 thought that flushed her face and widened the blue eyes ; 
 then she spoke : ' ' You were very kind to me yesterday, 
 Miss Holland. I could not thank you before all those 
 people ; but I shall never forget it of you never so 
 long as I live." 
 
 " Mrs. Kent, it is all not worth speaking of." 
 
 The lady's lip quivered. " Ah, but it was the way 
 the brave, generous way in which you sprang to my 
 defence. You did not join in the smile, nor the look 
 which I saw went around the circle." 
 
 " It was a shame a disgrace to them ! " burst out 
 Jessamine, hotly indignant ; " and they pride themselves 
 on their good-breeding ! " 
 
 Mrs. Kent drew a little nearer, again ; and, seeing her 
 face, Jessamine thought, " There is something in this 
 woman beyond what her husband's money has put there." 
 
 "I know what their friendship is really worth," she 
 said. "I know it's the elegant home, and the money, 
 and all those things that have compelled them to receive 
 me amongst them. I take their courtesies for just what 
 they are worth ; but with you it is different. I said to 
 myself yesterday, ' If I was only the poor, friendless
 
 182 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 factory girl I was two years ago, she would be just as 
 careful not to hurt me ; my feelings would be just as 
 sacred in her sight as they are now, now I'm the wife of 
 a rich man.' ' 
 
 "I should be a miserable wretch if they wouldn't," 
 answered Jessamine, with hot cheeks. 
 
 " Ah, yes; but the fine ladies in your set, Miss Hol- 
 land, don't look at it that way ; and though I feel that 
 in one sense, at least, I'm above them, yet their contempt 
 for my ignorance hurts, humiliates me. But I never had 
 any kind of a chance, you see, ' ' the lips quivering again. 
 
 Jessamine was so strongly stirred that she could not 
 say one word. She leaned over and touched Mrs. Kent's 
 hand, a slight movement ; but Jessamine had, from her 
 childhood, her own way of doing these small things 
 when her heart went in them. Hannah Bray could tell 
 you about that. 
 
 The lady went on : " I've been thinking a great deal 
 about the matter of late. If I could only set to work 
 and improve myself, make up for the lost time ; but I am 
 so utterly ignorant, and it seems so hopeless, and I don't 
 know where to begin. It is very easy to tell you all 
 this. I felt that it would be from the moment when I 
 saw your kind, pitying eyes looking at me yesterday." 
 
 Jessamine began to feel that her own poverty had not 
 been of the worse sort. Its iron had entered so deeply 
 into the soul of her childhood and youth, that perhaps it 
 was time for her to learn now the great limitations of the 
 wealth which had been denied to her. 
 
 " I have had my sorrows too; I h&ve known how
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 183 
 
 hard poverty is also," answered Jessamine, her lips quiv- 
 ering this time. 
 
 " I thought you would not have been so tender with- 
 out you had known," said Mrs. Kent, eagerly. "Yet 
 your poverty must have been so very different from mine 
 so very different ;" and she shook her head mournfully, 
 and Jessamine could make no reply. 
 
 In a moment the lady looked up eagerly again. " If 
 there is any way in which I can make up for these de- 
 ficiencies, bftt it seems so late to begin now ; yet I would 
 work very hard. I cannot bear the thought that some 
 day my little boy upstairs may live to know they are 
 laughing at his mother's ignorance, and be ashamed of 
 her." 
 
 Her face worked, the tears and the sobs coming up to- 
 gether behind the words. She had touched the quick of 
 her pain now, the mother-love, the mother-pride, that 
 had roused and steadied the whole woman ; that had con- 
 quered the vanities and affectations, and that would be the 
 secret spring feeding any new purposes of growth and self- 
 development in Mrs. Kent. 
 
 Jessamine answered out of her quick impulse of help 
 and pity, " But it is not too late to redeem all that has 
 gone." 
 
 Mrs: Kent looked up with an eager light breaking all 
 over her pretty, tearful face. " Do you really think so? 
 That is what I wanted to know to ask you. I am 
 ready to do anything; it is not too late, then?" 
 
 Jessamine hesitated a little. It was no light question 
 that Mrs. Kent had asked. That she would find the
 
 184 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 work one to test all her mental and moral force, Jessa- 
 mine saw clearly. No sudden impulse, no strong but 
 evanescent enthusiasm, would avail her here. The slow, 
 wearisome climbing at first ; the shaping her habits of 
 studies ; the ease, the pleasure, the' luxury about her ; 
 the calls and plans of each day, would be so many con- 
 spiring forces against this work of self-improvement. Had 
 the sweet-faced little woman sitting there the strength 
 and the courage to conquer all these circumstances, and 
 gather out of her daily life, out of its ease ajid pleasure, 
 three or four of its best hours for slow, hard toil of this 
 sort ? Jessamine doubted. And her answer kept faith 
 with herself. 
 
 She set the matter in its true light before the young 
 matron. It was a noble impulse which possessed her; 
 Jessamine's whole soul did it honor ; but she could not 
 disguise the great lions which stood in the way. Knowl- 
 edge was not easily won ; habits of study were not easily 
 formed. The beginning especially was slow and hard. A 
 steadfast, unswerving purpose alone would avail her. 
 Very few women were equal to work of this sort. The 
 duties and the delights of life wore away the hours, and 
 it was a great thing to look them in the face, and say, 
 resolutely, "I give up all the rest for the sake of 
 knowledge !" 
 
 Mrs. Kent drank in every word. A good many feel- 
 ings, however, in her face. There was a little silence. 
 
 " But if you were in my place I know you will tell 
 me truly what would you do ? Should you think the 
 work and the struggle would pay in the end? "Would
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 185 
 
 you not give up the rest, the ease, and the pleasure, for 
 what at last the knowledge would be to you ? ' ' 
 
 Thus adjured, what could Jessamine reply ? A sud- 
 den steadfastness grew around the line of the sweet mouth ; 
 a new strength steadied and fired the whole face. ' ' \Tes, ' ' 
 she said ; "for myself, I should look the facts in the face, 
 and I should put down the love of ease, of luxury, the 
 pursuit of pleasure, all things that eat away the days, the 
 months, and th years, saying, ' God helping me, I will 
 seek for knowledge,' sure that if I lived to be forty or 
 fifty years old, I should feel, ' I am not sorry I chose the 
 wiser and the better part.' ' 
 
 " And so I will choose, and so I shall feel, then," said 
 Mrs. Kent, and her face flashed into something which no 
 one had ever seen there before. 
 
 Jessamine could not discourage her. She thought of 
 the little boy upstairs, and it seemed that he was plead- 
 ing with her for his mother ; that the sweet baby face 
 which she had never seen looked at her half reproach- 
 fully, saying, " She has placed her future in your hands. 
 As you say, so she will do. Tell her to be not alone the 
 mother I can love, but one whose mind and thought I can 
 honor and revere, as you would have your own child, if 
 God should e'ver give you one." 
 
 The baby lay upstairs, nestled in snowy laces, smiling 
 among his pleasant dreams ; but, for all that, Jessamine 
 heard his voice pleading. So she could not find it in her 
 heart to discourage Mrs. Kent ; still, she would not make 
 herself the rule for another, which it is very hard not to 
 do in our youth. And she answered, " I should choose
 
 186 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 the study, Mrs. Kent, because I" love it best. It is not 
 thus with all women, women, too, who make good wives 
 and mothers ; neither is knowledge everything. The 
 heart and the character, in the long run, are a great deal * 
 more.*" 
 
 "But the knowledge makes both wiser and better?" 
 asked Mrs. Kent. 
 
 "Always wiser and better, if rightly used." 
 
 " Then I am making the right choice. I shall not re- 
 pent it," added the young wife. 
 
 " But there is another way," added Jessamine ; "an 
 easier one. There are many young ladies in society who 
 have a superficial knowledge, that with a certain feminine 
 tact and good sense manages to get them on very nicely. 
 You can procure a French teacher, take a course of light, 
 pleasant reading, and with your quick perceptions you 
 would soon find yourself on a level with these people, and 
 study would not be the hard task which I have described 
 it." 
 
 "But would you, in my place, remember, make up 
 your mind to that course ? " 
 
 There could be but one reply. The flash in her face 
 again. " No, I would go honestly to work ; I would 
 make no shifts of this sort ; I would commence at the 
 foundations." 
 
 "I am utterly ignorant," said poor Mrs. Kent. "I 
 know nothing of geography or grammar. I can read 
 and spell, and Richard says I write a pretty hand ; that 
 is all." 
 
 Jessamine's sweetest smile came out on her face.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 187 
 
 " The less you know, the greater will be the victory," 
 she said. 
 
 ' ' And and how long will it take to lay the founda- 
 tions, form these habits of study? " asked Mrs. Kent. 
 
 She had chosen her confidant wisely. Jessamine had 
 fought much of the battle herself. 
 
 The girl hesitated a moment. " I think, if you were 
 to study persistently three hours a day, for one year, with 
 some judicious teacher, you would have gained the battle. 
 There would be much to do after that; but, as I said, the 
 beginning is the hardest." 
 
 Mrs. Kent rose up and placed her hands in Jessamine's ; 
 her face was pale, but a great light shone out of it. 
 " Thank you, my dear friend," she said. " I will study 
 so for the next year." 
 
 Just then the bell rang. The coachman had called for 
 Miss Holland. She looked at her watch in amazement, 
 and saw that the two hours had slipped away while they 
 had been talking.
 
 188 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ONLY two days after her first interview with Mrs. 
 Kent, Jessamine found herself again at the lady's resi- 
 dence, an urgent note, written in a pretty, though rather 
 painstaking, undeveloped hand, having carried her out of 
 town again. 
 
 Mrs. Kent met her guest at the door, her face prettier 
 than ever, Jessamine thought, with its pleased, eager wel- 
 come. 
 
 "You were so good to come, Miss Holland. I have 
 been half frightened at my boldness in sending for you 
 ever since the carriage drove off, fearing what you might 
 think of it." 
 
 " My thoughts are not very formidable things at the 
 best," laughed Jessamine. " I cannot conceive how they 
 should ever alarm any human being. This time they re- 
 solved themselves into .a very feminine curiosity to know 
 what this mystery was at which your message hinted so 
 strongly." 
 
 " It is a little plan which came to me night before last ; 
 and I have pondered it ever since. You see, I would not 
 do anything of this sort suddenly or rashly," blushing 
 and smiling.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 189 
 
 The two had come into the quiet little alcove room 
 again, where they had their first talk, and where Jes- 
 samine had a home feeling. 
 
 She was, however, quite in the dark regarding Mrs. 
 Kent's meaning. She therefore added, in her bright, 
 playful way : 
 
 ' ' It must be an awfully solemn matter which re- 
 quired two whole days' consideration. Why, I never gave 
 so much time to any project in my life. I think, if a man 
 should propose to me, I should arrive at an absolute de- 
 cision in less than half that time." 
 
 Mrs. Kent could not help laughing ; but she grew grave 
 in a few moments. 
 
 " But this plan which has cost me so much time and 
 thought will never come to anything unless you consent 
 to it, and help me carry it out. . I have set my whole 
 heart on it." 
 
 "I shall be very glad to to serve you in any way 
 that is best for us both," replied Jessamine, a kind of 
 prescience of responsibility coming over her, and making 
 her seek her words carefully. 
 
 Then Mrs. Kent's plan came out, which affected Jes- 
 samine in one way almost as vitally as her hostess in 
 another. 
 
 The lady had been revolving all her friend had said to 
 her in their last interview, and was certain that Jessamine 
 was the only person in the world who could, assist Mrs. 
 Kent to carry out her purposes of study. 
 
 The whole matter resolved itself into a most pressing 
 invitation to Jessamine Holland, to come and take up her
 
 1*90 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 abode with Mrs. Kent for the next year, and induct that 
 lady into her studies. 
 
 She pleaded her cause with an earnestness, force, and 
 eloquence which really quite took from Jessamine the 
 power to reply after her first amazement at the proposi- 
 tion of her hostess. 
 
 Mrs. Kent, like everybody else in the Walbridge circle, 
 knew the history of Jessamine Holland's acquaintance 
 with the family, and that she was an orphan, with no 
 near kin in the world except the heroic brother who had 
 gone to the East Indies to seek a fortune for himself and 
 his sister. 
 
 She barely touched on that, however. All the favor 
 was to come from Jessamine, all the bounty to be reaped 
 by herself. She urged her necessity, and insisted stren- 
 uously on the fact that Jessamine alone would be a stimu- 
 lant and support to her in the solemn resolution she had 
 formed of educating herself. 
 
 There were teachers to be had," no doubt ; but these 
 would not be friends, nor apprehend all the delicate com- 
 plications of the case. Nobody in the world could do 
 that but Miss Holland; and, besides that, with another 
 little blush and unsteadiness of lip and voice, Mrs. Kent 
 was so shockingly ignorant she should be afraid and 
 ashamed to expose all this to a hired teacher, who might 
 go away and ridicule her, as those ladies who prided them- 
 selves on their good-breeding had not hesitated to do. 
 Then Jessamine's presence would be a constant inspira- 
 tion to Mrs. Kent, would encourage, sustain her, when 
 her own faith failed. In the world, in her own home, in
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 191 
 
 herself also, she would have constant obstacles to encoun- 
 ter, where a friend, who comprehended them all, could 
 alone enable her to be steadfast. 
 
 After that first year, which Jessamine had told her 
 would prove the real test, and leave her at its close van- 
 quished or victor, Mrs. Kent could take the reins ; but 
 now her hands were too weak and unused to hold them 
 alone. Would Jessamine help her ? 
 
 All this, and a great deal more, the little lady said, 
 pleading her cause with a wonderful fervor, while Jes- 
 samine sat still trying to look calmly at the matter which 
 had been sprung on her so suddenly. 
 
 Her answer was doubtful when Mrs. Kent paused: "It 
 has taken me so completely by surprise there are so 
 many things to consider my dear Mrs. Kent, you must 
 give me time." 
 
 " Oh, yes only " and an arch smile came about the 
 young matron's mouth. "You said that it would not 
 take two days to decide in case of a proposal : now this 
 is a far less important matter and I am so impatient." 
 
 Jessamine could but admit that her own remark was 
 very shrewdly forged by her hostess into a weapon for that 
 lady's cause ; and then the latter went on drawing a most 
 captivating picture of the quiet, happy times they would 
 have together. There was the pleasant, ample house, 
 with the wide grounds, where the summer was coming 
 to work its old Eden miracle afresh, and Miss Holland 
 should be just as much at home as under her own roof, 
 and live her own life with absolute freedom as it pleased 
 her. There should be the three hours for study, an in-
 
 192 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 exorable law ; and beyond that were walks, and drives, 
 and sails, whenever Jessamine should choose. 
 
 They were both young and enthusiastic in different 
 ways, and if the coleur de rose visions spread enchanted 
 landscapes before them, it was natural enough. 
 
 "I would try to make you very happy," said Mrs. 
 Kent, in a way that was really touching, at the con- 
 clusion; "and at least you could come and try it, you 
 know." 
 
 " I am quite overwhelmed by all your goodness," stam- 
 mered Jessamine, whose youth and fancy had been quite 
 dazzled with the glowing pictures. " I have no doubt 1 
 should be very happy, but but I wonder what Boss 
 would say ! ' ' 
 
 Here was an element in the argument on which Mrs. 
 Kent had not counted; She was not at all disposed to 
 leave the matter to the arbitration of somebody on the 
 other side of the planet. 
 
 She was simply an impulsive, undeveloped young girl at 
 this time, with a warm heart and a good deal of latent en- 
 ergy under the pretty face. Her instincts were true. 
 She had selected her confidant wisely. Whatever Jes- 
 samine might share of ease and luxury in the elegant 
 home, Mrs. Kent would owe far more to her by contact 
 with a finer and nobler nature than any she had ever met, 
 and by its quiet, moulding influences around her life. 
 She needed Jessamine. 
 
 " If I could see this wonderful brother of yours, I am 
 sure I could" bring him over to my way of thinking ; but 
 you will not hold me in suspense while letters can go,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 193 
 
 around the world and back, to have him decide on a mat- 
 ter -of which he could really know nothing. The whole 
 thing might strike him as a foolish vagary, and in any 
 case he must leave it all to your decision." 
 
 This reasoning was so sensible that Jessamine could 
 not gainsay it. I think *she was glad she could not ; but, 
 for all that, she would not rush with hurried feet into 
 this new life, which had risen up suddenly, like a stately 
 palace in the midst of shining gardens, to receive her. 
 
 " But your husband, Mrs. Kent, does he know of this 
 project, and approve it? " 
 
 " Oh, yes; Richard is so good, you have to know him 
 thoroughly to find that out, Miss Holland, he approves 
 of anything that will make me happy. It is true that 
 he always makes light of my ignorance, with some such 
 answer as this, ' You are wise and smart enough for me. 
 Dolly,' that is one of his pet names. ' Don't bother 
 that little head of yours about turning into a bookworm ;' 
 and talk of that sort. And even if I were to tell him of 
 some of the humiliations which I endure, he would think 
 it all proceeded from narrow envy or jealousy. A man 
 could hardly understand these things as we do." 
 
 " Hardly," wondering whether Ross or Duke Wai- 
 bridge would not. 
 
 " But Richard did not raise the remotest objection to 
 my plan when I laid it before him, and in the end I am 
 certain he will not think the less of me for carrying it 
 out; besides, he will like you as well as I do, almost." 
 
 Afterward, Mrs. Kent took Jessamine upstairs, and 
 showed her the room which she had appropriated to her 
 
 17
 
 194 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 use in case she consented to become an inmate of the 
 household. It was a bower pretty enough for a princess, 
 instead of a very quiet little country maiden ; perhaps 
 less pretentious than the stately chamber which she oc- 
 cupied at the Walbridges, but quite as tasteful and ele- 
 gant, with its dark furniture, its snowy linen and laces ; 
 and its windows, that took in a landscape, whose hills and 
 meadows, with their shining crinkle of brooks and river 
 courses, would be an eternal delight to the eyes of Jes- 
 samine Holland. At the foot of the bed, too, just where 
 those radiant eyes would be sure to rest on it when they 
 woke up from the night into the new day, was a sea- 
 picture, a rare thing, by DeHaas, along green line 
 of waves writhing up in glittering coils to the beach, like 
 a huge serpent throwing its cold, vast length on the dark, 
 wet sands that sparkled in the light. In the west, the sun 
 was going down in great masses of- angry clouds ; there 
 was a heave and restlessness of the vast sea, which told 
 one it was girding up its strength to meet the storm that 
 was coming down upon it ; there was the snowy glitter of 
 the sea-birds in the distance, and across the bare, reddish 
 headlands. 
 
 Jessamine drew in her breath. A sense of ease, of 
 home, and peaceful shelter came softly over her. She 
 thought of the little room at Hannah Bray's, with its 
 bare walls and its clumsy furniture, to which she must go 
 back in a little while. Then she heard Mrs. Kent's 
 voice: "How soon shall you let me know your de- 
 cision? " 
 
 "You must give me one night to sleep over it," an-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. ' 105 
 
 swered Jessamine. " That usually clears away my cob- 
 webs of doubt, over any new plans. To-morrow I will 
 write you;" and with this understanding the .two young 
 things, so strangely brought together, so singularly in need 
 of each other, parted at the door. 
 
 As Jessamine rolled through the grounds, she looked 
 about them with a new interest, and with some new sense of 
 possession. In these few last days the first pulse of the 
 spring had stirred under the earth. She heard a robin 
 singing among the hedges, and with a sudden yearning 
 thrill she saw clusters of "lady's delights," constella- 
 tions of purple and gold, in the flower-borders at her feet. 
 
 Would this earthly Paradise ever really be her home ? 
 Was it a dream, whose glowing mirage filled an hour of 
 the night, or something that had really fallen to her 
 human lot ? setting herself back in the carriage when she 
 found that her lashes were wet. Only that morning Jes- 
 samine had been compelling herself to look the fact in 
 the face that she must return home, and the time was 
 drawing nigh to do this. She would not admit to her most 
 secret thought that there had been any failure of cordial- 
 ity in the manner of the Walbridges since she first became 
 their guest. 
 
 Jessamine Holland was not morbid ; but her instincts 
 were sensitive, and if she would have allowed herself to 
 heed them, she might have felt that there was a subtle 
 difference of manner in her hostess, and in that of her 
 elder daughters. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge herself was unconscious of this ; in- 
 deed, she made a constant effort not to fail in any atten-
 
 196 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 tion to her guest ; but it was impossible for even that 
 lady to absolutely mask her feelings ; and of late she had 
 set her heart on Duke's taking to wife Margaret Wheat- 
 ley, and she was not certain whether Jessamine Holland 
 stood in the way of this consummation. Sometimes Mrs. 
 Walbridge made herself believe that her fears were 
 groundless ; and then again she was less confident of the 
 state of her son's affections. She watched Duke narrow- 
 ly ; she pondered his words, and yet she feared to let fall 
 a hint which should indicate the desire on which she had 
 set her heart. 
 
 All this, of course, did not tend to promote Jessamine 
 Holland in Mrs. Walbridge's estimation. The lady must 
 have been glad of any circumstance which would have re- 
 lieved her from the unwelcome presence of her young 
 guest. Mrs. Walbridge would not admit to herself that 
 she disliked Jessamine Holland ; but, for all that, she did, 
 in secret, as we are apt to do those whom we fear may 
 frustrate our dearest plans. And all unconsciously to her- 
 self, there was at times a faint chilliness in her tones and 
 manner toward Miss Holland, though that young lady 
 denied it most energetically to herself when her .instincts 
 first suggested the fact. 
 
 Edith, who sympathized with her mother's feeling, 
 was, perhaps, a little less guarded. Margaret Wheatley 
 she had resolved should be her sister-in-law, and here she 
 was confident of the sympathy of her whole family, with 
 the exception of Eva, who was kept wholly in the dark. 
 She was too young to understand anything of the sort, 
 Mrs. Walbridge said. There was no doubt that Mrs. 
 
 i
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 197 
 
 Ashburn could be relied on to use all her influence to 
 promote the union of her niece with the son of her friend. 
 Duke was a great favorite with the lady, who had an 
 immense horror of fortune-hunters, and a constant dread 
 <lest her niece should be sacrificed to some one of .these, 
 his real purpose disguised under graceful bearing and 
 flattering tongue. 
 
 Mrs. Ashburn's influence would be no small force in 
 Duke's favor, both with father and daughter. As for 
 Margaret herself, the young man had always been an 
 immense favorite with her from childhood. Everything 
 was auspicious for Duke's suit to a bride with a dowry of 
 half a million to add to her many charms and graces. 
 
 Did this unknown stranger, without fortune or friends, 
 whom circumstances had forced on their hospitality, 
 stand in the way of so brilliant an alliance, one that 
 would do honor to the Walbridge race ? ' ' She shall 
 not," muttered Edith; and her haughty face darkened, 
 and her mother listened, and did not reprove her 
 daughter. 
 
 Jessamine found, on her return from Mrs. Kent's, 
 that a plan had been concocted by the young people to 
 ride over to the Falls, a little picturesque torrent of 
 water in a gorge of low, black rocks, a few miles from 
 the city. Doubtless the attraction of the scenery was 
 greatly enhanced by the drive to the waterfall, which 
 wound charmingly among the meadows, with sudden out- 
 breaks and surprises of hill and valley scenery. 
 
 Jessamine had frequently been promised a ride to this 
 waterfall when the spring weather opened, though Duke
 
 198 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 had been disposed to have a jest, at Eva's expense, over 
 her highly colored descriptions of the size and volume 
 of the stream : "0 Eva ! one would think to hear you 
 go on, that we had a companion-piece to Niagara up there 
 among the rocks. It is only a pretty stream of water 
 leaping over the stones from a considerable height ; but, 
 then, small eyes see things in such enlarged proportions; 
 a cherry once looked bigger in my eyes than an apple 
 does now." 
 
 ".No doubt it will in mine, when I have attained your 
 venerable age," answered Eva, pertly enough. The 
 brother and sister were always having their badinage over 
 each other's ages, all of which vastly amused Jessa- 
 mine. 
 
 Eva was full of the details of the ride when Jessamine 
 returned. The air was soft as a late May-day, full of 
 sunshine and the fragrance of blossoms. Everybody 
 seemed to take it for granted that Miss Holland would 
 go ; and she would have thought it absurd to demand a 
 more ceremonious invitation. 
 
 Of course, it never entered Duke's thought that Jessa- 
 mine would not be included in the party ; but Edith had 
 made up her mind that morning to weave a little silken 
 net of intrigue about the whole affair. She was resolved 
 that her brother and Margaret Wheatley should occupy 
 the carriage by themselves, if she could compass it. 
 " There is no reason why Miss Holland should see the 
 Avaterfall on this particular occasion," she said to her- 
 self; "and there are especial reasons why Duke should 
 just at this time be thrown, as much as possible, in Mar-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 199 
 
 garet Wheatley's society, with no distracting influences 
 about him." 
 
 The eldest daughter of Mason Walbridge would have 
 made an artist in delicate intrigue. This matter required 
 dainty handling, for it would never answer to offend 
 Duke or wound Miss Holland. Edith Walbridge' s plan 
 was worthy of herself. 
 
 Jessamine Stood at the mirror putting on her hat, for 
 the carriages were coming up the drive, when there was 
 a knock at the door, and Miss Walbridge suddenly en- 
 tered the room. 
 
 "Oh, I beg pardon ! " and she started back with a 
 wonderfully well-counterfeited look of surprise. " I did 
 not understand you are going with us, Miss Hol- 
 land?" Voiqe and smile very cordial over these last 
 words, in which, too, was a lurking embarrassment. 
 
 "Yes that is I was expecting to." answered Jes- 
 samine, a little incoherently, surprised and curious. 
 ",But is there any reason I beg you will tell me what 
 your errand was, Miss Walbridge." 
 
 "It was a very small matter, a mere misapprehen- 
 sion on my part. I am quite confused, Miss Holland." 
 
 She certainly looked so. standing there in her dark, 
 handsome riding-suit ; and Jessamine Holland was not 
 by nature suspicious. She always took people at their 
 word. 
 
 " I shall not feel comfortable unless you frankly tell 
 me what brought you in here, Miss Walbridge." 
 
 ."Well, then, as I am caught, mouse-like, in a snug 
 little trap, I suppose there is no way but to make a
 
 200 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 clean breast of it," answered Edith, with an air of reluc- 
 tant frankness. 
 
 " I thought you said to Eva at lunch that you had 
 letters to write to your brother, which would prevent 
 your joining our party for the Falls this afternoon ; and 
 I have just received some handsome engravings of Span- 
 ish mountain and coast views, which I thought might 
 interest you in case you felt lonely before we returned ; 
 and I called to say, knowing your taste for anything of 
 the sort, that I had laid them on the library table for 
 your amusement." 
 
 This was very kind and thoughtful of Edith. Was it 
 strange that Jessamine Holland's gaze could not pene- 
 trate far down into any secret motive which underlaid all 
 the graciousness ; that she took the whole with her 
 native good faith ? 
 
 " I thank you sincerely, Miss Walbridge. It was not 
 strange that you misapprehended me ; for I did tell Miss 
 Eva that I had intended to bestow this afternoon on 
 Ross, as the steamer sails day after to-morrow, but that 
 I would break my rules and sit up the best part of the 
 night to write him." 
 
 " And and I have just told Duke Miss Hol- 
 land, I beg you will pardon all my stupidity, and take 
 my place ! Really, this ride is quite unimportant to me, 
 I have taken it so many times." 
 
 Edith Walbridge seemed confused and distressed. It 
 was like Jessamine to hasten to relieve her. 
 
 ' ' Don't think of me in the least, Miss Walbridge ; but 
 just enlighten me, and then I am sure we shall be able
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 201 
 
 to adjust the whole matter; " laying down her gloves on 
 the table. 
 
 Then Edith went on to say that, in the full belief of 
 Miss Holland's refusal to accompany them, she had 
 insisted on Duke's taking the ph.aeton, which would only 
 accommodate two people comfortably. 
 
 " I thought this arrangement might be pleasanter than 
 to have Eva by his side ; as I presume you are aware, 
 Miss Holland, that a peculiar friendship has always 
 existed between Duke and Margaret Wheatley. She 
 was the only little girl whom he ever heartily fancied, 
 and we used to imagine 'their childish penchant might 
 ripen into a real attachment ; and, as I have an impres- 
 sion the old feeling may not have quite perished, I man- 
 aged that they should ride undisturbed to this old haunt 
 of theirs, knowing it was very full of childish associations 
 to both of them. Of course I should never have alluded 
 tb this matter if these circumstances had not forced me." 
 
 Edith said this in the most natural way imaginable. 
 Still, she watched covertly the effect of her words on her 
 listener. There was no apparent embarrassment. Jes- 
 samine stood quietly and earnestly listening, with no 
 change in her face, except the swift color which was 
 always coming and going, and therefore furnished no 
 criterion on the present occasion. 
 
 "And and oh, I begin to see the facts now. 
 Your own carriage will be filled, and so you wish to 
 remain at home to make room for me. You are very 
 kind, Miss "Walbridge, but of course that is not to be 
 thought of;*" and Jessamine took off her hat.
 
 202 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 (i Oli, do put it on ! " pleaded Edith. " I shall not 
 have a moment's comfort during the ride, and Duke 
 would be so vexed if he knew all this." 
 
 " He need know nothing about it," answered Jessa- 
 mine, eager to relieve her friend's embarrassment. " Just 
 tell him that I am really unable to take the ride this 
 afternoon and finish my letter to Ross, which is the sim- 
 ple truth, and don't. give another thought to this matter." 
 
 Edith, sure of her ground now, demurred and pro- 
 tested ; but Jessamine was firm, and at last she was 
 obliged to leave,, and she went down secretly exulting 
 over the success of her finess'b. 
 
 "Where is Miss Holland?" asked Duke, a little im- 
 patiently, as she joined the group. 
 
 " She sent her excuses ; but she has concluded that she 
 will ^remain behind and write to her brother. You know 
 she is the model of sisters, Duke. I can only admire her 
 at a distance now ; but perhaps if you were in India *I 
 would do the same for you." 
 
 11 Why, Miss Holland said she would put off writing 
 her brother until night ! ' ' exclaimed Eva, in a voice full 
 of chagrin. 
 
 ".Well, she has altered her mind, and none of us can 
 induce her to go now," promptly responded Edith. 
 " You will ride in the phaeton with Margaret, and Eva 
 can come with us." she added, to her brother. 
 
 Duke turned toward the carriage, but his sister 
 hardly liked the expression of his face. There was some- 
 thing dark and grim about it, which was a sure indication 
 that matters had gone wrong with him.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 203 
 
 She would have felt still less exultant over the success 
 of her little master-piece of intrigue could she have looked 
 down into her brother's heart and read the thoughts 
 there. " Ah, Jessamine, I am only the'friend of Ross in 
 your thought. Shall I ever be more?" 
 
 Margaret Wheatley waited for him with her brightest 
 smile, her face set off at its very best, under a mass of 
 flowers and plumes. If there were any sentiment exist- 
 ing between the two, this afternoon was certainly the 
 time to inspire it. There were all the old childish asso- 
 ciations linked with this ride, for long ago Duke had 
 driven Margaret Wheatley over to the waterfall with his 
 new pony, and was as proud of his prowess as a young 
 knight of the spurs he had just won ; and the little girl's 
 admiration for her boy-cavalier still exercised a certain 
 magic over the young woman. 
 
 Every mile of the road revived some old memory, and 
 the banker's daughter had, never in her life been more 
 fascinating than she was on that drive. There was little 
 doubt that Duke Walbridge held at that time the fate of 
 Margaret Wheatley in his hands ; that, had he chosen to 
 urge his suit with eager heart and eloquent tongue, the 
 bird with the beautiful plumage and the golden nest 
 would have dropped easily into his outstretched hand. 
 
 But, with all his faults, Duke was not self-complacent, 
 and he would have deemed himself meanly disloyal to 
 any woman to fancy that he could win her before he bad 
 made the effort. And somewhat after this fashion his 
 thoughts went to himself: "Ah, Margaret, Margaret, 
 you are brilliant and fascinating, and all that, and I had
 
 204 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 rather have you by my side this minute than any woman 
 in the world, saving one only, one with a soul bright and 
 "strong, like fire, tender and soft as dew ; one whose very 
 voice and presence seem to banish the devils of which I 
 am possessed, devils of sloth, vanity, selfishness. But, 
 Margaret, under all the bloom and charm, what should I 
 find if my soul went to you for cool springs, when it was 
 hot and thirsty in the hard wrestle of life ? I know my 
 weaknesses, I and God, and that the devil is forever get- 
 ting the better of what little good is in me. I want a 
 woman who will help to make me a truer man, who will 
 inspire and exalt me, who, knowing my weaknesses, will 
 hold for me still her first love and faith ; while daily, 
 hourly contact with her nobleness, purity, sweetness, 
 shall be the slow leaven to refine this big, sluggish lump 
 of me." 
 
 What would Margaret Wheatley, sitting by his side, 
 with her young bloom and grace, have thought of all 
 this ? It would have sounded to her like the vagaries of a 
 madman. She could have ha(J no comprehension of, much 
 less any sympathy with it. Yet you would have thought 
 to see the two that this young man and maiden were hav- 
 ing the merriest time imaginable. The light badinage 
 flashed back and forth between themselves and the party 
 in the two carriages behind, in which rode all of Duke's 
 sisters, with some of the young gentlemen in their train.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 205 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BUT somebody in the stately chamber at the Wai- 
 bridges was not having a very merry time, whatever 
 might be the case with the party. 
 
 Jessamine conscientiously made ready her writing 
 materials for Ross' letter. But something was the mat- 
 ter with the girl. There was no tumult, no thunderings 
 nor lightnings, but chill and blackness, and creeping 
 across all those soft words of Edith's about her brother 
 and Margaret Wheatley. There was a pain, too, in her 
 heart, alive-dead ache. Trying to shake it off, the girl 
 rose lip and dragged her heavy limbs across the room. 
 "Oh, dear!" she said, "I wish there was somebody 
 in the world in whose lap I could lay down my head a . 
 little while ; some mother or sister ; ' ' her mouth quiver- 
 ing like a grieved child's. 
 
 Jessamine did not know what ailed her. She only 
 felt so utterly forlorn and lonely in the world. For the 
 first time there came across her a longing to get away 
 from the splendor which had surrounded her; and 
 Hannah Bray's words returned to her : "I feel certain 
 you will not come back to us as you went away, my 
 child."~
 
 206 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Her homely friend was right there. A new world lay 
 between her and that morning when she went out from 
 the old house, and turned to look at it for the last time, 
 with a sudden yearning in her heart. Ah ! it is only 
 when we strain them suddenly, that we find how tough 
 are the old fibres woven of memory and association. 
 
 With a sudden longing, too, Jessamine looked off to 
 the new home which had been offered her. Was not God 
 caring for her again? She had been afraid that she 
 should live a useless life in his world. There might be 
 some hidden corner in the great garden of the Lord for 
 her to make a little fairer ; at any rate, she would try. 
 
 She sat down now, and cried all alone, not passion- 
 ately, but large, salt, bitter tears, whose hopelessness 
 did not belong to her youth, or to any age, for that mat-' 
 ter, but she could not cry away that dull, steady ache 
 about her heart. Ross must be written to though, and 
 the afternoon was wearing away, and the party of gay 
 people would soon be back, and she must meet them with 
 a face that would tell no story of this miserable after- 
 noon. 
 
 She tried to put a light heart into her letter ; but, de- 
 spite herself, there was a heavy throb through it some- 
 times. 
 
 The new home which had opened its doors to her of a 
 sudden formed the principal feature in Jessamine's let- 
 ter. Ross' nature was a practical one, and she felt some 
 uneasiness lest he should regard the whole matter as 
 rather visionary and romantic. But men could not judge 
 in such matters for women, as Mrs. Kent had said, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 207 
 
 Jessamine saw that she must take this affair into her own 
 hands. 
 
 The letter was not finished until long after the gay 
 party had returned. 
 
 When Jessamine went downstairs her face was steady 
 enough, and she listened to rapturous accounts of the 
 ride, and to regrets on every side that she did not go. 
 
 Duke, however, kept aloof from her. Indeed, there 
 had come of late a slight constraint in his manner toward 
 her. Always conscious of her presence, with his veins 
 full of fire, and his heart throbbing like a fluttered 
 maiden's, how could the young man maintain just the 
 old, light composure of his bearing,, when face to face 
 with the lady of his love, and that awful secret .within 
 his soul ? 
 
 Jessamine was conscious of this change too ; but, if 
 possible, Duke's watchfulness for her ease and happiness 
 seemed to augment at this time ; so she would not allow 
 herself to see any difference in his manner. After din- 
 ner, that evening, some friends from New York called on 
 Mrs. Ashburn and her niece, and Duke and Jessamine 
 were left awhile almost alone in the library, something 
 which very -seldom happened nowadays. The conversa- 
 tion seemed to flag between them. At last, he took up 
 a volume from the table, and, running over the leaves, 
 his- eyes lighted on a passage which brought a sudden 
 change over his face. A light shone in them, and a 
 smile, half curious, half amuse.d, played about his 
 mouth. 
 
 He looked up at Jessamine, the smile making a
 
 208 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 warmth about the coldness of her heart. " What book 
 have you there? " she asked, suddenly. 
 
 " ' The Courtship of Miles Standish.' Of course you 
 have read it? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, with a wonderful delight. Priscilla on her 
 milk-white steed, going through the forest, with John 
 Alden walking by her side that autumn day, is a picture 
 that one, having seen it through the poet's eyes, can 
 never forget, the homeliness, the truth, the tenderness, 
 and the beauty." 
 
 "And in its pure, fresh, wholesome atmosphere, 
 how all the splendor and magnificence of a fashionable 
 bridal* shows its tinsel and its gas-lights!" answered 
 Duke. . 
 
 " You were smiling at some passage in your reading 
 just now. What was it pleased you? " 
 
 An impulse seized Duke at the moment, that left him 
 no volition of his own. He handed the volume over to 
 Jessamine, and pointed to the lines ; but he did not tell 
 her he was thinking of her, nor how well they suited his 
 own case. 
 
 So she read the passage : 
 
 " ' But of a thundering No, point blank from the mouth of a woman, 
 That I confess I'm ashamed of, nor am I ashamed to confess it.'" 
 
 " I don't think," said Jessamine, in her quiet, earnest 
 way, as though the matter had not the slightest connec- 
 tion with herself, and just as she would have said it to 
 Ross, " that any man would have much reason to be 
 afraid of a woman Avho would ' thunder ' a ' No ! ' in his
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 209 
 
 
 
 ear to such a question, asked honestly and loyally. At 
 any rate such a 'No,' in the end, would be better than 
 ' Yes.' " 
 
 Duke looked at the girl sitting there in her soft, quiet 
 grace, sweet and womanly as the Puritan maiden they 
 were talking about. 'Something leaped and shone wide 
 and hungry in his eyes. 
 
 " Your ' No,' would never be thundered in any man's 
 ears, Miss Jessamine. I can imagine what a low, soft, 
 pitiful thing it would be ; but for all that it might rumble 
 through his soul for years afterward, the death-blow of 
 all his hopes, dreams, aspirations life itself never 
 clearing the air and making it sweeter." 
 
 Jessamine looked up in a swift surprise, her face all in 
 a heat at those strange words and the stranger tone, and 
 met the shining, hungry glance. 
 
 It confused frightened her. How she would have 
 answered, or whether at all, she never knew ; for at that 
 mbment Eva darted intc^the library. 
 
 What more Duke would have said he never knew 
 also ; for he had been overmastered and hurried quite out 
 of himself. 
 
 But the wind suddenly changed, and blew from the 
 west in the soul of Jessamine Holland ; and, instead of 
 the dark, there was light, and gladness, and, the singing 
 of birds. She did not stop to ask what had wrought the 
 change ; perhaps she was afraid to. 
 
