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 ial
 
 MARIA J. McINTOSH'S 
 
 TALES AND STORIES. 
 
 AUNT KITTY'S TALES. 
 
 CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS. 
 
 TWO PICTURES; OR, How WE SEE OUKSELVES, 
 
 AND HOW THE WORLD SEES Us. 
 
 EVENINGS AT DONALDSON MANOR. 
 TWO LIVES ; OB, To SEEM AND To BE. 
 THE LOFTY AND LOWLY. 
 
 tamo. Cloth, $1.00 per vol.; $6.00 per set.
 
 TWO PICTURES; 
 
 OR, 
 
 WHAT WE THINK OF OURSELVES, AND WHAT 
 THE WORLD THINKS OF US. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARIA J. McINTOSH. 
 
 * There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out" SJUAKESPKAKE, Hen. Y. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1, 3, AND 5 BOND STREET. 
 
 1881.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SG3, by 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 la H'.< Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THERE are some, it may be, to whom this book 
 will be more a memory than an imagination some, 
 who may recognize in the child-hearted Commodore 
 Moray in his wisdom, free from one taint of guile, 
 in his generous consideration for others, in his sensi 
 tiveness to every touch of honor, in his more than 
 womanly tenderness, and his more than manly cour 
 age, a feeble portraiture of one of whom it may in 
 deed be said, 
 
 "None knew him but to love him" 
 
 It has been suggested to the author that the dis 
 covery of one portrait may lead to the search for 
 others ; that in the official personages, at least, and 
 more especially in those connected with the historical 
 incident of the landing of our troops on the Mexican 
 coast, the sketches, however imperfect, may be sup 
 posed to be sketches from life. Such a supposition 
 would be unjust to all concerned, and, most of all, 
 unjust to the author, who has simply availed herself 
 of the vraisemblance communicated to a story by the 
 
 1125289
 
 4: PREFACE. 
 
 working in of a historical fact, and who selected the 
 fact in question mainly because the time of its occur 
 rence, and the incident of the officer who first com 
 manded the squadron having been withdrawn and 
 another appointed in his stead before the landing was 
 effected, harmonized with her plan. 
 
 The incidents, and with the one exception to which 
 allusion has been made, the characters of the book 
 are purely imaginary, its principles, she trusts, will 
 be recognized as universally and eternally true. It 
 may, perhaps, be as well to say that the scheme of 
 Hugh Moray, for the gradual elevation of those com 
 mitted to his care, was suggested by her acquaintance 
 with various experiments made by conscientious 
 Southern masters, for the advantage of their slaves. 
 The work was not only planned, but nearly complet 
 ed, while there was peace in the land, and nothing 
 seemed likely to interfere with the execution of de 
 signs so truly Christian. The delay in its publication 
 has been the result of circumstances of no interest to 
 any but the author. 
 
 NEW YORK, March 2Mb, 1863.
 
 OK, 
 
 HOW WE SEE OURSELVES, AND HOW THE 
 WORLD SEES US. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Where'er we roam, 
 Our first, best country ever is at home." GOLDSMITH. 
 
 HOME ! Home ! I have had many resting places in my 
 not very long life this is my nineteenth birthday, but 
 I have had, and can have but one home. For eight years, 
 I have not seen it with the bodily eye, and yet, how vivid 
 ly it stands before me at this moment ! A month ago, 
 I determined to make a picture of it. The picture, to 
 which I have given all my leisure hours, is done ; here, 
 in this record of thought and feeling, meant only for my 
 self, I may say what I truly think, that it is well-done ; 
 yet I am not satisfied. 
 
 There is the very beach on which I gathered shells with 
 my faithful nurse, my kind, devoted Charity. To the 
 eastward, the blue waves are lifting their white foam- 
 crests to the sun. Inland, I can distinguish amid the mass 
 of verdure which marked the almost tropical luxuriance 
 of St. Mary's Isle, the glistening leaves of the orange trees
 
 6 TWO riCTUBES. 
 
 half concealing their snowy flowers and golden fruit, and 
 the darker green of the old oaks, " the king of forests 
 all," from whose giant boughs the long pendent moss sus 
 pends its floating drapery of silvery gray. Within the 
 circle of those oaks, rises the home which sheltered my 
 orphan childhood ; a building of wood, two stories in 
 height, surrounded by a piazza, whose pillars, wreathed 
 with roses, honeysuckles and woodbine, gave something of 
 airy lightness to what would otherwise have been without 
 ornament or grace. 
 
 So far, pencil and brush have done their part truly. 
 The gnarled, misshapen trunk of that old oak, those great 
 arms that seem to me now to be thrown out as in a grand 
 despair, they looked not thus in my childhood, all, all 
 are perfect. The very stains and streaks upon the weather- 
 beaten walls of the house, have been faithfully retained 
 in my memory and rendered here ; but ah ! I could not 
 give the shimmer and the sheen as the sunlight flashed 
 from the waves, and the leaves were stirred by the soft 
 breath of heaven. And the sky ! I have spent hours on 
 it in vain. Where could I find a blue so soft? What 
 brush could give a touch so light as those white, gauzy 
 clouds that floated along its surface ? 
 
 One day I shall give this a companion picture. It shall 
 be St. Mary's Isle as it appeared to me when the demon of 
 the storm was abroad. Then, I could neither ramble 
 through the woods, or over the flowery savannas, gay with 
 pink anemones, crimson coral-plants, purple violets, and 
 the yellow spires of the golden rod ; nor could I stand upon 
 the beach, while Charity gathered for me the smoothest 
 and brightest of shells, musing with a child's simple won 
 der on the mysteries of that great and deep sea, with its 
 ever-sounding voice. The voice I still heard on stormy 
 days, as standing on a window seat in my uncle's library,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 7 
 
 I looked out upon its wildly tossing waves ; but its usual, 
 deep-toned murmur became, then, a roar at which I 
 trembled. I was called a fearless child, because at six 
 years old I would ride my uncle's hunting horse whenever 
 1 was permitted, sitting in his large saddle as if it were a 
 chair of state ; or, I would lay my hand upon our great St. 
 Bernard dog, regardless of his thunderous growl ; but he 
 would scarce have thought me brave, who had touched my 
 cold hands, or felt my wild heart-beats, when the storm, 
 dashed the ocean spray against the window by which I 
 stood, tossed the fruit and flowers from the orange trees, 
 and catching the outstretched arms of the giant oaks, made 
 them shiver in its grasp, or bowed their lofty heads to the 
 earth. 
 
 I have heard that my uncle had been a gay man in his 
 youth, and that afterward he had devoted himself to poli 
 tics for a time, with extraordinary zeal. Long before my 
 birth, both these phases of his life had passed away. I 
 remember him first as a lonely man, rarely leaving his 
 island home except on business connected with the sale of 
 his crops, or the purchase of articles demanded by his large 
 plantation. There was no doubt a history appended to this 
 change, a history which might account for the tinge of 
 moroseness that marked his character as I knew him ; but 
 it remains an untold tale ; at least, I never heard it. 
 
 There was nothing of the miser about my uncle. He 
 had inherited a large property, which had been yearly in 
 creased by his judicious management. Whatever he did, 
 was done with a free, he would have said, " with a gentle 
 manly spirit." The negro laborers on his plantation were 
 as well, perhaps a little better, fed and clothed than others 
 of the same class. St. Mary's was famed for its numerous 
 deer, and scarcely less so for its master's hospitality to 
 those who sought it for the pleasure of the chase, or for the
 
 8 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 enjoyment of its ocean breezes. Public and private chari 
 ties found in him a generous contributor. But his principal 
 outlay was for books. Few private libraries in our coun 
 try, I have heard it said, could equal, in the number or value 
 of their books, that plain, unadorned room, which was known 
 by the name of " the study " in my Southern home. Yet, 
 with all this expenditure, my uncle grew richer and richer, 
 till Hugh Moray, of St. Mary's Isle, was talked of as one 
 of the wealthiest men south of the Potomac. 
 
 Much that I have hero said of my uncle I have recalled 
 by an effort of memory, desiring to record for my own 
 satisfaction those varied traits which make up the picture 
 of the man. Children are more impressed by externals, 
 and what occurs to me spontaneously when I think or speak 
 of this guardian of my early life, is a man of medium 
 height, with a vigorous, athletic form, curling hair of a dark 
 brown mingled with gray, a forehead broad, straight, and 
 somewhat low, eyes unusually grave and thoughtful, but 
 flashing with a quick gleam of passion at slight provocation, 
 a straight nose, and lips whose firm pressure seemed rigid 
 as marble. Most vividly do I recall him, clad in a hunting 
 suit of dark green cloth, the legs and thighs protected by 
 leathern galligaskins, as I think they were called, a light 
 cap upon his head, a powder flask, shot pouch, and small 
 horn slung across his breast, mounting his horse amid the 
 barkings and yelpings of his joyous hounds, to ride forth to 
 the hunt; or sitting at dinner with his guests, shaming 
 younger men by the neatness and good taste of his dress ; 
 or, as was more frequent still, spending nearly the whole 
 day in his study, seated in a hard, straight-backed chair, 
 completely absorbed in the book before him. 
 