 But the next hour was a very pleasant one for the 
 three. Eva brought up the ride again, and was ener- 
 getic in her regrets that Jessamine had remained at home. 
 
 18
 
 210 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 
 
 "I was selfish enough to hope that you would forget 
 Ross for a few hours for the rest of us," said Duke. 
 
 "He really wanted her to go then," Jessamine 
 thought, ' ' despite his penchant for Margaret Wheatley . 
 Duke would not speak in that way without he meant 
 it." 
 
 " Meanwhile, Edith was relating to her mother the " lit- 
 tle stroke of policy," as she called it, which had kept 
 Miss Holland at home that afternoon, Mrs. Walbridge 
 and Mrs. Ashburn having at the time been down town 
 together. 
 
 " It was very cleverly managed, my dear," answered 
 the lady, when her daughter concluded; "but I do not 
 like to have a daughter of my own resort to manoeuvres 
 of this sort. I always was opposed to intrigues." 
 
 " Oh, well, mamma, one can't always be squeamish ; 
 And I think the circumstances justified a little manage- 
 ment on my part." 
 
 " I hope they did. So Duke and Margaret had their 
 ride quite to themselves? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Yes ; in the phaeton. I wish Duke had seized so pro- 
 pitious a chance to propose. I have no doubt as to the 
 success of his suit. How I do wish that boy knew which 
 side his bread was buttered ! " 
 
 ' ' I suspect the knowledge would not materially influ- 
 ence his conduct. But Margaret Wheatley is such a 
 charming creature, I have been in hopes that your 
 brother would fall in love with her." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge would never "put it" in any other 
 light, never admit to herself even that the girl's fortune
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 211 
 
 lay at the bottom of her eager desire that Margaret 
 Wheatley should be her daughter-in-law. 
 
 "*It shan't be my fault if she isn't," answered Edith, 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge smiled, looking on her handsome eldest 
 daughter. She had great faith in Edith's diplomatic skill 
 when she exerted it; but she said now, "Be careful, 
 my child, not to do anything that you may regret after- 
 ward, even to* bring to pass a thing which we all so 
 ardently desire." 
 
 This was a gentle admonition, which satisfied Mrs. 
 Walbridge's conscience, while it would not be likely to 
 exert any strong influence upon her daughter's proceed- 
 ings. 
 
 Jessamine Holland carried a heart fluttering in hap- 
 piness up to her room that night. The look that shone 
 in Duke's eyes made her cheeks hot and her pulses bound 
 whenever she thought of it. What did it mean ? 
 
 ' Jessamine asked herself that question, and then I 
 think she was afraid to answer it to herself a singular 
 tremulousness came over her ; she drew her breath hard ; 
 and her eyes were like the stars with the new glory and 
 joy and beauty which shone in them. And with the old 
 childish prayer that night, she added another, that if her 
 Father's hand had opened the gates of the new home, the 
 light and the wisdom might be given her to see clearly 
 and .walk wisely. And then she laid down and slept on 
 it, as she had promised Mrs. Kent. The next morning 
 hej decision was embodied in the brief note which she 
 sent to the lady :
 
 212 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND : / will come and do, God helping me, the 
 best I can. 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "JESSAMINE HOLLAND." 
 
 The little note made Mrs. Kent the happiest of women 
 for that day. She was an impulsive little thing; and 
 when Jessamine's letter reached her, she was sitting 
 playing with her baby, who had just been brought in, 
 fresh from his bath, in snowy cambric and faces ; the small, 
 fluttering hands, the sweet baby face, Avith its mother's 
 wide, innocent eyes, the pink cheeks and the scarlet mouth, 
 making a prettier sight than any of the pictures on the 
 wall. 
 
 Richard Kent, sitting in his arm-chair in his flowered 
 dressing-gown, was thinking just the same thing as he 
 watched the young mother frolic with her baby on the rug, 
 and hold a glittering rattle-box just above the child, who 
 crowed, and laughed, and stretched his little, dimpled 
 hands after the toy. 
 
 Richard Kent was a bluff, square-shouldered, well- 
 featured man, with heavy figure, and shambling gait, and 
 iron-gray hair ; but it was all the same, so long as he 
 looked handsomer than any living man in the eyes of the 
 one little woman in the world for whom he really cared. 
 
 The toy dropped suddenly into the lap of the baby as 
 his mother seized the note, which a servant had just 
 brought in, and, tearing it open, Mrs. Kent gathered out 
 the meaning. She was off her feet in an instant, dancing 
 half across the room in her- delight. . 
 
 " Dick, she's really coming ! "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 213 
 
 Mr. Kent thought his wife had the prettiest little airs 
 and graces imaginable. Whatever she did was perfect in 
 his eyes ; and though the man had been brought to give 
 his consent to this project of study, he had done it with 
 just that sort of feeling with which one gratifies any 
 pretty little whim of a child's, looking at the whole 
 matter in that strong, commonplace daylight which had 
 served him so well in the world, and in which he regard- 
 ed everything not connected with his wife and baby. 
 
 " Let me see the letter, child," he said, thinking that, 
 now the thing was really settled, this receiving an entire 
 stranger on so intimate a footing in their household for a 
 whole year might not be just the agreeable thing his 
 wife fancied. 
 
 So with a good deal of empressement Mrs. Kent brought 
 her husband the letter. He read it, scanning the hand 
 and the words closely, as he was in the habit of doing 
 some new endorsement of a note. 
 
 '"I like the looks of that, 1 ' he said, at last. " Sensible 
 young woman this ; no flourishes nor affectations there ; 
 but fine, strong, and clear. Then there's no unnecessary 
 words, no going about the thing ; but brief, and to the 
 point; I don't, however, quite like this idea of having some- 
 body round all the time ; a man wants to feel that his 
 home is his own to do just what he has a mind to in it ; and 
 this Miss what you call it " 
 
 " Miss Holland, Dick ; now do remember." 
 "This Miss Holland may sometimes be in the* way." 
 " Dick, if you should see her you'd never say that. 
 She'll never intrude herself on us. I know you'll like
 
 214 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 her; and I am so anxious to kave her come at once, and 
 make the first -plunge into our studies." 
 
 "I don't see what you want to bother your pretty 
 head about them things, child. As though you weren't 
 wise enough and bright enough by nature. These fool- 
 ish women have put this notion into your brain, when I'd 
 match you against the whole of them for native wit and 
 brightness." 
 
 "Ah, but, Dick, you dear old fellow, you've no idea 
 how fearfully ignorant I am. I'm dreadfully ashamed 
 of myself when I am thrown amongst people who have 
 had a chance in the world. I hardly dare open my 
 lips to say a word, lest I should let something wrong 
 fall, and they will make sport of me." 
 
 "Let them do it if they dare," growled Richard 
 Kent. 
 
 "Ah, but I suppose a man cannot understand it; 
 but real, well-bred ladies sometimes do these things, and 
 it is very humiliating;" her-voice shaking a little. 
 
 " Have they been troubling my little bird ? " said the 
 large, coarse man, with a voice as tender and pitiful as a 
 woman's. " She was made for nothing in the world but 
 to sing among the leaves in the sunshine, and they better 
 let her alone. Nobody's going to vex my darling. I 
 hold, through their husbands and fathers, more of these 
 fine ladies .in my power than you suspect, or they 
 either." 
 
 Mrs. Kent rose up, and came to her husband, and ran 
 her fingers through the thick, iron-gray hair. " Dick," 
 she said, earnestly, "you are the best man in the whole
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 215 
 
 world. I do not believe there was ever another with such 
 a big heart as yours, or ever will be another afterward. 
 You took the little factory girl, with all her defects and 
 ignorance, and set her in the midst of all your wealth and 
 splendor, and there you keep her like a crowned queen, 
 and will not see a fault in her. But she grows more 
 conscious of them all the time, and one of these days, 
 when I am no longer your little girl-wife, and our boy 
 has grown above my head, I want to be something that 
 he and his father may be proud of." 
 
 "No danger but what we shall be all that;" the 
 shrewd eyes looking with fond tenderness on the pretty 
 creature before him. 
 
 " Ah, yes; but not wholly because I am bright and 
 pretty, or all those things you think me, but because I 
 am a sensible, and thoughtful.- cultured woman ; that is 
 what I want to be some of these days, for your sakes, my 
 husband and my child." 
 
 ' Richard Kent began to discern there was some' latent 
 strength and energy which he had not suspected in the 
 little factory girl he had taken to wife. He was amused, 
 impressed, and the practical man was half convinced there 
 was something in this reasoning, after all, and something 
 more in his wife's plan than a pretty, romantic notion, 
 which in the end would come to nothing ; but then it was 
 best to indulge her until she got tired of it. 
 
 So it was settled that they should ride over to the 
 Walbridges, and prevail upon Jessamine to appoint the 
 earliest day possible for her entrance into their family, 
 although Richard Kent could not get over his notion that
 
 216 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 she was a book-worm, and the man had a horror of 
 such. 
 
 Meanwhile, Jessamine began to feel that it was high 
 time she announced to the family her intention of going 
 to the Kents. There was no need that the fornler should 
 know anything beyond the fact that she accepted an invita- 
 tion to visit the others. The whole matter wastto affair of 
 
 
 
 the Walbridges, and she shrank from the thought of their 
 coolly discussing Mrs. Kent's, secret. No doubt they 
 would be surprised ; but they would have no motive to ob- 
 ject to the visit, even if they had any right to control her 
 movements. 
 
 But Duke was not included in his family. He had 
 been her. friend, in no ordinary .way; he had pledged 
 himself to stand in Ross' stead to the lonely orphan sis- 
 ter ; and she felt that she owed him some explanation of 
 the circumstances which had cfetermined her acceptance 
 of Mrs. Kent's invitation. Since Margaret Wheatley's 
 advent, Jessanyne had fewer opportunities than formerly 
 of any private talk with her young host. But one 
 occurred one evening, two or three days after her decision 
 had been formed, when Duke returned early in the after- 
 noon and found Jessamine alone in the library with some 
 book, whose attraction had proved strong enough to 
 keep her from accompanying the other ladies down 
 town. 
 
 Seizing her chance, when he came and sat down by the 
 table near herself, Jessamine related the whole story of 
 her acquaintance with Mrs. Kent, adding only, "It is 
 her secret and mine. Everybody else will suppose, at
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 217 
 
 the first, at least, that I go there as her guest; for, 
 though I could have no possible objection to the world's 
 knowing my relations in the household, the lady herself 
 does not want cold and cynical people laughing over her 
 first attempts at geography and arithmetic ; though, after 
 all, if I were in her place, I should . hardly care what 
 people might say of me." 
 
 "That is right, Miss Jessamine. We only learn how 
 to live when we possess our soul in some serene climate 
 where the buzz and tumult of what people may say can 
 never reach us. Yet, I can understand Mrs. Kent's 
 feelings, and her secret will of course be sacred. 1 ' 
 
 " I am a little uneasy as to what Ross may think of 
 it all," she went on to say. " I wish you would do me 
 the favor to write him that you, knowing all the circum- 
 stances, approve of what I have done." 
 
 A curious smile came over his face. He looked 
 at the girl. "I have not said that, Miss Jessa- 
 mine." ' 
 
 "Ah, but you would if you knew all. It will be so 
 much better than going back to the old, lonely life at 
 Hannah Bray's. Then, too, I shall be doing some little 
 work in the world, and that will give me strength and 
 courage." 
 
 " I never thought of your going back to Hannah 
 Bray's, Miss Jessamine. Such a thing is not to be so 
 much as named. But I had expected that you would 
 remain with us until Ross returned. You seem to have 
 grown quite into one of the family. 1 do not see how we 
 are to get on without you." 
 
 19
 
 218 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 She looked up with her bright, grateful smile. "I 
 have grown uneasy of late over the length of my visit. 
 I should have returned home in a week or two, if if 
 nothing better had opened." 
 
 Duke rose up and paced the room. It seemed to him 
 that all the light and life of his elegant home would go 
 out when this quiet little girl went over his threshold. 
 He stopped suddenly ; he bent over her. 
 
 "Jessamine," he said, in a low voice, but it seemed 
 to the girl that it had the strength and rumble of 
 distant thunder, "I wish you would not go away from 
 us." 
 
 "0 Duke, it is best I could not be happy 
 staying any longer," she faltered, hardly knowing in her 
 confusion whether the words answered his speech or 
 not. 
 
 " Not happy with us ! Jessamine, your words 
 hurt me cruelly ! " 
 
 She looked up quickly now ; a tender shining filled 
 the wide gray darkness of his eyes. He laid his hand 
 on her shoulder, and she felt the strong youth's tremor 
 through every fine pulse of her being. 
 
 Just then there was a hurrying of feet in the hall be- 
 low. The people had returned home. There would be 
 a burst into the library with the next moment. With a 
 strong instinct to escape, Jessamine hurried out of a side 
 door and up to her own room. Her face hot, her pulses 
 quivering, she burst into a passion of tears. Yet it 
 was such delicious* weeping that she would" have been 
 glad had it lasted forever. There was a great tremulous
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 219 
 
 light and happiness at her heart, and, like the ringing 
 of bells, filling with musical chimes, some May morn- 
 ing, all dew, and perfume, and shining, rang the tones 
 rather than the words of Duke Walbridge in her 
 ear. 
 
 Yet, with maidenly shrinking, she tried to shut her 
 eyes to the feeling which lay far down in the limpid 
 words and tones, and gave them their real worth and 
 meaning, getting up and bathing her hot cheeks and 
 trembling fingers, and chiding herself for being such a 
 little fool as to be so happy. 
 
 Jessamine's announcement that she was to visit the 
 Rents created a fresh sensation in the Walbridge family. 
 To some members of it, no doubt, this appeared a most 
 agreeable way of getting rid of a guest whose pres- 
 ence might frustrate their dearly cherished plans. 
 
 Still the regrets were manifold and polite, and on the 
 part of Eva and her next elder sister, Kate, were, no 
 doubt, sincere ; but Gertrude entered too warmly into 
 her mother's and elder sister's plans not to sympathize 
 with their feeling regarding Jessamine's further stay 
 among them. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Kent came around to expedite Jessa- 
 mine's removal with all the arguments and entreaties in 
 their power, and the former had a golden pass-key to the 
 Walbridges, which it seemed the grim stone warders on 
 each side of the front door instinctively comprehended 
 and honored. 
 
 So there was a great deal of complimentary talk about 
 the Kents making a sudden raid, and stealing their guest
 
 220 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 away, and their reluctance to letting her go, on the part 
 of the Walbridges ; but for all that Mrs. Kent maintained 
 and carried her point, which was, that Jessamine should 
 join them with small delay. 
 
 "Anyhow, it won't be as though you were going off 
 home. We can come to see you every day or two, can't 
 we, Duke? " said Eva, hovering between her guest and 
 her brother, and addressing both after the Kents had 
 left. 
 
 Duke had not been present during their call, but his 
 sister had related its result to him. 
 
 Margaret Wheatley, who stood near, answered for 
 him: 
 
 " Yes, if you will persist in running away from us, 
 Miss Holland, we will take our revenge by running after 
 you ; so you will not easily get rid of us." 
 
 The young heiress was, after all, not quite certain 
 whether she was sorry, or not, that Jessamine Holland 
 was going away. She liked the girl, to use her own 
 term, immensely. There was something fresh, piquant, 
 original, about all which Jessamine said and did, which 
 had a fine flavor to the tastes of the city girl, tired and 
 sated with the commonplace, fashionable type. 
 
 Still, in a subtle way, Mrs. Ashburn's and the Wai- 
 bridges' influence had been at work with Margaret Wheat- 
 ley. She had begun to think that it would be very nice 
 to have Duke fall in love with her; that it was somehow 
 qui|e his duty to do it, and that Jessamine Holland might 
 possibly stand in the way of such an agreeable consum- 
 mation of affairs.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 221 
 
 "I never could, of course, fall in love first," languid- 
 ly mused the young heiress; "but I do believe I like 
 Duke Walbridge better than any other man I ever saw'. 
 He's odd, and moody, and incomprehensible; but all that 
 only makes him more interesting." 
 
 " Mamma," said Gertrude, "it's the oddest thing that 
 the Kents should take such a violent fancy to Miss Hol- 
 land. What do you suppose it means? " 
 
 " The solemn riddle is plain enough to me," answered 
 Edith. "It all comes of Miss Holland's setting Mrs. 
 Kent right, when the lady made that ridiculous blunder 
 at the lunch-party over Dante, the ancient Greek author. 
 I wouldn't at all wonder if the two had entered into 
 some nice little compact, whereby Mrs. Kent should be 
 inducted into the first rudiments of the English language, 
 with Miss Holland for professor. * At all events, it is a 
 very comfortable way of getting rid of the young lady 
 at just this crisis. I am heartily obliged to Mrs. 
 Kent." 
 
 " Edith, I do not quite like to hear you talk so. There 
 are some thoughts one had better keep to themselves," 
 admonished her mother. 
 
 ' ' I wonder if it is any worse to have the thoughts 
 than to tell them, mamma," laughed the young lady. 
 
 There was no doubt that Edith Walbridge was shrewd 
 and brilliant, and that her talent for intrigue once aroused, 
 it would be difficult to circumvent her. 
 
 " There, Dick, didn't I tell you you'd like her? " said 
 Mrs. Kent, nestling up to her husband, as they* drove 
 home. "I am so delighted that she is coming to us so
 
 222 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 soon, though I don't wonder those people are reluctant 
 to let her go." 
 
 " Nonsense," answered the shrewd, practical man. 
 " A great deal of that talk was on the surface. I could 
 see down deep enough into it, to find the hollo wness 
 under all the fine words. I miss my guess if some of 
 them don't feel glad to let her take another berth. There's 
 a young man in 'the family seen him in the father's 
 office, shrewd, good-hearted fellow real stuff about 
 him. I shouldn't wonder now, if some of the family 
 had an eye out for him. Well, thank the Lord, my little 
 wild-flower is not a fine lady." 
 
 So the changes rung.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Six months have come and gone since Jessamine Hol- 
 land first entered the household of the Kents. These 
 months have formed on the whole the smoothest, happiest 
 half year of her life. It is the spring-time of her youth, 
 the bloom, the dew, the sunshine of the late May, for it 
 is four autumns since Ross left her, and the gate of her 
 teens closed softly some time ago, and Jessamine is near 
 to her twenty-second birthday. 
 
 Yet to most young girls the change from the Wai- 
 bridges to the Kents would, have presented some contrasts 
 hardly agreeable. There was much less social excite- 
 ment in the latter home, and whereas Jessamine had had 
 her mornings for calls abroad or receptions at home, in- 
 terfused with all those pleasant stimulants of talk and 
 merriment which enter far into the life of fashionable 
 ladies, she now had one unvarying routine of teaching, 
 not of that sort either which would have inspired and fed 
 her own faculties, but the primary rules and first princi- 
 ples, and, if the facts must be admitted, they often proved 
 slow drudgery to both teacher and pupil. 
 
 The mornings were religiously devoted to study. " If 
 it is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well," said Jes- 
 

 
 224 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 samine. " We will give to it the best of the day, and 
 earn our ease and pleasure afterward." So all company, 
 all recreation, had to bend to this rule, but for all that it 
 was hard work to the young souls Avho brought to it 
 whatever mental or moral forces were in them. Jessa- 
 mine had daily reason for thankfulness that she had gone 
 over the ground step by step, .with ' ' little help ; that in 
 her studies she had been a law to herself." She knew 
 all the lions in the path, and learned also, what was 
 most important for her, that riches and prosperity are 
 often a greater hindrance to study and discipline than 
 poverty and hardship. 
 
 As for Mrs. Kent, the patience and courage of the 
 poor little woman failed her often. She had no idea that 
 study was such tiresome work as she found it, and if the 
 truth must be owned, she broke down a good many times, 
 and cried like a school-girl over the conjugation of a 
 verb, or an example in long division. There were times 
 when she would have been heartily glad of some excuse 
 which would have justified her to herself in giving up the 
 whole thing, but her pride, and, better than that, some 
 sense of duty, kept her from yielding to the inclina- 
 tion. 
 
 If she had had any other teacher in the world than Jes- 
 samine Holland, Mrs. Kent would never have persisted 
 in her purpose ; but the former learned that, added to 
 her duties of instructress, she had to soothe, to encour- 
 age, to inspire her pupil, and it required sometimes a 
 large stock of patience to accomplish all this. The dis- 
 cipline would do Jessamine no harm in the end ; on the 

 
 THE HOLLANDS. 225 
 
 contrary, real service; but for all* that it was trying 
 sometimes when Mrs. Kent broke down in nervousness 
 and tears. 
 
 It was not to be wondered at. We all have to pay a 
 terrible price for intellectual improvidence in our youth, 
 whether the fault be ours or others, and the motive which 
 had inspired Mrs. Kent's purpose of self-culture was one 
 that certainly did her great honor; but purpose and 
 achievement are two different things, and the daily 
 drudgery of any grand work is never heroic. Just look 
 about among the people whom you know, and see how 
 many women there are whom you honestly believe would 
 be equal to this work, which Mrs. Kent had set herself 
 to do ! 
 
 But there was another side to this study, and the 
 friendship between these two young women, so singu- 
 larly brought together, took deep root in their natures. 
 Neither had ever known the worth and the happiness of 
 a true friendship, and, without that experience, either as 
 a blessed reality oc. a tender memory, any woman's life is 
 barren of something which neither matrimony nor ma- 
 ternity can supply. 
 
 Each of the friends had much to give the other, and 
 every day each also seemed to grow fonder of the other. 
 In fact, Richard Kent used often to declare, in his good- 
 natured, humorous way, that he was getting jealous of 
 his wife's regard for Miss Holland ; it was putting his 
 "nose so terribly out of joint." 
 
 The man was just as ready to indulge his wife's "no- 
 tion for study " as he would have been her liking for a
 
 226 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 new set of jewelry ,*and classed them both in the same 
 category, as a pretty little feminine freak. 
 
 All the drudgery was wisely hidden from his eyes by 
 both pupil and teacher, for if he had known all the sore 
 perplexities which his wife underwent in carrying out her 
 purpose, the man would not have been so complacent 
 over it ; he would have said, very decidedly, " Throw 
 books to the dogs. You're smart enough for me, child, 
 and that is all that's necessary." Not that Mrs. Kent 
 would have regarded any such dictum as unalterable, for 
 her husband was no petty domestic tyrant, and in one 
 way or another she would have been sure to carry her 
 point. 
 
 But it was better that the worries and anxieties should 
 be kept between the friends ; and this was not difficult 
 when the master of the house was absent every morning 
 during study hours, and found bright young faces ready 
 to greet him at dinner. 
 
 Jessamine Holland was an element of life, force, and 
 refinement in the household, which, in many ways, was 
 just what it needed. Its master was quite contented 
 that she should be there, and, indeed, liked her better 
 than any woman he had ever seen, except his wife ; for 
 Richard Kent, after his life of tumbling about the world, 
 had not the highest opinion of women in general, and 
 regarded them as usually a compound of nerves, whims, 
 and affectations. 
 
 Such an opinion never makes a man better or nobler ; 
 it is always a misfortune to him to hold it ; still the be- 
 lief did Richard Kent as little mischief as it could any 
 
 -
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 227 
 
 man. His wife, at least, had the benefit of his opinion, 
 in that he regarded all her virtues and sweetness as 
 altogether exceptional ; and this made the man, if possible, 
 a little more self-complacent than ever over his own 
 choice. 
 
 Jessamine Holland liked to talk with her host, for she 
 had, with her bright intelligence and quick sympathies, 
 a remarkable power of getting at the best side of every- 
 body. She liked, too, to look at the world through the 
 eyes of this man. It was not at all like talking with 
 Duke Walbridge. Richard Kent had none of the fine 
 nature of her brother or her friend, and his coarseness 
 sometimes shocked the young girl, who, bred in poverty, 
 had always been accustomed to inbred refinement of 
 speech and manner ; but, for all that, though Jessamine 
 missed something from the Walbridge household, which 
 people of social culture possess, though brain and heart 
 are shallow, yet, on the whole, the freedom and the in- 
 dependence of her present home had its advantages. 
 She could be certain that here she was giving quite as 
 much as she received, and she had never any uncomfort- 
 able consciousness that she was the subject of a half-pat- 
 ronizing criticism, and Jessamine did not know how 
 heavily this feeling had weighed upon her until she was 
 quite free from it. Her brother's deed could not wholly 
 cancel the debt which she owed to the Walbridges' hos- 
 pitality, nor a dread at the last lest this might become a 
 little irksome. She missed Duke's society more than 
 she would own to herself, but then she had been looking 
 Hannah Bray's in the face ; and as for Eva, though she
 
 228 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 must always love the child' dearly, still, in a, different 
 way, Mrs. Kent made up for that loss. 
 
 Sometimes Jessamine Holland's memory caught up 
 suddenly the look that blazed in Duke's eyes, and the 
 tones of his voice that afternoon in the library ; but her 
 heart always grew loud and her cheeks hot when she 
 remembered that time. She dared not think upon it; 
 she put it away, with a frightened consciousness that 
 there was a great, unfathomable ocean in her own soul 
 into wnich she dared not gaze ; a mighty passion of love, 
 self-forgetfulness, devotion, of which every true woman 
 has at some time of her life some awful prescience. But, 
 with all her courage, Jessamine Holland shrank terrified 
 from that side of herself, would not let it stir into life 
 and consciousness. 
 
 There was ajiother moment of which she could never 
 think, though its memory came up sometimes and 
 clutched at her soul, and choked her breath ; it was the 
 moment when she came to say "Good-by" to Duke 
 Walbridge. She had parted with all the rest of his 
 family cordially and easily enough ; when.it came to Eva, 
 it is ^true, tjiere was a keen regret ; but as Duke accom- 
 panied her to Mr. Kent's carriage, and said, " You will 
 allow me to ride over with you, Miss Jessamine?" a 
 sudden terror of grief overpowered the girl. 
 
 "No; not to-night," her answer struggled out. 
 "Thank you; but but, there is a reason; do not be 
 offended." 
 
 Duke fancied, in a vague way, she was sorry at leav- 
 ing them all, and was too much absorbed with his own
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 229 
 
 pain at that moment to give much heed to Jessamine's 
 manner; he only closed the door, and said " Good-by," 
 as a prisoner might have said it, going back from the 
 warm light of some beloved face into the cold, dark gloom 
 of his cell ; and it was the truth, that. his elegant home, 
 with the stone lions in front, looked very much like a 
 prison when he turned back toward it, listening to the 
 sound of the wheels that were bearing away the warmth 
 and life of his life ; and yet Jessamine Holland was only 
 going away three miles, and he could see her every few 
 days. 
 
 The rest of the household, including Mrs. Ashburn 
 and her niece, stood on the steps to witness Jessamine's 
 departure. The Walbridges had been polite to the last ; 
 indeed, they had made renewed attempts at cordiality as 
 the time drew near for Jessamine to leave them. 
 
 Still, notwithstanding all the parting regrets, there 
 was a long breath of relief drawn by more than one of 
 the company assembled on the steps when Jessamine 
 Holland rolled away with Mr. and Mrs. Kent. It would 
 certainly have been a much more satisfactory finale if 
 the visit had concluded with a grand display of bridal 
 ceremonies and graces, and these wound up with charm- 
 ing blushes and tears, and impressive partings, and an 
 attractive honeymoon programme. 
 
 That this was not the case was not her fault, Mrs. 
 "Walbridge philosophically reflected. She certainly had 
 wished the young girl every good in life, and was more 
 than ready to use all her influence to promote Miss Hol- 
 land's welfare ; but as a mother, to whose heart the hap-
 
 230 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 piness of her only son was dearer than her own, she 
 could not help feeling a sense of relief that there was 
 now no other element in the household to neutralize the 
 effect of Margaret Wheatley's society on the young man. 
 So Mrs. Walbridge put the whole matter to her own 
 soul, and it gave her a very pleasant feeling of self-justi- 
 fication. 
 
 Under one pretence and another, therefore, the ladies' 
 visit. was prolonged by the Walbridges, and Duke, his 
 soul restless, lonely, hungry, was fain to turn to Mar- 
 garet for the amusement which her sparkling talk always 
 afforded him, and the young heiress found Duke Wai- ' 
 bridge, as she confided to her aunt, more agreeable than 
 any of her New York admirers. He was peculiar 
 and obstinate, one was never quite certain of this Duke 
 Walbridge, but that only made him the more attrac-" 
 tive after all. 
 
 There was a straight path open to the money-bags of 
 the rich banker, if Duke would only turn into it. 
 " What a fool he will be to let such good luck slip ! " 
 said Edith, with angry impatience, to her mother ; and 
 Mrs. Walbridge's soul echoed back the words, if her lips 
 did not, " What a fool !" 
 
 Meanwhile there was no lack of visiting at the Kents. 
 Duke went over oftener than his mother wished; still 
 Eva or some other of his sisters frequently accompanied 
 him. Sometimes, too, Margaret Wheatley rode over 
 with the young man, and she was even gracious enough 
 to say to Duke that she could never forgive Mrs. Kent 
 for taking that charming Miss Holland away from them.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 231 
 
 The young lady's visit was, however, cut short, great- 
 ly to everybody's vexation, by the sudden illness of her 
 fattier, which compelled her immediate return home with 
 her aunt. 
 
 The Walbridges, however, secured their arrangements 
 for the summer, and had laid out a most attractive pro- 
 gramme of watering places and mountain , trips. It all 
 came to pass as they anticipated. Everybody had a 
 delightful season, fluttering about from one fashionable 
 haunt to another ; but when the autumn came, the old 
 friendly relations hardly seemed changed betwixt Duke 
 Walbridge and Margaret Wheatley. 
 
 money-bags of the banker ! And there were so 
 many sons-in-law at hand for you, and here was one who 
 might have the gold for the asking ! 
 
 So, as I said, the six months have come and gone, and 
 Jessamine Holland sits in the pleasant autumn afternoon, 
 in the library, with Mrs. Kent. Any watchful observer 
 wbuld detect the change which these six months have 
 wrought in the young matron. It penetrates even the 
 tones of her voice ; it has imparted a new maturity and 
 refinement to the young, bright face. She has made up 
 her mind a great many times during the last half year 
 that she is only a very stupid little fool, and- that there is 
 no use of her trying to make anything of herself. 
 
 In some of her despondent moods $he would have been 
 very glad to have Jessamine Holland think the same, 
 though in her clearer and higher ones she has an inex- 
 pressible joy in the consciousness that she has not ignobly 
 broken down, as she knows must have been the case over
 
 232 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and over again, had it not been for the patience and per- 
 sistence of her young teacher. 
 
 The windows were open, and soft winds slid through 
 them; you could hear the hum of the brook through the 
 golden stillness. The earth lay in that trance of beauty 
 which possesses her in the late September. Into those 
 soft west winds it did not seem that a chill could ever 
 wander, or that vision of blue sky ever be marred by 
 a cloud. 
 
 There was no use trying to read. Jessamine laid down 
 her book and walked to the window, and looked out. 
 Mrs. Kent, a little way off, frolicked with the bit of pink 
 and white flesh on the floor. 
 
 Suddenly she looked up-. "What are you thinking 
 about, Miss Jessamine ? " she asked. 
 
 "Of what God said over his world when he first 
 made it, that it was good. It is a world to fall in love 
 with to-day, and though in a little while I know it will 
 grow cold and bare and withered, still, through the 
 storms and the snows that are coming I shall carry a 
 vision of the beauty and splendor of this hour ; and they 
 will abide with me." 
 
 "Aunt Dess, Aunt Dess, see here!" and the boy 
 tottered toward her, holding up a knight in armor on 
 horseback, which his father had brought him home that 
 day, a pretty, fragile, painted toy. 
 
 Jessamine had a passionate fondness for children. She 
 caught up the little fellow in her arms, and smothered 
 the sweet, dewy face with her kisses, and the young mother 
 looked on with her smiling eyes. "You are a tuberose,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 233 
 
 you are a violet, you are a lily ; you are just the concen- 
 trated sweetness and beauty of all flowers," went on Jes- 
 samine to the boy. 
 
 "You are an exacting little tyrant," laughed the 
 mother. ' ' You make all the household bend to your 
 tempers and whims. There's your father now, you 
 just lead him around by the nose and make a bound 
 slave of him, only he does not see the chains. He thinks 
 he can't come home to dinner without bringing you a toy, 
 until the house is strewn with the wrecks of your play- 
 things. Ah ! my boy, your mother's play-house consisted 
 of a rag-baby and a little pewter tea-set, and half-a-dozen 
 clam-shells. It is an awful contrast." 
 
 Mrs. Kent had a half-pathetic, half-comical way of 
 putting the contrasts betwixt her old life and her present 
 one, which often amused and touched Jessamine. 
 
 The two young women had, in their long, close, home 
 intimacy, confided their histories to each other, both 
 pitiful enough, though in different ways. 
 
 A little gravity slid into Mrs. Kent's face. 
 
 "Ah! Miss Jessamine," she said, after a moment's 
 silence, " it seems very strange, very hard, the way things 
 happen in this world. To think that half the money which 
 is thrown away on my baby's play-house would have 
 given me the education for which I am having such a 
 hard struggle now ! ' ' 
 
 "And then I should have had no pupil," said Jessa- 
 mine, running her fingers through the golden, glancing 
 heap of curls in her lap. "That sounds anything 
 but generous, doesn't it ? Still I think it must always be
 
 234 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 a comfort to find how our 'own losses are somebody's 
 good." 
 
 "And I should not have had my friend," answered 
 Mrs. Kent, and her eyes shone tenderly on Jessamine. 
 
 " Ah, my dear, what a fortunate thing that blunder of 
 mine was, about Dante ! I see very well how absurd it 
 was, and I have got over the soreness enough to be able 
 to laugh at my own ignorance. It was, as I said, the 
 most fortunate blunder I ever made, and I really shall 
 congratulate myself over it as long as I live." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Mrs. Kent ! I am sure I have the 
 greater cause to be grateful to you for your false 
 chronology." 
 
 " How happy we have been together ! " continued the 
 young wife. " Dick was saying to me this morning that 
 he had grown pretty much of my mind about staying at 
 home this summer, instead of taking a trip somewhere to 
 the sea or the mountains. He doesn't suspect that the 
 studies were the anchor that held us fast during all these 
 pleasant days ; but I am sure it was best. I am glad now 
 that we did not go." 
 
 " Oh, I am rejoiced to hear you say that ! You don't 
 know how good it sounds to me," exclaimed Jessamine 
 with great fervor, and the tears came into her eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Kent looked a little surprised. 
 
 ' ' I can tell you now that it was an awful struggle to 
 give up that trip, when you proposed it to me, and left the 
 decision in my hands." 
 
 " Was it ? How strange I had no suspicion of that from 
 your manner ! ' '
 
 THE HOLLANDS. . 235 
 
 " How could it be otherwise, Mrs. Kent? You know 
 I am young, and have been shut away all my life from the 
 world, and I was hungry and thirsty to see something of 
 it ; but I saw, too, that to break in upon your studies this 
 summer would be a fatal mischief. You were just then, 
 as Ross would say, in the strain and tug ; if you let go, 
 all would be lost. I was your friend, and I said to 
 myself, ' Jessamine, Jessamine, it is not her pleasure 
 or yours that you are to consider, but what is for your 
 friend's best good.' I knew where that was ; but for all it 
 was very hard to sacrifice the journey, for it was the first 
 summer of my life which ever offered me a great pleas- 
 ure, and it cost me more than one sharp struggle to put 
 it aside." 
 
 " It was heroic," replied Mrs. Kent, gazing at her 
 friend with eyes in whose fondness some sudden moisture 
 grew. "How in the world, at your age, could you do 
 this ! " 
 
 " I think," answered Jessamine, slowly and gravely, 
 " that early troubles make one old. I do not mean in 
 heart or feeling necessarily, but in whatever requires 
 wisdom and self-control." 
 
 " I can't perceive that my troubles ever had that effect 
 on me," replied Mrs. Kent, with one of her little quizzical 
 smiles. " But I see now it would have been just as you 
 say if I had given up the studies at that point and gone 
 away. I never should have taken them up again. Now 
 they begin to grow easier and more interesting. Then 
 they were utterly hateful." 
 
 " It was worth the summer to get around that sharp
 
 236 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 corner. You know that I have already told you that, 
 Mrs. Kent." 
 
 " Yes ; though I doubted it at the time, it seemed such 
 miserable, dragging work. I think you are always right. 
 Miss Jessamine. How much good you have done me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Kent spoke the truth. Even her husband marked 
 the change in his young wife, and found some improve- 
 ment in what he had 'before fancied perfect. It was not 
 alone the lessons which Mrs. Kent received from Jessa- 
 mine Holland which shaped her life to finer issues, though 
 their discipline was invaluable. It was the daily associa- 
 tion with a refined and high-toned nature. Mrs. Kent 
 was observant, bright, assimilative. She soon acquired 
 new habits of speaking, and, deeper than that, of thinking 
 and feeling. Nature had done well by the little factory 
 girl in the beginning, but, bright and susceptible herself, 
 her heart and moral instincts had been trained as little as 
 
 . 
 
 her manners, and although a natural grace pervaded the 
 latter, as a bright kindliness did the former, still both 
 needed culture and higher examples. 
 
 Jessamine unconsciously stimulated her friend's whole 
 nature by this daily thought and intimacy, as she never 
 could have done except through their mutual affection. 
 She was not half conscious of the work she was doing, and 
 did not discern the change in her friend fr,om day to day ; 
 but a stranger who had not met Mrs. Kent for six 
 months would at once have detected it. 
 
 Jessamine's gaze went out of the window again. 
 Among green leaves and purpling of grape-vines, among 
 masses of bloom that heaped the ground with gorgeous
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 237 
 
 color, was that slow slipping of the soft west winds, and 
 the distant hymn of the brooks, soft and sweet as the 
 shaking of silver bells among the mountains of 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Mrs. Kent's gaze followed her friend. " I think, 
 Miss Jessamine, what you were saying about the year 
 applies to human faces too, the faces that we love, no 
 matter how old, and wrinkled", and changed they grow, 
 the vision of their youth and loveliness will cling to us 
 always." 
 
 Even this remark showed the influence of her friend, 
 the new heights to which Mrs. Kent had attained. It was 
 not only in finer -expressions, but it was in the new power, 
 life, thought, which pervaded all her -speech. 
 
 When her youth was gone, Richard Kent would not 
 find, as so many husbands do, that everything else was 
 gone with the pretty bloom, with the airs and graces, and 
 that there only remained 'to him an empty-minded, 
 querulous, selfish woman. 
 
 Jessamine turned quickly, her cheeks in a glow. " Oh, 
 I am sure it must be so with all faces that we love," she 
 said. " There is Ross ; if his hair were one mass of snow, 
 and his face another of wrinkles, it would never be old 
 to me ; it would wear the fresh boyhood, the manly youth, 
 that is forever in my heart." 
 
 " And if this is true of your brother, it must be still 
 more so of that, other closer, tenderer love that is coming 
 to you one of these days, Miss Jessamine," said Mrs. 
 Kent, very gravely ; but there was a little mischievous 
 twinkle of a smile around her mouth.
 
 238 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Jessamine turned and looked out of the window. One 
 watching could scarcely have told whether the soft bloom 
 deepened in her cheeks. 
 
 The two women talked of love sometimes ; but Jessa- 
 mine usually concluded with, " I do not think I shall 
 ever love anybody so well as Ross. He is my knight, 
 pure, and noble, and true as any who rode out in search 
 of the Sangreal, or sat at King Arthur's Round Table, 
 while his heart throbbed high over those old tales of 
 heroism and chivalrous daring that stir our souls now like 
 the sound of trumpets." She said something of that 
 sort now. 
 