 Uncle Hugh's only associate on the island was an old 
 clergyman, Mr. Mortimer, who had been his tutor in his 
 college days. Mr. Mortimer, having outlived his wife, and
 
 TWO PICTUEES. 9 
 
 the children who had probably inherited her consumptive 
 tendencies, had been persuaded, in his lonely old age, to 
 occupy a cottage which his former pupil had caused to be 
 built for him, at the distance of little more than a mile from 
 his own home. Here he employed the last years of a well- 
 spent life, in giving the instructions of a Christian pastor to 
 the negroes on the plantation, and to the occasional visitors 
 on the island. In the midst of one of the clumps of oak 
 dotting the level green of the savanna, rose the plain, un- 
 painted, barn-like building, which was the scene of these in 
 structions. My uncle made a point of attending them 
 every Sabbath morning, whether from respect to Mr. Mor 
 timer, or interest in his sacred theme, I know not. How 
 unlike any thing to be seen elsewhere were these Sabbath 
 scenes at St. Mary's ! On that day was brought out a 
 heavy old family coach, which Charity assured me had been 
 very handsome when my uncle purchased it on my father's 
 marriage. Before I knew it, however, the silver ornaments 
 showed too much of their copper base, and the paint was 
 dull and scratched. It was still the coach, the only coach 
 ever seen at St. Mary's, and I felt no little increase of dig 
 nity when, seated in it beside my uncle, I was drawn to 
 church by two shaggy ponies, natives of the island like 
 myself. My uncle would have thought his beautiful saddle 
 horses ruined by being put into harness. 
 
 A few benches in the church 1 cannot call them pews 
 were reserved for us and our guests, seldom numbering 
 more than eight or ten, and the rest of the building was filled, 
 crowded with negroes. It was a gay sight I think I was 
 dimly conscious of its picturesque character even in my 
 childhood to see the negroes in their bright-colored holi 
 day dresses, wending their way to the church, along the 
 road and over the savanna, where the view was broken 
 only here and there, at considerable intervals, by clumps of
 
 10 TWO riCTUKES. 
 
 trees. The women especially added to the brightness of 
 the picture, by the gay handkerchiefs wound around their 
 heads, somewhat in the fashion of a turban. Mr. Mortimer, 
 I am convinced, thought as much of these negroes, in his 
 teachings, as of those among his hearers whose skin was 
 colored like his own ; perhaps he thought even more of 
 them ; yet my childish heart was often touched by his ear 
 nest, fervent prayers, and simple, tender lessons, as it has 
 never been touched in richly ornamented churches, where 
 the most artistic music pealed " through long drawn aisles 
 and fretted vaults," and all the graces of popular oratory 
 lent their charm to the ministrations of the pulpit. 
 
 The strongest passion of my Uncle Hugh's passionate 
 nature I have good reason to know it was pride of 
 family. I verily believe he would have rejected the largest 
 estate, or the noblest place that could have been offered 
 him, had it been necessary to its acceptance that he should 
 cease to be a Moray, or as he would have said, the Moray ; 
 for he never himself forgot, and did not like others to for 
 get, that though the name might be borne in other lands 
 by some who had won proud titles to prefix to it, he was 
 still the Moray the eldest son of the eldest branch the 
 head of the house. 
 
 Whatever had been the disappointments or disgusts 
 which had driven him at once from the social enjoyments 
 and the political contests of life, they had probably pre 
 vented his marrying, and I think there could have been no 
 greater proof of their power. I am convinced, for reasons 
 which will appear in this narrative, that when Uncle Hugh's 
 brow grew suddenly dark, when he checked my childish 
 glee and sent me from the room in which he sat, he was 
 goaded by the thought that the place which he had hoped 
 would become the seat of a new dynasty of Morays, must 
 descend to a girl, and would probably pass eventually, by
 
 TWO PICTURES. 11 
 
 her death or marriage, into some other family, and so lose 
 all connection with the name he desired to perpetuate. 
 Uncle Hugh would not probably have fondled any child 
 very much ; but to me he rarely spoke, except to blame or 
 silence me. My birth had disappointed his most cherished 
 desire. My father was his nephew, the son of his only 
 brother, and he had adopted and educated him as his heir. 
 With his ready consent, this highly prized heir married an 
 orphan girl of good family, but without fortune. In little 
 more than a year after this marriage, the war of 1812 with 
 England began. The captain of a volunteer corps of cav 
 alry, my father could not resign his position, because he 
 foresaw that what had been hitherto a mere holiday show, 
 was about to become a reality, full of danger to himself, 
 and of heart-sickening dread to those who loved him. His 
 company was called into action, and he died at its head. 
 I was but a few days old when intelligence of his death was 
 brought to his home. It was impossible to conceal it long 
 from the poor young wife, whose senses had been quick 
 ened by anxiety. She suffered but one pang, sinking imme 
 diately into unconsciousness, and passing in that state from 
 this world, to one in which there is neither parting nor 
 death. 
 
 And so my life began the life of a lonely orphan, left 
 to the guardianship of one to whom its birth had brought 
 only disappointment. Father ! Mother ! What sweet 
 names ! Even their lifeless miniatures love tokens, not 
 to their child, but to each other look to me as no other 
 faces have ever done. And yet, I was not all uncared for. 
 Charity, the negress assigned to me as my nurse, took me 
 to her warm heart, and taught me all my childhood 
 knew of love. Mr. Mortimer had always a kind word for 
 the orphan, and my uncle took care that my physical wants 
 were supplied. He was careful that my dress should be
 
 12 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 such as became Miss Moray of St. Mary's, and that I was 
 kept from associations which might communicate a tinge of 
 vulgarity to the manners of his supposed heiress. And so, 
 for several years, I had nature for my teacher, and Charity 
 for her interpreter. And no bad interpreter she proved. 
 I learned from her to believe that there was a soul in all 
 things. When the night winds swept around the room in 
 which I lay, she heard the soft footfalls of my father and 
 mother, or felt the touch of their cloud garments, as they 
 glided by her low couch, to stand beside the crib in which 
 their baby slept. She caught their whispers in the soughing 
 of the wind through the pine forest, and according to her, 
 they breathed into my childish ears, through the convolu 
 tions of the sea shell, some faint echo of the angels' song, 
 which, if they could succeed in giving it full expression, 
 would draw my spirit upward to them in heaven. 
 
 It may be thought that these were unhealthy influences, 
 and would have made a child of sickly fancies : they only 
 made me more than ordinarily sensitive to all the aspects 
 of nature, soothed and gladdened by her gentleness, awed, 
 till, as I have already said, my hands grew cold and my 
 heart beat tumultuously when she spoke in wrath. Of any 
 thing else but this mute, irresistible power, I had never ex 
 perienced a sensation approaching to fear ; for, though my 
 uncle had chided or passed me coldly by, he had never 
 punished, or even threatened me ; and to all others Charity 
 had taught me to think myself superior. Of my fearless 
 ness of animals I gave an early proof. 
 
 " Put me up," I said, at six years old, to Gib, my 
 uncle's somewhat elderly attendant, as he stood beside 
 Black Prince, the hunting horse from which his master had 
 just descended. 
 
 " I can't, missis ; I 'feared for you," the old man an 
 swered, with a good-natured smile at my ambition.
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 13 
 
 " Put me up ! " I repeated, stamping my foot in childish 
 wrath. 
 
 " I 'feared, Miss 'Gusty," he replied again, glancing at 
 his master, who had stopped in the piazza on hearing my 
 tone of authority, and who was looking on with some appear 
 ance of interest. 
 
 " Put her on," he said to Gib, " and hold her in the 
 saddle." 
 
 Gib obeyed. 
 
 " Let me go," I cried, struggling violently to release my 
 dress from his grasp, regardless of his exhortations to be 
 quiet, lest I should frighten the horse. At a sign from his 
 master, he let the dress go, and only walked beside the well- 
 trained horse, accustomed to obey his voice. I think I rose 
 considerably that day in my uncle's estimation. Doubtless 
 he sighed heavily, that one exhibiting so much of the genu 
 ine Moray character should be only a girl. Still, he began 
 to entertain the idea that she deserved some culture, and 
 that with proper training, she would reflect no disgrace 
 upon her name. 
 
 I do not remember how my consent was won, but I 
 soon found myself, for a part of every morning, the com 
 panion of Mr. Mortimer instead of Charity. My vanity 
 may perhaps have been flattered at first by the exchange ; 
 but very soon, all personal considerations were lost in the 
 excited curiosity, which made me willing to give much 
 more time to my books than was demanded by my indul 
 gent teacher. This new element of my life, important as it 
 was, exercised no immediate influence on character. I re 
 mained what nature and my first teacher, Charity, had 
 made me shy, yet fearless to my equals or superiors, 
 haughty to rny inferiors, or to those whom I considered 
 such, yet not ungenerous, if they submitted to my claims. 
 Such I was when new threads began to weave themselves
 
 14 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 into the web of my destirfy, giving to it at once a richer and 
 a darker coloring. 
 
 But my pulses must throb less wildly before I can 
 write of these ; besides, I shall be wanted soon in the draw 
 ing room, to preside at the tea table, or to play polkas and 
 waltzes, till my weary fingers sympathize with my aching 
 head and heart. Either employment would need steadier 
 nerves than such a retrospect would give me. So, farewell 
 to the pictures conjured by memory ! dim shadows of the 
 past, farewell till another hour of freedom shall restore me 
 to myself and to you. Alone ! alone ! so distant and yet 
 so near ! Would that the wide world divided me from all 
 I once loved ! Once loved 1 Ah me 1
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " O Life ! how pleasant Is thy morning, 
 Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning ! 
 Cold, pausing Caution's lessons scorning, 
 
 We frisk away." BITCNB. 
 