 " Oh, but that other must come .; he shall," Mrs. Kent 
 replied, energetically ; and then Duke Walbridge rose up 
 before her. Were those frequent visits of his to Jessa- 
 mine Holland simply the courtesies which a generous 
 nature owed to the sister of the preserver of his life ? 
 
 Jessamine talked of the young man often, and told 
 Mrs. Kent that he had taken the place of Ross during 
 his absence, and was a brother to her. Was that name a 
 pretty fiction simply? 
 
 Mrs. Kent, with her quick woman instincts, had caught 
 something in the young man's eyes when they went sud- 
 denly in search of her friend. Still she wisely kept all 
 that to herself; and she was certain, had Jessamine Hol- 
 land once admitted to herself that Duke Walbridge was 
 the one love elected by her heart against her will, she 
 might be silent, giving no sign until she went down to 
 her grave ; but she would not disguise the fact with a false- 
 hood.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 239 
 
 Mrs. Kent only did her friend justice here. Jessa- 
 mine had not admitted to her own heart more than her 
 lips avowed. 
 
 " We have been very happy together, you and I, this 
 summer," said Mrs. Kent, coming over to the window 
 where Jessamine stood. " It doesn't cost me a pang now 
 to think we relinquished the watering-places." 
 
 "Nor me either." Jessamine turned quickly around, 
 with the clear sweetness of a smile which you instinctive- 
 ly felt would never play man or woman false. 
 
 Just then the phaeton drove up the avenue, and Mr. 
 Kent, who sat inside, lifted his hat to the ladies. 
 
 " Come ready for your drive !" he shouted. 
 
 " We will be, in five minutes," answered his wife, 
 from the window.
 
 240 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE day succeeding this talk betwixt Jessamine Hol- 
 land and Mrs. Kent, the Walbridges reached their home 
 in New York, the feminine portion of the household a 
 good deal worn out with a summer full of excitement and 
 gayety. 
 
 " After all, it is pleasant to be at home once more," 
 each one ejaculated, as all filed into the old rooms, and 
 settled themselves in the old places. 
 
 In the evening, too, the family gathered together in its 
 best mood to talk over the events of the season, the 
 pleasures and the triumphs. On the whole, it had been a 
 very satisfactory summer to Mrs. Walbridge ; the beauty 
 of her daughters had created a profound sensation 
 wherever they had alighted ; and they had been constant- 
 ly beset with attentions of that flattering kind which 
 ^could not fail to gratify the heart of an ambitious mother. 
 
 Still, for all that, the great object of the season had not 
 been achieved. Mrs. Walbridge could not tell, for her 
 life, whether the relations of her son and Margaret Wheat- 
 ley were not precisely the same now that they had been 
 during the previous spring. It was very tantalizing. To 
 think of that young man's throwing away such a golden
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 241 
 
 opportunity ! He had been Margaret's constant cavalier 
 during the season, and there was no doubt that she pre- 
 ferred him to any of the host of beaux that were always 
 fluttering about her, while Mrs. Ashburn looked on Duke, 
 smiling and propitious. 
 
 Still, when the families separated in New York, Mrs. 
 Walbridge had no reason to suppose that the basis of a 
 most cordial friendship, laid in old memories and associa- 
 tions, had been altered. Of course matters could not go 
 on so always. Some mother's fortunate son might step 
 in and secure the hand of Margaret Wheatley and her 
 father's money-bags before another winter had passed. 
 
 Duke's mother had hitherto refrained from any hint of 
 her wishes, and Edith had managed affairs most skilfully ; 
 but the former had began to feel that something might 
 be gained now by sounding Duke ; at any rate, if silence 
 had achieved nothing, not much harm could be done by 
 speaking. 
 
 "Here we are all at home, and not one of us engaged ! " 
 said Gertrude, in her lively way. "It's really too bad, 
 mamma, that you should bring us all back just as we 
 went. I'm sure it isn't my fault." 
 
 She tried to look very innocent and demure ; she cer- 
 tainly succeeded in looking very pretty while she said 
 this : but for all that it was quite manifest that Gertrude 
 was perfectly conscious that she was not uttering a word 
 of the truth, and that the fault of her not being engaged 
 was entirely her own. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge laughed. "I suppose I ought to be 
 classed with the unlucky mammas," she said, "to find 
 
 21
 
 242 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 you all back on my hands at the end of the season. I 
 think it was your place, Duke, to set an example to your 
 sisters." 
 
 " My sisters are great humbugs and awful bothers,'' 
 answered Duke, playfully. "I've had to dance attend- 
 ance on them through a whole summer's campaign of 
 fashions and frivolities, not one particle to my taste, when 
 I would have vastly preferred being shut up stairs in my 
 den with my books " 
 
 "0 you old bear!" said Eva, hanging about her 
 brother. 
 
 " Wait until I get through, child. But, for all that, 
 I think I like my sisters better than any young women 
 I've seen since I left home." 
 
 There was a general laugh, in the midst of which Mrs. 
 Walbridge and her eldest daughter exchanged glances, 
 and each knew what was in the thought of the other ; a 
 wonder whether, had Jessamine Holland been of their 
 party, Duke would have spoken just these words. 
 
 " I should be very glad to hear you compliment us so 
 highly, Duke," replied Edith, " had not Margaret Wheat- 
 ley been one of our party." 
 
 <: 0h, yes!" answered Eva, jumping to the point, 
 with the thoughtless eagerness of a girl. ' ' It would be 
 delightful to have Margaret Wheatley for a sister-in-law. 
 I never thought of it before, but I really do wish, Duke, 
 that you and she would fall in love with one another. 
 How nice it would be ! " 
 
 It was out now, for good or for evil. Mrs. Walbridge 
 saw her time had come, and the lady's voice was never
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 243 
 
 keyed to a more steadied softness than when she added, 
 "Yes, my dear, there is only one young woman in the 
 world whom I could cordially welcome to my heart as my 
 daughter-in-law, and her name is Margaret Wheatley." 
 
 " I'm sure all Duke's sisters feel precisely as you do, 
 mamma," added Edith. 
 
 " There, now, Duke, it is every man's duty to marry 
 to please his family," continued Gertrude, who enjoyed 
 having her tongue unloosed at last. " You and Marga- 
 ret will certainly have to marry each other." 
 
 " You are glib enough over a man's duties to his 
 family," answered Duke, trying to parry the attack with 
 a joke. "But what is a woman's under the same 
 circumstances ? ' ' 
 
 More than one voice was ready with, " Precisely the 
 same." 
 
 Edith was particularly submissive at that time. " I am 
 sure," she said, in a tone so meek that one might never 
 have suspected how seldom she failed of carrying her own 
 point, "I should never think of marrying a man whom 
 my family did not approve." 
 
 ' ' I devoutly hope none of my children will ever do 
 that. I think it would break my heart," rejoined Mrs. 
 Walbridge. 
 
 "Duke," said Eva, still playfully, "you see it must 
 be Margaret Wheatley and none other." 
 
 Duke looked around on the circle of women, his glance 
 going from one face to the other. Then he shook his 
 head slowly. 
 
 "If Margaret Wheatley would have me," he said, "I
 
 244 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 do not think it would be well for her, well for me 
 either." 
 
 " Why not? " asked more than one voice. 
 
 Again his look went, doubtful and grave, around the 
 circle. " I don't think you would understand if I should 
 tell you," he said. 
 
 " What more could a man ask ? " said Edith, with great 
 energy. " Margaret Wheatley has youth, beauty, grace, 
 such as do not often fall to the lot of woman, and her 
 character is as lovely as she is beautiful." 
 
 " Edith is right, Duke." replied his mother. "Marga- 
 ret is all that, and rny long friendship for the family 
 makes me regard her almost as one of my own children. 
 I have hoped, if you ever made up your mind to marry at 
 all, and I suppose you will some day, your choice will 
 fall where mine does." 
 
 "And then, Margaret is so rich," continued Eva. 
 " Why, she would bring you her weight in gold! " 
 
 None of the others would have mentioned this fact to 
 Duke, in enumerating Margaret Wheatley's attractions. 
 With none of them, however, would it in reality weigh so 
 lightly. But Eva was fond of Margaret, and thought it 
 would be a delightful thing to have her for a sister-in-law, 
 and so threw the money argument into the scale as one 
 additional make-weight. 
 
 " All that you say is true," answered Duke, with his 
 gravest face. " and yet, and yet 
 
 "Well, what is it?" asked Edith, impatiently. 
 
 " Mother girls, I should be very glad to gratify you 
 in my choice of a wife, but I should wrong myself, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 245 
 
 another equally, by making your choice the chiefest con- 
 sideration." 
 
 This Avas so true that nobody could gainsay it. 
 
 After a moment's silence, his mother asked. "But, 
 Duke, that is not meeting -the question. What is in the 
 way of your and Margaret's being happy together? " 
 
 The talk which commenced in playfulness, at least on 
 the surface, had grown serious enough now. 
 
 "Because, mother, Margaret is not the right sort of 
 woman for me. I grant she is all that you say in beauty 
 and charms; but that is not everything." 
 
 Then that inward courtesy and reverence for woman- 
 hood, which makes the real knighthood of every true 
 man, flashed up suddenly in Duke Walbridge's angry 
 color and gesture. 
 
 "I think it's contemptible for any fellow to sit down 
 and say what a woman could not be to him, whom he has 
 never asked to have him, and who, very likely, might 
 refuse him if he did ; but you've compelled me into this 
 sort of talk against my will." 
 
 " Well, we're ready to take the responsibility," replied 
 Edith, thoroughly provoked with her brother, and yet a 
 little touched, in spite of herself, at this instance of his 
 delicate chivalry for her sex. ' ' Do tell us, for once, 
 Duke Walbridge, what kind of a woman would suit you ? " 
 
 Then for the first time Duke told them, and they all 
 listened breathlessly. 
 
 "It is hard to speak of such a thing," he said, half 
 timidly, half to himself; "but I will try. She must be 
 a woman who can think and feel with me, a woman
 
 246 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 who by original, immortal sympathies can enter into sor- 
 row and grief, into the needs and limitations of other 
 souls wherever she finds them, one who feels her kindred 
 with all humanity. A woman, too, with swift enthusi- 
 asms for whatever is good or true in the thought or deed 
 of all ages and all men, a woman with a mind alert, 
 absorbent, comprehensive. Mind, now, I am not mean- 
 ing a genius or a great woman, as the world goes, but a 
 woman who would idealize life and all its duties and re- 
 lations, who could not disappoint or disenchant me, a 
 woman believing in God and in man, and whose faith is 
 dearer to her than life or death, a woman who, when 
 the test came, would always be steadfast through all 
 obloquy and air" sacrifices of what her sex would most 
 prize, a woman, too, full of sweet household ways, and 
 bright fancies, overflowing often with mirth and humor. 
 I think I should like her best, subject to little surprises 
 of moods, grave in the midst of her sparkles, with play- 
 fulness glancing out suddenly from her most thoughtful 
 moments. Such a woman would be a gift of God, a per- 
 petual inspiration to my heart and soul and life, making 
 a man of me, who feel sometimes in utter self-contempt 
 that I am less than one now." 
 
 It was seldom that Duke Walbridge laid bare so much 
 of his soul to his family. Only in exceptional moments 
 like the present did some strong wave of his inmost being 
 outflow in words like these. 
 
 Edith was the first one who spoke. " Duke, you are 
 a goose. Do you suppose such a woman as you have been 
 drawing ever lived, or that you will ever find such a
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 247 
 
 one ? I should imagine the whole thing some fancy of a 
 love-sick sophomore, strip it of all that fine talk." 
 
 "'My son," said his mother, very kindly, "I know 
 what women are. You have been painting a beautiful 
 myth." 
 
 " Then I have no right to marry another. I should 
 do a deadly wrong to myself, to my wife also, because 
 she would not be the woman of my heart's election. She 
 might make another man very happy ; he might greatly 
 prefer her to such a one as I have tried to show you ; 
 but every man must choose after his own kind. I do 
 not quarrel with his choice ; but, for myself, all that is 
 best in me would go to rust and ruin if I were wedded to 
 a woman who could not thrill responsive' to my higher 
 moments, and inspire them too. Here I must have 
 recognition, sympathy, help from my wife. My whole 
 nature craves it, and I cannot do it violence." 
 
 " I don't see why Margaret Wheatley couldn't be this 
 to you as well as any other woman. I'm sure she's 
 brilliant, and very kind-hearted, and all that," ventured 
 Gertrude. 
 
 " Ah, but she isn't what I mean. You compel me to 
 say it again. The day that I married Margaret Wheat- 
 ley would be the ruin of me. Don't all of you stare at 
 me as though I were a brute. I'm not good enough to 
 be her husband. It's hard enough for me to resist the 
 devil in all the shapes of ease, indolence, luxury, dissipa- 
 tion, in which he daily comes to me. How could I do it 
 married to a woman whose wealth would pamper and 
 suffocate me with splendid luxury ? I am not low enough
 
 248 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 to sit down in slavish enjoyment of my golden chains. 
 I could never weld them into a ladder on which to climb 
 heavenward. Then, in any wide sense, Margaret and I 
 must always be strangers to each other. I have felt that 
 in our most intimate moments. I enjoy her brightness, 
 the sparkle of her talk and manner. She amuses and 
 interests me ; but Avhen I have said that I have done. 
 She never knew the thrill of one noble, self-forgetful 
 emotion ; all the awful griefs and struggles and sacrifices 
 which any true soul, standing still to listen, hears echo- 
 ing down through the dead years, are no more to her 
 than the babbling of summer waves on the beach. 
 
 "Margaret is brilliant and charming, none is more 
 willing to grant it than I, but her heart never throbbed 
 with one grateful emotion to the dead men and women 
 whose lives and whose deaths have wrought the liberty 
 and peace and happiness she enjoys to-day ; she never 
 sympathized with any strong impulse for the help and 
 elevation of her race. It was not in her from the begin- 
 ning, and her education has made her unconsciously but 
 supremely selfish. One can be that, and very sweet and 
 amiable also. But talk to Margaret Wheatley of any 
 lofty purpose in the world, of any living for God or hu- 
 manity, and she would stare at i in blank amazement 
 or pitying contempt for my romantic vagaries, and per- 
 haps, in her exceeding good nature, propose, to amuse 
 me a splendid wine-supper her father gives such. 
 Faugh ! Or she would gossip prettily over her friends'* 
 charming breakfasts, or her own costly laces from the 
 last steamer'; and I, with my self-contempt hanging a
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 249 
 
 millstone about my neck, should sink smothered in that 
 close, enervating atmosphere, into an idle, useless wretch, 
 of no more worth in the world than my lady's lap-dog. 
 How the thought would lash me at times that I had sold 
 myself for money ; and my secret soul would say to me, 
 ' Coward and knave ! The man who grooms your 
 horses, the clown who builds your walls, is a king and a 
 hero to you, you who pride yourself on your breeding, 
 your culture, your high ideals of life, your kid-glove 
 philanthropy ! ' 
 
 "I see myself now, squandering my father-in-law's 
 money in costly cigars, driving fine horses, striving to 
 drown my self-loathing in an affected dilettanteism, crit- 
 icising the last fine picture or new book. Better be a 
 sailor in the forecastle, or with hard hands hewing trees 
 on the frontiers, at guard with wild beasts and savages ; 
 better be anything that is honest, under God's heaven, 
 than that thing which I have named." 
 
 ' Again there was a little silence. "When Duke's in- 
 most soul stirred and spoke to his family, there was a 
 solid sense, a sledge-hammer ring of eternal truth, in 
 . what he said. 
 
 Across the silence slipped a little silvery, indignant 
 laugh of Edith's. " If I really believed all this fine 
 rhapsody of yours was true, Duke Walbridge, and that 
 a little money, more or less, could work such havoc with 
 your whole nature, I should think my brother was an 
 awfully feeble specimen of his sex. Aren't you ashamed 
 to slander yourself so ? " 
 
 "Aren't you ashamed, Edith, to so misrepresent my
 
 250 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 meaning? You know it was not the fortune, but the 
 coming by it wrongly, which would be the ruin of me, 
 just as it would had I stolen it. 3 ' 
 
 " I think," said Gertrude, with a twinkle of fun in 
 her eyes, " we may quote to Duke what Festus said to 
 Paul. ' Much learning, Duke, doth make thee mad.' ' 
 
 There was a shout of laughter from the younger girls, 
 neither the mother nor eldest sister joining in it. 
 
 "I think," continued the latter, with much asperity, 
 "he must ha-ve got into that state which some poet de- 
 scribes : 
 
 " ' When life is half moonshine and half Mary Jane.' 
 
 11 No man who was not hopelessly moon-struck would 
 ever dream of drawing such an impossible Dulcinea as a 
 real live flesh-and-blood woman. If you labor under 
 the illusion, Duke, that you have really beheld your 
 ' Mary Jane,' do, for goodness' sake, enlighten us where 
 in earth, air, or sea. you chanced upon the paragon? " 
 
 " I do think you are too bad, Edith, to make fun of 
 your brother in that way," exclaimed Eva, who began to. 
 feel that it was time somebody ranged themselves on 
 Duke's side, although it must be owned that young man 
 had never yet proved himself unequal to his own defence 
 against all the forces of ridicule and satire which his 
 family occasionally brought to bear upon him. "I'm 
 sure what he said sounded real grand, and I couldn't 
 help thinking the woman he described was a little 
 like "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 251 
 
 Eva stopped here, she could not tell why; it was 
 hardly like the impulsive little puss ; but she stopped. 
 Everybody was breathless. Duke turned upon her, and 
 his eyes seemed to command her. 
 
 "Like whom, Eva? " he said, slowly and gravely. 
 
 " Like Jessamine Holland," she answered. 
 
 Something came into his face ; was it strength, light, 
 joy ? It was all these together. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, in a low, solemn, yet exultant 
 tone, as though it was a grand truth whoce knowledge 
 came from some inmost depth of his soul, and it almost 
 seemed as though one might hear the throb of his heart 
 through the words, "I think it is a little like Jessa- 
 mine Holland ! " 
 
 Then they all knew, at least all but Eva. There 
 was a silence through the room. At last Edith spoke, 
 with more angry energy than ever. 
 
 " Jessamine Holland ! It is no more like her than it 
 is like the rest of us. Duke, you are a fool ! " 
 
 " I do not dispute it," he answered, in that icy tone, 
 which always convinced them that it would be useless to 
 attempt getting anything further out of him. In a few 
 moments he went out. 
 
 His mother, without saying a word, rose up and went 
 to her room. When she got there it was a very 
 unusual thing in Mrs. Walbridge, but she actually sat 
 down in her chair and burst into tears. 
 
 In a few moments her two elder daughters joined her. 
 They were a good deal shocked at the sight of their 
 mother's distress.
 
 252 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "It is just as we feared. Jessamine Holland has 
 stood in our way all the time*" said Edith. " I wish 
 she had never crossed our threshold. 1 ' 
 
 " To think I'd set my heart so upon Margaret Wheat- 
 ley being my boy's wife. It seems as though the disap- 
 pointment would break it. And to have that strange, 
 penniless girl in her stead." 
 
 " She never shall be," said Edith, bringing down her 
 clenched hand on the table. Then she rose up and 
 paced the room, and her face was dark with passion, and 
 something looked out of her eyes which one, seeing there, 
 would ever after have feared and dreaded in Edith Wai- 
 bridge. 
 
 " I'll circumvent her by fair means or foul. Duke 
 shall yet be Margaret Wheatley's husband." 
 
 " How in the world can that be, Edith ? " asked her 
 mother, catching at straws. "You heard what Duke 
 said. You saw his look too." 
 
 "I don't care what he said, or what I saw. That 
 strange girl has no business to come into our family and 
 beguile our brother away from us, and frustrate all the 
 happiness of two families, for we perfectly understand 
 Mrs. Ashburn's feelings ; and as for Margaret, Duke has 
 only to ask her. It's demanding too much to require us 
 to give up everything for that Jessamine Holland, even 
 if her brother did save Duke's life." 
 
 " I wish the thing had never darkened our doors," 
 added Gertrude, and her mother did not check her. 
 
 "For my part," continued Edith, "I'm going to re- 
 lieve my mind. I frankly own that I hate and detest
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 253 
 
 the girl, and I think the circumstances fully justify me. 
 Just think how she is at the bottom of all the unhappi- 
 ness in our family. There is no doubt Duke would to- 
 day be betrothed to Margaret Wheatley, if it had not 
 been for this little country girl, with her pretty face and 
 strange, wheedling ways. She is in no wise fitted to be 
 Duke's wife, either by birth or circumstances, and we 
 owe it to him and to ourselves to prevent a marriage of 
 which we shall always be ashamed. I shall do my part, 
 as I said, by fair means or foul." 
 
 Again, Mrs. Walbridge did not check this talk. The 
 truth was, Jessamine Holland had taken, in the lady's 
 eyes, the shape of her keenest disappointment, of her 
 bitterest enemy. Was it wrong, then, to .treat her as 
 such?
 
 254 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 "SOME quillet how to cheat the devil!" Edith 
 Walbridge had been quoting Longaville's words to her- 
 self a good many times of late ; always, too, with a 
 little amused smile, but something hard and bitter under 
 the smile. Once, even, she found herself writing the 
 words on a card. They stared up at her there in a way 
 she did not like. 
 
 "Nonsense!" she said, and threw the card into the 
 fire, just as she would any small foul thing that had 
 dropped in her way. 
 
 That the devil must be at the bottom of Duke's fall- 
 ing in love with Jessamine Holland, his eldest sister was 
 quite ready to believe. Plow could it be otherwise when 
 there was a Margaret Wheatley to be had for the right 
 kind of asking? Had not Mason Walbridge' s daughters 
 been brought iip to regard wealth as the one chiefest 
 good of life, no matter how energetically their mother 
 might have denied this-? 
 
 Edith had learned something more, that it might 
 not be easy always to combine Avealth and the qualities 
 most to one's taste in a husband. She had a goodly 
 list of offers in her own memory, which she could dis-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 255 
 
 play on proper occasions. A goodly list as the world 
 goes ; but among the nabobs were several old enough to 
 be her father. Indispensable as money was, the making 
 of it, or the marrying for it, was not always agreea- 
 ble. 
 
 Sometimes, to tell the honest truth, Edith was half 
 repentant over her own engagement. Felix, with all 
 those graces which made him the idol and herself the 
 envy of so many women in her circle, must wait for the 
 death of his rich bachelor urtble before he came into a 
 fortune ample enough to gratify the ambition of his be- 
 trothed. 
 
 Should the golden river of Margaret "Wheatley's 
 wealth flow into Duke's channel, there .was little doubt 
 but some glittering streams might be diverted into the 
 family pastures, where they would be very grateful. 
 
 So Edith Walbridge was not wholly animated at this 
 time by pure solicitude for her brother's welfare. You 
 will remember this, for it serves to explain the energy 
 with which she laid her plot. 
 
 It seemed to Duke Walbridge almost as though some 
 fate stood in the way of his getting out to the Rents as 
 the days slipped off after his return. Each one he prom- 
 ised himself to go, and each one there was some pressing 
 demand on his time by his mother or sisters, of a kind, 
 too, that he could not, without real ill-nature, decline to 
 execute. 
 
 One morning, however, he grew desperate, mounted 
 his horse, and, without saying a word to anybody, rode 
 over to the Rents. At first he had refrained from doing
 
 256 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 this, with a feeling that Miss Holland's mornings would 
 be closely occupied ; but the evenings had failed him, 
 and his heart was the strong, passionate heart of a 
 young man, and Jessamine Holland was the girl of its 
 love. 
 
 It was many months since Miss Holland had had a 
 morning to herself; but this one Mrs. Kent was so far 
 indisposed that the lessons were intermitted. Jessamine 
 drew a long breath over such an unusual luxury as a 
 whole morning to do nothing. 
 
 During these last days the weather had changed, the 
 winds had blown from the north a stern menace of the 
 winter that was coming, and in the evenings the frosts 
 had walked silent as fire, and swift and strong as that 
 also, among the leaves and grasses. 
 
 A chill, too, had crept in-doors^ and Mrs. Kent had 
 said the day before, with a little shrug of her shoulders, 
 when her husband talked of starting the furnace, 
 " Dick, let us fancy we are poor folks again, and have a 
 real old-fashioned wood-fire on the hearth. I was brought 
 up on that, you know." 
 
 Jessamine laughed that low, amused, happy laugh of 
 hers, which seemed to have gathered into itself some 
 tinkle out of silvery bells, some sweetness from the first 
 robin's throat poured into the blue of a May morn- 
 ing. 
 
 " I have dreamed that I was rich, by those wood-fires so 
 very often ; richer than there is any probability I shall 
 ever be, sitting by grander ones." , 
 
 Once in a while Jessamine turned the comic side of
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 257 
 
 that old poverty-stricken life toward her. Every human 
 life has one, and every healthful human being sees it also 
 sometimes ; but oftenest the girl's laughter shone through 
 tears. 
 
 Mrs. Kent's wish, of course, was law with her husband, 
 and the little household gathered around the fire in a 
 merry mood, which softened as the fire grew and old 
 memories crowded upon the three. 
 
 It stirred his boyhood in the heart of the man whose 
 years more than doujbled those of the fair young women 
 on either side of him. He told them stories of his child- 
 hood, of his old mother, and of his hard battles with the 
 world, and then went off on his travels around the globe, 
 bringing close to their vision new horizons which lay out 
 far beyond their narrow spheres, until the minutes 
 slipped into hours, and the hours into midnight. 
 
 The next morning, when Mr. Kent renewed his talk 
 of starting the furnace, Jessamine put in a plea again 
 for a wood-fire, and she had it all to herself in the little 
 sitting-room. Not without a run out-doors first in the 
 autumn air, that stirred one's pulses' with something 
 better than champagne. It held now that cool, frosty 
 chill which would melt in the broad noon sunshine. She 
 had a race through the grounds to the pond which kept 
 that great, solemn stretch of autumn sky in its wide 
 depths ; she even went into the little cockle-shell of a 
 boat there, and rocked in it like a child for a while ; then 
 she whirled herself out and up among the fruit-trees, 
 gathering handfuls of ripe plums and pears, and, sweeping 
 off to the flower-beds, plucked some sprays of verbena, 
 
 22
 
 258 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and twisted the scarlet flames in her hair. She was like 
 a child let loose after six months of mornings which she 
 could not call her own, if she excepted the Sundays. 
 She had to work off in this way the first intoxication of 
 freedom, and came in at last with a bloom of roses in her 
 cheeks, her eyes full of a dark beryl sort of lustre, and 
 something in her heart that was like the gladness of 
 thrushes when they sing for the first time in May morn- 
 ings. 
 
 The great mass of glittering flame was alive on the 
 hearth when she came in. Her whole face was alive, too, 
 when she saw it. At a little stand on one side were some 
 poems, Tennyson and Aurora Leigh. She had brought 
 them both down last night, for the mellow sweetness of 
 the ballads had been like wafted fragrance among her 
 thoughts all day, broken into sometimes by the rumble 
 of Mrs. Browning's words, like the thunder of the sea 
 on distant coasts. 
 
 Jessamine took up one book and then the other, but 
 she could not settle herself to read. Her heart was pal- 
 pitating with the out-door life, with its vast spaces, its 
 freedom, its untamed strength. 
 
 " I wish I was a gypsy, at least for this one day," she 
 murmured, standing before the fire with that live, flushed 
 face of hers, thinking what a bright, awift, strange thing 
 fire was too. ^ 
 
 " Miss Jessamine ! " The voice was at her elbow, and 
 she turned with a start and a little in-drawn cry. Was 
 she an angel dropped right out of heaven, he half won- 
 dered, as she stood there with the little hat she had for-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 259 
 
 gotten to take off, its brown plume shading one side of 
 her face. The heat was in her cheeks which she had 
 brought from out-doors a moment before. 
 
 Duke Walbridge had come in so softly that she had 
 not heard him. They had not seen each other for several 
 months, and they sat down by the fire in, let us suppose, 
 a very brotherly, sisterly Avay. 
 
 "How well you are looking, Miss Jessamine ! The 
 teaching has agreed with you," he said. 
 
 The color came into her face under the strong, admir- 
 ing gaze ; but then it would have done so had Ross been 
 in Duke's place. 
 
 "Yes," she said, a smile twinkling across her voice, 
 as a little laugh did into her words, "I have begun to 
 corTclude that I have found my vocation, which is, you 
 know, the first grand duty of life." 
 
 Duke Walbridge answered her in her own kind. It 
 was wonderful how this young girl always struck the 
 deep keys of his soul ; whether of mirth and gladness, 
 or pity, indignation, courage, strength, all the gamut of 
 his soul yielded to her touch. 
 
 "You have lived farther than I, Miss Jessamine, for 
 I have never discovered any especial vocation except for 
 being lazy." 
 
 She shook her head. " You mistake me there. One 
 
 
 
 side of my nature is always craving a life of sensuous 
 ease, a picture of mere color and grace, aTtftus land, not 
 only of the senses, but of the soul." 
 
 Again that look in his eyes, bringing a more vivid 
 color to her cheeks. It made her a little uneasy, and
 
 260 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 with that unconscious motion of hers she put up her 
 hand to brush back her hair, and brushed instead the 
 plumes of her hat. It was in her lap the next mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " How ridiculous ! Have I been sitting here all this 
 time with my hat on? " The sprays of verbena, like a 
 thick swarm of. fire-flies, quivering in her lap also. " The 
 truth is, I was just in from a morning ramble, and brought 
 some of the life back with me, and so forgot in-door pro- 
 prieties." 
 
 "I saw that, Miss Jessamine, in your eyes and face; 
 but indeed the hat is so becoming that I could not choose 
 but let it stay." 
 
 Any of his sister's gallants would have said as much ; 
 but Duke was not a flatterer. When he complimented 
 man or woman he meant it, and that gave weight to hi3 
 praise. 
 
 The talk went after this to the summer. Duke was 
 hardly enthusiastic over it. A good deal of it, he frank- 
 ly admitted, was a bore ; but then, girls must have their 
 gayeties, at least those who have a relish for such things, 
 and he supposed all did. 
 
 "I think so," replied Jessamine, a little doubtfully. 
 " As to the gayeties though, I hardly know, but the new 
 sides of human life, and the scenery, and all those things," 
 she drew one of those long breaths that often cut 
 s^ort her periods, but gave them a completeness which no 
 words could. 
 
 "You, Miss Jessamine, you?" His gaze see'ming to 
 interrogate something which lay beyond the flushing of
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 261 
 
 the face. " I was just thinking how much brighter, how 
 much happier you looked than most of the young women 
 who have flirted, and danced, and dissipated away the 
 summer at the springs and the seashore ; yet to most of 
 these, the life you have led here would have been an 
 intolerable drudgery." 
 
 Her smile answered him, bright and clear as sunshine. 
 " It has been Avork, and that, of course, is not always so 
 pleasant as play, but it has not harmed me ; indeed, the 
 world looked so pleasant in my eyes this morning, while 
 I was out there among the leaves and flowers, that I 
 could not help thinking what a blessed and glorious thing 
 it was. to live here at all. I was so unutterably happy. 
 Only, only "' 
 
 " Go on, Miss Jessamine." 
 
 ' ' I could not help thinking, sometimes, of those others 
 who are lonely, wretched, wicked, in the world. Some- 
 how, in my happiest moments I mean those which come 
 to me~at times, and seem fairly to overflow with their 
 peace, their wealth and joy of life I seem still to hear 
 that undercurrent of misery from the heart of the world, 
 as I have been told one may hear, through all the light 
 and stillness of summer afternoons, the far-off murmur 
 of the ocean upon the shore, not near enough to drown 
 the other voices, but still winding into them with its dis- 
 tant roar and restlessness ; and so I hear that vague un- 
 dercurrent of restlessness, bewilderment, and pain haunt- 
 ing my happiest hours." 
 
 How she spoke after his own heart ! Echoing the 
 thoughts of his own soul ! Think of Margaret Wheatley's
 
 262 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 saying that ! Why, the world outside of her own orbit 
 was much to the banker's heiress as the happiness or 
 misery of another planet ! 
 
 The talk last night with his family was still quicken- 
 ing in Duke's soul. It had been almost like an avowal 
 of love, and it seemed to have steadied and braced him. 
 The sight of Jessamine's face, the sound of her voice 
 after all this silence, worked some magic in him. He 
 had never thought of telling Jessamine Holland the 
 story of his love, without his heart beating in his throat, 
 and his breath coming short and hard. . 
 
 He had that faculty of idealism which is so peculiarly 
 womanly, and yet without which no man is capable of 
 the finest and highest love. This idealism wrought at 
 times the bashfulness of a girl in the heart of the young 
 man, and a large sense of unworthiness, which was for- 
 ever tormenting the youth of Duke Walbridge. Bat 
 some courage had entered into the man. For a moment, 
 as he heard her speak, his love seemed to him a- thing 
 that he need not be ashamed of, that he should not carry 
 in secret like a woman's, unwooed ; it was a thing that 
 did him honor ; he was not ashamed of it before God. 
 Why was he in the presence of this woman, before whom 
 he could say, at least, his soul was honored in loving 
 her? 
 
 So, leaning forward, he took both her hands in his.: 
 "Ah, Jessamine, I have heard that undertone of which 
 you speak; that echo of the world's plaint and misery 
 has rung in iny ears ever since my boyhood. And yet 
 God forgive me if my eyes have been opened that
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 2G3 
 
 they could see, while I have done nothing to help to save 
 my kind. That is the worst of it." 
 
 The soft, warm hands trembled a little in his, and then 
 were quiet, for she was thinking of his words rather than 
 of his act. 
 
 "You say, ' God forgive me,' for not helping the 
 misery. I have to say it for a greater sin than that, Mr. 
 Walbridge ; for almost doubting his wisdom, his goodness, 
 his existence even, sitting up there in the great, white 
 calm of his heavens, and letting this great, awful wail 
 of humanity go up to him, -and not stirring to help it, 
 he, with the courage and the power. Are you shocked 
 with me ? " 
 
 "Shocked with you, my child," she seemed like one 
 to him for the moment, "when I have often asked 
 myself, looking out on this great muddle of a world, 
 whether I was infidel or atheist, feeling, as Robinson 
 says, 'the awful cracking of the ice of doubt under 
 one's feet.' " 
 
 The tears came into her eyes, her smile shining across 
 them too. " That is it," she said. " But it is only at 
 times I go down into these awful abysses of doubt, and 
 the grass in the fields, the singing of a little bird, the 
 sunshine on the hills, all come like the voices of angels, 
 to refute my fears. I know that God lives, and so does 
 his unspeakable Gift, the Christ he gave us." 
 
 " Yes," Duke answered her ; " in my truest moments 
 I know that, and I know, too, what that Christ's exam- 
 ple was, which I do not follow." 
 
 "Ah! we can all say that," with her sweetly
 
 264 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 serious face. " I have often wondered what I was doing 
 for God in his world." 
 
 "You! you! Ah, Miss Jessamine, you are doing 
 good that you do not know." 
 
 " Where ? What? There is Ross, I know, but he- is 
 my brother, and I love him because I cannot help it, any 
 more than I can help breathing ; but it is the great world 
 around me ; there are so many hearts that need comfort- 
 ing, so many feet that stumble, so many who need a 
 hand even as feeble as mine is to help, or at least to 
 point the rignt way. I cannot find my work, but I 
 think one is sure to do that, if only one's heart is thor- 
 oughly in it. It must be that we are all here to do 
 some good in God's world." 
 
 "I think so." Then his glance went over and fell 
 upon Aurora Leigh on the table. " After all, how much 
 grander Romney Leigh's failure was than most men's 
 success, even, if it is the mighty success of dollars and 
 cents ! We sneer at the Israelites, Miss Jessamine, but 
 our own age, with all its science, its .culture, and its 
 material advancement, is still at the old work in the wil- 
 derness, building golden calves, and worshipping them." 
 
 "Yes, my range is narrow, but it commands horizon 
 enough to see that ; yet, if there is great danger in hav- 
 ing too much money, there is, it seems to me, a greater 
 in having too little. I used to think money was the one 
 good in life, when that poverty bor? down so awfully 
 upon my youth ; and, Mr. Walbridge, money is a good 
 thing, a very few thousands would bring back Ross to 
 me!"
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 265 
 
 "A most necessary thing. The being born with a 
 silver spoon in my mouth may work my deadly ruin ; but 
 I will never drift into that silly twaddle about poverty's 
 allowing, in fact, the only Arcadian innocence and hap- 
 piness. A man with a luxurious dinner before him may 
 talk very prettily and very absurdly about hunger. Let 
 him one day face the hard, grim fact, not breaking his 
 fast with bread and butter. The life is better than meat, 
 and the body than raiment ; but He who said this did not 
 mean that it was good to go cold or starving." 
 
 This was strange talk between a young man and 
 woman. Just imagine the Walbridge girls' lovers talk- 
 ing like this ! They expected queer things of that 
 " smart, odd Duke," but I think, if they could have heard 
 him this morning, they would have half doubted whether 
 he had not gone " clean daft." 
 
 And to think that all the graces, and airs, and charms 
 with which men have been won from time immemorial, 
 shbuld go for nothing with Duke, while he should actu- 
 ally fall in love with a young woman discussing themes 
 which would be admirable coming from a parson in the 
 pulpit on a Sunday ; but the idea of two rational human 
 beings courting in that way ! 
 
 "You say," continued Jessamine, "that the silver 
 spoon may work your deadly ruin, Mr. Walbridge. 
 Did you mean so much as that? " 
 
 " Yes, just so much. Look now at the lazy, worthless 
 life I've been leading this summer, for instance, dancing 
 attendance on the girls from one fashionable resort to 
 another, lounging through the days in idleness and lux- 
 
 23
 
 266 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ury, a bootless search after excitement and pleasure. I 
 knew all the time that it was totally unworthy of a man 
 and a man's life, this miserable frittering away of ex- 
 istence growing cynical and bitter over the ambitions 
 of people as silly and contemptible as your own. If I 
 were the son of a poor man, how different it would all 
 have been ! I should at least have earned my honest 
 bread by the sweat of my brow, instead of having other 
 hands butter it on both sides for me, not .certain whether 
 my self-contempt had salt enough in it to keep me from 
 spoiling. Do you think it has, Miss Jessamine? " 
 
 He had loosened her hands long ago, but he turned 
 now and faced her with a kind of hungry eagerness work- 
 ing in his mouth and eyes, which told to a close observer 
 that her answer was one of life or death to him. 
 
 Jessamine looked up, and something which she did not 
 know rose in her eyes. Something of that look with 
 which tender women, whom we read of, have girded men 
 for the battle, or followed them to the scaffold. " Yes," 
 she said, "I think there is salt enough to save you. 
 I would trust you ! " 
 
 Her voice was steady, her sweet, bright smile moved 
 like a light held over them across her words. The sight 
 shook the young man to his soul. A great longing to 
 tell her all that had been in his heart for the last months 
 came upon him the words clamored at his throat 
 his pulse flew at his wrist like a frightened bird's ; he 
 rose up ; for the first time in his life his hand dropped 
 on her hair, a soft, tender, caressing motion. "Jessa- 
 mine ! Jessamine ! " He could not get any farther, his
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 267 
 
 throat was parched, the clamoring words choked on- his 
 dry lips. 
 
 " Yes," said Jessamine. 
 
 He did not know it, but Duke Walbridge's heart had 
 put itself into that cry ; its hunger, its hope, its fear. 
 Jessamine heard it. She was a woman ; she knew what 
 it meant. Her heart leaped a moment, and then stead- 
 ied itself. What was there to shake her whole being like 
 this silent storm? Duke Walbridge would never say 
 anything to her, Jessamine Holland, that she should be 
 ashamed or afraid to hear. Her cheeks were brighter 
 than the crimson of the fire ; but her voice held its tones, 
 those tones so full of sweetness, feeling and force un- 
 derlying all the sweetness. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Walbridge." 
 