 ONCE more I am alone. Enchantress ! by whose power 
 the past and the distant stand again visibly before us, wave 
 thy wand, and transform this chill, bare room, and the brick- 
 walled street on which it looks, into the leafy bowers, the 
 open sky, the blue waters of my home ; bid me lay aside 
 the burdened heart and bitter consciousness of the woman, 
 for the careless glee of the child ; let me sit again on the 
 floor of the dining room at St. Mary's, weaving chaplets of 
 the orange flowers and jessamines gathered in my morning 
 walk, while my uncle sits longer than usual over his wine, 
 in compliment to a stranger guest. I was a curious child, 
 listening, with an air that did not seem to listen, to conver 
 sations which would scarcely have been supposed to interest 
 me, and puzzling over their meaning or no meaning, till I 
 could win an explanation, sometimes from Charity, some 
 times from time. 
 
 The gentleman who was dining with my uncle on the 
 day to which I allude, was from Scotland. lie had brought 
 a letter of introduction from a friend of Mr. Moray, then in 
 Europe. So far I had learned from Mr. Mortimer, who
 
 13 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 I shall hear of a Moray among them. I shall certainly 
 inform you if I do. Come, little lady ! what will you give 
 me for a husband ? I will not charge high only a kiss 
 paid in advance." 
 
 He held out his hand as he spoke, but I drew myself 
 out of his reach, and looked, I dare say, haughty enough. 
 
 " Proud as a Moray ! She proves her lineage, sir," 
 said the stranger. 
 
 " Perhaps," suggested kind Mr. Mortimer, thinking 
 even then of the future to which I, poor, unconscious child, 
 was so blind, " Perhaps she has no desire to relinquish her 
 place to an heir." 
 
 " Oh ! it will only be to share her dignities to take a 
 king-consort," and the stranger lightly laughed. 
 
 And so one whose very name I should have forgotten* 
 but that I still preserve a letter found among my uncle's 
 papers to which it is subscribed, one who came from a dis 
 tant land to my remote island home, in the gossip of an 
 idle hour, changed the whole color of my destiny, and, hav 
 ing done his work, passed on, and we saw him no more. 
 
 Strange it is to find the threads of our being thus 
 crossed by other threads that have come so far to meet 
 them ! 
 
 I know not how it was with my uncle, but I had quite 
 forgotten the stranger when the letter was received from 
 him, which, as I have said, I still preserve. No foreboding 
 had troubled my childish life. Mr. Mortimer was my 
 teacher, and a most indulgent one. I had become, at eleven, 
 an omnivorous reader ; not of the little books intended for 
 children, for of these I had none. But I did not need them, 
 for I had the glorious dream of Bunyan, Defoe's- weird tale 
 of the shipwrecked solitary, and before I. had wearied of 
 these, I became almost equally enchanted by Herodotus, 
 with his quaint stories of a strange old world, half human,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 19 
 
 half divine, and Froissart, with his vivid pictures of knightly 
 times. Of any existing world beyond St. Mary's, I neither 
 knew nor thought. Its groves of orange and clumps of 
 oak, its flowery savannas, its sparkling sea, and shell- 
 strewn beach, were the whole visible, tangible universe to 
 me. 
 
 I love to linger over those untroubled years in which 
 my life was so peacefully unfolding ; but the letter came, 
 and all was changed. 
 
 This letter told of two families of the name of Moray, liv 
 ing in Elizabcthtown, in the State of New Jersey. These 
 were both descendants of my great-grandfather's long-forgot 
 ten brother. In each of these families there was a son ; in one, 
 the only son the only child of his mother, and she was a 
 widow. In the other, there were two daughters, both 
 younger than the son, and the father and mother were liv 
 ing, the former being an officer in the United States Navy. 
 Mr. Home, my uncle's correspondent, seemed really inter 
 ested in the success of the scheme he had suggested, and 
 took some pains to introduce the heirs expectant, favorably. 
 He narrated his visit to both families in a manner not un 
 interesting. There was even something dramatic in his 
 introduction to them, which may be presented thus : 
 
 Act I, Scene 1. The playground of a large school 
 boys playing ball one immediately attracts the stranger's 
 observation by the beauty of his person and the activity 
 and grace of his movements. This is Charles Moray the 
 widow's son the leader of the school, both in sport and 
 study. The stranger accosts him, is met with gentlemanly 
 courtesy, and conducted to his mother's house. Scene 2. 
 The mother, a graceful woman, fashionably and somewhat 
 gaily attired, receives him graciously, laments that she can 
 give him no information respecting her husband's family, as 
 he had lived but a short time after their marriage. She
 
 20 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 directs him, however, to her brother-in-law's, Captain Mo 
 ray's. Captain Moray is absent, she adds, but his wife and 
 Hugh will be able to tell him all he wishes to know of a 
 family in whom he professes a warm interest. Charles 
 Moray offers to be his guide to the house of his uncle, and 
 so Mr. Home goes to scene 3d: a small house, the 
 door of which is opened by a young girl, whom Charles 
 Moray accosts as cousin Jane. She invites the visitors into 
 a parlor, neatly, but plainly furnished, and having seen 
 them seated, goes to call her mother. The mother enters 
 a beautiful woman, with the dark of her hair broken by a 
 few silvery lines, with a somewhat careworn expression of 
 face, and a style of dress whose Quaker-like plainness 
 presents a singular contrast to that of Mrs. Charles Moray. 
 Charlie Moray, having introduced the stranger, asks for 
 Hugh, and is told that he will find him in his " den," a 
 term explained to the stranger, as " a name we have given 
 to the room appropriated to my son for his studies and 
 sports." The mother, with somewhat of a mother's pride, 
 bringing a sudden color into her pale cheeks, adds to this 
 explanation : " He is just now absorbed in the wonders of 
 a telescope which he has lately purchased for himself." 
 
 "Purchased for himself!" exclaims the blunt Mr. 
 Home, with a sufficiently significant glance at the plain fur 
 niture of the room in which he sits. The answer shows 
 that the glance was understood. 
 
 " It has been purchased with the savings of eight years, 
 made from the sum allotted by his father for his clothing, 
 schooling, and all his expenditures. He begged to manage 
 this himself, and we made no objections, for we felt that 
 the habit of self-denial which he was forming, would be 
 more valuable to him than even his coveted telescope." 
 
 " You say he was eight years in collecting the necessary 
 sum may I ask how old he is now 1 "
 
 TWO PICTURES. 21 
 
 " Eighteen," was the answer. 
 
 " Then he began his savings at ten." 
 
 " Yes, at ten ; the last year or two, he has added to them 
 by some copying done in his leisure hours for a friendly 
 lawyer." 
 
 Mr. Home proposes a visit to the den, and Mrs. Moray 
 accompanies him to scene but, no I must drop every 
 thing that savors of the theatrical, when speaking of one 
 who is truth and simplicity itself. 
 
 Mr. Home ascended, under the guidance of Mrs. Moray, 
 to the attic, and was ushered into a room having one win 
 dow that looked toward the west. He glanced around the 
 room for some evidence of the owner's tastes. Pictures in 
 water colors, without frames, decorated the walls. A ter 
 rier greeted the strangers with a sharp bark ; on being 
 silenced, he retreated to a corner, whither Mr. Home's eyes 
 following him, rested upon a strangely shaped, large tin 
 vessel. Mrs. Moray led the way to it, saying, " Some of 
 my son's pets," and looking in, Mr. Home saw that the 
 vessel was filled half with water and half with earth, 
 making an appropriate abode for two alligators about a 
 foot long. But at this moment, Hugh, who had been 
 arranging something about his telescope, turns and per 
 ceives the stranger, who, to use his own words, they are 
 before me " finds him a sickly looking, sallow faced lad, a 
 head taller than Charlie, who is only fifteen, but wanting his 
 easy, graceful, and even polished manner." Still, Mr. 
 Home concludes, after some conversation with him, that he 
 has unusual talent, and may be a credit to his name, of 
 which he is evidently very proud ; but he thinks " he is 
 better fitted to acquire distinction in one of the learned pro 
 fessions, than to play the part of a gentleman of large, 
 landed estate, to whom great social influence must neces 
 sarily pertain."
 
 22 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 How strangely this letter stirred the quiet current of 
 our lives at St. Mary's ! My uncle could speak of little 
 else, and for me, my sleeping as well as my waking dreams 
 were filled with the sayings and doings of these newly 
 found cousins, who were to combine all the accomplishments 
 of all my favorite heroes. A correspondence was at once 
 opened between my uncle and the Moray s of Elizabeth- 
 town, which resulted in the promise that the two boys 
 should pass the ensuing winter at St. Mary's, whither they 
 would-be accompanied by Mrs. Charles Moray. 
 
 Let me try to recall what I was then, eight years ago 
 almost half my lifetime. I will try to write of myself as I 
 might of another, and an indifferent person. I had some 
 gifts usually accounted good. 1 have no vanity to gratify 
 in naming them, even were this paper intended for other 
 eyes than mine, for they have proved themselves in my case, 
 of little value they have won for me no love that I desired 
 they have shielded me .from no evil that I dreaded. 
 