 The next moment which died into silence strained his 
 soul cruelly. It seems to me that such a moment always 
 must a man like Duke Walbridge. But when he spoke 
 his voice, too, was steady, although one felt the passion- 
 ate power which burned under the low words. , 
 
 He was standing by her chair, leaning over it ; she 
 could hardly tell whether there were touches of his hand 
 in her hair, but she felt his fingers close to it; their 
 faces were turned away so that neither could see the 
 other. 
 
 " Miss Jessamine, I have a question to ask you, which 
 I have never asked to any woman ; it is one which con- 
 cerns all our future, a question the most vital to both 
 of us. If I shall ask it, whichever way you answer, will 
 you forgive me? "
 
 268 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 She knew then what was coming. It was strange, she 
 remembered it afterward, how with all her fluttering, 
 most maidenly, most natural, with her cheeks hot, as 
 though the flames were close upon them, and her breath 
 swift as one that leaps away from pursuers, a great cen- 
 tral peace and calm entered into her soul. 
 
 "I promise you." 
 
 His hand no it was not that, it was his lips drop- 
 ping on her hair a kiss, light and soft as the dropping of 
 dews through starry nights. 
 
 " You have given me the courage to ask the question 
 now," he said; but he did not. She was glad, and for 
 him it seemed better to wait a little until the heat had 
 gone out of his brain and heart, and he could speak or 
 write calmly ; and then, too, those words of hers had set 
 him suddenly in a great heaven of hope. He drew his 
 breath with an ecstasy whose joy was almost pain; 
 shining horizons were all around him ; he was a young 
 man, and the maiden who sat there was the love of his 
 youth. ^ 
 
 Then they turned, as by some mutual instinct, and 
 looked in each other's faces, these two, so singularly 
 fashioned by birthright of soul for comprehension, for 
 sympathy, for entering into each other's solemnest moods, 
 whether of grief or gladness, into all thought, aspiration, 
 emotion, these two, standing still in the broad, luminous 
 country of their youth, these two, to whom love would 
 be something blessed, holy, immortal ; which, alas ! it is 
 to so few men and women ! 
 
 They gazed a moment, as though each was a new mir-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 269 
 
 acle to the other. Each face was stirred and luminous. 
 For an instant Duke Walbridge felt that the right moment 
 to speak had come now. He opened his lips, hut the 
 weight of joy at his heart pressed down the words and 
 held them back. 
 
 If he had yielded, and spoken then, what might not 
 have been saved to both of them ! But he went away, 
 with some instinct to be alone with his own soul and God 
 just then, taking his leave of Jessamine in the old, 
 friendly fashion, clasping her hand and holding it a mo- 
 ment, and adding over it what the tones made a prayer, 
 " God bless you ! " 
 
 She was alone then, once more, by the fire ; but what 
 a changed world it had grown since she sat there in just 
 that way ! Yet it was a world hardly an hour older. 
 Thoughts of her childhood, of her parents, of Ross, of 
 Hannah Bray, swayed over her, and then everything else 
 was swallowed up in the conviction that she and Duke 
 Walbridge loved each other. What did that mean ? It 
 meant being one in heart and soul it meant dwelling 
 together her breath gasping under the weight of her 
 thoughts. She remembered, too, Duke's father and 
 mother, and sisters, with some tenderness quickening in 
 her soul. Would they be glad or sorry over the son and 
 brother's choice ? 
 
 She knew this little Jessamine the things they 
 valued chiefest, the gold and the place. She could 
 bring them no marriage dowry ; but she knew how they 
 loved Duke, and she hoped for his sake they would take 
 her into the family heart.
 
 270 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 At last, all these long, swift thoughts drowned them- 
 selves in slow, happy tears, sliding up from the great joy 
 of her heart into her eyes, and wetting her cheeks ; and 
 the fire grew low, humming on the hearth, and gathered 
 itself slowly up into gray ashes, and the broad noon 
 sunshine warmed the room. How happy she was, sitting 
 there all alone ! She would never forget that hour. It 
 would hold its light aloft over all her future life, over 
 all the cares and griefs that waited below. 
 
 What would Ross say, she wondered, her thoughts 
 slipping off again, easily as tides slip up bare reaches, of 
 sandy coast, and take hold upon the rocks beyond. 
 Would he be willing to give her, his little Jessamine, 
 even to his dearest friend ? or would he only feel that he 
 had been rifled of the best treasure of his life ; of her who 
 had said so often, "I shall never love anybody as I 
 love you, Ross " ? 
 
 She did not love him less now ; her heart had only 
 widened to take in that other. Was she good enough, 
 though, for this great gift God had suddenly dropped into 
 her life ? All that only -He and Jessamine knew of her 
 faults and weaknesses rose up before her, and humbled 
 her with an awful sense of ill-desert. Let Him be witness 
 to her resolve how well she would love, how wisely she 
 would live with His help ; the slow slipping of tears upon 
 her cheeks, from great deeps of her soul, broken up, and 
 the fire dropping as slowly out of its bright, swift, strong 
 life into dull; gray ashes, just as our own lives drop with 
 all their bright, swift strength into the dark silences of
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 271 
 
 the grave, only one part of our lives, " the meat and 
 the raiment." 
 
 At last the clock struck noon. The girl started up at 
 the strokes. She had not heard the low, silvery chimes 
 until now, although they had floated across the room for 
 several hours. 
 
 As she passed Mrs. Kent's room on the way to her 
 own, the lady, hearing the footfalls, called her in. The 
 young matron sat there in her pink dressing-gown, a 
 picture of pretty, seini-invalidism. 
 
 "Isn't it delightful to have a holiday once in six 
 months, Miss Jessamine ? But what have you been 
 doing with it? " she asked. 
 
 " Not much of anything, I believe," replied Jessamine, 
 thinking, after all, that this had been the most wonderful 
 day of her life, a miracle among all its commonplace 
 kin. 
 
 " Have we had callers? I thought I heard a gentle- 
 man's step in the hall." 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Walbridge was here for some time." 
 
 It was nothing surprising. Duke was in the habit of 
 coming to the Kent's, and of course he would call soon 
 after his return home. But it may be that Jessamine 
 paused a moment before she answered, or that some con- 
 sciousness throbbed into her tones. Mrs. Kent probably 
 could not herself tell why she turned and looked at her 
 friend. But she did, and saw something in Jessamine's 
 face which she would also have found it hard to name. 
 But her instincts were- keen, and, though she said nothing, 
 U suspicion of the truth entered her mind.
 
 272 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Notwithstanding her weakness in Greek, which had 
 been so unfortunately displayed at one time, Mrs. Kent 
 had a native delicacy which prevented any utterance of 
 her thoughts on this matter, even in a jest.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THAT night Duke Walbridge wrote a letter to Jessa- 
 mine Holland. His whole soul throbbed in every word, 
 for he was too proud to hold anything back ; not a long 
 letter, but its passion of tenderness, its hope, its humility, 
 were of the sort which weld themselves into brief sen- 
 tences, quick with life. Whatever her answer -would be, 
 Duke Walbridge could depend on the soul of the woman 
 to whom his soul was speaking. He did not woo her with 
 any soft phrases, with any lover's fine talk and flatteries; 
 he would not so wrong her ; he did not even woo her with 
 many promises ; far less did he sue abjectly for what one 
 felt was more to him than life. He wanted no gift out of 
 her pity ; if there was no voice in her own heart to plead for 
 him more eloquently than his words, then Duke Walbridge 
 must put away the gift, even though that gift were the 
 hand of Jessamine Holland. 
 
 Yet he left her in no doubt what she could be to him ; 
 how his soul needed her, as souls of all men who can love 
 highest and truest need the soul of some other woman, 
 after their own kind, as Hamlet needed Ophelia, as Rom- 
 ney Leigh needed Aurora, or as men who have no high 
 gifts nor great place in the world need women whose
 
 274 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 purity and tenderness shall inspire and ennoble whatever 
 of best is in them. 
 
 Yet he did not spare himself. Duke Walbridge's 
 worst enemy would hardly have dealt so harshly with his 
 faults and weaknesses as he did, as only he would do it, 
 too, to God and the woman that he loved, there being 
 this power in the man, his better self could always look 
 down with a strong scorn on his lover, few, alas ! having 
 the clear vision of Duke Walbridge. 
 
 So he asked her if, knowing all this, his pitiable sin 
 and weakness, she could come to his need and help him, 
 not for pity's sake, but for love's. If she could, or could 
 not, let her send some sign, either by' words or silence, 
 such as suited her best. 
 
 He laid the letter aAvay, when it was finished, in his 
 writing-cabinet, locking that, and tossing the key into a 
 small tray of carved woods, which he had picked up in 
 Switzerland, and then a new calm entered his soul, 
 stilling all its hot fever of doubt and disquiet. It was too 
 late to send the letter that day, he would -wait until the 
 morrow. 
 
 Meanwhile, vigilant eyes kept watch on him. Edith 
 Walbridge had managed most adroitly to keep Duke from 
 visiting the Rents for nearly a week after their return 
 home. But the delay must have an end, and even Edith, 
 with all her skill, could not have succeeded without the 
 co-operation of her mother and other sisters. 
 
 He had, of course, no suspicion of the influences at 
 work to keep him from Jessamine Holland. But he 
 would make his own opportunity to see her. Trust Duke
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 275 
 
 Walbridge for accomplishing that on which he had set 
 his heart. 
 
 Edith, narrowly watching, saw that he was absent at 
 table ; if he jested with the girls, his heart was not in it. 
 She knew her brother. 
 
 Where had Duke been that morning? If she could 
 only keep guard over him all the time ! 
 
 Suddenly Eva spoke: " We have 'none of us called 
 upon Miss Holland since our return. It is quite too bad. 
 Duke, will you drive Kate and me out to the Kents after 
 dinner?" 
 
 "I saw Miss Holland this morning," replied Duke. 
 
 "Oh, you did," thought Edith. "I suspected as 
 much from your manner, young man." 
 
 Other people at the table had their thoughts too, but 
 each one kept silent. 
 
 " Why didn't you let us know you were going, so that 
 we might send Miss Holland some messages ? ' ' said 
 Kate, who was in the family secret, and quite provoked 
 that her brother had stolen this march upon them. 
 
 " I never thought of that, Kate ; but you will drive out 
 soon and take them yourself." 
 
 " Did she have no messages for us? " asked Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge, who would have found it a slight relief to her feel- 
 ings to convict Miss Holland of a want of courtesy, in 
 default of anything stronger to bring against her. 
 
 ' ' She made very kind inquiries after you all ; but she 
 had learned of our return two days ago, and naturally 
 waited to hear from some of us. ' ' 
 
 To all this no objection could be urged. Edith sue-
 
 276 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ceeded in ascertaining that her brother had not seen Mrs. 
 Kent. 
 
 " Duke and Jessamine must have had a long tete-a-tete 
 together, then. What had passed between them ? ' ' 
 She scrutinized him more narrowly -than ever. 
 
 After dinner he went off to his chair with a book ; but 
 he did not read it. He only sat there silent and 
 absorbed. 
 
 " Why didn't you come downstairs when we sent for 
 you to see the Murrays the first time they have called 
 since our return? " asked Gertrude. 
 
 "Because"' a moment's pause, but subterfuge was 
 not in Duke's line "I had some writing to do, and 
 wished to finish it." 
 
 Edith was wide awake. What writing had Duke to 
 do important enough to keep him upstairs a couple of 
 hours after his return from a call on Jessamine Holland ? 
 She was alive now to every straw that blew in her way. 
 
 After a while Duke rose up and went out. Edith 
 went also to the door and listened, she hardly could have 
 told why, but she heard her brother inquire of the 
 chambermaid whether John, the coachman, had come in. 
 
 Her affirmative sent him down into the kitchen. Edith 
 had never constituted herself her brother's keeper, but 
 now her suspicions were all alert. 
 
 After a short parley with the coachman, she heard her 
 brother go out, and slipped downstairs. 
 
 " John, what was it that Mr. Duke wanted of you just 
 now ? ' ' demanded Edith Walbridge in her imperious 
 way, her eyes holding the man's face.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 277 
 
 He shuffled uneasily, put one heavy foot before the other, 
 shrugged his broad shoulders, and at last stammered out, 
 " I he said I was to say nothing about it." 
 
 John was fond of his young master, and wished to be 
 loyal to him. 
 
 "No matter what he said, John; he wanted you to 
 do some private errand for him to-morrow." 
 
 It was not an easy thing to resist Edith Walbridge, 
 even had keener wit and stronger will than John the 
 coachman's entered the lists against her. 
 
 "As you knew it beforehand, it isn't betrayin' Mr. 
 Duke to say that was what he wanted." 
 
 " And the private errand was to go out to the Rents ? " 
 
 " You seem to know all about it, Miss Edith." 
 
 John was no little perplexed in his turn, and uncom- 
 fortable, too, betwixt his loyalty to Duke and his awe of 
 the imperious young woman. 
 
 Edith herself was a little startled at this confirmation 
 of her worst fears. " John," she continued, with the tone 
 and air of a lawyer who is bent on frightening a reluct- 
 ant witness into disclosing whatever facts may be in his 
 possession, " did Duke tell you what your errand was to 
 be at the Kents?" 
 
 John drew a long breath of relief. "No, on my 
 honor, Miss Edith, he never breathed a word there. He 
 only said I was to ride out for him the first thing in the 
 morning. I should know what the errand was when the 
 time came." 
 
 Edith was satisfied that she had forced out of bungling, 
 good-natured John, who was much more at home man-
 
 278 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 aging a vicious horse, than he was with an intriguing 
 woman, all that he had to tell. 
 
 With a peremptory charge not to repeat a syllable of 
 her questions to her brother, Edith went upstairs slowly. 
 She paused a moment, doubtfully, at the drawing-room 
 door, and listened to the merry hum inside,' and then, her 
 face settling into something hard and dark, she brought 
 down her clenched hand on the .knob. ' ' I shall ask no- 
 body 's advice at this crisis. I shall act at once. The 
 time is short now; " and she went on with her dark, res- 
 olute face, past her own room to her brother's. 
 
 The door here was always unlocked. The gas through 
 the ground glass made a light like that of misty moon- 
 shine through the room. Edith went straight to the 
 cabinet, found the key lying loose in the tray. Duke 
 Walbridge. would as soon thought ' of hiding his purse 
 from his mother and sisters, lest they should pilfer its 
 contents, as to dream of their using the key to his cabinet 
 during his absence. 
 
 Edith's heart beat fast. She had never felt like a 
 thief before in her life. She had to say to her conscience, 
 " I am compelled to do it ; Duke has no right to sacri- 
 fice his whole family to that miserable girl." 
 
 Then, with steady fingers, she set the key in the lock, 
 and turned it. She opened the drawer, and in a few 
 moments' search drew out the letter, laid carefully away 
 in the box, in one corner, the letter not yet so much as 
 folded. 
 
 Edith brightened the light, and, standing there, she 
 went over all that Duke had written to Jessamine Hoi-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 279 
 
 land, line by line, word by word ; her breath coming 
 faster, her face growing whiter all the time. When she 
 was done, she sat down in a chair. "It is worse than I 
 thought," she said. "He loves her like that like 
 that ! " the words coming slowly, as though each one 
 hung a weight upon her lips. 
 
 Then she sat silent. No need to strain her ear for a 
 footstep. Duke's tread along the hall always rung loud 
 and swift, and he would not be likely to 1 ' return soon. 
 
 She saw the stars holy and bright, and afar off. 
 What wonder her brother had carried his burdened 
 thoughts and heart out to their great silence and sym- 
 pathy ! Something unsteady, something like trouble 
 or relenting, came into Edith's face. Such a letter 
 the story of such a love, wrought its magic on 
 her for a while. She had had lovers and offers, plenty 
 of them. She thought of that now, but not with any 
 swell of vanity or exultation ; she only thought that no 
 one of those had ever wooed her, had ever 'loved her as 
 her brother had wooed and loved this Jessamine Holland, 
 and a pang of remorse smote the girl, as she thought of 
 the two lives she would deliberately wreck, if she reached 
 out herhands between them. 
 
 She looked at them for a moment, lying by the letter 
 in her lap. " White, unclean hands," they seemed to her 
 just then, with all their fairness! "It is a miserable 
 work," she said. " I am half minded to leave them alone, 
 and let Duke 'gang his ain gate,' even if that does lead 
 away from Margaret Wheatley." 
 
 I want you to remember, in all that happened after-
 
 280 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 | 
 
 ward, that Edith Walbridge said this once said it alone, 
 and honestly to her own soul. 
 
 But the name of Margaret Wheatley seemed a spell 
 which supplanted the hold that Duke's letter had briefly 
 taken of her feelings. 
 
 The old instincts, the old reasoning, swayed back on 
 Edith Walbridge. She remembered the wealth, position, 
 not only for himself, but for his family, which were all 
 at stake at this moment. 
 
 What were the dreams of a romantic young man in 
 comparison ? 
 
 Duke would get over his love, and be happier in the 
 end, and just a million times better off with Margaret 
 Wheatley than he would with Jessamine Holland. He 
 was an only son and brother. Surely he owed something 
 to his mother and sisters. 
 
 The girl's face grew harder and darker. " I have said 
 that Duke never should marry this Jessamine Holland," 
 she muttered to herself, " and I am not going to back down 
 now." 
 
 Then she rose up and went out, doubting whether she 
 had better admit any of her sisters to her secret, and con- 
 cluding that now, when the matter had grown so.serious, 
 she would confide the whole only to her mother. 
 
 A little sign brought Mrs. Walbridge up to her daugh- 
 ter's room within the next quarter of an hour. 
 
 The lady listened in silence to all that Edith related, 
 for the girl made a clean breast of the method by which 
 she had obtained Duke's secret, and concluded by reading 
 his letter to Jessamine Holland.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 281 
 
 " What do you think of all that, mamma? " 
 
 " Think, Edith ! There is no help for it ! The boy 
 is lost ! My boy, on whom I had set my pride, my hopes ! 
 Would to God she had never entered our house ! I am a 
 wretched woman ! " 
 
 For once Mrs. Walbridge broke through all her habits 
 of well-bred restraint, and was honestly dramatic. The 
 blow went deep ; yet she had a mother's heart, and for 
 the time, at least, she felt that a love like Duke's must 
 not be sacrificed to any ambitions. If she pitied herself, 
 she pitied her boy also. 
 
 Edith's voice recalled her ; the younger woman calmest 
 and clearest now. 
 
 " There is no use sitting still and wringing our hands, 
 mamma. What we do must be done without delay." 
 
 " There is nothing to do," answered the mother, melting 
 down into tears. " Before such a letter as that, one is 
 utterly helpless. The thing is done, Edith." 
 
 " No, it isn't done while I have any sense left to plan 
 and circumvent," answered the daughter, grimly reso- 
 lute. 
 
 "Why, Edith, my child, what will you do? Under 
 any other circumstances, I should say you have already 
 gone too far." 
 
 " Mother, I have said that Duke Walbridge should never 
 marry Jessamine Holland. I meant it then I mean it 
 now;" her voice slow and steady, like one who carries a 
 fixed purpose along it. 
 
 " What can you do, Edith ? " again inquired the mother. 
 "There is that letter."
 
 282 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " I do not mean that Jessamine Holland shall ever see 
 this letter," answered still and steadily, with weights 
 of will hanging upon each word, the voice of Edith 
 Walbridge.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 283 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 % 
 
 IN the portrait which I have endeavored to draw of 
 Mrs. Walbridge, that lady would be the last to recognize 
 her own lineaments. The faintest suggestion that she 
 formed the prototype of this picture would amaze and 
 shock her ; she would honestly regard herself as the most 
 injured and maligned of women; nay, more, she would 
 promptly and indignantly denounce the course which, in 
 real life, and under the pressure of strong temptation, she 
 sanctioned, if she did not actively promote. 
 
 Ah ! if one only had, as Mrs. Stowe says, "a relay of 
 bodies," and could step from one into another, and con tem- 
 plate quietly one's own part in this great, swift drama of 
 human life, how much wiser and soberer we should all 
 grow, with the new perspective and the wider reach of 
 vision ! But Mrs. Walbridge had wrought herself up into 
 a state of mind which could only see things from one 
 stand-point, and that one, herself, a disappointed, dis- 
 tressed, outraged mother ; her only son about to sacrifice 
 himself, the victim of an artful, designing girl, who had 
 abused all the claims which her brother's deed gave her 
 on the family gratitude, by ingratiating herself into the 
 young man's affections, thereby blighting the hopes of two
 
 284 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 households, and breaking the heart of the girl who had 
 loved him from her childhood, and who alone had the right 
 to become his wife. Thus Mrs. Walbridge reasoned, 
 in a rather dramatic way, it must be admitted, for a 
 woman of her repose and dignity; but, then, the finest 
 and calmest of us, even to Lady Clara Vere de Vere her- 
 self, can be dramatic under sufficient pressure. So, when 
 Edith avowed strongly her determination of never letting 
 Jessamine Holland see that letter of Duke's, the mother 
 looked at her daughter, startled and amazed ; but no words 
 of indignant horror shamed the girl into silence before her 
 deed, set her face to face with its sin and guilt. 
 
 " Edith, do you know what you are saying, or are you 
 going distraught with all this misery?" stammered the 
 mother. 
 
 ' ' No. Look at me, and see, mamma. I was never 
 cooler in my life ; and there is need enough of it, one 
 wants steady brain and calm nerves now ; but, I say it 
 again, you shall never see this letter, Jessamine 
 Holland!" 
 
 There was no doubt Edith Walbridge knew what she 
 was doing, though her eyes blazed out as she threw the 
 letter on the floor, and set her foot on it, sure that the 
 small, delicate shoe would leave no trace of itself on the 
 paper. Had it been Jessamine Holland's neck, at that 
 moment, it seemed to her she could have stamped with a 
 better will. 
 
 " Jessamine Holland not see the letter ! " repeated her 
 mother, still staring at her daughter. 
 
 "I have said so," continued Edith; "and I am not
 
 THE HOLLANDS. . 285 
 
 given to rash promises. I have rather expected the con- 
 summation would take this form, and I have prepared 
 myself to meet it though there was no telling it 
 might have been some other, and then I must have laid 
 my train differently. On the whole, I am glad that it is 
 a letter. Get that in one's hand, and one is master of 
 the situation: and once destroyed, the thing tells no tales. 
 If Duke had spoken to her, it would have been much more 
 difficult to deal with the thing, though even then lr weald 
 not have despaired." 
 
 She had lifted the letter now, and was carefully smooth- 
 ing a wrinkle in it, talking, it seemed, less to her mother 
 than to herself. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge felt an involuntary shiver all over her. 
 She began to see darkly into this talk of her daughter, 
 and she felt a sensation much as though she were standing 
 on the brink of some awful precipice, and a chill wind 
 came out of the darkness, and blew upon her. She drew 
 close to her daughter ; her lips were white, as she laid 
 her hand on the girl's arm and whispered, " Edith, 
 tell your mother what this is you intend to do." 
 
 Even Edith glanced around the room a little nervous- 
 ly, as though, as absurd as the idea was, she half-feared 
 there might be some one listening in the corners. Then 
 she drew nearer to her mother, and in a low undertone, 
 yet in a strong, rapid, excited way, went over the plan 
 which she had been maturing for several days. " The 
 first thing was to make certain that that letter should 
 never fall into Jessamine Holland's hands." 
 
 "But, Edith," interrupted her mother, in a voice
 
 286 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 whose rapid impatience did not seem like the calm, smooth 
 voice of Mrs. Walbridge, " how are you going to prevent 
 this ? Duke will certainly find out the ' ' There was a 
 pause ; the lady was not fond of strong, unflinching words, 
 which set a fact right before one, stripped of all its guises. 
 "What you have done and you know your brother! 
 I shudder to think of the consequences of his learning 
 that his mother or his sisters have deceived him." 
 
 " No, Duke won't find it out either," exclaimed Edith, 
 with great energy. "Do you think I shall play the 
 desperate game, into which I am forced, so poorly? " 
 
 " Edith, it is a miserable thing, looked at from 
 any side. I feel quite powerless over its magnitude. I 
 do not know what to advise what to do." 
 
 "Well," continued Edith, resolutely, "it is no time 
 now to sit still and fold our hands, and deplore the state 
 of affairs. This letter once in Jessamine Holland's 
 hands, the thing is done. She will be Duke's betrothed 
 wife within twenty-four hours if we do not interfere. 
 You see that, mamma? " 
 
 "Yes, I see that only too clearly," sighed the moth- 
 er. 
 
 "I've made up my mind," continued Edith, " that my 
 brother shall not sacrifice himself and his family, and 
 the woman who, I have not a doubt, really loves him. 
 without my making an effort to save him. The case is 
 desperate, and it won't do to be squeamish about the 
 means." 
 
 Silence on the mother's part made assent to the daugh- 
 ter's speech.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 287 
 
 "There is but one way open. Duke must suppose 
 that Jessamine Holland has received his letter, while, 
 instead of ever coming into that young lady's hands, it 
 must go into the flames." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge started, and her face grew paler. 
 " Edith, my child, do you know where you are tread- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Precisely, mamma. But I am my brother's sister, 
 and intend to save him from the effects of his own 
 folly." 
 
 That was l ' putting it ' ' most plausibly, hiding all the 
 ugly facts behind this flimsy gossamer of specious 
 words. 
 
 "But if the letter is destroyed, Duke will be certain 
 to find it out. A man who loves a woman as we see he 
 must, will not easily give her up." 
 
 "I do not so read Duke, mamma. You know his 
 Quixotic ideas about love ; and his pride and sensitiveness 
 would both come to my aid in keeping him from pressing 
 his suit. Once believing that Jessamine Holland has 
 read this letter, any coolness or silence on her part will 
 be interpreted as a rejection of his offer. Once, and 
 only once, would Duke Walbridge lay bare his heart like 
 this to the woman of his love. I know him. The 
 stronger his affection, the less he would be likely to urge 
 it, if he deemed her reluctant. He, suing and pleading 
 for any woman's love, without she could give it to him 
 freely, absolutely, joyfully ! I think he would go first 
 to the scaffold." 
 
 This reasoning evidently made a good deal of impres-
 
 288 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 sion on the mother. - She^sat thoughtful for several 
 moments before she added, "But you forget that the 
 two must be constantly meeting, and that Duke must 
 certainly discover by Miss Holland's manner that she 
 has never received his letter? " 
 
 A dark smile came into the girl's handsome face. 
 "Do you think me so short-sighted, mamma? Edith 
 Walbridge tie her bag in that loose fashion ! " 
 
 "Well, Edith, what next?" impatient and anxious. 
 
 "It is evident enough, from this letter, that whatever 
 he may have given the girl reason to suspect, Duke has 
 not really committed himself. He must have come 
 mighty close to it this morning ; but, luckily, some good 
 fate held him back. Now, my plan is to see Miss Hol- 
 land before another sun sets, and acquaint her of Duke's 
 engagement with Margaret Wheatley. I shall find some 
 way of bringing it in naturally and easily, so she will 
 suspect nothing. And I know my young woman also ; 
 and, although I do most cordially hate her, I am very 
 certain she, too, has some high notions of honor which 
 will not permit her, whatever she may feel, to be any 
 woman's rival. Of course all such stuff is purely ab- 
 surd ; still, I have no disposition to quarrel with it where 
 it so well serves my turn. The next thing is to get the 
 two out of each other's way, so that there will be no 
 chance for meetings and mutual explanations. Duke 
 must be, sent off Avithout delay, mamma." 
 
 " But that is more easily said than done, Edith. He 
 will not be likely to go without some most excellent 
 reason."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 289 
 
 " That is precisely whatyou and I must find, a most 
 'excellent reason.' If I can get the matter so far in 
 train, I'll trust to luck and my native wits to manage 
 any further complications that may arise. I'm taking a 
 precious deal of trouble for your sake, Duke Wai- 
 bridge." 
 
 But if Edith could have looked all her motives in the 
 face, she would have found that it was not so much for 
 her brother's sake as her own that she had been plotting 
 and weaving through all these days and nights, until at 
 last the snares were set, and the net made ready for its 
 victims. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge stared at Edith with some new, half- 
 terrified sense of her eldest daughter's power. She her- 
 self would never have been equal to projecting a scheme 
 of this kind ; and, to do her justice, she was above it 
 morally. 
 
 You may remember that I said long ago that Edith 
 was her mother's superior in force of character. She 
 was to prove that now. 
 
 With all her dignity and conventional judgment, Mrs. 
 Walbridge was not a woman for strong emergencies, for 
 startling and unusual conjunctions. In certain grooves, 
 the lady could go through her part in the drama of life 
 with a charming dignity and propriety, always equal to 
 the occasion, always a pleasing and harmonious figure. 
 
 But this human life of ours, which we have pieced out 
 so carefully into some pretty mosaic, is suddenly broken 
 up with some great earthquake shock, and the colors 
 about which we have busied our souls, setting them after 
 
 ' 25
 
 290 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 * 
 
 the right pattern, are all tumbled together, as when a 
 wind swept over the block steeples and houses of our 
 childhood. 
 
 So Mrs. Walbridge found the walls tumbling about 
 her ears. Her old grooves, her pretty conventional codes, 
 would not serve her now ; and these had stood to her in 
 place of the eternal God over her head. 
 
 In her sudden dismay, looking on every side and find- 
 ing no help, and having wrought herself up into a belief 
 that her son was about to plunge headlong into a mar- 
 riage, sacrificing himself and his family, almost any deed 
 which would save him from the lifelong effects of his 
 madness seemed justifiable in her eyes. Her partialities 
 and prejudices confused and blinded her moral vision. 
 
 After all, reader, can you and I say much more of 
 ourselves ? If we can, we are a great deal better than 
 most people whom I know, very good people too. 
 
 Yet Mrs. Walbridge' s vision saw quite far enough 
 through the mists and murk for her own ease. Nervous 
 and tearful, in a way strongly contrasted with her usual 
 composure, she exclaimed, " Edith, it is a miser- 
 able, miserable thing, from beginning to end all this 
 deception and intrigue. It terrifies me to think of it." 
 
 "It terrifies me more to look the other way, and see 
 where we shall all be if something isn't done to prevent 
 it." 
 
 Poor little Jessamine Holland ! What terrible dismay 
 and misery was that innocent young head going to bring 
 into the Walbridge family ; and yel, if she had only had 
 a fortune that equalled Margaret Wheatley's, Duke
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 291 
 
 would have found no obstacles in the way of his 
 choice. 
 
 Mr. "Walbridge's entrance put a sudden end to the con- 
 sultation of the ladies. He was a little out of humor 
 that evening, having received letters from the West 
 regarding some extensive mining speculations which he 
 had made in the territories. The matter required his 
 immediate presence there, and the prospect of a journey 
 to Oregon was not agreeable to a man of his age and 
 plethoric habits. 
 
 Edith caught suddenly at this grumbling talk with, 
 " Pa, why couldn't you send Duke out now ? He could 
 at least look up your interests ; and, as you say, a jour- 
 ney across half a continent is an awful undertaking at 
 your time of life, wretched hotels, and more wretched 
 meals. Duke is young, and ought to enjoy the whole 
 trip." 
 
 Her father grumbled something about, " 'Twas all 
 very well for women to talk, but Duke knew nothing 
 about the business." 
 
 But Edith understood all her father's weak points, and 
 always slipped easily among his angularities. One of 
 these days she would do just so with her husband, where 
 a far higher principled women might have come up 
 point-blank against his obstinacies, and thence ensued the 
 old tale of domestic misery. 
 
 So Edith proceeded to draw a picture of a journey to 
 Oregon, holding up the discomforts by night and by day, 
 in colors that made her father's nerves twin'ge and his 
 bones ache.
 
 292 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Then Mrs. Walbridge brought up her forces to the res- 
 cue by informing him that his son was on the eve of 
 plunging himself into irretrievable ruin by marrying be- 
 neath him, and that the only hope of saving the boy from 
 wrecking himself was to get him away from the object of 
 his unhappy devotion. 
 
 Mr. Walbridge stared at this announcement, and 
 hemmed several times. Jessamine Holland had always 
 been rather a favorite with the elderly gentleman ; and 
 when it came to a daughter-in-law he would have welcomed 
 her w'th as stately a bow and as fatherly a kiss as he 
 would the banker's daughter. Fond as the man was of 
 money, he had fancied that the easiest or surest method 
 of possessing it was not by marrying a rich woman. But 
 in a matter which concerned her son and daughters Mrs. 
 Walbridge's influencu was all-powerful. It was enough 
 that she, backed by Edith, disapproved of Duke's choice, 
 and declared herself the most miserable of women should 
 he take to wife any other than Margaret Wheatley. 
 
 Amidst the energetic talk of both women, the man did 
 interpose once with, "But, my dear, money is not the 
 only desirable thing in a wife. You know I married you 
 with very little." 
 
 " That is an entirely different matter, Mr. Walbridge," 
 his wife answered, in a tone that implied the difference 
 was patent to blind eyes. Mr. Walbridge took this for 
 granted, although he could not exactly see the point. 
 
 Perhaps the lady was not altogether unconscious of 
 some inherent weakness in her remark ; for her next 
 movement was a masterpiece of feminine strategy. "I
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 293 
 
 never expected, Mr. Walbridge, that at this day you would 
 accuse me, the mother of your children, of not bringing 
 you a fortune ! " in a tone nicely balanced between injury 
 and indignation. 
 
 " My dear, how absurd ! " a good deal flustered ; for 
 Mr. and Mrs. Walbridge were not in that habit of petty 
 bickering, which eats out the happiness of so "many married 
 people. " You know I could not have intended anything 
 of that sort." 
 
 " Well, pa, I must admit it sounded very much as 
 though you did," interposed Edith, who felt it best to 
 support her mother on every point to-night. 
 
 Mr. Walbridge muttered something about " women al- 
 ways finding bugbears where nobody else thought of them. ' ' 
 But if he was a little crosser, he was a little more plastic 
 in their hands, and at any rate the women carried their 
 point that Duke was, if possible, to be prevailed upon to 
 undertake the journey to his father's mining lands. 
 
 Edith did not induct her father deeper into the plot. 
 He had some notions of business honor that he might carry 
 into other matters ; and as to surreptitiously possessing 
 one's self of a man's love-letter, and destroying it, leaving 
 him all the time to suppose that the woman of his seeking 
 had received and scorned it, even Mrs. Walbridge would 
 find it difficult to convince her husband was doing just the 
 right thing. 
 
 He, at one time during this interview, avowed his deter- 
 mination of " not setting about breaking up the thing in 
 this underhand way. He would have a talk with Duke, 
 and put the whole thing before him in a reasonable light."
 
 294 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " Pa," said Edith, lifting up both her hands, " if you 
 are bent on this marriage, heart and soul, you will have 
 no difficulty in accomplishing it in that way." 
 
 ' : Talk reasonably with a man who is in love, Mr. 
 Walbridge ! I have always hitherto regarded you as a 
 remarkably sensible man," added his wife, in a tone of 
 solemn despair. 
 
 The man hemmed again two or three times, and at last 
 went off to his paper, thinking this a matter which the 
 women would best manage, and with a rather uncomfort- 
 able consciousness of the lack of masculine tact in general. 
 
 Edith returned to Duke's chamber, and placed his letter 
 back in the drawer, precisely where she had found it. 
 " There'! I think you will tell no tales now," she said, 
 locking the drawer. 
 
 An hour later Duke returned, and read over the 
 precious letter for the first time since he had written it. 
 
 His heart beat high, and his face grew hot as a bashful 
 girl's over her first love-letter. It was Duke's first too, 
 and Edith was right, "it told no tales." 
 
 The next moment John had his orders very clearly 
 from his young master. He was to take a letter over to 
 the Kents, and deliver it into Miss Holland's hands. He 
 need not wait for an answer. 
 
 Afterward, John presented himself, in accordance with 
 his promise, at Miss Edith's door. He could not tell why, 
 but he would certainly have given considerable to be away 
 from it at that moment. The young lady, was evidently 
 expecting him. "Well, John, what did Duke say?" 
 was her first salutation.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 295 
 
 11 1 was to deliver the letter into Miss Holland's hands 
 and no others. I was not to wait for an answer." 
 
 " Let me see the letter, will you, John ? " 
 
 What could he do? Refuse the beautiful, imperious 
 woman standing there ? It would take stouter moral fibre 
 than the coachman's to do that. Yet John was certainly 
 conscious of another uncomfortable feeling, as the letter 
 passed out of his hands. Edith was standing by her table, 
 and for some reason the coachman's eyes watched her 
 keenly. 
 
 She turned her back to him. There was a window 
 opposite. It would seem that she wanted to see the ad- 
 dress in a strong light ; but the watchful man somehow 
 fancied that her hand went down on the table, and that she 
 took up something lying there. Did she put something 
 down also ? 
 
 What business had John with such questions ? Yet they 
 came into his brain, not a wondrously acute one either. 
 
 She read the address out loud, but in a low tone, as 
 though to herself, then turned toward John, and held out 
 the letter with a smile. 
 
 11 Here it is, John. I want you to accommodate me in 
 a very small matter, and in the end you shall not be sorry 
 for it. " 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," stammered John, with one of his best 
 bows. That smile, half-coaxing, half-imperious, had cap- 
 tivated far stronger wits than the humble serving-man's. 
 
 " I want you should, as Duke said, deliver this letter 
 only into Miss Holland's hands, saying simply it is one 
 which you have brought from our house, and requires no
 
 296 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 answer. You are to mention nobody's name. You un- 
 derstand me, John?" 
 
 11 Yes, ma'am; only only Mr. Duke's orders were, I 
 should say he sent the letter." 
 
 " Oh, well ! That will make no difference. You will 
 obey his orders just the same."- 
 
 "No, ma'am, if you say it doesn't," answering her 
 first clause. 
 
 " Well, then, it is settled. And further, John, you are 
 never to repeat to Duke, or anybody else, that I have 
 spoken to you regarding this letter. You understand that 
 clearly? " And despite its softness a little menace slipped 
 into her tones. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, I understand," again answered John. 
 
 " Well, then, there is no more to be said." 
 
 John breathed freer when he got out of that beautiful 
 presence. When he looked at the letter in his hand, he 
 found a five-dollar note wrapped around it. 
 
 The amount of her reward for John's services had been 
 a matter of considerable doubt with Edith Walbridge. 
 
 She was ready to pay high for them ; but the thing 
 which he was to do was really so slight that it was not 
 best to excite his suspicions, by setting so trifling an act 
 at such high value. 
 
 John pocketed the money after glancing at it ; but he 
 scrutinized the letter long and earnestly. He had, either 
 consciously or unconsciously, examined the address when 
 Duke placed the letter in his hand, and he was familiar 
 with the young man's bold, rapid characters. These 
 were not the same. They were finer and smoother.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 297 
 
 Away down in his soul. John did not believe that this 
 was the letter which Duke Walbridge had placed in his 
 hands. When the young lady had turned her back to 
 him as she stood by the table, had she taken up an- 
 other letter, and was this the one which she had given 
 John, which he now held in his hands, and which he was 
 to deliver to Jessamine Holland ? 
 
 The coachman tried to ward off these uncomfortable 
 questions. They somehow made him feel he was doing 
 his young master, whom he heartily liked, a great wrong. 
 John need not look far in order to find sophistries that 
 would excuse his conduct to himself. 
 
 The business was none of his. He was*not certain but 
 the letter was the same, after all. So the man did his 
 part just as Edith had prescribed it for him. It was very 
 little, certainly. He inquired for Miss Holland, and gave 
 the letter into her hands. 
 
 But all the way home, it was singular how he dreaded 
 meeting his young master. " You saw Miss Holland, 
 and gave her the letter, as I told you?" asked Duke, 
 coming out to the stable, where John was grooming the 
 horses. 
 
 . "I saw her, and gave her the letter, sir," answered 
 the man ; but he kept on working diligently at the horse, 
 and did not look up, and meet his master's gaze. 
 