 In the dining room at St. Mary's, hung a few family 
 portraits. Among them was one of a remote ancestress of 
 my uncle. This picture went by the name of the Moray 
 beauty, and had always been greatly valued as presenting 
 the highest type of the physical features of the family. It 
 was probably for this reason that my great-grandfather had, 
 at much inconvenience to himself, as I have often heard my 
 uncle tell, brought it over with him from Scotland, when 
 compelled to leave his paternal estate. It was a face of the 
 purest Caucasian lineaments a perfect oval the forehead 
 broad, the eyebrows delicately arched, the eyes large, of a 
 brownish gray, and fringed by lashes of unusual length, the 
 nose straight and finely cut, the mouth exquisitely formed, 
 and expressive of tenderness and sensibility. It was the 
 common remark of visitors at St. Mary's, that this, allow 
 ing for the difference of age the portrait represented a
 
 TWO PICTURES. 23 
 
 young woman of twenty or thereabouts might have been 
 taken for me. An artist who came to St. Mary's to take 
 a likeness of my uncle, said, " It is very like, certainly, but 
 there are decided points of difference. Already the pale 
 chestnut of the hair and eyebrows in the portrait, has deep 
 ened in the child into a darker brown ; the position of the 
 head is different, and see, if you please, how that slight 
 change affects the expression. In the picture, the head 
 inclines a little to one side, and the expression is that of 
 innocence and gentleness. In the child, it is set farther 
 back, and held remarkably upright ; it does not bend even 
 now, though the color rises, and the eyes are cast down with 
 girlish shame and pride is its predominant character." 
 
 Dear Mr. Mortimer ! to you, at least, I gave satisfac 
 tion ; from you I never heard the accents of blame. But 
 Mr. Mortimer, kind and judicious as he was, could not 
 supply to the poor orphan a mother's vigilant and tender 
 training. Charity might have done more for me in the cul 
 tivation of the heart, but my poor Charity thought all I did, 
 was " wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best." My temper was 
 ah ! I fear I should say, is unsubdued, my impulses 
 uncontrolled. I had great faults of which I thought little, 
 while I prided myself on my truthfulness, and on the 
 absence from my character of what was mean or selfish. 
 Wild as an untamed colt, my association with a punctilious 
 gentleman, such as my uncle, could not fail to awake in me 
 some perception of the proprieties, and even of the courte 
 sies of life. My movements were perfectly untutored. I 
 walked or ran, talked or was silent, sat on the floor or the 
 window sill, was gentle or brusque, according to the humor 
 of the hour. Mrs. Charles Moray, I remember, pronounced 
 me " a little savage," but that is anticipating. Back, 
 Memory, to the day and the hour ! bring up from the grave 
 
 of the past, that morning, big with so much of woe, yet 
 2
 
 24 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 rising " so calm, so still, so bright," like George Herbert's 
 " bridal of the earth and sky ! " My uncle had gone to 
 Savannah to meet his stranger kindred. Mr. Mortimer had 
 received a letter from him the evening before, announcing 
 their arrival, and requesting to have a boat sent to a point 
 on the mainland, eight miles distant, to meet them this day, 
 on the arrival of the stage coach. I stood with Charity, in 
 the early morning, under the great oak whose boughs over 
 hung the landing place, as the men pushed off the boat and 
 rowed away, the wind being too light for a sail. "What a 
 pretty picture, the whole scene, as I remember it, would 
 make I will paint it some day the great overhanging oak 
 with its trailing moss, the child with her unshadowed face, 
 full at that moment of gay fancies and but half defined 
 hopes, the old nurse at her side with her shining black face, 
 surmounted by a handkerchief of gay colors, wound in tur 
 ban fashion around her head, and the black boatmen with 
 their red flannel shirts, and pantaloons made of a coarse 
 dark blue cloth, called by the planters, negro cloth. 
 
 I stood on the same spot in the evening, with Mr. Mor 
 timer, to receive the expected guests. I had been pleas 
 antly excited during the day, for I had been helping Charity 
 to prepare their rooms. When I afterward saw Mrs. 
 Charles Moray's room at her own house, with its rosewood 
 and canopied bedstead, its lace curtains, its velvet carpet, 
 and brocade covered couch and lounging chairs, I remem 
 bered with a smile, that prepared for her at St. Mary's 
 the bedstead with tall posts and faded chintz curtains, the 
 chintz curtained windows, the ingrain carpet, the pattern of 
 which was blurred with frequent darns, and the old inlaid 
 bureau with its mirror, from both of which the once rich 
 gilding had been well-nigh effaced. Even Mrs. Moray, 
 however, I remember, admired the antique china vases on 
 the mantlepiece, and ths fragrant flowers that filled them.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 25 
 
 In the room appropriated to her son and nephew, there was 
 not even an attempt at ornament, nothing to redeem its 
 rudeness and bareness, except perfect cleanliness, the finest 
 and whitest of bed linen and napkins the last supplied 
 with an abundance which I have often had occasion to re 
 member regretfully, in more ostentatious homes. 
 