 An hour afterward, Edith came downstairs, with pre- 
 cisely the same question which her brother had done ; 
 and John replied in precisely the same words as before, 
 only he looked the young lady straight in the face.
 
 298 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 JESSAMINE -HOLLAND went up to her room, carrying the 
 letter which John had brought, in a strange flutter of ex- 
 citement. She did not even look at the address ; but if 
 anybody had caught sight of the girl's face he would 
 have seen it tremulous and flushed with some strong feeling. 
 
 For Jessamine Holland had a conviction that the letter 
 she carried held her fate, that morning. 
 
 She closed her chamber-door, and locked it, a thing 
 which she had never done .since she had entered the 
 household. Then she sat down and covered her face 
 with her hands a moment, her heart throbbed so violently. 
 It was some minutes before that steadied itself enough for 
 her to open the letter calmly, and Jessamine would not 
 do it any other way. 
 
 There was a little shock in her face, when her eyes 
 met the handwriting, like that of one who, in the midst 
 of some strong excitement, receives a sudden blow. But 
 she read on to the end. John had only brought her a 
 polite note, requesting Miss Holland's company in a drive 
 that afternoon. Miss Walbridge would call for her, and 
 would not trouble the young lady for a reply. So the 
 letter resolved itself into a mere ceremony, after all. Jes-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 299 
 
 samine's feelings, wrought up as they had been, underwent 
 a corresponding reaction. 
 
 She did not know what ailed her ; she was provoked 
 with herself, thoroughly blue and miserable. Nothing 
 would have relieved her so much as a good cry, but Jes- 
 samine was not one of those women who are always melt- 
 ing into showers on the slightest occasion, and she had a 
 secret feeling that giving way to a fit of weeping at this 
 crisis would leave her without a particle of self-respect for 
 the remainder of her days. 
 
 The letter from Edith Walbridge had brought her a 
 keen disappointment ; but what right had any young 
 woman to expect letters until they came ? 
 
 " It served her just right ; and it was very kind and 
 thoughtful of Miss Edith to invite her out to drive. Of 
 course she would go." So Jessamine reasoned with her- 
 self, and managed to clear up her mood a little, and 
 carry her usual calm face down to Mrs. Kent and the 
 lessons ; but, for all that, the disappointment clung to her 
 heart, like mist and chill, through the whole morning. 
 
 Edith Walbridge went into her room also, and locked 
 the door, an unusual precaution with that young lady. 
 Then she took up a letter, which had been placed very 
 carefully beneath a small marble Hebe on the table. She 
 looked at it several moments with her face growing stern 
 and gloomy. She lighted a taper, and yet she paused a 
 moment before she touched it to the thing in her hand. 
 Jessamine Holland seemed suddenly to rise before her, 
 the bright, sweet face, the dark, clear eyes, as she had 
 looked when Edith liked her most. At the best, how-
 
 300 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 ever, it had only been a doubtful, half liking, which the 
 eldest of the Walbridge daughters felt toward their 
 guest. 
 
 What if this Jessamine Holland loved Duke? It 
 would not be a light thing with her, such as it would be 
 with most young girls ; but a memory and an anguish 
 poets and authors wrote of such things that must abide 
 with her through life. 
 
 I think a pang of pity smote the girl's heart for one 
 moment, as she held that little blue, curling taper in her 
 hand. But it was driven out swiftly, as the air drove 
 the flame toward her fingers. 
 
 "I counted the cost before I commenced," muttered 
 the girl, "and I have sworn you shall not be my sister, 
 Jessamine Holland." Then she threw the letter on the 
 hearth and touched it to the flame. There was a flash, 
 and the next moment a little brown, shrivelled heap on 
 the hearth. Edith smiled darkly, as she saw it. 
 
 " There's your fine love-story, Duke Walbridge, which 
 you fancy your Dulcinea is drinking in now ! What a 
 pity it must all be wasted ! " 
 
 Then she sat down and went over her part for the af- 
 ternoon again, in order to have it all perfect ; and at last 
 concluded that Gertrude had better accompany her on the 
 drive. Her presence would add a certain emphasis of 
 truthfulness to some statements which Edith had been 
 carefully rehearsing for Jessamine- Holland's benefit. 
 There was no need that Gertrude should know anything 
 about the letter ; and Edith intended to tell her story in 
 such a way that even her younger sister could hardly tell
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 301 
 
 how much was true, and how much was false ; and Ger- 
 trude's part would be only a passive one. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, the ladies called for Jessamine, 
 and the three were soon bowling along the road in their 
 handsome phaeton. The Walbridge girls had never been 
 in a gayer mood, or more cordial toward herself, than 
 on that afternoon, and Jessamine's spirits were naturally 
 elastic, and the disappointment of the morning had grad- 
 ually slipped away. She had her full share in the ani- 
 mated talk, and of course there was plenty of it, for the 
 young ladieiJiad not seen each other during the summer. 
 
 The Walbridges gaYe Jessamine amusing descriptions 
 of their season, which the girl enjoyed, and at last-^- they 
 had been riding for an hour or two Edith spoke, in 
 such a natural way that even Gertrude, who had been on 
 the look-out for a long time, wondered if the words were 
 really preconcerted on her sister's part. 
 
 " There was nobody but our own family in the com- 
 pany, as you know, Miss Jessamine ; but we seemed to 
 make a great impression, of numbers wherever we stopped. 
 Even the waiters talked about that large party ! It was 
 very funny, for I have never considered our family a 
 prodigious one." 
 
 "Miss Wheatley was with you, I think you said. 
 She made one more." added Jessamine. 
 
 "Oh, yes. But then you know, Miss Jessamine, it 
 has been so long settled^nat she is one of the family, 
 that I quite forgot to omit her in the enumeration." 
 
 "One of the family! I don't think I quite under- 
 stand," replied 1 Jessamine. There was some curiosity;
 
 302 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 but Edith's sharpened ears detected nothing else under 
 the tones. 
 
 " Oh, I thought you must know, Miss Jessamine, af- 
 ter being with us all last winter. There has been an en- 
 gagement between Duke and Margaret Wheatley ever 
 since they were children. You know the intimacy of the 
 two families, and this has strengthened it. That my 
 brother and Margaret are warmly attached to each other 
 does not admit of a doubt ; and yet I am certain I can 
 trust you, Miss Jessamine, with a family secret which 
 has given us of late a good deal of uneasiness Duke 
 does not seem to show much of a lover's arcror about con- 
 summating his marriage. We fancied that it would take 
 place this fall, but it is not likely to come off earlier than 
 next spring. Duke is, as you are aware, Miss Jessamine, 
 the queerest of mortals, and of course there is no need he 
 should be in a hurry ; and Margaret, secure in his attach- 
 ment, is content enough to wait. Nobody would expect 
 Duke Walbridge to do just like other people, even in his 
 courtship, you know, Gertrude." 
 
 "Oh, no, of course not," answered the other, in a 
 rapid, acquiescent tone ; and that was all Gertrude's share 
 in the matter. 
 
 We have all of us heard people whose limbs have been 
 shattered by some terrible blow, relate how at the mo- 
 ment of the stroke they.were not conscious of any pain, 
 only a sensation of suddennlfeibness or paralysis. 
 
 Precisely of this sort was Jessamine Holland's feeling. 
 The blow was stunning, but its very force made her calm. 
 Whatever feeling surged beneath her voice, that was
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 303 
 
 steady enough as it answered, " I never suspected all 
 this, Miss Edith ; and yet I can understand it now per- 
 fectly. Miss Wheatley must be most welcome to your 
 family." 
 
 " Oh, of course, with our long friendship. "We never 
 joke Duke about his engagement. He does not like it. 
 That is another of his oddities ; so you never heard the 
 matter talked over." 
 
 "Yes." And there was no reason she should say any- 
 
 / / 
 
 thing more. 
 
 It was g|ving dark now, and the phaeton had turned 
 homeward some time ago. Edith had the talk largely to 
 herself, and her spirits seemed to rise as the carriage 
 swept along the smooth roads in the deepening twilight. 
 Jessamine answered promptly enough whenever it was 
 necessary ; but she sat very quietly in her corner of the 
 carriage, and Edith had a feeling through all that the 
 girl had had some awful hurt. 
 
 It was not precisely a comfortable feeling to have such 
 a companionVby her side, and Edith certainly felt a sense 
 of relief when they drove into the Kent grounds, and the 
 quiet figure was lifted out on the veranda. But she 
 played her part well, even to the final adieux. 
 
 The carriage had barely turned around before Ger- 
 trude commenced. " Why, Edith Walbridge, I had no 
 idea you were going to nake a story out of whole cloth 
 like that ; neither had mUmma, I am sure, or she would 
 never have consented to it." 
 
 "What did you expect I was going to do, then?" 
 asked Edith, a little defiantly.
 
 304 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 11 Why, that you were going to give Miss Holland to 
 understand there was something between Duke and Mar- 
 garet that that we hoped would amount to an engage- 
 ment some day." 
 
 "Much good that would have done ! " said Edith, con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 " How you ever got through with it, I can't imagine," 
 added Gertrude. " It was all a story from beginning to 
 end. It would have stuck in my throat." 
 
 To tell the truth, Gertrude was a good deal amazed 
 and shocked. An absolute lie was something which 
 Mrs. Walbridge's children had been taught*to regard as 
 really wicked, like swearing or stealing. 
 
 " 'Twas not made out of whole cloth," answered 
 Edith. " Of course I had to stretch things some when I 
 got to talking ; but I should like to know if there has not 
 always been a strong attachment betwixt Duke and Mar- 
 garet, and if we don't all hope and expect they will be 
 married ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, yes, that is true ; but the engagement isn't," 
 added the younger lady, with a new sense of her sister's 
 diplomatic shrewdness, and beginning to feel Edith was 
 not quite so far wrong as at first appeared. 
 
 "Well, they ought to be, if they're not. I only in- 
 tended to anticipate facts a little." 
 
 Just then the carriage reached home. After all, 
 Edith had made a good defence of her conduct to her- 
 self, at least. 
 
 The Rents had gone out to pass the evening, and 
 would not be home until late. Jessamine Holland re-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 305 
 
 membered that, as she went up to her room, with a sense 
 of relief, through all the dizziness and ache which seemed 
 to have come down upon head and heart. 
 
 They brought the baby to her for his good-night kiss, 
 and somebody, she could not tell who, urged her to come 
 down to tea, and she answered she was not well to-night, 
 her head ached ; nobody could do her any good ; if they 
 would only leave her quite alone, it would pass off. 
 
 She seemed to be talking like one in a dream ; indeed, 
 the whole world seemed to resolve itself now into some- ' 
 thing unreal and chaotic, with the exception of that pain 
 at her heart, which grew and grew like a devouring 
 fire. 
 
 And so, on brain and heart, the truth pressed home, as 
 though it must kill her, that she loved Duke Walbridge, 
 and that he was lost to her lost to her this side the 
 grave ! Oh, how cool and pleasant its silence and dark- 
 ness yawned open to her then ! She did not wring her 
 hands and cry ; she sat still and looked her fate in the 
 face sat just as still as she used to sit in the corner, 
 when she was a little child, and there was no supper to 
 eat, and she was very hungry; but if she cried, her 
 mother would hear her, and then a hysteric spasm, or a 
 fainting fit, would be likely to follow, and either of these 
 the poor child dreaded more than the hunger. And now 
 the pale, set, wistful face had just the look of that little, 
 hungry, still child's sitting long ago in the corner. 
 
 The moon came out, a large, reddish, solitary moon, 
 and looked at her. It used to do that sometimes in the 
 old home, she remembered, and she used to wonder, too, 
 
 26
 
 306 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 if it knew and felt sorry for her. She almost wondered 
 that now. There was nobody in the whole world who 
 pitied her. Did God, even, sitting away up in his 
 heaven, his heaven so happy and so far off? And 
 through all the pain grew and grew like a devouring 
 fire. 
 
 It was an awful night to the girl so awful that it 
 seems almost sacrilege for me to move aside the veil so 
 that you shall look in and see, a night which she would 
 never forget, even when she should be a gray, wrinkled 
 old woman, a night whose memory would make her ten- 
 derer and softer to all loss that come to young men and 
 maidens ; that would make her speak of their sorrows 
 gravely, never joining in common laughter or jest over 
 them, with a feeling that earth held no sorrow, in its 
 freshness, so keen and bitter as that of disappointed 
 love. 
 
 She learned then, as she never could have learned in 
 any prosperous courtship, how she loved Duke Walbridge, 
 what he might be to her through all that future, whose 
 broad horizons reached away and away, as the horizons 
 of life do reach in our youth, and she must give him 
 up ! For the eyes shining out of that white face looked 
 straight at that fact, took in its whole meaning. 
 
 Every word which Edith's light, rapid voice had spo- 
 ken had burned itself into her soul ; and there were 
 groups of circumstances to rise up and confirm Miss Wai- 
 bridge's story. Not that it ever entered into Jessa- 
 mine's thoughts to doubt it. How could it? But the 
 home intimacy of the two, which she never doubted, sav-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 307 
 
 ing for one brief interval, had its roots in anything deeper 
 than their boy and girl friendship, now took a new sig- 
 nificance in her eyes. In a moment, too, all Duke's con- 
 duct toward herself stood out clear in the new light 
 which Edith's words had poured on it. Into the white 
 face there came a sudden flush, and for just a moment 
 the heart of Jessamine Holland throbbed in exultation. 
 She, of all the world alone, knew why Duke was in no 
 hurry to consummate his marriage with the banker's 
 daughter. His manner in the library long ago, and es- 
 pecially all that happened in his last visit, told its own 
 story to her heart. If she had not wholly won the love 
 of Duke Walbridge from his betrothed, Jessamine Hol- 
 land knew that it was in her power to do it. 
 
 But with a swift gesture of horror, she put away this 
 temptation from her, believing it was of the devil. She 
 could see now why Duke had not spoken, and how hon- 
 or had struggled with some other feeling in their last in- 
 terview. She shuddered, seeing the brink of that preci- 
 pice to which it seemed her unconscious hand had led 
 her friend. 
 
 The future of Margaret Wheatley was safe in her 
 hands as Olivia's was in Viola's. Before she would have 
 betrayed it, this little Jessamine Holland would have 
 gone and laid down her head with a smile, on the scaf- 
 fold. He was not hers ; he belonged to another. And 
 though it was more than the sweetness of life she put 
 away, and more than the bitterness of death she took to 
 her heart at that moment, sitting under the large, red, 
 solitary moon, God be witness for this girl that she did
 
 308 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 not hesitate. She would help Duke Walbridge be true 
 to himself. She loved him too well not to love his 
 honor more than her own happiness. 
 
 Whatever there might be in some cases, there was no 
 reason here to justify the breaking of Duke's engage- 
 ment. Jessamine reasoned calmly now, as though she 
 had nothing at stake ; perhaps a little more sternly. She 
 remembered all that Edith had said about the hopes of 
 both families being involved in the engagement, that 
 young woman had known just the facts most likely to ap- 
 peal to a generous and sensitive nature, she remembered 
 her kindly welcome in the household she remembered 
 all Margaret Wheatley's pleasant ways toward herself. 
 Should they find at last that the stranger they had re- 
 ceived in their midst had wrought mischief and misery for 
 them all ! 
 
 She could die, if it must be, Jessamine thought ; but 
 she could not do that other thing. 
 
 Yet what a dreadful, bare, empty world it looked to 
 her, all its lights and hopes blown out with those few 
 careless words. One day, and then another, with noth- 
 ing worth living for, and that fiery pain eating at her 
 heart, while she must move among people, and talk with 
 them, as though nothing had happened, and to-morrow 
 things would go on just the same as ever, even to Mrs. 
 Kent's lessons. 
 
 How long would all this last ? she wondered. Until 
 she grew to be an old woman, an old woman with such 
 a heavy weight of days and nights ? Then could she 
 ever learn to meet Duke Walbridge calmly, ever smile
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 309 
 
 on him with just the old friendliness, him, the husband 
 of Margaret Wheatley. 
 
 What a live stab came with that thought ! She put it 
 away quickly. Then Ross came up to her. She had 
 him still to live for ; but even for him her heart hardly 
 stirred now with a live nerve of feeling. She did not 
 know that the young life would come back after a while, 
 the blow had only paralyzed it now. Then she 
 thought of God, the Father in heaven, whose heart of 
 love she had trusted through all the pain and penury of 
 her childhood, whose tender care she had believed would 
 never desert her in any dire extremity of life ; not even 
 when life failed her, and her eyes grew dim, and her last 
 pulses grew low. 
 
 Did he know, of this great trouble that had come upon 
 her ? Did he know, and was he sorry for her ? as she 
 had never doubted his sorrow in the old times of her 
 trouble. 
 
 If through this great darkness she could only find his 
 hand, and cling to it, she might stay herself even now 
 
 even now 
 
 Something softened in the white set face, and the great, 
 reddish, solitary moon saw the tears quivering at last in 
 the bright, dry eyes. 
 
 "Miss Jessamine," said Mrs. Kent, bustling into the 
 room just at twilight, "Mr. Walbridge is downstairs. 
 I saw him a moment. Of course, he has asked for you." 
 
 Jessamine gave a little start. Mrs. Kent had sur- 
 prised her friend on the lounge.
 
 310 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 The girl had gone through with her lessons that morn- 
 ing as usual, and had a frolic. with the baby. Yet even 
 he felt, as well as his mother, that something was the 
 matter with "Aunt Dess." 
 
 She said she was not quite well. And Mrs. Kent, 
 looking in her face, urged her to take a holiday; but Jes- 
 samine would not hear of it. Indeed, the girl seemed pos- 
 sessed of a strange, restless, nervous energy, and was 
 inclined to lengthen all the lessons, until Mrs. Kent had 
 to protest. 
 
 "I can't see him to-night," answered Jessamine, with a 
 swift, smothered pain in her voice ; " I am not feeling well." 
 
 It was too soon to meet him calmly, after that awful 
 struggle of the night before. Looking in his face, hear- 
 ing his voice, the truth would slip into hers, and then he 
 might say what would undo them both what he had 
 come so very near saying only two days before. 
 
 Once certain that she loved him, Duke Walbridge 
 might mak^ himself believe that Margaret Wheatley's 
 claim was not absolute might make even Jessamine 
 Holland believe it. She did not dare to trust herself. 
 
 " But, Miss Jessamine, it may do you good to see Mr. 
 Walbridge. You look as though you needed something 
 to animate you. Can't you make an effort to come 
 down?" asked Mrs. Kent, a- little doubtfully. 
 
 "No, thank you. You are very good, dear Mrs. 
 Kent, to come up here with the message. Be, for once 
 a little more so, and carry mine to Mr. Walbridge. I 
 am utterly tired to-night. That is all. I shall be well 
 to-morrow."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 311 
 
 So Mrs. Kent Avent down, still a little in doubt, and 
 delivered Jessamine's message, which she tried to soften 
 all she could, it seeming hardly kind. 
 
 " Not well ! I did not understand your friend was 
 indisposed. Mrs. Kent? " 
 
 ' ' She would not own it this morning, Mr. Walbridge ; 
 but I have seen she was not just herself all day." 
 
 "And and this was all Miss Holland's message? " 
 
 ' This was all. She is very tired ; but I think, if you 
 call to-morrow, she will be able to see you," answered 
 the hostess, not feeling quite comfortably. 
 
 Something came into the young man's face some- 
 thing full of pain and bitterness which Mrs. Kent 
 never forgot. Then he rose up, and was going away, 
 much like a blind man, who is going toward light or air, 
 and he seemed quite unconscious of the lady's presence ; 
 but just as he reached the door, he turned, and said, in a 
 hard, dry tone, ' ' I beg your pardon, Mrs. Kent. You 
 are very kind. I hope your friend will be quite well to- 
 morrow. Good-night." And he went out. 
 
 Edith Walbridge's plot had worked well. 
 
 This was Jessamine Holland's answer ! Duke "Wai- 
 bridge had ridden over to the Kents that night, and his 
 heart was a young man's, strong in its first hope and 
 dream of love. Jessamine had read his letter, he tkought, 
 the man blushing all alone, in the twilight, like a girl. 
 
 And this was her answer ! 
 
 His horse led him out of the grounds, and took the road 
 home. He might have gone there, or anywhere else, for 
 all his young master knew or cared.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 And this was Jessamine's answer ! 
 
 It might have seemed chill or heartless to some men ; 
 but even in that moment, Duke Walbridge would not 
 accuse her in his inmost thoughts. She had chosen that 
 method of answering him, because it seemed the swiftest 
 and easiest, if the deadliest. She would not see him to 
 give him pain ; would not write him, because no soft, com- 
 monplace words, such as women oftenest use, could soothe 
 the bitterness of her No. 
 
 It was like her to answer him with silence, and it was 
 best so ! Yet something in her voice, in the very droop 
 of her head yesterday, had given him courage to write 
 that letter. 
 
 He groaned out sharply, as the whole scene came up 
 before him, and then he rode on through the darkening 
 night, not knowing nor caring whither, until at last he 
 found himself at the gate of his own home. 
 
 After dismounting, Duke Walbridge went to a dark 
 thicket in one corner of the grounds, and threw himself 
 down among the evergreens. The moon, a little larger 
 and redder than last night, and as solitary, stood over him, 
 and she saw the awful anguish of his face ; saw him throw 
 himself down on the damp ground. 
 
 Jessamine Holland was a tender maiden, yet she had 
 taken h^r blow more calmly than the man did his. 
 
 He thought how he had loved her, and how she was 
 lost to him, and he felt that his youth was wrecked and 
 his life a failure, which was natural enough if it were 
 not true. She was the woman whom he could love ; he 
 should never find another like her, there could be no
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 313 
 
 hope for him; there was but one interpretation of her 
 answer. 
 
 He wished he was dead, wished that night Ross had 
 not plunged after, him, but that he had gone down, 
 down in the storm and darkness, to sleep there in cool, 
 wide reaches of salt waves, where his grief could never 
 have found him. And there in the wet, chill, black mass 
 of evergreens Duke Walbridge struggled with his fate. 
 Perhaps he thought of God I cannot tell ; but if he 
 did, it was not as Jessamine had done, for a hard, tumult- 
 uous, desperate mood possessed him, a mood which only 
 asked, " Why hast thou denied me the prayer of my heart? " 
 
 Let us leave him, as we left Jessamine, alone with the 
 awful grief into which it is sacrilege to enter. 
 
 It was almost midnight when Duke Walbridge entered 
 his hoine. Company had kept the family up late, and 
 Mrs. Walbridge and Edith had been anxiously awaiting 
 Duke's appearance. They knew he had ridden out that 
 evening, and there was little doubt about his destination, 
 and neither of the ladies could await his return without 
 trepidation. 
 
 A private interview betwixt Duke and Jessamine Hol- 
 land might disclose some very ugly facts. Edith had 
 been on the watch to forestall that. She had counted on 
 Duke's awaiting a reply to his letter, and on his accepting 
 the silence as a denial of his suit. But if Duke saw the 
 young lady, the fact of his having written her a letter, 
 which she had never received, could hardly fail to trans- 
 pire. Duke was not suspicious ; but once hold of the 
 thread, he would not fail to unwind the whole tissue of 
 
 27
 
 314 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 falsehoods ; and Edith, with all her audacity, could not 
 contemplate the possibility of Duke's discovering her plot 
 without trembling. 
 
 Both of the ladies had passed a sufficiently miserable 
 evening. Both saw at the first glance that Duke had 
 learned nothing. But his face had a worn, tired, old 
 look, which went to the heart of his mother. 
 
 Mr. Walbridge was nodding in his chair. His son's 
 entrance started him wide awake. 
 
 " Father," said Duke, in a dry, mechanical tone, as 
 though he took no interest in the matter, "I've altered 
 my mind about going out West to see that land. I'm ready 
 to start to-morrow." He threw himself into a chair. 
 
 At dinner-time he had strongly opposed the whole 
 scheme, insisted he was not qualified to undertake the 
 business. Then his mother and sister both knew what 
 had wrought this sudden change in Duke's plans. 
 
 His father brightened up at the announcement, and 
 commenced a brisk talk ; but it was doubtful whether 
 Duke, sitting in the chair, with his tired face, took in one 
 word. 
 
 "0 my boy!" said his mother, leaning over and 
 laying her hand on his knee, " it will be very hard to 
 part with you. I shall miss you every hour." 
 
 Her son looked at the lady, with some secret pain in 
 his eyes, and a glimmer of a smile on his lip, that it hurt 
 her to see. 
 
 "Shall you?" he said. " I suppose you do care a 
 little something for me, mother." 
 
 " my boy, I would die for you ! " And the mother
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 315 
 
 in Mrs. Walbridge felt all she said. And if she could 
 have gazed, for one moment, into the cruel anguish she 
 had wrought for those two young souls, not all the wealth 
 of Margaret Wheatley's father could have brought Mrs. 
 Walbridge to carry out the deed at which she had at least 
 connived. 
 
 That night Edith and her mother sat up and talked 
 together, until almost morning. 
 
 After Duke's departure, Mrs. Kent went upstairs to 
 Jessamine with a perplexed face. Something, plain- 
 ly, had gone wrong betwixt the two. Remembering the 
 young man's look, the lady was half inclined to be 
 provoked with her friend. 
 
 "I delivered your message, Miss Jessamine, but I 
 thought Mr. Walbridge was surprised, and a little hurt." 
 
 Jessamine moved restlessly. "I am sorry to give him 
 any pain, but I could not go down to-night." 
 
 All the bright elasticity had gone out of her voice 
 out of her face too. She spoke and looked like one who 
 is worn out with some awful struggle. Mrs. Kent was 
 dreadfully puzzled. The whole thing was more serious 
 than she had imagined. 
 
 With an instinct of helpfulness, she resolved to plunge 
 right into the difficulty. "If I did not think you both 
 above such things, I should fancy this a lover's quarrel, 
 Miss Jessamine." 
 
 The girl did not so much as blush or smile. She only 
 said, in that dead-live tone of hers, " Duke Walbridge 
 and I will never be anything of that sort to each other." 
 
 " I'm not so certain of it," continued the lady, determined
 
 316 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 to press matters home now. " The gentleman's look and 
 manner, when he left, were very much like what I fancy 
 a rejected lover's must be." 
 
 Jessamine's face winced with a quick pain. She closed 
 her eyes a moment. The words she must speak now 
 would cost her a great pang, but it would be something to 
 have them over, and the sooner Mrs. Kent knew, the 
 better. 
 
 " Duke Walbridge is engaged to Margaret Wheatley. 
 I should have told you before, but I did not know it 
 myself." 
 
 " Engaged to Margaret Wheatley ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Kent, in a tone of breathless amazement. " I don't be- 
 lieve one word of it." 
 
 " But it is true," answered Jessamine, very decidedly. 
 "His sister told me so. They have known each other 
 ever since they were children, and the engagement has 
 been a very long one." 
 
 "His sister told you so ! " repeated Mrs. Kent, still 
 incredulous. " Why did he never acknowledge it 
 then ? And why has the family kept it secret all this 
 time?" 
 
 " Duke never liked to be joked about it, and I suppose 
 he thought it enough that his family and hers understood 
 the relation. I ought to have suspected it myself from 
 the intimacy of the two ; but I attributed it to their old 
 friendship." 
 
 " It is a very curious affair," said Mrs. Kent, musing- 
 ly. "I never dreamed of his being Miss Wheatley's 
 lover in the few times I have seen them together. Why
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 317 
 
 did his sister feel called upon to inform you of the fact 
 at last? " 
 
 " It all came out yesterday during our drive. She 
 took it as a matter of course that I understood lon^ 
 
 O 
 
 before." 
 
 "It was Miss Edith told you?" still questioned the 
 lady. 
 
 " Yes, and Gertrude; at least she assented to all her 
 sister said ;" forgetting, for the moment, how the latter 
 had simply listened to the other's statement, although 
 long afterward Jessamine remembered this. 
 
 " If Duke Walbridge loved Miss Wheatley, it was his 
 duty to let you know it. A man with a far less nice sense 
 of honor than he would feel that. If it is an old engage- 
 ment, as his sister calls it, something is wrong there now, 
 Miss Jessamine. A man who loves a woman as he 
 should, before he marries her, is never afraid or ashamed 
 to confess it." 
 
 There were some scorn and some anger in the lady's 
 voice. Her feeling for her friend was strong, and she 
 would have said more than that, had she not glanced at 
 Jessamine's face. The words that blamed Duke Wai- 
 bridge stabbed Jessamine, though they were spoken for 
 her sake. 
 
 "Mrs. Kent," she said, solemnly, with a feeling that 
 she could not wisely withhold the truth now, ' ' if, as his 
 sister said, Duke Walbridge has shown, of late, no eager- 
 ness for his marriage, and if his engagement was entered 
 into long ago, still the heart of one woman and the hap- 
 piness of two families are involved in it. Margaret and
 
 318 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 he belong to each other. No one has any right to come 
 between them." 
 
 Mrs. Kent knew then what Jessamine meant, and why 
 she had refused to see Duke Walbridge. She knew, too, 
 what stuff Jessamine Holland was made of, and that what- 
 ever power was in the girl's hands, and whatever it might 
 cost her, she would help Duke Walbridge to be true to him- 
 self and to Margaret Wheatley ! 
 
 Mrs. Kent looked at the face lying among the crimson 
 cushions of the lounge, like a child's face, worn and old 
 with sorrow. The sight made her heart ache. Yet she 
 showed her native delicacy by not speaking one word. 
 She went over and took the tired face in her lap, and kissed 
 it. 
 
 It was a little act ; but you know sometimes what lit- 
 tle acts are worth. In all her life to come. Jessamine 
 would never forget that one. 
 
 The two women understood each other.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 319 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 DUKE WALBRIDGE, on his way to the West, stopped in 
 New York. He intended to remain only a single day and 
 night. A strange, morbid restlessness possessed him. 
 The wider the distance betwixt him and that which had 
 made alike "the keenest joy and the bitterest agony of 
 his life," the better it seemed for him. 
 
 There was nothing in New York to interest him in his 
 present mood. The streets, the hurrying crowds, the glare 
 of light, all that passed before him seemed like one vast, 
 miserable farce. 
 
 What a wretched Vanity Fair this world was, and 
 what fools made up the show ! " Was it worth the 
 gunpowder, the plumes, the shouting, and the lights? 
 Well, it would be over soon, that was one comfort ; and 
 then poor Antonio's words drifted across his sullen 
 thoughts, and hardly helped to make them better : 
 
 "A stage where every man must play his part, 
 And mine a sad one." 
 
 It was a dark hour with Duke Walbridge. All his old 
 faith, all his high resolves, went down into a grave darker 
 and deeper than the grave where his heart had gone.
 
 320 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 I suppose no man could be refused by the woman whom 
 he had loved generously and absolutely, and not go through 
 much what this one did. I suppose, too, that any man 
 who had not something weak and flaccid at bottom would 
 rally sooner or later, not letting a woman's " No " blight 
 his life. Still, the times when some dreadful blow seems 
 to have swept off our faith and hope are dangerous for all 
 of us. More so, probably, for men than women. 
 
 A great temptation was corning,' silent and swift, 
 toward Duke Walbridge. In the evening he called to 
 see Margaret Wheatley. He had promised. his family to 
 do this, and brought various messages from home. Then 
 the sight of a friendly face, particularly so fair a face as 
 that of Margaret Wheatley 's, could not be unpleasant to 
 him. 
 
 The banker's daughter welcomed him in her Sweetest 
 way. He took her quite by surprise ; and it was natural 
 enough she should suspect that her charms had been the 
 lodestone which had drawn him to the city. 
 
 Indeed, Margaret Wheatley sometimes wondered with- 
 in herself whether that odd, fascinating Duke Walbridge 
 had not been, like the knight in the old story, 
 
 " Signed with a" spell," 
 
 which made him proof to the charms of all women. A 
 tithe of the attention which she had lavished on that 
 young man would have vanquished any other, Margaret 
 solemnly believed ; and this* girl had been used to having 
 whatever she wanted. Her pride was a little piqued, and 
 the prize was doubly enhanced in value ; because Marga-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 821 
 
 ret Wheatley, with all her charms, was in her secret soul 
 a little uncertain whether she could secure it. 
 
 She was in her most fascinating mood to-night, bright 
 and soft, and her talk took away something from her 
 companion's darkness and pain. She always amused 
 him, and the two always found plenty to say to each 
 other. 
 
 Duke had never liked Margaret quite so well as he did 
 to-night, and he gave himself up to whatever power she 
 possessed over him. In all their friendship, unrestrained 
 as it had been, Duke Walbridge had always borne him- 
 self toward Margaret Wheatley for simply what he was, 
 her intimate friend from boyhood. No subtle tenderness 
 of tone or look had ever given her cause to suspect that a 
 lover's partiality lay beneath them. 
 
 Duke Walbridge had so much grace in him that he 
 would never descend to a flirtation with any woman. I 
 use the word in its essential meaning, and not in that 
 light, conventional one which expresses merely the social 
 relations, the brightness, the frolic and mirth which are 
 a part of the life of young men and women natural and 
 harmless. Duke Walbridge meant something different 
 from that, and knew what he meant. 
 
 " That flirting in a woman was bad enough," he always 
 insisted to his sisters ; " but it w/is worse in a man, because 
 his position made him in some sense 'master of the 
 situation.' ' 
 
 He knew, too, all the fascination there was in that kind 
 of game. But long before he had ever met Jessamine 
 Holland, Duke Walbridge had settled with himself that
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 his record should be as pure as he should wish that of the 
 woman's whom he would ask to be his wife. 
 
 He had kept faith with himself through the strong 
 temptations which, in his family atmosphere, must be cer- 
 tain to fall in his way. 
 
 He held there was hardly anything more cruel and base 
 than to imply, by all the nameless language of look and 
 speech, that a man felt a tender regard for a woman whom 
 he had no thought of asking to be his wife, knowing all 
 the time that he was awaking some interest and hope to 
 which he could never respond. 
 
 " It was almost the meanest and cruelest wrong a fellow 
 could do," he used to say, when some circumstance brought 
 up the matter at home ; ' ' because he knew there was no 
 redress ; knew that he was perfectly safe, for no woman 
 had any real claim on a man before he had fairly proposed 
 to her. 
 
 " Of course, any woman was fortunate to be deserted 
 by such a coward and a sneak ; but that fact did not save 
 him from falling as much below the level of pickpockets, 
 as a woman's heart was of more value than her purse." 
 That was the way Duke Walbridge talked ; and all tbis 
 with a great deal else, plentifully seasoned with praise, 
 and laughter at his odd notions, had been duly reported to 
 Margaret Wheatley by Duke's sisters. 
 
 She did not like him" the less. Do you think any 
 woman would ? 
 
 So that night the young man sat in the banker's splendid 
 parlors, and the daughter sat at his side, sat there with 
 her bright, delicate, high-bred face, with all her native
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 823 
 
 charm of manaer, set off by those fine touches of social art, 
 which add a crowning grace to the most attractive woman. 
 
 Duke could not help looking at her, admiring her ; and 
 as she smiled and talked, other thoughts came to him. 
 
 He had staked all, and lost, God only knew what the 
 loss had been ; but was not here at his side the woman 
 whom, next to Jessamine Holland, he liked best in the 
 world ? 
 
 He thought of his family, and how great a delight it 
 would be to them to learn at last that their long hopes 
 about him and Margaret were consummated. 
 
 Was there anything better than this in life for him ? 
 Jessamine Holland had failed him. The fine sympathy, 
 the high ideals, had gone with her. Perhaps he had been 
 a romantic fool to expect them in any woman ; it seemed, 
 that when he called, there had been no echoing response 
 in her soul, only silence. 
 
 Was not Edith partly right after all, and his mother 
 too ? , He had sought what he believed the highest good, 
 and now, at least, if the lower fell to his share, had he not 
 a right to take it ? 
 
 Tortures might not have wrung a confession from Duke 
 Walbridge, but in his soul he had no very serious doubt 
 as to how his suit with Margaret Wheatley would prosper. 
 All this in his thoughts, his manner slightly changed to ward 
 her. There was something in it wnich she had never felt 
 before. In a little while, the young man came to ques- 
 tioning with himself whether he should be doing any harm 
 to ask Margaret Wheatley if she would be his wife ? It 
 was true he preferred another woman before her, but that
 
 324 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 woman could never be anything but a bitter memory to 
 him. He liked his old playfellow. As for loving this 
 one, well, he could do that enough to make her satisfied 
 and happy. What more was needed ? 
 
 Duke Walbridge was just in the mood to make a des- 
 perate plunge into something new ; the hard, material side 
 of things had the advantage just then. 
 
 And Margaret smiled and sparkled by his side. 
 
 "It is wholly absurd, Duke, your starting off West to- 
 morrow; " for she had at last found what had brought 
 him to the city. "Don't be quite so parsimonious of 
 yourself. Give us at least one day in town." 
 
 "Thank you, Margaret, I'm not in a bright mood. 
 You would only be dreadfully moped before the day was 
 out, were I to be cruel enough to take you at your word, 
 and remain." 
 
 ' ' Not in a bright mood ? I always liked you best in 
 your glum ones, when you were a boy, for you were cer- 
 tain to say so many witty, bright things, which kept me 
 laughing and wondering at you. Ah ! Duke, what an 
 odd little fellow you were ! " 
 
 " Was I? They say at home, I am an odd big fellow 
 now, you know." 
 
 Margaret laughed gay ly. "It's as true now as then." 
 
 "Yes, you liked me a little then, at least you told 
 me so ; " and he looked at her with some grateful warmth 
 in his eyes. 
 
 " I did? I am astonished at myself. It was highly 
 improper to do so." 
 
 " I never thought of that. But it is quite too late to
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 325 
 
 be prudish over it now. You not only said it, but wrote 
 it to me, in a most charming little letter, the week after 
 you left us." 
 
 ' ' How you shock me, Duke, bringing me face to face 
 with such youthful follies ! I had no idea I had said so 
 much to any of your sex, except papa." 
 
 "lean prove it to you; I have the little note-paper 
 on which ' 'tis writ,' among my childish treasures. The 
 edges are grown a little yellow with time." 
 
 "You have, Duke? I am flattered that you should 
 have cared to preserve such nonsense." 
 
 This talk was dangerous ground ; .and the young girl, 
 sitting there in her youth and fairness, was dangerous to 
 the eyes and soul of Duke Walbridge. 
 
 "I was the one who was flattered, Margaret. Did 
 you think the paper which told me that you cared for me 
 was of so little consequence that I should destroy it?" 
 
 " Of course I did. But I should really like to see 
 that old, childish scrawl of mine, ashamed, as I ought to 
 be, of my imprudence." 
 
 "I am sorry to hear you accuse your own pretty 
 ingenuousness ; but you shall certainly see the letter the 
 next time you come to us, for I do not intend it shall 
 go out of my possession, unless " Had he finished 
 the clause it must have sealed the fate of Duke Wai- 
 bridge. He happened to cateh sight of the white hand, 
 with its sparkle of gems, which lay in her lap, and he 
 laid his hand on it with some tender gallantry, and said : 
 
 " ' In faith 'twas a fair hand ; 
 And whiter than the paper it writ on 
 Was the fair hand that writ.' "
 
 326 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 It would be interesting to know how many lovers 
 have quoted Lorenzo's saying, since he first made it, of 
 his "beautiful Jewess." 
 
 With a man like Duke Walbridge, however, this 
 meant something. He had not gone so far without in- 
 tending to go farther. There was a little pause. A 
 glow came into Margaret's cheek, used as she was to that 
 sort of talk from men. A moment longer, and Duke 
 Walbridge would have come out abruptly with the ques- 
 tion he had fully made up his mind now to ask her. 
 
 At that moment they heard the voice of Margaret's 
 father, in the hall. " We've got hold of the thief, 
 then? " he said, in loud tones. 
 
 "Yes, sir, we've bagged him," somebody's gruff voice 
 replied. 
 
 "Oh, I'm glad to hear that ! " exclaimed Margaret. 
 
 Duke turned toward her for an explanation. She 
 went on rapidly. " Papa found out the other day that 
 one of the under-clerks had been forging a number of 
 small checks on the house. The whole sum did not 
 probably amount to five hundred dollars ; but papa was 
 very earnest to ferret the whole thing out, as he always 
 is in such cases. I am glad the rogue is where he will 
 have no further chances for mischief." 
 
 " Was he a young man ? " inquired Duke. 
 
 "Yes; a mere boy, under twenty. These were prob- 
 ably his first offences. Papa says he would have trusted 
 him with uncounted gold a year and a half ago, when he 
 came up straight from the country ; but the city proved 
 too much for him. It does, in nine cases out of ten,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 827 
 
 with that class, I believe. The youth fell into bad com- 
 pany and extravagant habits and there's the end of 
 him." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! how pitiful it is, Margaret, that he 
 should wreck his life at the very threshold in that way ! 
 I don't doubt, too, but there is some heart of mother or 
 sister at home to break over his -fall." 
 
 "Yes," answered Margaret, "I know it is very bad; 
 but these things are always happening. The papers are 
 full of them, you know. If people won't take care of 
 themselves, and do what is right, they must abide by 
 the consequences. I am glad papa has caugh^ this rogue. 
 He set two shrewd policemen on the scent. That must 
 have been one to whom he spoke just now in the hall." 
 
 The light, smooth voice ! Margaret spoke with less 
 real interest than she would have manifested over the 
 broken leg of her canary. But the words, slipping down 
 the smooth voice, grated on the ear of Duke Walbridge. 
 Ice was smooth too ; but was it harder and colder than 
 the girl's pity? he thought. Where was her human 
 heart, that she could speak in that light, careless way, 
 of a young life wrecked ; of a boy's soul, pure and hon- 
 est only such a little while ago, and gone down so early 
 into crime and shame? The words might be excused, 
 perhaps, but the careless tones, never. They brought up, 
 in a moment, all the sharp antagonisms of their inmost 
 souls. Duke saw it clearly. Margaret Wheatley and 
 he might be husband and wife, but between their two 
 souls there could never be intimacy and oneness. 
 
 It was a very small hinge ; but Margaret Wheatley
 
 328 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 did not know her whole fate had turned on it. It did 
 seem to her that there was some subtle change in Duke's 
 manner; or, at least, that he went back into just the 
 Duke Walbridge she had always known ; talking in 
 his free, pleasant, self-possessed way. In a little while 
 her father and aunt came in ; but all their united ener- 
 gies could not prevail upon their guest to remain in the 
 city over another day. 
 
 Duke was a stronger, happier man, when he started 
 for the hotel that night. Some dark and doubt had 
 cleared off from his soul. He looked up at the stars, 
 and he felt once more that the eternal God was over 
 them. 
 
 He began to see, too, that there must be something un- 
 sound at bottom of that man's character, who would feel 
 that his life had foiled because of any woman's nay. If 
 he could not live worthily without her, he was not 
 worthy of winning her. 
 
 So the hope and strength of his youth came into 
 Duke Walbridge' s soul once more. Yet how very near 
 he had come at one time to committing himself ! Indeed, 
 he felt a little uncomfortably, recalling two or three 
 speeches he had made ; but his honor was quite safe. 
 
 "I wish it could have been different, Margaret, old 
 playfellow," he murmured to himself; "but it was not 
 my fault. We could never have understood each other." 
 
 As for Margaret Wheatley, she went to her room that 
 night chagrined and disappointed. She had thought at 
 one time that Duke Walbridge's manner meant some- 
 thing. She must have fancied him more than she did
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 329 
 
 any other man, for she sat down and actually had a real 
 cry to herself. It was the first, it would be the last, one 
 for his sake; but, for all that, her tears had some bitter- 
 ness in them. Then pride and pique came to her aid. 
 
 To think that she, Margaret Wheatley, with all her 
 charms, with hosts of lovers in her train, could really be 
 had for the asking, could condescend to care for that odd, 
 incomprehensible Duke Walbridge ! She would never 
 think of him again, for he was not worth it. 
 
 Her pride, too, took the alarm,, for Margaret Wheat- 
 ley had not been a whole season in the Walbridge society, 
 without discovering where their tastes inclined. Per- 
 haps Duke knew this as well as herself. The very- 
 thought made hot flushes in her face. 
 
 The banker's daughter began seriously to question 
 with herself whether there was one among all her suitors 
 whom she really fancied. 
 
 28
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Six months had passed away, and then there came 
 sudden news from Ros Holland. He was about coming 
 home. 
 
 If the fact must be told, his sister needed something 
 of just this sort to rouse her up into new animation and 
 energy. Not that she was dull or melancholy. She 
 went through all her daily duties, she was occupied from 
 morning until night ; but Mrs. Kent, who watched her 
 narrowly, saw something nobody else did behind all the 
 energy. She was a hard taskmaster to herself these 
 days, this brave little Jessamine. 
 
 Her activity seldom flagged, otherwise thoughts and 
 memories would drift in, and a dreadful haunting ache 
 behind them. So she kept at work ; and no doubt it 
 was best for her to do this, though her cheeks lost some 
 of their roundness, and there was a grieved, tired look 
 about her mouth at times, which a homeless lost child 
 might have worn, and which must have touched anybody 
 who loved her. 
 
 All this time, Mrs. Kent displayed the delicate care 
 and consideration of a tender sister, devising a thousand 
 ways to interest the girl, and to restrain her from over-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 331 
 
 exertion. A great blow has fallen on her, but Jessa- 
 mine thinks nowhere in the world could it have been so 
 much softened as under the roof- tree of Richard Kent. 
 
 It is strange that Duke Walbridge did not come to say 
 good-by, and still more singular that he has not written 
 one word since he went away so abruptly. Jessamine 
 supposes that she has the clue to his silence, and it is a 
 relief that he does not write. 
 
 Mrs. Kent, though she never alluded to the matter, 
 pondered the young man's conduct a good deal. It puz- 
 zled the little woman's bright wits. Of course it was 
 not possible to doubt his engagement with Margaret 
 Wheatley, after two of his sisters had asserted it. Yet 
 there was something inexplicable in his conduct, which 
 hardly seemed in keeping with the young man's character. 
 
 But Jessamine seemed now quite roused into her old 
 self with the tidings from the Indies. The brother 
 whom she had not seen for five years was coming back to 
 her; and so long as Ross lived she would have something 
 to live for. She talked of little else for days together, 
 and it seemed to her that her heart the heart that had 
 never beat quite strong and steady since one dreadful 
 night needed him now more than ever. 
 
 When he came, she should try to forget there was 
 anybody else in the world ; although it would come very 
 hard to hear him go on about his friend, as he would be 
 sure to do, and to have to answer his questions. For 
 the first time in her life, she must have a real secret 
 from Ross. Well, one couldn't live in this world with- 
 out having some things to bear silently.
 
 332 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 A sudden wind of good fortune had blown upon Ross 
 Holland. I suppose the sum which in his own eyes and 
 his sister's was to make his worldly prosperity would 
 have seemed absurdly small to most people of very mod- 
 erate means. 
 
 Ross had cleared ten thousand dollars for his share, in 
 some fortunate commercial speculations, which had 
 opened to him through a very wealthy English house in 
 Calcutta ; and he had, in the management of the whole 
 matter, evinced such practical business skill and foresight, 
 that the heads of his own firm concluded to offer him a 
 clerkship in their branch house, in New York. 
 
 The young man's engagement did not exceed a couple 
 of years, although it would no doubt be renewed at the 
 end of that time, if it was not regarded best for him to 
 come out again to India ; he was to receive a salary, which, 
 with economy, would furnish the comforts and some of the 
 graces of life to himself and Jessamine.' 
 
 So, after those five years in that strange, sleepy, gor- 
 geous land, with its melancholy, and mystery, and beauty, 
 five years, panting slowly through their dead heats, 
 making a man of him, as they had made a woman of Jes- 
 samine, Ross was coming home. 
 
 Well, money is a good thing. There was a fair pros- 
 pect now, that Jessamine would have her cottage, with its 
 half-dozen rooms, and its one veranda, and its bits of 
 balconies, a little brown cage, hung up a few miles from 
 the city, in some greenery of shrubs. 
 
 " You could set the whole thing in your drawing-room, 
 Mrs. Kent," said Jessamine, with her old, pleased, arch
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 333 
 
 laugh, to that lady, for the latter went into the subject with 
 her whole heart ; and the two spent a great many hours in 
 devising the appointments of every room, and the grieved 
 look about Jessamine's mouth grew fainter, and the voices 
 of her childhood, the hopes and the dreams, sang once 
 more in her heart, softer and slower it is true 
 
 " As though remembering she had wept." 
 
 One day Mrs. Kent walked into the room where Jessa- 
 mine sat, intent on a cap she was making for Ross. The 
 lady walked first to the window. Outside there was a 
 grieving of winds, a drifting of snows, and heaps of wild, 
 desolate clouds over all. 
 
 Mrs. Kent shivered a little, and then took up the 
 previous day's paper which happened to lie in her work- 
 basket. Running over the columns, she stopped sudden- 
 ly, drew her breath quickly : her strained eyes devoured 
 some paragraph, and a little low cry broke from her lips. 
 
 11 Did yeu speak to me? " asked Jessamine, absorbed 
 in contemplating the effect of her work. 
 
 "I no I believe not." 
 
 Even then, Jessamine did not observe the singular tone. 
 She was not facing the window where Mrs. Kent stood, 
 with the paper in her hand, looking at the drooping, 
 shining head, with strained eyes, full of horror. 
 
 At last, the silence must have struck Jessamine. She 
 turned around, and met her friend's stare, before the latter 
 could move away. 
 
 "Why, what is the matter? Has anything hap- 
 pened?" asked the girl, startled at that look.
 
 334 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " No yes I believe so. Don't ask me, Miss Jes- 
 samine ; " a spasm of pain in her voice. 
 
 Jessamine was terrified. Something awful had hap- 
 pened, but she had still no suspicion that it concerned her. 
 The work dropped from her hands. She rose and went 
 straight to Mrs. Kent, and laid her hand on the lady's 
 arm. 
 
 "Whatever it is, lam your friend. Tell me," she 
 said. 
 
 Then the lady, with the wide horror still in her eyes, 
 groaned out, "I cannot I cannot Miss Jessamine, 
 lest it kill you ! " 
 
 " Me! " A pallor, coming swift as lightning into her 
 face. " Does it concern me, Mrs. Kent? " 
 
 The lady was dumb. 
 
 . Then Jessamine's fears leaped at once to the truth, 
 " And Boss oh ! some harm has come to him ! " 
 
 As she spoke, and before Mrs. Kent could reply, the 
 girl caught sight of the paper. Springing forward, she 
 tore it out of the lady's unwilling hands. Her eyes went 
 straight to the fatal paragraph. They gathered out its 
 significance in a moment : 
 
 " The ' Nestor,' an East-Indiaman, heavily laden, had 
 sailed from Calcutta, bound to Liverpool, on the fourteenth 
 ult. She had encountered in the Indian Ocean one of the 
 most terrible gales within the memory of men now living. 
 The stanch old steamer, which had ridden out many a 
 tropical storm, had gone to pieces at last. Not one of her 
 passengers had been saved. A few of the crew had got off
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 335 
 
 in a raft, and reached the shore, to tell the fate of the lost 
 vessel." / 
 
 It was in the Nestor, bound from Calcutta to Liverpool, 
 that Ross Holland was to sail on the fourteenth ult. 
 
 Jessamine stood still a moment, with her rigid face and 
 her glaring eves turned on her friend, while the truth en- 
 tered slowly into brain and heart. The she put up her 
 hands, and a slow cry welled out of her lips, a slow, 
 wailing cry, as though her youth and hope, and all that 
 there was to desire in life, went down in it. "0 my 
 God! I am all alone in thy world all alone ! " and 
 with that cry she dropped at Mrs. Kent's feet.
 
 336 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 . 
 
 A MONTH has come and gone, and Jessamine Holland is 
 alive still. There was no danger that she would die from 
 the beginning. There was too much strong, joung life i 
 her to go out under any swift blow of sorrow. 
 
 It is true that Mrs. Kent did not reason in that way. 
 She saw her friend's face grow sharper and older each 
 day, while no tears, no strong emotion of any sort, seemed 
 to break up its dead, white calm. She looked, as faces do, 
 when the hearts under them are broken. After the first 
 week, during which the girl was too ill to leave her room, 
 Mrs. Kent, who kept insisting that something must be 
 done, sent, without consulting anybody, for Hannah Bray. 
 
 The honest, faithful soul came at once. Mrs. Kent 
 took her upstairs without acquainting Jessamine of the 
 arrival. " my poor baby!" Mrs. Bray burst out, 
 as soon as she crossed the door-sill, and caught a glimpse 
 of the white, young, hopeless face on the pillow. 
 
 The familiar voice, the homely, kindly face, the very 
 words she had heard so often, broke up the dead calm at last. 
 
 The old home, the dreamy father, the anxious mother, 
 the boy brother, all rushed, like the rushing of mighty 
 winds upon Jessamine's soul. She put out her arms, just
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 337 
 
 as she had often done when she was a baby; and Hannah 
 Bray took the girl in her arms, just as she had done then, 
 and after long waiting, the agony of sobs and tears, which 
 Jessamine's heart had carried all this time, poured itself 
 forth on the old, faithful bosom. 
 
 " It will kill her it certainly will ! " said poor, fright- 
 ened Mrs. Kent, crying like a child herself. 
 
 " No, it won't ; it will do her good in the end," sobbed 
 Hannah Bray. 
 
 And it did. Jessamine slept that night the sound, 
 dreamless sleep of overwrought soul and body ; and when 
 she awoke in the morning, there was the old, dear, home- 
 ly face at her pillow, working and smiling betwixt 
 tenderness and pity, and a little ghost of a smile came 
 out on Jessamine's lips. 
 
 They brought the baby to her, and he looked, with his 
 blue, wondering eyes, into "Aunt Dess' " face, finding 
 something there which he could not understand : and then 
 he 'laid down his fresh, dewy cheek on hers, and the touch- 
 entered into her heart and comforted her. For a while 
 it seemed to Jessamine she could see nothing but that black 
 sky, hear nothing but the shrieks of the wind through 
 the cordage, and the thunder of those black, swirling 
 waves, into which the dear face went down ; but very 
 softly, little by little, other sights and sounds came to take 
 their places. 
 
 It is true, she was all alone in the world ; but it was 
 God's world, after all ; and the heaven where her house- 
 hold was gathered was his also. One day she expected to 
 find them there. The desolate, empty years were before 
 
 29
 
 338 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 her, the lonely, tired, aching heart, if Gqjl so willed, to 
 carry across them ; and thinking this, she would turn away 
 her head and cry slowly to herself with the awful sound- 
 ing of those distant seas, under which, somewhere, the 
 dear head was lying so low,. 
 
 But it was something that now she asked every day for 
 the baby, and asked Hannah Bray, too, all kinds of ques- 
 tions about her home, and the tow-headed children there. 
 
 Then, what a friend Mrs. Kent was ! " You shall have 
 a home with us as long as you live," said the generous 
 little Avoman ; "and when we get quite insufferable, we 
 will let you off for a little while, to go up and see Han- 
 nah Bray. But, mind, we shall be after you if you stay 
 long." ' 
 
 Her husband, -too, was so thoughtful and sympathetic, 
 that Jessamine, in her gratitude, thought she had never 
 fully appreciated the man before. It is true, the sym- 
 pathy of Richard Kent took that practical shape which 
 was the man's habit, and which Jessamine specially stood 
 in need of. He ascertained at once, from the branch of 
 the East India house in New York, whether the ten thou- 
 sand dollars were secure from all mischance ; and when he 
 learned that the brother's death in no wise affected his 
 fortune, he set about having it well secured to Jessamine, 
 and promised her to invest it where it would bring fat 
 dividends, " twelve per cent, at the smallest, child." 
 
 So Jessamine had her fortune at last, and Ross had paid 
 his life to find it ! Still, his sister knew that in the last 
 hour, when the young soul gazed death in the face, he 
 had remembered with a flash of joy that he should not
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 339 
 
 leave his sister helpless and dependent in the world. All 
 this was proved by the care he had taken, before he sailed 
 from Calcutta, to secure his fortune to her in case any 
 mischance befell him. And Mr. Kent, having had am- 
 ple proofs of this foresight when he visited the branch 
 house in New York, returned loud in the young man's 
 praises. 
 
 " The whole thing did honor to his head and heart," 
 he told Jessamine ; and it was sweet, and sad too, to re- 
 member that all the comfort and ease of her future would 
 be the gift of that dead brother. 
 
 She was independent now ; and though she should never 
 sit under the little roof-tree of the cottage that was to be 
 Ross' and hers, she did find a live thrill of pleasure in 
 devising improvements for Hannah Bray's house. The 
 woman should have the new bedroom on which she had 
 set her heart so long, and the little shabby parlor should 
 be refurnished. 
 
 No, Jessamine was not dead yet. Of course the sad 
 tidings had made a great sensation at the Walbridges. 
 Eva had cried herself sick over it. and there was not one 
 of the household who did not think with pity of Jessamine, 
 although this feeling in the case of a few was mingled with 
 some other emotions anything but pleasant! 
 
 Edith's plans had worked well thus far. It was best 
 that her brother should be allowed a little time .to get over 
 the pain of his disappointment. His letters were all she 
 could desire, odd and playful and hearty. 
 
 It was true that he seemed in no haste to return home. 
 11 The wide, free, glorious life out there," he insisted,
 
 340 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "Avas grand as the horizon; the savage in him relished 
 it ; and a buffalo-skin and a wigwam were the only essen- 
 tials of life. The rest was pretty much all sham and 
 humbug." 
 
 The family laughed ; but Edith began to feel it was high 
 time for Duke to return home. Her masterpiece of in- 
 trigue must be followed up by another. Indeed, it had 
 been her plan from the beginning to manage matters so 
 that Duke should be precipitated into an engagement with 
 Margaret Wheatley. If it took place at all, she reasoned, 
 it must be done hastily, and on his part half desperately. 
 
 But, once done, she knew her brother too well to believe 
 that he would allow himself to regret his proposal. " What- 
 ever he might fancy he found wanting in Margaret 
 Wheatley, he would deem it disloyalty and wrong to her 
 not to attempt to make the best of his own act. 
 
 " If I could only once get him committed in some way," 
 said Edith to herself. 
 
 That she calculated shrewdly, the facts had proved. 
 One moment only had stood betwixt Duke Walbridge and 
 Margaret Wheatley. But Edith did not know that. 
 " Duke must be got home by one means, as he had been 
 got off by another," his sister reasoned. 
 
 She made up her mind to go to New York for a while. 
 And it was an easy matter to convince Mr. Walbridge that 
 he was not as well as usual that winter, and absolutely 
 required his son in the city to transact some important 
 business at this juncture. 
 
 So pa's health was made the argument to induce Duke 
 to return to New York. The latter had made up his
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 341 
 
 mind to pass the winter in the territories, and no weaker 
 reason would have availed to bring him home. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge Avas haunted all day by thoughts of a 
 young, hopeless face, which seemed to look at her with 
 something reproachful in its eyes ; and one night she 
 dreamed that the girl's mother stood by her bedside, and 
 asked in solemn, plaintive tones, "What have you done 
 to my poor little motherless girl ?" 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge woke up in a great tremor, and was not 
 herself all the next day. 
 
 It was a most unpleasant duty to call on Jessamine 
 Holland : but Mrs. Walbridge braced herself to do it at 
 once. It was before Hannah Bray's arrival ; and that 
 week the doctor had insisted on Jessamine's being kept 
 free from all agitation, so the lady did not see Jessamine. 
 
 But Mrs. Walbridge did her part well. Every day she 
 sent inquiries and kind messages with her younger 
 daughters; also choice bouquets and delicacies. 
 - Gertrude was out of town at this time, and Edith 
 always had some excellent excuse for delaying her call 
 until next day. What wonder that she shrank from meet- 
 ing the eyes of Jessamine Holland ? 
 
 In the remote part of the territory where Duke was the 
 mails were irregular, and Edith took good care to detain 
 the letter which published the loss of the steamer in which 
 Ross Holland had sailed: Not that she could really see 
 how Duke's knowledge of his friend's death would mate- 
 rially affect her plans. It might, indeed, promote them. 
 If her brother should conceive it his duty to have an 
 interview with Miss Holland on his return, the recent
 
 342 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 sorrow would be likely to preoccupy both, and no danger- 
 ous topics would then be opened between them. 
 
 Still, a little doubtful, she not only detained the paper, 
 but prevailed upon her mother to forbid Eva's acquainting 
 her brother with his loss, which the child, full of ardent 
 sympathy, was on the eve of doing. At last, however, 
 Mrs. Walbridge insisted that her son should no longer be 
 kept in ignorance of what concerned him so deeply, and 
 Edith assented with a tolerable grace. 
 
 "Perhaps mamma was right," she reasoned. "The 
 truth would have to come out some time, and any longer 
 suppression of it might, in the end, raise some rather un- 
 comfortable questions." 
 
 The tidings found Duke Walbridge looking forward 
 most reluctantly to the necessity of returning home, which 
 every letter seemed to make more imperative. That 
 broad, free, strong life of the prairies had braced anew the 
 sinews of his soul. The spirit of those grand, solemn 
 horizons had entered into him. If they had not healed 
 his disappointment, they had made him brave to bear it, 
 and the active, material, wrestling life was just now what 
 was needed for a temperament with a strong, natural bias 
 toward a dreamy, aesthetic indolence. 
 
 The news of Ross Holland's death fairly stunned his 
 friend at the first. When he rallied from the blow, his 
 thought went straight to the sister in her grief and lone- 
 liness, and to his last solemn pledge to Ross. 
 
 Her rejection of himself had not cancelled that bond. 
 In all its binding force it lay upon his soul now, now 
 that the brave young head lay in the stillness of those far-
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 343 
 
 off Eastern seas. There had been none standing by to 
 plunge in and rescue him in the tumult and the darkness, 
 as once he had plunged in to save another. 
 
 And must he go back and look in Jessamine Holland's 
 face, and touch her hand, and hear her voice ? 
 
 Across the years rose the memory of that awful night 
 on the Sound ; across the years stole the words he had 
 spoken: "You may trust me. I will be a brother to 
 her. ' ' And Ross must have thought of them when he went 
 down that night. 
 
 "Miss Holland, a gentleman has called to see you," 
 said the servant, at the door of Mrs. Kent's sitting-room, 
 to which Jessamine had come down for the first time since 
 her illness. About this, there had been nothing danger- 
 ous ; only a kind of slow, nervous fever had prostrated her. 
 
 There was quite a family group around the girl reclin- 
 ing on the lounge. Mrs. Kent and Hannah Bray were 
 there with the baby. 
 
 Jessamine had a vague hope that somebody from the 
 Indies, or from the lost ship, would search her oat some 
 time with tidings of her lost brother. So she said very 
 earnestly, "If you will allow him to come up here, Mrs. 
 Kent?" 
 
 " child, you're not able to bear the sight of com- 
 pany," put in Hannah Bray. 
 
 But Jessamine insisted, and it was the habit of the 
 house to indulge her. Mrs. Kent of course assented, and 
 the gentleman was shown up.
 
 344 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Duke Walbridge came forward, and as Jessamine turned 
 and looked at him, and he caught sight of the white, 
 sharpened face, a cry broke out of his lips : "0 Jes- 
 samine ! " and he took both her hands, everything else 
 swallowed up that moment in the thought of her sorrow 
 and his own. 
 
 And the depth of her grief made her almost calm to 
 meet this man. Her face quivered, it is true, and for 
 a while neither could speak, and Mrs. Kent and Hannah 
 Bray went out, leaving them alone to talk of their dead 
 together. 
 
 "It was very good of you to come, Mr. Walbridge," 
 said Jessamine, looking at him with her dark eyes, which 
 seemed to have grown so much larger and sadder. 
 
 ' ' I started the day after I learned. The paper con- 
 taining the account never reached me ; and my family 
 hesitated to write, dreading to inflict the blow." 
 
 " And because of that you came all this way, Mr. Wai- 
 bridge?" 
 
 " Certainly. If you have forgotten what I promised 
 him on our last meeting, I could not." 
 
 She forgot then that she was talking to the betrothed 
 husband of Margaret Wheatley ; she only remembered 
 that he was Ross' friend and her own, and she put her 
 hand in his, in the old way that he remembered. 
 
 " No ; I have not forgotten," she said. 
 
 Hannah Bray was quite too doubtful of the effect of 
 any strong emotion on Jessamine to leave the girl and her 
 friend long together. Mrs. Kent, who was strongly drawn 
 .toward the faithful, honest heart under the homely,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 345 
 
 faded face, always yielded to Hannah's experience and 
 judgment. So the woman stole back in a iittle while ; 
 and after she had been introduced to Mr. Walbridge, the 
 talk was carried on mostly betwixt the man and the elder 
 woman. Hannah's heart and tongue were full of Ross 
 these days. 
 
 Meantime, Mrs. Kent, downstairs, was holding a sol- 
 emn parley with herself. She was a resolute little 
 woman, and she had watched Duke Walbridge breath- 
 lessly when he came forward to meet Jessamine. The 
 feeling that leaped into his eyes with their first glance, 
 was one to which the lover of Margaret Wheatley had 
 no right. 
 
 The lady felt an inexplicable hankering to allude to 
 the fact of his betrothal to the young man's face. It 
 was a delicate thing to do this, as the matter had been 
 kept so profound a secret, and the lady herself was 
 pledged not to divulge it. But it was not revealing the 
 man's secret to speak of it to himself. 
 
 " If I only had a chance, and it would come in nat- 
 urally," she mused. And at last she heard Duke Wal- 
 bridge steps on the stairs, and went into the drawing- 
 room, where she would be certain to meet him. 
 
 His face brightened as he saw the lady, and after a 
 cordial greeting he sat down and commenced talking of 
 Jessamine. 
 
 He was quite overwhelmed at her appearance, and was 
 full of eager questions about her ; and Mrs. Kent went 
 over the sad story of the day when the woful tidings 
 reached them.
 
 846 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " Poor Ross ! He was my best friend. I loved him 
 as I did myown life. He came near losing his once for 
 mine. I shall never have another friend like him." 
 The tears in his eyes, and in Mrs. Kent's too. " If 
 there is anything I can do for Miss Holland, I Jbeg you 
 will give me that mournful satisfaction. I promised 
 Ross, just as we separated, that if any harm befell him, 
 I should stand always in his stead to his sister. I shall 
 hold that promise sacred to the last hour of my life." 
 
 " She has so few friends, poor, lonely * heart-broken 
 child!" murmured Mrs. Kent. "She would be very 
 grateful to hear you say that, Mr. Walb ridge." 
 
 " Grateful ! " There was a sting of mournfulness or 
 bitterness in his voice, which struck Mrs. Kent. " She 
 can never have any cause for that feeling toward me. I 
 owe it to her brother that I am alive to-day." And 
 again Duke Walbridge added " Poor Ross ! " 
 
 Mrs. Kent was no femaje Machiavel, but she was not 
 without the tact of her sex. If she could only find 
 some by-path to the subject which perplexed her. 
 
 Duke's next remark opened one. "My family, out 
 of mistaken kindness, delayed the blow as long as pos- 
 sible ; and then, although I was on the lookout), as my 
 friend had written me in -what steamer he should take 
 passage for Liverpool, the paper containing the ship- 
 wreck of the Nestor miscarried. But you may be cer- 
 tain I made all possible haste in returning. I did not 
 even stop over one train in New York last evening, to 
 see my sister Edith, but hurried across the city." 
 
 Mrs. Kent stumbled desperately into the opening here
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 347 
 
 afforded her, not certain whether doing so was in good 
 taste, but she resolved to venture. 
 
 "You were Very kind, but I almost fear, Mr. Wai- 
 bridge, that a lady who has better claims on you than 
 even your sister will feel herself neglected." 
 
 The young man stared amazed at his hostess. He 
 had, what his sisters regarded, a sublime contempt for 
 gossip, and was usually invulnerable to all that light 
 skirmishing of hints and jests, which affords so much 
 pretty, foolish amusement. 
 
 Such a copl broadside as Mrs. Kent's, however, could 
 not but amaze him a little. 
 
 " I assure you, Mrs. Kent, you are entirely mistaken. 
 No such lady, so far as I am aware, exists." 
 
 It was hardly the tjme for jests, hut Mrs. Kent was 
 not the woman to pause now. 
 
 "0 Mr. Walbridge ! " with that little laugh, and 
 toss of the head, which her husband thought the most 
 charming thing in the world, and which certainly was 
 very attractive in its way, "what a fine actor was 
 spoiled when you turned I cannot precisely say what. 
 You really look so innocent, that I should be imposed 
 upon, if my information were not derived from a source 
 which places the matter beyond a doubt." 
 
 Some foolish gossip evidently had been busy with his 
 name* still it was Best now to set the lady right. 
 
 "Mrs. Kent, I think you believe me a man of my 
 word, and that I should scorn to deny an imputation of 
 the sort you have made, if there were one particle of 
 truth in it ; but I assure you, on my honor, that I have
 
 348 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 not the faintest idea of what you mean, or to what lady 
 you allude." 
 
 It was impossible to believe that Duke "Walbridge did 
 not mean what he said ; indeed, it would have been sim- 
 ply an insult to imply any farther doubt of his sincerity. 
 
 Mrs. Kent's heart half choked her ; but she had de- 
 termined now that Duke Walbridge should not leave her 
 house until she had reached the bottom of this mystery. 
 
 "I can only say, Mr. Walbridge, that you utterly 
 confound me, for I had the story of your engagement 
 from Miss Jessamine." 
 
 " The story of my engagement from Miss Jessamine ? " 
 repeating each word slowly, like a man half-dazed, try- 
 ing to take in the meaning. " Did she believe it? " 
 
 "How could she help it, when she had the whole 
 from the lips of your own sisters ? ' ' 
 
 He started then. His breath came quickly. 
 
 " Do you mean to say, Mrs. Kent do I understand 
 you Duke paused a moment, trying to steady 
 his thoughts. "Forgive me, my dear madam. You 
 have so confounded me, that I am at a loss for words." 
 
 " I assure you, Mr. Walbridge, you are not a more 
 astonished man than I am woman, at this moment." 
 
 A pause ; then young Walbridge drew his chair nearer 
 the lady. ' ' Will you be my friend, Mrs. Kent ; will 
 you answer my next questions ? " 
 
 "If lean, Mr. Walbridge;" replying only to half 
 of his. 
 
 " To whom did my sisters say I was engaged ? " 
 
 " To Miss Margaret Wheatley."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 349 
 
 She felt him start, and she fancied he grew paler 
 about the lips. 
 
 " Which of my sisters told her so ? " 
 
 " Miss Edith, I am certain, though Miss Gertrude was 
 present, and assented to all." 
 
 " When was it, and where ? " 
 
 "On a ride they took together not more than two 
 days before you went away. Miss Jessamine, I am 
 certain, never suspected this before, but your sisters 
 stated that the engagement had been a long one, and 
 your extreme distaste to having such a subject a matter 
 of common gossip had confined the knowledge to your 
 own family." 
 
 " And you say Miss Holland believed this? " he again 
 inquired. 
 
 " Mr. Walbridge, it was the explicit statement of your 
 sisters ; there was no room left to doubt." 
 
 Duke Walbridge sprang from his chair, and rushed 
 toward the door in a way that fairly frightened Mrs. 
 Kent. Was he about to break in upon Jessamine Hol- 
 land, and deny all, and what would be the effect upon 
 the girl's shattered nerves ? 
 
 But when he reached the door. Duke Walbridge paused 
 suddenly, drew back and wheeled round, and then walked 
 up and down the room two or three times, like a man 
 distraught. 
 
 Then he came and sat down by Mrs. Kent, who was 
 almost as much agitated as himself. He was deadly 
 pale. From her heart the woman pitied him. 
 
 "Mrs. Kent," speaking slowly and solemnly,
 
 350 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 " that there ever was an engagement betwixt Margaret 
 WheatleJ* and myself, or a remote hint of one, I ab- 
 solutely deny. You believe me ? " 
 
 "Entirely, Mr. Walbridge." 
 
 "My amazement and horror that any sister of mine, 
 knowing the truth, whatever she might have desired, 
 should have deliberately uttered such a falsehood, com- 
 pletely unmans me. But I shall recover myself, and then 
 I shall search this matter to the bottom." 
 
 His eyes blazed a moment, and Mrs. Kent thought to 
 herself, " I would not stand in those girls' shoes for all 
 the world could give me." 
 
 Soon afterward the young man took his leave, Mrs. 
 Kent engaging not to relate one word of their conversa- 
 tion ; and the lady and her guest parted friends for life. 
 
 Mrs. Kent was too far excited to return upstairs. 
 She continued pacing up and down the room, muttering 
 to herself, in a fragmentary way, " Oh ! to think of it ! 
 to think of it ! My poor Jessamine ! What awful 
 wickedness ! But it will all come out now ! " 
 
 Duke Walbridge rode home slowly, trying to clear up 
 his thoughts. Doubt, amazement, horror, in turns, pos- 
 sessed him ; across all would flash sometimes a feverish, 
 awful joy. "Had Jessamine Holland believed he was 
 really betrothed to Margaret Wheatley, and did that ac- 
 count for her silence ? " 
 
 Yet what must she think, in that case, of his letter ? 
 
 The basest of men would hardly venture to write such 
 to one woman, knowing he was bound to another. 
 
 It was all a mystery ; but his whole soul was bent on
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 351 
 
 / 
 
 its solution. Still he was quite worn out with all he 
 had just undergone, added to a week of sleepless nights 
 and days of travel. As Duke dismounted at the barn- 
 door, the coachman came out, and spoke to his young 
 master. Duke had never associated the man with the 
 matter; indeed, he had as yet shaped for himself no 
 plan of action in this emergency ; but now, with a sud- 
 den impulse, he asked, "John, you remember a let- 
 ter I sent by you to Miss Holland, a couple of days be- 
 fore I started West." 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied John, intent on removing the 
 saddle at that moment. 
 
 "You saw Miss Holland, you gave the letter into 
 her hands just as I desired you? " 
 
 "I gave the letter into her hands, sir." 
 
 John's face was turned away. His master was watch- 
 ing keenly. There was something not just right in the 
 man's voice. 
 
 John turned toward the barn. Duke sprang forward, and 
 his hand clutched the other's and there seemed in it the 
 grip of ten giants. 
 
 ' ' Stand still, John. Look me straight in the face now. 
 Did any human being but yourself know about that 
 letter?" 
 
 "Well, yes, one person did I couldn't help it;" 
 frightened at that white face, and the eyes that blazed out 
 of it ; frightened at the menace in the tones too. 
 
 " Who was that person ? " 
 
 " I promised not to tell ; but but don't look at me 
 in that way, sir. It was Miss Edith. She found it out
 
 352 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 some way. I was al'ays afraid there was something 
 wrong at the bottom of it." 
 
 " Come into the barn, John." 
 
 The man followed meekly enough, and went through a 
 most rigid half-hour's inquisition. John did not try to 
 conceal anything. He dreaded that white face and those 
 tones more than he could any possible storm of anger from 
 Miss Edith. 
 
 So it all came out. The promise she had extorted from 
 him at night, and the conversation which had transpired 
 betwixt them the following day in her room, after John 
 had received the letter and the message for Miss Hol- 
 -land. 
 
 " She took the letter from you, you say, John, held it 
 up to the light a moment, and then returned it to you ? " 
 going over slowly every point of the coachman's story. 
 
 1 ' Yes, sir. She said it was the letter. I felt mighty 
 uncomfortable over it, anyhow ;" twisting his legs about in 
 his agitation and excitement, in a way that must have 
 struck his young master at any other time as immensely 
 comical. 
 
 " She said it was the letter. Now, John, I give you 
 full warning that I am in no mood to be trifled with. If 
 you deceive me now, or hold anything back, it will sure- 
 ly be the worse for you ; for, if it cost me my life, I will 
 clear up this whole thing. Did you believe that letter 
 my sister handed back was the one I gave you? " 
 
 "I wasn't jest certin. Miss Edith's back was turned 
 to me a minit, and it sort o' seemed to me she took up 
 somethin' from the table. I could tell your handwritin',
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 353 
 
 too, among ten thousand. I saw it on the back of the 
 letter you gave me. The one I took from Miss Edith was 
 different, a finer, smaller hand, jest like her own." 
 
 That was enough. Duke was silent a moment, because 
 he could not speak. At last he asked quietly, " Did 
 my sister reward you afterward? " 
 
 " She put a five-dollar bill in my hand. I'd rather 
 given her twice as much to be clear of the whole thing. 
 However, all I did was to tell Miss Holland I'd brought 
 her a letter, not to say you sent it." 
 
 "That was all?" 
 
 "Ye-es, sir." 
 
 " No ; there was something else. I plainly see it in 
 your manner. I must have the whole truth, John." 
 
 " That afternoon I took your sisters Miss Edith and 
 Miss Gertrude to drive, and they stopped for Miss Hol- 
 land. Jest as she got into the carriage, I thought she 
 thanked Miss Walbridge for her invitation that mornin'. 
 That was all." 
 
 Duke Walbridge staggered like a drunken man to the 
 window to get breath. The mystery began to clear up 
 now ; but the shock was awful. That his sisters, with 
 whom he had grown up, whom he had love'd and trusted, 
 with whom he had been cross and merry, surly and tender, 
 as the mood happened, his sisters could practise a de- 
 ception so deep and base on him, was like the shaking of 
 sudden earthquakes under his feet. 
 
 There came a thought more awful still. Did his mother 
 know, and had she countenanced, aided all this ? For a 
 moment it seemed as thouh some foul taint throbbed in
 
 354 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 his. blood, as though his own truth, and honor, and man- 
 hood had been blackened forever. 
 
 But he must search the thing to the bottom. He 
 turned and looked at John, who was watching him, with 
 his big mouth and his big light eyes wide open, with doubt 
 and trouble. 
 
 " You may go, John. You didn't act a brave, manly 
 part; but your cowardice, which made you too easy a tool 
 of others, seems about all that lies at your door. Would 
 to God it were no worse with them ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Master Duke ; " the coarse, bronze face 
 clearing up. " It's plagued me ever since, at times ; and 
 I feel easier now you know it all, if I lose my place." 
 
 But John did not fear that now. 
 
 At last Duke went up to the house. He had not met 
 any of his family since his return, having found Mrs. 
 Walbridge and her daughters out for the 'day when he 
 reached home in the morning. He crept up to his room, 
 threw himself down on the lounge, and tried to see the 
 way before him.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 355 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A HUM of voices, a storm of knocks at the door, and 
 Duke Walbridge lifted himself up. It was quite dark in 
 his room by this time, and he perceived that he 'had been 
 asleep for several hours. It was dreadfully unromantic 
 at such a crisis of his fate ; but worn-out nature would at 
 last assert her rights. And though Duke Walbridge had 
 thrown himself on the lounge, conscious that the present 
 was the most momentous period of his life, and that on the 
 course which his own brain should shape and his own 
 will execute, depended all his future, its weal or woe, 
 conscious of all this, he had turned over and gone to 
 sleep, like any tired animal. 
 
 Still, that slumber had done for him at this crisis what 
 no profound thoughts could ; it had cleared his brain and 
 steadied his nerves. 
 
 Meanwhile, his family, returning home, had learned 
 with immense surprise of the young man's arrival, and 
 his eager sisters made an assault in a body on his door, 
 and his mother waited below, impatient as her girls to greet 
 her boy, only, recalling some facts, she felt uneasy about 
 meeting his eyes. 
 
 " Come in ! " shouted Duke, as soon as he was fairly
 
 356 . THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 awake and took in the circumstances ; and the door burst 
 open, and the girls bounded toward their brother, whom 
 they had not seen for a half a year. 
 
 An uproarious hugging and welcoming followed. 
 There could be no doubt that this love was genuine which 
 welcomed the young man back to^is home. They called 
 him " Bear," and " old Bluebeard," and all the old house- 
 hold names, as they clung about him, and told him that 
 he had grown brown as an Indian and fat as an Esquimau ; 
 and in the midst of the laughter and chatter Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge snowed herself at the door. 
 
 " I saw that I must come to you, my boy. Your get- 
 ting away from this rabble, for the present, was hopeless." 
 And the others made way for her, and she put her arms 
 right around the big fellow, and kissed him all over his 
 face, telling him " how good it seemed ; how glad she was 
 to have him home again her boy." And the tears were 
 in her eyes. 
 
 She was his mother, the woman that, next to one 
 other, his heart held dearest on earth. Duke forgot all 
 the bitter anguish with which his thoughts had surged 
 against her that day, as he put his arm around her and 
 returned her kisses. This was the mother-heart against 
 which his boyhood had leaned ; surely it would not be 
 leagued against him, it could not have sought to stab 
 him to the death. 
 
 These faces of his sisters about him, flushed with eager 
 joy at his return, could these ever have combined to do 
 him a lifelong deceit and wrong ? In the midst of them 
 once more, with the family love tugging at his heart,
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 357 
 
 Duke Walbridge began to doubt even what Mrs. Kent had 
 told him. 
 
 " Why, there's pa ! " suddenly shouted Kate. 
 
 Sure enough ! There that personage stood in the 
 door, having just returned home and learned of his son's 
 arrival. 
 
 " I thought I had as good a right here as the rest of 
 'em, Duke," coming forward. And the two wrung each 
 other's hands. 
 
 " Now do just see those men," cried Eva, " shaking 
 hands as though they were the merest acquaintances ! 
 Men are the oddest creatures ! " 
 
 " Well, what is one to do? " laughed her father, who, 
 there was no doubt, felt quite as pleased as the rest to 
 have his son home again. "It's well to have somebody 
 amongst such a tribe of madcap girls, with enough of his 
 senses left to keep the house from turning straight into 
 bedlam." 
 
 " Well, you might at least kiss each other," stoutly re- 
 joined the youngest daughter. 
 
 " No objections to that. 'Tisn't the first time, Duke," 
 replied the father ; and the two, to the infinite amusement 
 of the others, performed that function, as well as the 
 grizzled beard and the brown one permitted. 
 
 " Eva ! Eva ! " mildly admonished the mother, as that 
 young girl executed a gymnastic feat, as much resembling 
 a summersault as anything else. 
 
 "Well, mamma, I can't help it. Indeed, you must 
 excuse me, but I am so glad because Duke has returned 
 home." And again she was kissing him, and telling him
 
 358 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 he bad grown such a bronze old Hercules off there in the 
 territories. 
 
 In due time the family went down to dinner. Mrs. 
 Walbridge, wishing that her eldest daughter was at home 
 at this juncture, and uncertain whether his father's wishes 
 or his friend's death had been the impelling motive of 
 Duke's return, did not allude to Ross Holland. 
 
 The father, straightforward and practical, blundered 
 right into the matter. 
 
 " Horrible thing, loss of that steamer, Duke ; aw- 
 ful pity, to think of that brave young fellow's going down 
 in that way ! Felt sorry enough for you, when I heard 
 it." 
 
 "It was the heaviest blow I ever had in my life, sir. 
 I don't like to talk much about it now ; but you know he 
 was my dearest friend." 
 
 " Yes, I know pity ! pity.! " repeated his father. 
 
 " It seemed almost like losing somebody right out of 
 our own family," put in Eva. "And then poor Miss 
 Jessamine, it's almost killed her." 
 
 " I know it has," answered Duke, shortly, as one does, 
 when words hurt. 
 
 " How do you know, Duke ? " continued Eva, and there 
 was silence at the table. 
 
 " Because I saw her this afternoon." 
 
 " You did, you saw Miss Holland ? " continued the 
 girl, and everybody listened. 
 
 A little start on his mother's side a little swift glance 
 
 o 
 
 went up between her and Gertrude. Duke did not seem 
 to be looking, but he saw for all that.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 359 
 
 " Yes; I went directly to the Kents. I suppose you 
 all knew I would do that. I saw Miss Holland only a 
 few moments, long enough to perceive, however, what 
 work the last few weeks have made with her." 
 
 " Oh, it was dreadful ! " continued the girl. "I thought 
 it must certainly kill her at first. I'm afraid it will yet." 
 
 Mrs. "Walbridge breathed freer. It was evident that 
 nothing had transpired in the interview betwixt her son 
 and Miss Holland, which could give her any uneasiness, 
 and his father's business would make it necessary for Duke 
 to return to New York in a few days. To do the woman 
 justice, too, she had undergone some keenly remorseful 
 pangs, which were quite a new experience with Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge, and which made her just now think less of any 
 intrigue than of Jessamine Holland's sorrow. 
 
 "We all pitied her from our hearts, Duke poor 
 child ! We all pitied you, too, knowing how you would 
 feel!" 
 
 " Yes, mother girls, only don't talk about it now." 
 
 Of course no more was said, but they did not rally into 
 their old spirits, and it seemed as though the shadow of 
 Ross ' death fell around that supper-table. 
 
 "Gertrude," said Duke, during the evening, "come 
 and take a little walk in the hall with me." 
 
 That promenade was an old habit of his. Nobody 
 thought anything strange of the invitation. Gertrude 
 accepted her brother's arm with alacrity. 
 
 " Why didn't you ask me too ? " inquired Eva, betwixt 
 a pout and a smile. 
 
 " Because your turn is coming a little later, Pussy."
 
 360 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 For a while, the brother and sister paced back and forth, 
 talking over events that had happened to both during his 
 absence. If each was a little grave, that was natural 
 enough after the talk about Duke's friend. 
 
 At the end of the hall there was a small side-room, 
 hardly larger than an alcove ; a quiet place, with no especial 
 use, where books and flowers were always scattered about, 
 and where anybody was secure from interruption. Duke 
 drew his sister in here; placed her in an arm-chair, 
 where the light shone full upon her face. He sat down 
 on a divan near her. 
 
 11 Gertrude," leaning his -head on his hand, and speak- 
 ing very low and deliberately, " did you ever give Jessa- 
 mine Holland any reason to suppose that an engagement 
 existed between Margaret Wheatley and myself? " 
 
 Gertrude started, and stared at her brother as though 
 a poniard had transfixed her ; her lips paled. "What do 
 you know who has been telling you any thing ?" she 
 stammered. 
 
 "No matter about that now; I am asking what you 
 know, and, Gertrude, I must have the truth ; " his jaw 
 settling grimly now. Gertrude's first start had betrayed 
 her. Edith would have acted the part better. 
 
 "I I don't want to say anything about it I wish 
 you would not ask me, Duke ; " her face getting paler. 
 
 " Gertrude Walbridge, do you think I am a fool, to be 
 put off in that fashion? It is my right to ask you. 
 Answer my question ! " 
 
 His face, his voice, fairly frightened her. She still 
 stammered, and tried to prevaricate ; but there her brother
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 361 
 
 stood, grim as fate, and with that look which it was hope- 
 less to defy. At last she broke out, ' ' I never told Jes- 
 samine Holland that you were engaged to Margaret 
 Wheatley," which you will remember was the truth, 
 reader. 
 
 ' ' Never told her so, Gertrude ? Did you ever know 
 of anybody else who said this ; and did you sit quietly 
 by and not lift your voice te contradict so absolute a 
 lie?" 
 
 "I couldn't help it, Duke. There were reasons;" 
 growing white and red. by turns. 
 
 " Reasons for such a foul deception as that ! Again, 
 do you take me for a fool, Gertrude Walbridge ? " 
 
 The blaze in his eyes made her tremble. Poor Ger- 
 trude ! The vf hole affair wore such a different aspect 
 now, as she sat there alone face to face with her brother, 
 from the one it had under Edith's soft handling, which 
 made the younger girl believe, for the time, that the 
 deception was justifiable. If her elder sister was there, 
 she would face Duke out. Gertrude made a faint at- 
 tempt at Edith's old sophistries. 
 
 ' ' We always hoped and expected you and Margaret 
 would be engaged to each other. You knew she liked 
 you, and, under the circumstances, it seemed almost your 
 duty to have her." 
 
 " As for my duty, I am the one to decide that. You 
 knew, for I had told you so, that I had no thought of 
 ever asking her to be my wife, and do you mean to tell 
 me now that my conscience, my honor, are not unsoiled ; 
 that I ever gave Margaret Wheatley to suspect, by 
 
 31
 
 362 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 word or act of mine, that I could be more to her than I 
 frankly avowed to you all?" 
 
 Gertrude was struck dumb. If Edith were only 
 there ! She lost all self-possession. 
 
 " I will go straight to mamma with all this. I will 
 not answer another of your questions, Duke," she cried, 
 and, springing up, rushed toward the door. 
 
 A hand of iron griped the girl, and brought her back 
 and set her down helplessly in the chair. She burst 
 into tears, half of fright, half of anger. 
 
 Tears from a woman always melted Duke. They 
 touched him now ; but, for all that, he was resolute. 
 He sat down by Gertrude's side, and brought all his per- 
 suasiveness, and all the magnetism of his will, to bear 
 on her. She was afraid both of her mother and of 
 Edith ; but her brother proved to her that ha was sub- 
 stantially acquainted with the facts. 
 
 At last the whole came out, dragged from most un- 
 willing lips, it is true ; but Duke did not leave Gertrude 
 until she related all that Edith had said during that 
 memorable ride with Miss Holland, and the passive share 
 which she herself had borne in the intrigue. 
 
 Duke, although inexpressibly shocked, managed to 
 control himself. It was easy enough to see that Ger- 
 trude had been overruled by a stronger will than her 
 own, and that her part was altogether secondary in the 
 affair. It was a great deal, too, to find out, as he did, 
 during the conversation, what sort of excuse and justifi- 
 cation his sisters could make to themselves foi a plot so 
 nefarious that Duke was almost stunned with horror
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 863 
 
 when he thought that it had been concocted and executed 
 in the bosom of his own family. 
 
 He knew then how men and women feel when they 
 learn first that some awful crime lies on the soul of one 
 whom they have loved and cherished more than their 
 own lives. Gertrude had made a clean breast of all she 
 knew ; and it was clear, from her reply to some guarded 
 questions about a letter of his to Miss Holland, that 
 Gertrude, at least, knew nothing about one. 
 
 ' ' What letter, Duke ? I never heard of one ; neither, 
 I am sure, did Edith." 
 
 He was glad enough to divert her thoughts from that 
 topic. 
 
 " And our mother knew and countenanced ajl that 
 Edith did? She was willing she desired Miss Hol- 
 land to believe that lie ? " 
 
 A slow amazement and pain in his voice, that hurt 
 'Gertrude. She was naturally anxious ,to justify her 
 mother. 
 
 " Mamma did not expect Edith would go so far, and 
 was truly unhappy about it, especially since Miss Hol- 
 land had her great trouble ; but you know how fond she 
 always was of Margaret, and how she had set her heart 
 on your coming together." 
 
 Duke would not say it to the daughter of her mother, 
 but the thought flashed sternly across him : " She had 
 set her heart on the banker's half million ! " He knew, 
 and perhaps, in her heart, Gertrude did. 
 
 "Now I have told you all, and you will forgive me, 
 Duke?" coming back to him after she had started to
 
 364 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 leave the room, for the blaze had gone down in his eyes, 
 and there was something in his look which troubled her. 
 
 Of course there could be but one answer to that ; but 
 there was something in the way in which he kissed her, 
 which hurt Gertrude more than the look, and made her 
 feel that her brother's faith in her had had a terrible 
 shock. With this feeling she burst into her mother's 
 room. " mamma, Duke has found out all about 
 that afiair of Miss Holland's. Somebody has told him ; 
 and I have had the most dreadful time downstairs for 
 the last hour; he would not let me go until I had 
 told all." 
 
 'Mrs. Walbridge was thunderstruck. She tried to 
 speak, % but her limbs shook and her face was white. 
 
 "Why did you not come to me at once, Gertrude?" 
 she managed to say. 
 
 " I tried to ; but there was no getting away from him, 
 mamma." And then, looking up, they saw Duke at the 
 door. 
 
 " Gertrude, I must see mamma all alone now." 
 
 And the girl went out, and the mother and the son 
 were alone together. 
 
 It was the most awful hour of Mrs. Walbridge' s. life. 
 Its anguish and shame will haunt her memory to the day 
 of her death. She stood face to face with her sin, and 
 face to face with her son, and had to own the deception 
 she had countenanced, the subterfuge she had connived 
 at. This woman, whose life had been built on conven- 
 tionalities and respectabilities, felt the foundations break- 
 ing up beneath her. For the first time in her life, Mrs.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 365 
 
 Walbridge lost faith in herself. Then, too, the humilia- 
 tion was doubly keen and bitter, because it came to her 
 through the one being w4iom she loved a little better 
 than anything on earth ; whose love and reverence, too, 
 were a little dearer to her heart than that of any other, 
 though it were her husband or her daughters. 
 
 And now Duke must learn that his faith in her had 
 been betrayed, that his own mother had deceived him, 
 and helped him to believe a lie, a lie, too, which must 
 work disappointment and mistake for all his future. 
 This was the truth that went down into the core of the 
 woman's love and pride. 
 
 Edith was not there to aid her mother, and Mrs. Wai- 
 bridge was too cruelly agitated and perplexed to attempt 
 many subterfuges. The whole affair, in which she had 
 borne a conspicuous, if a somewhat passive, part, took to 
 her now some new complexion and proportions. 
 
 Yet, as Duke had dealt kindly with his sister, so he 
 did with his mother ; more tenderly, even, because he 
 pitied her more. Still, for all that, he was resolute to 
 sift the matter to the bottom. It is true, 'Mrs. Wal-^ 
 bridge made feeble attempts to assert her dignity, to 
 maintain that her relations to her son shielded her from 
 the duty of replying to his questions. 
 
 "You forget, Duke, that I am your mother; you 
 question me as though I were some witness at the bar, 
 whom you had a right to interrogate without mercy," 
 she sobbed, half hysterical, half indignant. 
 
 "No, mother, it is precisely because you are my 
 mother that I came to you, before going to any other
 
 366 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 source, to know the whole truth. Do not compel me to 
 seek it elsewhere. Let me have it from your own lips." 
 
 And at last he drew it all out. Mrs. Walbridge 
 would have been glad to shield Edith, but the facts were 
 against her. 
 
 The night wore on. Duke walked the room, his face 
 livid, his mother in her chair, white as himself, as the 
 ugly truths one by one dragged themselves up to the 
 light. The search for his letter, the reading it, the plot 
 to destroy it, after substituting another in its stead, with 
 the dreadful lie on top of all, so completely horrified the 
 young man, that his wrath was held in check. 
 
 "Edith did not mean to wrong you, Duke; she had 
 your best happiness in view ; but she, with the rest of 
 us, was driven frantic by the thought that, after all 
 our cherished plans and hopes, we were to lose Margaret, 
 whom we had grown to regard as our daughter and sister. 
 It was not, either, that we disliked Miss Holland. * And 
 since the poor girl's trouble came upon her, I have been 
 a wretched woman, thinking of all these miserable things. 
 We were bewildered by the suddenness of our discovery 
 of your feelings, and driven to desperate means to pre- 
 vent a consummation of our worst fears. It seemed, too, 
 at the time, Duke, that we were doing what was for your ' 
 own best good." 
 
 ' ' My best good ! To sacrifice my life in that way 
 to separate me by so cruel a deception from the woman I 
 loved, and marry me to one whom I did not ! " a strife 
 between indignation and pain in his voice. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge murmured something about Margaret.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 367 
 
 Duke stopped before her. " Mother, be frank with 
 your own soul. It is not Margaret, but Margaret's 
 money, that lies at the bottom of all this wrong and 
 misery." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was dumb. At another time she 
 would have denied this, but at that moment the truth 
 struck home. Remorse and pain had made her con- 
 science sensitive. She did not answer one word. She 
 only sobbed to herself. -And again Duke remembered 
 she was his mother, and pitied her. 
 
 At -last, but that was long after midnight, there was 
 no more to tell. How nearly the plot had succeeded, 
 Duke Walbridge of all the world only knew. Sudden 
 heats of anger had come upon him, and shaken or hard- 
 ened his voice ; then pity had melted him as he looked 
 at his mother ; then horror at the cruel wrong which 
 would have blighted his life. 
 
 When it was all over, he sat still a while, and then he 
 rose up and went over to his mother, and the tears were 
 in his eyes, and his voice sounded unutterably mournful : 
 "Mother, if I have forgotten at any time to-night the 
 respect which I owe you, forgive me. It has been very 
 hard to bear, but hardest of all has been the thought that 
 the mother, whom I loved and trusted as I think few sons 
 have ever done, has deceived and betrayed her boy, -- 
 could have so easily sacrificed the happiness of his life ; 
 it is very hard to believe it yet. The pain is fresh now. 
 I shall try to forgive it but but we will not say any 
 more to-night." 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge writhed a moment, and buried her
 
 368 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 face in her hands. The gentle, cruel words wounded so 
 deeply, because of their truth. 
 
 In her humiliation, the woman wished she could have 
 died and been buried before she had driven her son to 
 speak thus to her. But she did not reply ; she only sobbed 
 in her chair. And Duke took her in his arms, and laid 
 her tenderly on the lounge, and kissed her, and left her. 
 
 There was no sleep for Duke that night. I think there 
 was as little for his mother. Sometimes a wild joy 
 flashed through him as he remembered that Jessamine 
 Holland had never heard of his letter ; that the prospect 
 of his suit was as fair now, as though that had never been 
 written ! 
 
 But his joy even came and went in swift, hot throbs. 
 Everything seemed unreal to him after what he had learned 
 to-night ; underneath all, a passion of wrath against that 
 elder sister who had been the prime mover in the whole 
 intrigue. Her brain had plotted, and her arts had 
 achieved, the whole. For his mother and Gertrude there 
 was much to pity and excuse ; but for Edith, could he 
 ever feel again that she was his sister ? He saw her steal- 
 ing into his room, and reading his letter ; he saw her 
 wheedling it out of the coachman, and quietly transferring 
 it to the table ; a little later he saw her fair, exultant face 
 bending over the flames where she had thrown it. He 
 closed his eyes with a sudden loathing. It seemed to him 
 that he never wanted to look on that face again to the day 
 of his death !
 
 THE HOLLANDS. . 869 
 
 So the cold dawn at last came into his room, and again 
 he fell into a heavy slumber that lasted for hours. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge was not at breakfast that morning. 
 
 o o 
 
 She had had a miserable, nervous night, her husband said, 
 and enjoined upon his daughters not to "bother their 
 mother with any of their nonsense that day." 
 
 It was quite evident that the gentleman had not the 
 remotest suspicion of all that had transpired the night 
 before. Mason Walbridge's acuteness lay in other direc- 
 tions. 
 
 After breakfast Duke went up to his mother's room. 
 She had just arisen, and the girl had brought in a letter 
 with her mistress' coffee. 
 
 Duke saw at once that his mother was excited. She 
 soon placed the letter in his hands. It proved to be one 
 from Mrs. Ashburn, and it announced her niece's engage- 
 ment to a young man, of whom Margaret had sometimes 
 , spoken at their house, as a great favorite in her set ; 
 handsome, accomplished, the very beau-ideal of an elegant, 
 courtly gentleman. Mrs. Ashburn had quite opened her 
 heart to her old friend. " I had hoped, dear Hester," 
 she wrote, " that your boy and my girl would unite our 
 families in one ; but things do not usually turn out in this 
 life after our pet hopes and fancies ; I learned that long 
 ago. Margaret seems very happy in her choice, and her 
 father is satisfied. The young man himself has all those 
 qualities which would be likely, to win the favor of a 
 woman, as he is handsome, cultivated, agreeable, and his 
 wealth, family, and position, are all we could desire for 
 our darling."
 
 370 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Duke laid down the letter, and the mother and son 
 looked at each 'other. 
 
 " It is best as it is, Duke," she said. " Your way is 
 open now, and as Jessamine Holland is your choice, go 
 and win her." 
 
 "Ah, mother, I should like to hear you say it in a 
 different tone from that ! " 
 
 " Sons are not apt to consult their mothers in choosing 
 their wives ; but I will be just at last, Duke. I know of 
 no woman who is so well suited to you ; none, certainly, 
 whom I believe more worthy to be your wife than the one 
 you have chosen. I frankly avow that my prejudices 
 have stood in the way of any very cordial feeling toward 
 her on my part ; still, that was not Miss Holland's fault 
 and and" a flush stole into the lady's cheeks 
 " I shoulfl prefer that my future daughter-in-law should 
 not be acquainted with some facts, which must of neces- 
 sity be explained to her. That again is not her fault, 
 Duke. You will at. least remember, however deeply you 
 may feel for her wrongs, that it is your mother and 
 sisters whom you are to accuse." 
 
 Duke comprehended his mother's feeling, and took in all 
 the pain of his own position. It was a humiliation as keen 
 as possible for the proud woman, to reflect that her son 
 could not press his suit until the maiden of his wooing 
 had first learned how darkly his family had plotted against 
 both. ' 
 
 " Mother, I think you know you can trust me, and 
 and Jessamine Holland does not know the worst. She 
 never will."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 371 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge understood that he alluded to the letter 
 which had been destroyed. Had the girl known that, and 
 Mrs. Walbridge's share in its destruction, it seemed to 
 that lady she could never have looked her in the face 
 not even as Duke's wife. 
 
 Afterward she went on to say, that, as things had turned 
 out, she was glad to hear of Margaret's engagement. % 
 
 She little guessed what share her son had borne in pro- 
 moting that, and no human being ever suspected that only 
 one little moment had stood between Duke Walbridge's 
 asking Margaret Wheatley to be his wife.
 
 372 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE following day, Duke Walbridge went over to the 
 Rents again. A night and a day had calmed and strength- 
 ened him. If the hopes did not sing about his heart like 
 flocks of spring-birds, as they had sung one day long ago, 
 it was not strange. Tie blackness of death had fallen 
 upon Jessamine Holland since that time, and for himself 
 he had passed through such awful shocks of knowledge, 
 and loss, and grief, that the old, high bounding heart of 
 love was slower now. 
 
 Duke Walbridge was not going over to the Kents with 
 any purpose beyond that of making a friendly call on Miss 
 Holland. He found the family out, Mrs. Kent and Mrs. 
 Bray having gone to drive, and Jessamine received him 
 by herself, a little smile flickering out of her lips and 
 eyes as she welcomed him, that was like the old Jessamine 
 Holland, only the smile had such a background of 
 sadness. 
 
 "To-morrow," she said, with considerable animation, 
 " they have promised that I shall accompany them in their 
 drive. It is such a very long time since I was last out 
 doors. It seems'as though it must be years when I look 
 back."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 373 
 
 Her voice faltering, just as her lips did, over the last 
 words. He knew what she was thinking of; but this 
 morning neither spoke of Ross. Their hearts were too 
 full of him. 
 
 " Your friends here, Miss Jessamine, give me nothing 
 to do. I came over here, intending to allure you, if pos- 
 sible, into a short drive with me to-morrow, and here, as 
 usual, I find myself anticipated." 
 
 "You are all very good to me. I am not worth so/ 
 much trouble," she said, sorrowfully, to herself, as those 
 are apt to feel whom some terrible blow has prostrated. 
 
 Duke Walbridge did not reply. He had been wonder- 
 ing all the way, over to the Kents wlltether there would 
 ever come a day on Avhich he should be able to tell Jes- 
 samine Holland that he loved her, when such a humiliating 
 confession must form the preface of his story. What 
 , would she, the high-souled, true-hearted girl feel, when 
 she came to know that foul deceit in which his mother had 
 shared ? Would not the scorn in those bright, sorrowful, 
 rebuking eyes, make his lips dumb when his turn came to 
 plead his own cause ? But as he looked at her that morn- 
 ing, the pale, sweet face, with its loneliness, its youth, its 
 sorrow, for the moment swept off every other thought, 
 and, with a sudden impulse, not stopping to take counsel 
 of judgment or discretion, Duke said. " I read a letter 
 yesterday morning, which contained some tidings that 
 very much surprised me ; I think they would you, also, 
 Miss Holland." 
 
 " What was it, pleasant news? " She had come to 
 feel that all sudden news must be sad.
 
 374 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "Yes; on the whole, I suppose engagements usually 
 are." 
 
 " I suppose so; " and then the poor child remembered 
 one engagement that she had once learned suddenly, and 
 that was anything else but "pleasant" to her. 
 
 Perhaps the shadow of this thought drifted into her 
 face, for fhe young man hastened to say, "This letter 
 was from Mrs. Ashburn to my mother, and announced the 
 engagement of her niece, Margaret Wheatley, with one 
 of the numerous suitors for her hand; " his words slow 
 and distinct, watching the effect of every one. 
 
 Jessamine Holland started, full of quick life now. 
 Her eyes stared and strained at him ; her breath came in 
 swift pants. " How thoroughly they had deceived her ! " 
 thought Duke, a wave of indignation rushing over his 
 soul. That she was dreadfully agitated, and, in her 
 present weak state, scarcely able to control herself, was 
 evident enough. 
 
 11 Margaret Wheatley engaged? " she said, slowly, put- 
 ting her hand to her forehead. " I thought I thought 
 they told me " then she turned and lookecP at him, 
 something wild, hunted, appealing in her look, that he 
 could not bear. 
 
 "I know what they told you;" his voice low and 
 shaken. ' ' As God hears me, there was not one word of 
 truth in it from beginning to end, Jessamine Holland ! " 
 
 He did not dare to look in her face. But he felt her 
 shake all over, and then there came a little kind of choked, 
 gasping cry from her lips ; very low, but it hurt him cruel- 
 ly. Then her face went down in her hands!*" He waited
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 375 
 
 a moment for her to speak. She could not for her life ; 
 and at last, feeling that the time was come, and still with 
 his face turned away from her, he told his story, how 
 the heart of his family had long been set upon Margaret 
 Wheatley, and he stammering there, and blushing like 
 a bashful girl ; and how, at last, his sister Edith God 
 forgive her, for it seemed as though her brother never 
 could had devised a plot to utterly deceive Jessamine 
 Holland, and dragged her younger sister into the passive 
 part which she had taken in the matter ; and how he had, 
 at last, through Mrs. Kent's intimation, unravelled the 
 whole foul thing, with what amazement, indignation, and 
 grief, he left Jessamine to conceive. 
 
 She was silent, as though she had been turned to stone, 
 while he talked-; but he knew somehow that she was taking 
 in every word ; he knew, too, that such a story must be 
 an awful shock to her native honor ajid truthfulness. He 
 wpuld not insult these by trying to smooth over the facts ; 
 and the worst she would never know. There was his 
 letter to her. One secret Duke Walbridge must hold 
 from Jessamine Holland to the day of his death hold it 
 for his mother's sake it might be for Edith's. 
 
 She sat just as still a long time after he had finished. 
 At last he looked up in her face. It was such a changed 
 one, all moved, flushed, quivering with life and warmth. 
 He was a lover he could not help what he did next. 
 He leaned over and touched her hand. "Jessamine," 
 he said, " are you glad, or sorry, to know this? " 
 
 She tried to speak ; but, if any words came to her, they 
 choked in her throat. A sudden happiness swelled and
 
 376 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 thrilled at her heart, the blushes quivered into her face, 
 she looked at him shyly, and a smile, her own little, 
 childlike smile, brimming with joy and sweetness, came 
 and nestled about her mouth. 
 
 The sight mastered him. He leaned over the hand he 
 held. " Jessamine, you must understand why it Avas that 
 my sister descended to take all this sin on her soul 
 that she went ; with this dreadful lie on her lips, to the 
 one Woman whom she thought stood betwixt Margaret 
 Wheatley and me." 
 
 " Duke ! " It was a little, deprecating cry. She 
 did not know what she said. 
 
 More than that low cryVould not have held him back 
 now,, with his soul at flood tide. 
 
 " I knew that you could not fail to understand what I 
 meant that last morning that we passed together. When 
 I came over to see you a day later, it was to place my 
 fate in your hands ; and your refusal to see me convinced 
 me that you ha/l taken that most delicate, if most deadly, 
 way of letting me know that my suit was in vain. I can- 
 not talk of tKat time ; its bitterness only taught me what 
 you had become to me, and it drove me out West 'at 
 last." 
 
 " Duke ! " A low cry like the other, but a little 
 tenderness quivering through it. 
 
 He heard it. "Jessamine, if you had never heard that 
 lie of Edith's, and I had come and asked you that after- 
 noon what was in my heart, should you have let me go 
 away as I did? " 
 
 A little sobbing kind of sigh, but through it atreniulous
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 377 
 
 * 
 
 whisper, that she did not mean to speak, but it breathed 
 up from her heart to her lips. 
 
 " No, Duke." 
 
 Half an hour later, Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Bray returned 
 from their ride. Was that the face they had left behind? 
 Was that the white, settled thing they had been watching 
 for the last month, fearing that the life was fading out of 
 it ? Now a very morning radiance of joy possessed it. 
 The life, and sparkle, and happiness, that shone in the 
 quivering smile, in the shining eyes, seemed like a fresh 
 miracle. 
 
 Hannah Bray, with her blunt, honest homeliness, which 
 at this time served better than anything finer, burst right 
 out with, " What has happened to you, my child ? " 
 
 And Jessamine you must remember how joy as well 
 as sorrow strains heart ana nerve, and the one came for. 
 her close on the other burst into tears. "lam so 
 happy, so happy! " she sobbed. 
 
 Then the two women looked at Duke, and understood. 
 
 Mrs. Bray, the worn face all broken up with feeling, 
 burst out, " Come, young man, I see you've had her 
 ear to yourself quite long enough this morning. You'd 
 better go now, and leave her to get a little quiet. I know 
 her of old, and about how much she can stand." 
 
 Duke sprang up with alacrity. ' ' I will go at once ; 
 but you must make up your mind that I have some rights 
 now, and intend to assert them by coming very soon 
 again." 
 
 Mrs. Kent met him in the hall. He grasped both her 
 
 hands. "0 my friend, how shall I thank you for what 
 
 32
 
 378 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 you did to me that day ! I am the most indebted, as I 
 am the very happiest of men ! " 
 
 "I always felt there was something wrong at the 
 bottom," said the joyful little woman, fairly clapping her 
 hands. " I wish I could tell you, Mr. Walbridge, how 
 sincereiy glad I am how much I congratulate you ! ' ' 
 
 They went into the parlor together, and there it was 
 the lady's right to know he had to tell her the story he 
 had told her friend. It was a second humiliation ; it 
 dashed somewhat the brimming cup of his joy. 
 
 " Duke," said Jessamine, timidly, the next day, when 
 he sat by her side, " Duke, there is one question I want 
 to ask you." 
 
 Really, I do not like to write the reply. It was a 
 lover's, and might not look so well on paper as" some 
 other things, even if they were not a whit more sensible. 
 " Did your mother know what what was said to me 
 that day in our ride ? ' ' 
 
 He bent his head, as reeds by rivers do when sudden 
 storms of wind whirl over them. She was half sorry she 
 had asked him, when she saw his pain ; but he had to tell 
 the truth, softening and excusing wherever he could, and 
 thinking all the time of how much lay behind. 
 
 Then Jessamine Holland spoke like herself. " Ah, 
 Duke, I forgot everything else yesterday, in the great 
 happiness of knowing what I was to you ; but I could never 
 enter a family where I was unwelcome as sister and daugh- 
 ter. I could never be happy, feeling that I was the 
 stranger who had brought pain and disappointment into 
 their midst."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 879 
 
 Duke tried to turn it off with a jest. " Will you doom 
 me to perpetual old bacherlorhood ? There would be no 
 hope for Margaret and me now. if you did not exist." 
 
 There was no denying the force of this argument, yet 
 that fact did not lessen the repugnance Avhich Jessamine's 
 pride and self-respect both felt at the prospect of entering 
 a family who had plotted so long and deeply to keep her 
 out of it. She knew, too, although she did not say it, 
 knew just as well as Duke did, what lay at the bottom 
 of their preference for Margaret Wheatley. 
 
 Duke could not blame her. I think, in his secret soul, 
 he honored Jessamine Holland for the feeling she avowed. 
 It could not interfere with their new-found happiness, 
 with the blissful knowledge that they two loved each 
 other. That was a lifelong truth, before which the 
 memory of all sorrows passed away, ' ' as memories of 
 storms that go down beyond horizons of summer days." 
 
 Even the thought of Ross could hardly cross with a 
 shadow that present joy. It seemed to his sister that his 
 voice came to her out of the dark and the distance, bidding 
 her be happy in the love of his best friend. And she was, 
 and the life and the youth came back to her face once 
 more, and the spring-tides into her soul. 
 
 One day Mrs. Walbridge came to her son, and said, 
 "Duke, I see that it has prospered with you. Tell me 
 all." 
 
 He had waited for his mother to speak first. And now 
 Duke told her all, even of Jessamine's resolve never to 
 force herself an unwelcome member into his family. 
 
 That resolve broke down the last prejudice which Mrs.
 
 380 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Walbridge had cherished against Jessamine Holland. 
 She had her part to do now, and she did it well. She 
 rode over to the Kents, and she took Jessamine Holland 
 in her arms and kissed her. " Come to us, my child, for 
 Duke's sake, and so we shall know you have forgiven us 
 all; and that will be much." 
 
 The ladies parted closer friends than they had ever been 
 before. One night had made a great difference with Mrs. 
 Walbridge. There might not be any change to the world, 
 but secretly she would never be just the woman she had 
 been before that time. 
 
 Edith learned first, through her mother, of the utter 
 failure of her chef d'ceuvre of intrigue, and the dreadful 
 recoil on herself. Whatever she felt, the front she carried 
 was worthy, as I said, the women of the Court of Cath- 
 arine of Medici, the pupil of Machiavel. 
 
 "My plot has utterly miscarried, and I accept the 
 facts," she wrote. " Duke, for whose sake I took so much 
 pains, will probably curse me. That is usually the way, 
 when people go too far to serve their friends. What is it 
 Lady Waldermar says : 
 
 " ' We all do fail and lie, 
 More or less and I'm sorry which is all 
 Expected from us when we fail the most, 
 And go to church to own it.' 
 
 " Duke will have his country lassie now, and as I sup- 
 pose Heaven intended them for each other, I wish him joy 
 of her ; and good as I have proved myself at lying, per- 
 haps he will believe me when I say I've honestly felt sorry 
 for the girl sometimes, since she lost her brother, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 381 
 
 wished I'd not tried to interfere with Providence, even 
 when I thought half a million of dollars hung upon a few 
 foolish lies; for let us be honest, mamma that was 
 really at the bottom* with us all. Jessamine Holland is 
 as fit a wife for Duke as any young woman could possibly 
 be who is poor. I can see the blackness of his face as he 
 reads that; but sinners such as he holds me are des- 
 perate, and a few words more or less make no difference." 
 The letter closed with the announcement of Edith's 
 intention to accompany a party of friends to Havana to 
 pass the winter. She drew very vivid pictures of gaye- 
 ties and splendors to come ; but, with all her effrontery, 
 the girl shrank from the thought of meeting the face of 
 her brother, or of Jessamine Holland, for a while. And 
 her mother's approval of the journey, which in the Wai- 
 bridge family meant that of most of the others, settled 
 the matter.
 
 382 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A COUPLE of weeks had passed. One morning Duke 
 Walbridge sat alone in his father's private office, think- 
 ing the thoughts of a young man, whose life and future 
 are no longer solely his own. He was full of hope, 
 strength, ardor, now; of dreams, work, and help for 
 others. The moods and the discords seemed to have 
 passed out of his life in these last weeks, which had 
 brimmed with happiness for him, for Jessamine also. 
 
 Each was wise enough to speak little of what was 
 painful in the past ; but the present joy measured for 
 both the depth of the old anguish. Once or twice, in 
 some little pause, when she sat by his side, Jessamine 
 had caught hold of Duke's arm with a sudden movement 
 of terror : " Duke, I thought once I had lost you, 
 lost you forever for this world ! " 
 
 Those words and fyiat movement showed him all she 
 had suffered ; and that thought always hardened his heart 
 toward Edith, toward his mother even, as the memory 
 of his own anguish never did. 
 
 But, even though some shadows must tremble among 
 Jessamine's joy, still, how great the blessedness was, you 
 had only to look into her face to know. The pale pink
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 383 
 
 glow had come to her rounded cheeks, and her eyes shone 
 out of their old, bright depths. 
 
 As for Mrs. Kent, she was as happy as an impulsive, 
 warm-hearted, sympathetic young matron could possibly 
 be over the happiness of her dearest friend. And Mrs. 
 Bray had won a promise from Duke to bring Jessamine 
 up to her old home for at least a week next summer, and 
 returned herself, the true, warm heart, under the homely 
 face, content for her foster-child. 
 
 At his own home everything went smoothly. Eva 
 was fairly wild with joy over the prospect of having 
 Jessamine Holland for a sister-in-law, and, hanging 
 about her brother as usual, said, ' ' I always knew she 
 was the right one for you, Duke. Oh, I am so 
 glad ! " 
 
 As for Gertrude and Kate, their dislike had been 
 merely stimulated by others, and as soon as Margaret 
 Wheatley's engagement had transpired, the girls, who 
 really were" attached to Jessamine Holland, were quite 
 willing Duke should follow his own tastes. 
 
 So, indeed, was his father, who had a lurking feel- 
 ing that his son had been badly treated by the banker's 
 daughter, and endeavored to console what he fancied 
 must be his wife's keen disappointment. 
 
 "The money was a good thing, no doubt, my dear, 
 but I dare say. the boy is well quit of it. I've often ob- 
 served that men who marry a fortune seldom get much 
 comfort from it." 
 
 " Mr. Walbridge," said his wife, wincing under this 
 talk, "I am sorry to find that you think me governed
 
 384 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 entirely by mercenary motives. If our son is happy, I 
 am satisfied." 
 
 There was an astonishing discrepancy betwixt this talk 
 and some that Mr. "Walbridge had listened to a long time 
 ago in that very room. He was silent, however, think- 
 ing that his wife's pride and affection had both been 
 wounded by Margaret's conduct, and that this fact had 
 affected the change in her sentiments. So little did the 
 man suspect the drama that had gone on in his own 
 household. That very day his eldest daughter had sailed 
 for Cuba, a trip that, despite all her mother's influence, 
 he had never cordially approved. 
 
 "Walbridge!" 
 
 Not a loud voice, just behind him, as Duke sat there 
 at his father's desk, but one which seemed to echo away 
 down from distant slopes of the years. He sprang up 
 and turned around. There the speaker stood, a rather 
 stout, youngish man, with a face darkly browned by for- 
 eign suns, a thick beard. 
 
 Duke stared, and for the moment did not recognize the 
 stranger. But, as the latter stretched out both his hands, 
 some strong feeling came into his eyes. 
 
 The voice, the eyes, flashed over Duke; his face 
 turned white as a dying man's ; he leaned back against 
 the wall. " Ross Holland ! Ross Holland ! " staring at 
 the figure, as he would upon a risen ghost. "0 my 
 God!" 
 
 Duke spoke that name not irreverently ; but as we all 
 may, turning in the human anguish of an awful joy or
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 385 
 
 sorrow to the eternal Love and Power, greater than 
 ourselves. 
 
 " Yes, it is I, whole and sound ; although I came close 
 enough to making a meal for the fish in the Indian Sea. 
 Ah, Walbridge ! don't stare at me like that ; give me a 
 welcome, old fellow." . 
 
 Then, at last, what would Eva have said at such a 
 scene between two men ? Duke actually took the stout 
 figure in his arms and hugged and kissed it ; but all he 
 could say ,. was, the tears running over his cheeks, "0 
 Ross Holland ! Boss Holland ! " 
 
 Young Holland was as much overcome as his friend. 
 He returned the hugging in earnest. " Old fellow, 
 it's good to see you ! " he sobbed. 
 
 " But I thought you were dead ! " cried Duke, hold- 
 ing the other out at arm's-length, and laughing and cry- 
 ing together, and not even ashamed of himself. 
 
 "So did I," answered Ross. " But you see I wasn't. 
 I'm good for a strong tussle yet with fate." 
 
 " And Jessamine. It will kill her, Ross, the joy 
 will kill her ! " 
 
 " I was afraid of that. When we got into New York 
 I learned the shipwreck had gone over the country ; so I 
 didn't telegraph, but I took the next train, and made a 
 rush from the depot to find you, and to decide how I 
 should make myself known to her." 
 
 " Sit down a moment, my dear fellow, so my eyes can 
 look at you while we make our plans." 
 
 But it was impossible to sit still. Both were excited, 
 and one so hungry for a sight of his sister. In a few 
 33
 
 386 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 words the young man related the main facts of his ship- 
 wreck. The vessel went to pieces in the terrific storm. 
 For a day and two nights Ross had clung to a raft, 
 swift, black waves going over and slowly drowning the 
 life out of him ; torturing thirst and gnawing hunger 
 making him almost long to die ; ^nd at last his memory 
 went down in blank unconsciousness. There were three 
 others on the raft with himself, and all made up their 
 minds that they saw the sun rise for the last time, when 
 it came up and found them still on the raft -the second 
 morning. But before noon a brig came in sight. Sig- 
 nals brought her to their help. When Ross was lifted 
 into the vessel, the men doubted whether it were not 
 a dead man's body whom they took on board. But 
 prompt and diligent care soon brought signs of life, 
 and Ross woke up to find he was in the world once 
 more. 
 
 The brig which had rescued Ross and his companions 
 was a French vessel from China, bound for Havre. They 
 had a slow, stormy passage. Ross reached port just in 
 time to seize the next steamer for America, so no let- 
 ters could be despatched in advance of himself. Late 
 the night before he had landed on his native shores. 
 
 "Those awful days and nights on the raft in that 
 black sea ! They seemed longer than all the rest of my 
 life ! " and Ross shuddered. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " Duke's hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " I thought of Jessamine, and what she would do with- 
 out me ! And then I thought of you, and of that last 
 promise you made me. I could trust you entirely, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 887 
 
 yet do your best you could not quite be her brother, 
 Duke." There were tears in his eyes. 
 
 " No ; " a smile coming into his face. " I tried that, 
 Ross, and it wouldn't go. I found that Jessamine Hol- 
 land could not be my sister." 
 
 " Why not ? What do you mean ? " asked Ross, quite 
 bewildered. 
 
 " I mean that you and I are to be brothers, Ross." 
 
 In a moment the young man understood. It was the 
 happiest hour of Ross's life. They wrung each other's 
 hands until both shoulders ached. 
 
 " There is nothing in the world could have given me 
 so much joy," said Ross, over and over. "Is it so ? " 
 
 "Ask Jessamine, if you doubt my word," laughed 
 Duke. 
 
 " Come, we must start this minute. There's no time . 
 to be lost ; only, Duke, tell me, how did she bear the tid- 
 ings when they came ? ' ' 
 
 "It well-nigh killed her, Ross ! " 
 
 " I knew it would my poor darling ! " 
 
 "I was out West at the time. I hurried straight 
 back. That was before I found her looking as though 
 she would soon go in search of you. Ah, Ross, I had 
 learned long ago what she could not be to me, by the 
 measure of what she could ! One day, not meaning to 
 tell her, sitting by her side, it all came out. Since then 
 she has grown herself again." 
 
 And that was all Ross ever knew of the long darkness 
 which had fallen into the lives of both, and of the plot 
 of which each had so long been the victim.
 
 388 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 It was settled that Duke should ride out to the Kents 
 with his friend, and in some measure, if possible, pre- 
 pare Jessamine for what was to come. So the lover and 
 brotherj equally impatient, sprang into a carriage and 
 drove away. 
 
 It was a fortunate circumstance that Mrs. Kent hap- 
 pened to be in the front hall that morning as Duke Wai- 
 bridge entered it. The lady came forward to greet him 
 and his friend, fancying, from his bronzed complexion, 
 that the latter was some old travelling companion of 
 young Walbridge's. 
 
 As soon as the lady had ushered her guests into the 
 parlor, Duke took her hand, saying, " Can you bear a 
 great and joyful surprise, my dear Mrs. Kent? " 
 
 " I hope so ; " looking from one gentleman to the other 
 in amazement. 
 
 " Then let me introduce to you now this gentleman, 
 my friend, and Jessamine's brother, Mr. Ross Holland." 
 
 At that name she turned white, and staggered against 
 a chair. Both the gentlemen had no easy time to calm 
 her, for amazement and joy threw her almost into 
 hysterics. 
 
 But at last she could hold Ross Holland's hand in her 
 own, and gaze at the brown, bearded face through her 
 tears. Then she started and cried, "There is Jessa- 
 mine. If it should come too suddenly, it must kill her." 
 And she glanced toward the door in a fright. 
 . " Where is she ? " whispered Duke. 
 
 " Upstairs, in the sitting-room. But she is liable to run 
 down any moment. Somebody must go to her at once."
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 889 
 
 11 1 will," answered Duke. "You stay here, Ross, 
 with Mrs. Kent, and I will try and prepare her." 
 
 Great was Jessamine Holland's amazement to see her 
 friend enter the sitting-room unannounced. 
 
 " You see I am quite at home here ; " taking a seat by 
 her, and explaining how he had met Mrs. Kent in the 
 hall, and she had sent him upstairs, where he would 
 find Miss Holland. 
 
 Then he went on to say, "Now I am certain you 
 are curious to know what can have brought me over 
 here at this unconscionable hour of the morning." 
 
 " A little, I confess. Are you ready to tell me? " 
 
 " Nothing bad, at least." 
 
 " I saw that by your face." 
 
 But his heart beat so loud at his throat, that he 
 actually had to stop here and go to talking of other 
 matters. 
 
 At last he made a fresh attempt. ' ' Jessamine, you 
 and I do not. talk of of our brother." 
 
 " No ; " the sweetness of her face going down in sor- 
 row. " There is no need, when we always think of 
 him." 
 
 ' ' There is a question I would like to ask you about 
 him." 
 
 " Don't be afraid, Duke." 
 
 " Has it ever, in the remotest way, occurred to you 
 that that tliere was a slight chance he might be 
 alive?" 
 
 He felt her start and quiver all over. 
 
 " Ross alive ! Duke ! "
 
 390 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 He took her hand. " Be quiet, now, my dear girl. 
 I only mean to say that I have sometimes entertained 
 some hopes. You know that in a shipwreck people are 
 often saved, and come to light long after they are given 
 over for dead. Ross was a wonderful swimmer, and 
 could keep above water where most men would go down." 
 
 "But why have you never told me this before, 
 Duke?" 
 
 "I feared to awaken false hopes, Jessamine; but I 
 have just learned some facts which give me a hope " 
 
 She was off her feet in an instant, clutching at his 
 arm, the wild, hungry look in her eyes. 
 
 " A hope that Ross is living ! You know something, 
 Duke I see it in your face ! ' ' 
 
 She was trembling all over. 
 
 " There, dear child, be calm, or I shall not dare go on." 
 
 She sat down then ; and though she shook in every 
 limb, and her lips were very white, she said, "I will. 
 Go on." 
 
 It was hard for Duke, with those eyes on his face, 
 thinking who was below stairs all the while; but he 
 managed to say, ' ' I saw a person who was on the ship- 
 wrecked vessel. He knew Ross ; and it was his opinion 
 that he did not go down with the others." 
 
 " my God, my God ! " in just the way Duke had 
 said it before that morning. 
 
 She wrung her hands. The tears poured down her 
 cheeks. Then her hungry eyes went up to Duke's face 
 again. "Where is this person? There is something 
 more than you tell me, Duke ! "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 391 
 
 " If you would not look at me, and tremble like this, 
 Jessamine ! It frightens me." 
 
 "There, now, tell me." Ashen white she put both 
 her hands in his. " Tell me," she said again. 
 
 " I have seen the person. I have brought him.here 
 and and ' ' 
 
 Not his words, but something in his face, struck her. 
 "Had he seen Ross?" she cried out, sharply. 
 
 And Duke did not dare answer, and then she knew. 
 In an instant, and with a shriek that reached the 
 listening people below, she tore herself away from him. 
 She rushed along the stairs, and Duke, following after, 
 shouted to her to come back. 
 
 ' f Run ! run ! " screamed Mrs. Kent to Ross. 
 But it was too late. Before he could turn, Jessamine 
 bounded into the room. She saw the brown, bearded 
 stranger who stood there, and he saw the little sister 
 whom he had left six long years before, in the shadow 
 of Hannah Bray's veranda ; and the face, a little riper 
 and maturer, wore still the old charm and sweetness 
 which he had carried in his heart over sounding seas, and 
 amid hot Indian jungles, in the silences of the desert and 
 amid the thick swarms of foreign cities, the face that 
 had been a guardian angel about him, keeping his 
 thoughts sweet and his life pure amid fierce temptations ; 
 the face that always seemed close by him in his prayer 
 at night. the old boyhood's prayer for himself and her ; 
 the face that he had not forgotten when he cried to 
 God out of the great peril of the deep. At the sight of 
 it now, turned up to him in its white agitation, the young
 
 392 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 man's long self-control utterly broke down. He put out 
 his arms with a cry : " Jessamine, my sister ! ; ' 
 
 One long, sobbing shriek of passionate doubt and joy, 
 and she sank into her brother's arms, and was gathered 
 up a white heap to his heart. 
 
 The joy did not kill her. Three or four evenings 
 later, the three, with Mr. and Mrs. Kent, were all 
 assembled in the parlor, as happy a company as one 
 could often find together in this world, the happiest 
 face of all, that of Jessamine Holland, which three of 
 the four actually thought the most beautiful thing in the 
 world ! They had been talking in a light, merry vein, 
 as people do whose hearts brim over with deep feeling. 
 Jessamine sat before the two young men, feasting her 
 never-sated eyes on her brother. 
 
 ' ' You dear boy, those Indian suns have made dread- 
 ful work with your complexion ! " she said. 
 
 " It was the sea, more than the sun. But it makes 
 very little difference. When a fellow comes home, after 
 half-a-dozen years' absence, and finds somebody else has 
 stepped as snugly into his shoes as you have into mine, 
 Walbridge, he isn't apt to feel very much the loss of his 
 complexion. Mine, at the best, was never much to 
 boast of." 
 
 "Yes, it was. Ask Hannah Bray," replied Jessa- 
 mine, who was laughing, and glowing a good deal over 
 her brother's personal remarks. 
 
 Ross, who always enjoyed a joke mercilessly, pursued 
 the subject. "Ah, little sister, do you remember how 
 often you have promised never to love anybody so well as 

 
 THE HOLLANDS. 393 
 
 your brother ; and do you remember, too, the cottage we 
 were to have? Alas, for the frailty of a fellow's hopes ! 
 For six years, under blazing Indian suns, that cottage 
 was before me, the goal of all my future. It went 
 down into my dreams at night, and rose with me in the 
 morning, and I've come home at last to find it was all 
 moonshine." 
 
 "No, it was not," answered Duke, coming to Jessa- 
 mine's rescue. " The cottage is a fixed fact in the 
 future, veranda and balconies, shrubberies and all. And 
 Ross Holland is to be the most important member of the 
 household under its roof." 
 
 Then Jessamine broke out, playfully : " How in the 
 world can I ever have the care of two such big fellows on 
 my hands? It's an awful responsibility." 
 
 " I'm coming to help you, dear, as often as I can coax 
 my husband into granting me leave of absence," added 
 Mrs. Kent. 
 
 "If that's all, you will see her very often," rejoined 
 the gentleman ; "for she has a way of coaxing me into 
 everything she wants." 
 
 "It strikes me, at this moment," continued Ross, 
 " that the very best thing I can do is to follow Jessa- 
 mine's example. Ah, Walbridge, if that little sister of 
 yours, whose withered flowers I kept all these years for her 
 sake and yours, were only a little older ! But I can wait." 
 
 " I wish you joy of the waiting, Holland; and there 
 is just one man in the world to whom I could willingly 
 give up my little Eva. She has been able to talk of 
 nothing in the world but yourself since your return;
 
 394 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and once she sorrowed over you as did only Jessamine 
 and I. You are all invited there to-morrow to dinner, 
 as you know." 
 
 So the talk went, gayly oftenest, and sometimes 
 grave ; and Jessamine, listening, thought there was one 
 thing more in the world, that would make her exquisitely 
 glad, and that was, if her little favorite could ever be 
 what Duke had said. She had never thought of this 
 before ; but she knew Ross and Eva thoroughly, and it 
 struck her now how singularly, in many respects, they 
 were adapted to each other. 
 
 In the midst of all these things, company called on the 
 host and hostess; so the three young people were left 
 alone together. 
 
 " Ross, you have written to Hannah Bray? " 
 
 "Yes; this morjiing. I promised to run up for a 
 couple of days next week, if you could possibly be pre- 
 vailed on to spare me ! " 
 
 " You shall take me along, Ross. Dear, faithful old 
 heart ! How it will bound at the sight of you ! " 
 
 Duke was silent a long time, looking from the sister 
 to the brother; at last Ross said, "Well, Walbridge, 
 what are you thinking? " 
 
 " Shall I tell him, Jessamine? " getting up and going 
 to the girl, and laying his hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I was thinking of these words, and, setting them apart 
 from all others, of the tender, and beautiful, and sacred 
 meanings which ought to lie in them for every man, ' The 
 woman whom Thou gavest to be with me! ' "
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 395 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 AMID all the happiness which brimmed over the golden 
 rim of these days for Duke Walbridge, he was haunted 
 by the thought of the banker's young under-clerk, whose 
 crime had interposed between himself and that one 
 moment which Duke could hardly contemplate without a 
 shudder, thinking always more of Jessamine than of 
 himself. 
 
 It was singular, and yet hardly to be sundered at, when 
 one thinks how his fate in the banker's splendid parlor, 
 with the beautiful daughter beaming at his side, had hung 
 on an instant, that Duke Walbridge. being the man he 
 was, felt a profound sympathy for that young boy, whose 
 evil deed had wrought his own great happiness. It came 
 upon him, too, sometimes, with awful force, how Edith's 
 plot, rash and bold as it was wicked, and impossible to suc- 
 ceed as he should have deemed it in another's case, had 
 barely failed of a triumphant issue in his own. He saw, 
 too, how the fatal words, having once been spoken, and he 
 Margaret Wheatley's accepted and acknowledged lover, 
 there was not the smallest probability that either Jessa- 
 mine or himself would ever have learned the plot, of which 
 each had been made the dupe.
 
 396 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Mrs. Walbridge and her elder daughters must have 
 been haunted at times by an under consciousness, anything 
 but pleasant, of the means which they had employed to reach 
 the golden goal of Margaret Wheatley's hand; but a con- 
 fession, which would only overwhelm them with shame and 
 involve cruel wrong to three others when too late to repair 
 it, would never have entered their minds. 
 
 There were plenty of arguments, too, which would fur- 
 nish more or less self-justification to all concerned in 
 bringing about Duke's marriage. 
 
 As for his own share in the matter, he saw clearly 
 enough how that must have gone. 
 
 Once Margaret Wheatley's affianced husband, con- 
 science and honor, as well as his own peace of mind, 
 would have influenced him to make the best of the facts ; 
 to forget as far^as possible his love and his disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 All this would have been cordially promoted by his 
 family ; and the knowledge of the delight which his choice 
 afforded to all those whom he loved best could not have 
 been without its effect upon him. 
 
 His affections were vital things ; but a brave soul always 
 girds itself to front the inevitable. Duke Walbridge was 
 not the man to go through life miserable, because a woman 
 whom he loved had rejected him ; but, for all that, 
 the pain must have gone to the quick, and its secret state 
 would have driven him desperate, impelled him to con- 
 summate matters at once; and his family, dreading the 
 possibility of awkward developments, would have been 
 equally desirous of the happy finale. "All for Duke's
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 397 
 
 
 
 good, " each would have told the other, and more or less 
 believed it. 
 
 Before that time there would, no doubt, have been the 
 splendid wedding, the glitter and gorgeousness, the 
 array of bridal gifts ; and Duke Walbridge would have 
 been the envied husband of the banker's beautiful heiress. 
 
 Always at the end of this shining perspective, which 
 haunted Duke's soul in solitary hours of the night and 
 day, there stood a vague, young, mournful figure, the one 
 which had interposed between him and that moment in 
 which he was ready for the fatal leap, " the figure of 
 a criminal ; but his good angel, for all that," Duke 
 thought. 
 
 So his curiosity and interest grew ; side by side with 
 them in his thought and heart, a yearning desire to serve 
 in some way, the unhappy stranger of whom he knew so 
 little and so much. 
 
 The result was, that one morning Duke made up his 
 mind to go to New York for a day or two. What he 
 should do, when he got there, he left circumstances to 
 determine. 
 
 He found on the train Ross Holland, who came up to 
 the Rents every spare moment that he had. The ladies 
 were there also, having driven over with him to the train. 
 Great was the surprise of the trio on seeing Duke enter, 
 duly equipped with carpet-bag and overcoat. 
 
 He explained briefly that some business was taking him 
 off, for a day or two, to the city ; and a few moments of 
 merry talk and jest ensued before the bell rang, and the 
 adieux had to be spoken.
 
 398 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 m 
 
 In the midst of these, as the gentleman handed the 
 ladies from the cars, a thought struck Jessamine that she 
 was blessed above most women in such a brother, and such 
 a lover, and then a swift memory leaped upon her of the 
 time, not long ago, when both were lost to her. 
 
 She turned upon the young men her last smile, but she 
 did not know that its unutterable tenderness was burdened 
 with the awful memory at her heart, and that both brother 
 and lover saw, as though she had spoken ; and for a long 
 time after they resumed their seats each was silent, 
 thinking of that look with which Jessamine had smiled 
 her good-by. 
 
 At last the prospective brothers-in-law fell to talking, 
 comparing notes of the different parts of the world each 
 had seen. 
 
 Ross was full of stories of life in India, vigorous and 
 racy. Duke wondered how the fellow had kept so alert 
 and keen during, those long years, no sign of rust in 
 thought or wit, and at last, he said to young Holland, 
 " I always supposed the most people could do, was to keep 
 up life at all in that hot. sleepy peninsula ; but you seem 
 to have been keen on the scent with books and people, as 
 though you'd been braced up in NCAV England all this 
 time." 
 
 Ross laughed. " It was hard work, though, rowing 
 against wind and tide, but I wouldn't let the helm go. 
 
 ' The truth was, Walbridge, I saw what lazy, sleepy, 
 bilious nabobs the climate turned out of the foreign resi- 
 dents in the course of a few years, and I said to myself, 
 ' Young man, look sharply to what wits you've got.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 399 
 
 Don't you go to lounging and mooning like the rest of 
 'em ; but just stick to your books all your spare hours, 
 as you used to in the little law-office, so that when you go 
 back, you won't be such a " John-a-dreams," your sister 
 will blush for you ; ' and I did it through thick and thin. 
 
 "As for society, there was no lack of that; rather a 
 surfeit, you see, what with the English and American 
 residents." 
 
 " What grit there must be in the Holland grain ! " ex- 
 claimed Duke, looking affectionately at his friend, who 
 laughed and said he should repeat "that ambiguous 
 compliment and mixed metaphor to Jessamine." 
 
 Through all the journey, Duke felt some doubts lest he 
 had started off on a very Quixotic errand. The whole 
 matter to himself was one of feeling, rather than of 
 judgment. " How would it look in the eyes of any dis- 
 interested, sensible man, like Ross here, for instance ? " he 
 wondered, a sudden impulse coming, over him to tell the 
 object of his journey to his friend, suppressing, of course, 
 that part which concerned himself and Margaret Wheat- 
 ley. 
 
 Ross, at the core of him, was one of the softest-hearted 
 fellows in the world ; but he had his theories cut and dried, 
 and they were a young man's, and partook also of the 
 original ' ' setness ' ' of his character. 
 
 His residence in India, also, had gone far to confirm 
 his creed. He could not fail to see there a great deal of 
 the worst side of human nature, its cowardice, baseness, 
 vileness. Ross brought every instance to his own rule, 
 and squared it there. He held that honor must be native
 
 400 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and absolute with men. If a soul slipped once, there was 
 small hope of its getting on its feet again, and staying 
 there. 
 
 Young Holland listened silently, losing no word of 
 his friend's story ; and when his answer came, it was part- 
 ly of the heart, partly of the creed. 
 
 " You are a grand fellow, Duke, and it doesn't come 
 easy to me to throw cold water on a generous act. But 
 I fear it's all time and trouble thrown away. If this 
 young fellow had had moral backbone, he wouldn't have 
 gone down so easily. 
 
 " I' ve seen something of human life in the last half- 
 dozen years, you know, and if the taint is in the blood 
 and marrow, why, there it is sure to come out, like 
 any disease. Set such people on their feet, and down 
 they'll go again, over and over not spine enough to 
 stan'd upright." 
 
 " Very likely Ross had the best of it," Duke thought. 
 Then he remembered all he had held back from his friend, 
 and that might have modified this reply. 
 
 In the noise and crowd of the depot where the young 
 men parted half an hour later, Ross wished his friend 
 ' ' God speed, ' ' hoping the boy would prove an exception to 
 his class ; but Duke saw that Ross had very little faith in 
 the result. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon ; but young Walbridge hur- 
 ried at once to the banker's office. One of the head clerks, 
 whom the former knew, had been detained that evening. 
 After a little brief talk on general topics, Duke managed 
 to introduce the subject which alone interested him.
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 401 
 
 il Oh, you mean Barclay ! " said the clerk, slipping his 
 pen behind his ear. ' ' A good-hearted, well-meaning lit- 
 tle fellow as ever lived, but no experience, and the city 
 proved too much for him bad company debts, and 
 went down in the maelstrom ; old story, you know ; " and 
 the man shook his head. " One must make examples. 
 Paid for his crime dearly though ; shut up in the Tombs 
 all this time, awaiting his trial." 
 
 ''What! hasn't, that come off yet?" asked Duke, 
 amazed. He had supposed the boy had long since been 
 sentenced, and was serving out his time in the State's 
 Prison. 
 
 It proved, however, on further inquiry, that there had 
 been, to use the clerk's phrase, "some hitch in getting 
 hold of the right witnesses," so that the boy, after his ex- 
 amination, had been detained in the Tombs. 
 
 "Matters were in the right train now," to quote the 
 clerk again, and the trial was expected to come off the 
 day after to-morrow. 
 
 These were substantially all the facts which Duke 
 elicited from the clerk. He left the office resolved to call 
 at the Tombs the next morning. 
 
 Of the two hours next day, in that bare, solitary room 
 with its barred windows, where the young life that had 
 miscarried itself so fatally had been imprisoned for all 
 these months, it would almost take another book to tell 
 fairly. Duke Walbridge and Tom Barclay know, and that 
 is enough ; but neither of these will ever be likely to say 
 much about it. 
 
 Duke found a small, wiry youth, with pale yellow hair, 
 34
 
 402 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 and a dawn of yellow beard on his chin ; a good face 
 enough, pale with long confinement and trouble. What- 
 ever boldness and evil were latent there, the years would 
 have to confirm. 
 
 A gust of pity swept over young Walbridge, which for 
 the time bore down all the doubts and fears of his better 
 judgment, as the two whose lines had so mysteriously 
 crossed each other stood alone in the dark, bare, silent 
 Tombs. . 
 
 Of course the boy meant to be on his guard. His coun- 
 sel, such as he had been able to employ, had warned him 
 about \hat, but his solitude and loneliness had borne very 
 heavily on him, and he had so very few friends, while 
 Duke's personal magnetism made the impression on 
 Tom Barclay that it did on most people. 
 
 The whole miserable story from beginning to end was 
 gone over. It is so very common as not to possess one 
 striking feature. The new city life, the inadequate salary, 
 the small debts incurred here and there, the first attempts 
 at gambling, the gains and the losses; the little debts 
 swelling into a large aggregate, the demands of creditors, 
 the despair and desperation, and, at last, the only door out 
 of them, which opened so easily, and which it seemed 
 would open so readily for the boy to return again, the 
 door of crime. 
 
 " If I had only died ! If I had only died ! " moaned 
 the boy, rocking himself back and forth, his face in his 
 hands. 
 
 Duke looked at the poor fellow with unutterable sym- 
 pathy, yet he felt that, if there was any hope for this
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 403 
 
 boy's future, the ploughshare must go now to the roots of 
 his life, and he must not spare for the writhing and the 
 agony. " Had you nobody who loved you ?" he asked; 
 "no mother or sister to whom the knowledge of your 
 crime would be worse than that of your death? " 
 
 The boy looked up ; something like a gleam of joy came 
 into the haggard face. " I had a sister," he said, "three 
 years younger than I ; she was all I had in the world, and 
 I was her love and pride. She was a sweet, gentle, trust- 
 ing little thing, and she died three months before this 
 happened. Ruth ! Ruth ! it would have killed you 
 if you had known it ! " 
 
 The next morning Duke called at the banker's office. 
 He was by no means a stranger to the large, pleasant 
 room, with its dark walnut panellings, and its great sub- 
 stantial office table, and chairs in oak and green morocco. 
 
 He found the owner here, an elderly man, with a kind 
 of, Roman head and sparse gray hair, portly, prosperous, 
 and patronizing ; a man about the age of Duke's father, 
 and a good deal after his type. Young Walbridge was 
 always certain of a cordial welcome at the banker's. 
 After the two had gone around the circle of personal and 
 family topics, Duke, fearing some interruption, for time 
 was precious on both sides now, at once opened his errand. 
 
 At the first mention of Tom Barclay's name the 
 elder gentleman knit his gray brows and stroked his tufts 
 of whiskers in anything but an encouraging manner, for 
 his former office-boy. Yet he listened courteously, but 
 Duke saw, wholly sceptical, to the end. 
 
 Yet the elder was not in the worst sense a hard-hearted
 
 404 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 man. He had, it is true, no profound faith in human na- 
 ture, his experience not tending to develop that; but 
 that he was just and honorable everybody who had deal- 
 ings with the banker admitted. 
 
 " Duke,"- when the younger paused, " you are my 
 friend, and so I'd gladly oblige you by letting this young 
 scamp go scot-free ; but in the end it would be doing you 
 and him no favor. 
 
 "You are a soft-hearted fellow, and young Barclay has 
 come round you with the pathetic dodge. You cannot make 
 rotten timber sound, sir. When you've lived as long as 
 I have, you'll find that out. I honor the motive which 
 has sent you here on the fellow's behalf; but he did a 
 dishonest act with eyes wide open, and there is no use in 
 bolstering him up. He'll be sure to go down again, and 
 we owe it to society to let the law take the fangs out of 
 him." 
 
 Duke had foreseen this line of argument. That it 
 was largely true he was ready to admit, and having con- 
 ceded so much to the riper wisdom of his friend, he pro- 
 ceeded with his own view of the case. 
 
 Of course it would be quite impossible to go over with 
 that two hours' talk between the elderly man and the 
 younger one. Had Duke pleaded Tom Barclay's cause 
 less eloquently, or had he been at bottom less a favorite 
 with the banker, he would never have carried his point. 
 
 There was some force in Duke's reasoning, that the 
 long time in which the boy had been in the Tombs await- 
 ing his trial, was, in itself, no small punishment. "At 
 any rate, my dear sir," Duke entreated, "give me a
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 405 
 
 chance to try the boy. It is, as you say. an experiment, 
 and it loay prove a worthless one. I will risk it, not 
 for the boy's sake, but for iny own. Give me a chance 
 for his life." 
 
 u Well, Duke, my boy, you've put it in the only way 
 to carry weight with me ; but the young scoundrel de-' 
 serves no pity. Such a barefaced crime too! How in 
 the world did he happen to get hold of you? " 
 
 Duke wavered a moment, and then thought the truth 
 was best, so far as he had told it to Ross Holland. 
 
 " The facts are, I was at your house on the evening of 
 the boy's arrest, and had the whole story from Marga- 
 ret's lips. It has haunted me ever since, and yesterday 
 I learned, to my surprise, that this boy, still in the Tombs, 
 awaited his trial. I visited him there, for the first and 
 only time, yesterday morning." 
 
 The banker was more astonished than ever. " Had 
 the story from Margaret," he repeated. " Was that all 
 you knew of him 2 " 
 
 " That was all, Mr. Wheatley.'J 
 
 The banker mused a moment, and then he spoke : 
 " Well, Duke, you are a good fellow, and, for your sake, 
 I will make a fool of myself. The boy shall have an- 
 other chance ; but mind what I say now. he will abuse 
 it by getting into another scrape." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, thank you, sir ! If young Barclay 
 makes a second slip, and I feel by no means secure of 
 him, you will, at least, remember that for one day you 
 made me a happy man." 
 
 And the two men grasped hands warmly.
 
 406 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 Afterward there were details to be arranged. Duke 
 had learned all the broad bearings of Thomas Barclay's 
 case. There was one witness whose testimony would be 
 vital in the matter, and without which his crime could 
 not be brought home to the prisoner. 
 
 The banker could with ease secure the absence of this 
 witness, and with good counsel on his side the acquit- 
 tal of Tom Barclay before judge and jury would be 
 assured. 
 
 "Capital fellow, that Duke Walbridge ! " murmured 
 the banker, as the young man left the office; "should 
 have preferred him vastly to any other young man for a 
 son-in-law; but fathers and daughters' choices of hus- 
 bands do not usually correspond ; ' ' fancying Margaret 
 must have had the matter entirely in her own hands. 
 
 "Ah, my dear sir, if it had not been for this Tom 
 Barclay, shut up in the Tombs, you would for a dead cer- 
 tainty have been my father-in-law," thought Duke to 
 himself, as he left the office. " What. would you say if 
 you knew it was gratitude for my escape from that honor 
 which led me to take all this trouble? " 
 
 Duke felt almost, for the moment, as though he had 
 taken some underhand advantage of the old man's friend- 
 ship ; but, after all, his conscience was clean, and with 
 this reflection he started at once in quest of a lawyer. 
 
 Six months have passed. It is just at that time when 
 May and June meet together, and the earth has adorned 
 herself with the fresh glory of leaves and blossoms, and
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 407 
 
 the very air is solemn with incense, atnd the sky above is 
 holy i^rith smile and blessing over the bridal of spring 
 and summer. 
 
 In the little alcove parlor at Mrs. Kent's, Jessamine 
 Holland sits alone with the sunny afternoon, and tells 
 herself that at this very time to-morrow she will be Jes- 
 samine Holland no longer. 
 
 The fair, delicate face shines with a great internal hap- 
 piness ; but it is not the bright joyfulness of one who 
 has never been calmed and steadied by a great sorrow. 
 
 If her thoughts go back into the years, they fall 
 among the heavy shadows of her youth, and the radiant 
 horizons of her future seem just now to fairly dazzle and 
 blind her ; and the present, touched by both past and fu- 
 ture, seems like a soft twilight, where she likes best to 
 linger for this hour. 
 
 "How good it is to be alone." she thinks, "after 
 a,ll these days of busy stir and excitement over the wed- 
 ding preparations ! " Through all, that dear Mrs. Kent, 
 who had her share in bringing the whole about, has been 
 in her element, taking everything into her own hands, 
 and arranging things mostly her own way. 
 
 In one case, however, Jessamine has had hers. Mrs. 
 Kent wanted to indulge herself in an ambitious wedding ; 
 but Jessamine pleaded so hard for a quiet, unpretending 
 bridal, that the former had to yield, and consent to no 
 guests outside of the "Walbridge family and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bray. Jessamine .looks around the pleasant room, and 
 the still tears gather in her eyes, remembering the time 
 when she first sat there so long ago. Under this roof, the
 
 408 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 heaviest storms of her life have blackened over her, and 
 its most radiant dawns have arisen. 
 
 She thinks, too, of the Father to whose hands she has 
 tried to cling through the heaviest hours, and the happiest. 
 " Why, Jessamine ! " says a voice at the low, open window, 
 and, turning, she sees Duke Walbridge bound into the 
 room. " I come like a thief and a robber," he laughs, 
 and then, catching sight of the tears in her eyes, adds 
 gravely enough, ' ' What do they mean, Jessamine ? ' ' 
 
 Her smile comes out and answers him, and Duke does 
 not need any words beyond that.. 
 
 They sit down for the next hour and talk, partly like 
 young lovers, and partly like a sensible man and woman, . 
 who have sounded something of the depths of human life. 
 
 They talk of the little cottage they are to have, a couple 
 of miles out of town. Duke ,has been with the architect 
 that day, and seen the drawings, and it will be ready for 
 them in the autumn ; bay-windows, verandas, library, and 
 all ; a bobolink's nest, the Walbridges laughingly call it. 
 
 Duke is to go into business with his father ; the old 
 man needs his son's younger muscle and brain. 
 
 " I had a rare opening in New York the last time I was 
 there," Duke says, " and if Iliad gone into it and given 
 soul and body to the work, I might have built up a grand 
 fortune in time, and perhaps set you in a palace on the 
 Hudson, or somewhere ; but you and I do not care for the 
 money and the splendor, Jessamine." 
 
 " Oh, no, Duke ; no more than I did for poor Mrs. 
 Kent's grand wedding." 
 
 Then the talk slips off to nearer things, to the bridal '
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 409 
 
 trip to Niagara and the mountains, and Duke thinks, 
 although ho does not say so, how those beautiful brown 
 eyes will drink in with fresh amazement and delight that 
 great world they have never seen. 
 
 There is a little pause, and then she turns to him sud- 
 denly. " I cannot tell you, Duke, with how much 
 pleasure I .have dwelt on the thought that I shall see 
 Tom Barclay here to-morrow. Poor fellow ! I cannot 
 help feeling that the presence of the young human soul 
 which you rescued from sin and shame will be like a 
 visible blessing of God upon our bridal ! " 
 
 "Poor Tom will owe as much to Ross as to me, 
 Jessamine, in the long run," said Duke. "I must ad- 
 mit, when that brother of ours first proposed finding the 
 boy a situation in the India house, I was half doubtful 
 over his offer. 
 
 " If the boy turned out for the worse, after all, I should 
 blame myself for allowing him to be saddled on Ross; but 
 all my objections went for nothing. You know Ross was 
 present at the trial, and at the interview betwixt Tom 
 and me, after the acquittal. That was enough. In 
 Tom Barclay's case, at least, all Ross' theories about 
 moral backbone have gone to the winds ! " 
 
 " He holds to the theories yet, with his native mulish- 
 ness," laughed Jessamine ; "he only insists that Tom 
 Barclay is an exception to the rule of criminals." 
 
 "Ross gives a most favorable report of Tom's 
 diligence and integrity," continued Duke. " I believe 
 the repentance was genuine in that case. By-the-by, 
 he was quite overcpme with his invitation for to-morrow." 
 
 35
 
 410 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 "Was he? It is singular how the thought of him 
 haunts me to-day. How glad I am that he is tojje here 
 to-morrow," said Jessamine, half to herself. Duke looked 
 at her a moment, and an impulse came upon him to tell 
 her the mysterious share which Tom Barclay had borne 
 in that day's happiness, for both of them. 
 
 The first words had almost reached his lips, when he 
 paused. 
 
 The history of that evening with Margaret Wheatley 
 could not fail to impress Jessamine deeply, and re- 
 new with painful vividness, just at the time she was to 
 enter his family, Jessamine's sense of the share which 
 they had borne in separating himself and her. 
 
 The whole story, however it might interest, could not 
 fail to be more or less a shock to her. bringing back, with 
 awful force, the misery of days and months which it was 
 best she should forget, if possible, in the joy of her 
 bridal. When the years had widened behind them, he 
 might dare to tell her the story, but it was too near and 
 too vital now. 
 
 Out, on the veranda, voices and laughter broke sudden- 
 ly into his thoughts, and, in a moment, Mrs. Kent and 
 Ross and Eva broke in upon them, the young man having 
 driven the girl over from town, and come upon the lady 
 in her grounds, and the three were in those high spirits 
 which seem to befit the eve of a bridal. 
 
 "Ah, you dear things ! " burst out the girl, on catch- 
 ing sight of the two. " We've been searching all over the 
 grounds for you. Don't you think, Duke, mamma has 
 had another letter from Edith, and her party travelled o
 
 THE HOLLANDS. 411 
 
 slowly, that it will now be impossible for her to get here 
 in time to-morrow. Isn't it aggravating? 
 
 ' ' I expected nothing else from their slow rate of 
 moving." 
 
 Eva fancied her brother was too keenly disappointed to 
 say more, and never suspected that both Jessamine and 
 himself were relieved at the thought that the fair, proud 
 face would not show itself in their midst to-morrow. 
 
 Duke had never forgiven his sister the wrong she had 
 done him. He wondered sometimes, if he should ever be 
 Christian enough to do it. 
 
 " Miss Eva,'* interposed Mrs. Kent, who was fluttering 
 about in a state of excited enjoyment all this time, "I 
 find that a mysterious package, which has cost me intense 
 anxiety, has just arrived. I have an instinct that it con- 
 tains a dress, which Miss Jessamine will wear to-morrow. 
 I want you to help me unfold it, and then that demure 
 young lady is to walk upstairs and try it on." 
 
 ' "With all my heart," answered Eva, and nodding and 
 laughing toward her brother and Jessamine, she hurried 
 away. 
 
 "I forgot to mention to you, Duke," said Ross, after 
 some other talk, " that I met Mr. Wheatley on Broadway, 
 day before yesterday. He stopped me, wanted to know 
 how Tom Barclay was getting on ; and I gave ' him a 
 good account of his former clerk. He expressed him- 
 self glad to hear it, but I thought he had, at least, 
 very little confidence in any thorough reformation of 
 the boy." 
 
 "Probably not," answered Duke. "I have always
 
 412 THE HOLLANDS. 
 
 considered the old gentleman gave me, one day, a won- 
 derful proof of his personal regard." 
 
 " It struck me, as we parted," continued Ross, " that 
 it was very singular Miss Wheatley manifested no interest 
 for her father's office-boy. I think you told me you had 
 the story first from her own lips, Walbridge. I am sure 
 that, under the same circumstances, you would have shown 
 no such indifference, Jessamine." 
 
 Ross' sister drew a long breath. Her native kindness 
 was always prompt to find excuses for people's short- 
 comings, when she could do it honestly. 
 
 "Margaret Wheatley never had any real troubles," 
 said the soft, earnest voice. " She is very pleasant and 
 charming, and all that ; but it seems to me we can hardly 
 be tender and pitiful to others, until we have learned the 
 meaning of sorrow for ourselves. You understand, JRoss ? " 
 
 "Yes; I understand, Jessamine," he said, gravely. 
 
 The brother and sister looked at each other, and in a 
 moment their youth rose up and moved before them. 
 
 Just then Mrs. Kent's voice shouted to Jessamine, and 
 the latter hurried away. 
 
 Ross 'rose up and stood by his friend. "You and I 
 will be something more than brothers in name to-morrow, 
 Duke." 
 
 Duke flung his arms around young Holland's neck." 
 " Ah, my dear fellow, I little dreamed, when you dragged 
 me out of the sea that night, you were giving me back 
 again, not only my life, but beyond that, a brother and a 
 wife."
 
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