 Such as the preparations were, they had occupied 
 Charity and me through the whole day. The floors had 
 been made white as a curd, the small panes of glass were 
 clear from spot, and the dark mahogany furniture glistened 
 with wax and hard rubbing. It was five o'clock, and the 
 season being now late in November, the sun was near its 
 setting, when Mr. Mortimer came for me. He considered 
 it an act of respect due to my uncle's guests, to meet them 
 on their landing, and the boat was now in sight. 
 
 " But you are not dressed, my child," he said. 
 
 " Must I dress, sir 1 " I asked as, my thoughts thus 
 directed to myself, I felt, for the first time in my life, some- 
 thing like timidity stealing over me, and the question 
 " How will they like me? " arose in my mind. The feeling 
 thus excited was not allayed by Mr. Mortimer's answer. 
 
 " Oh', yes ! you must be dressed, my dear. You do not 
 know the importance of first impressions I wonder Charity 
 did not think of it before." 
 
 " Charity was not to blame," I answered, quickly ; 
 " she wanted me to dress, but I was so busy." 
 
 Mr. Mortimer's face relaxed into a smile as he repeated, 
 " On hospitable thought intent ; but go quickly, my child, 
 you have no time to spare you must go down with me." 
 
 My toilette was easily made. I had no embarras des 
 richesses in the way of dresses. To smooth the abundant 
 ringlets that fell nearly to my waist, to exchange the blue 
 merino dress I wore for a crimson of the same material, 
 made by Charity precisely after the same pattern as those
 
 20 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 worn by the little negroes on the plantation a straight 
 tight waist, low in the neck, and with short sleeves to add 
 to this a coat or pelisse of dark red cloth grown some 
 what short in the waist and sleeves, since the previous win< 
 ter and to take my Sunday straw bonnet in my hand, 
 dangling it by its long ribbon strings, and solemnly promis 
 ing Charity to put it on before I should meet the strangers 
 this was all my preparation. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer and I stood where Charity and I had 
 stood in the morning, watching the approaching boat. I 
 remember he looked down on me and said, " What is the 
 matter that you look so pale arid breathe so quick 1 Are 
 you frightened ? " 
 
 I did not like the word " frightened," and answered 
 stoutly, " No," making a great effort at the same time to 
 control or conceal the agitation which I did not understand. 
 
 Till Mr. Mortimer's evident anxiety respecting the 
 first impression I should make upon my cousins, had aroused 
 a doubt of my acceptance with them, I did not know how con 
 fidently I rested on their affection, or what joyous anticipa 
 tions were connected with it. The calm, gentle regard of 
 Mr. Mortimer, the devotion of Charity, these were all I had 
 known of love. I had never seen another white child. I 
 had loved my flowers and my pets, my old nurse and my 
 tutor, the last perhaps more than he had loved me. I 
 would have loved my uncle oh, how dearly ! if he had 
 not repulsed me so often, but I knew even then, that there 
 was love very different from all these love which I was 
 ready to bestow love which I thirsted to receive. The 
 poor, simple, child-heart, how full it had been of imaginings 
 since the discovery of these stranger cousins ! How often 
 in fancy I had played with the gay Charlie, or stood by the 
 graver Hugh, while he arranged his telescope and permitted 
 me to take a* peep through it at the starry heavens, and
 
 TWO PICTURES. 27 
 
 with a tender feeling a feeling that made the tears start 
 to my eyes, I knew not why had rested in the arms, and 
 laid my head upon the bosom of the lady, whom I pictured 
 to myself as having Charity's heart, within a form of beauty 
 and grace ! And now they were coming, and the thought 
 had suddenly been awakened, that I might' not please them ; 
 that all this wealth of love and joy would be brought near 
 me, would touch my very lip, but that, Tantalus-like, I 
 must not drink of it. It was no wonder that my breath 
 came quick, that my color varied, that I trembled. 
 
 But the boat approached the wharf, the boys sprang on 
 shore, and Mr. Mortimer led me forward. My uncle 
 handed Mrs. Moray from the boat, and after he had shaken 
 hands with Mr. Mortimer, who seemed to divine that I had 
 some thought of running away, and consequently held me 
 fast, he presented me to the lady and to her young com 
 panions as his niece, Augusta Moray. 
 
 " Augusta Moray ! what a noble name, and what a 
 noble looking creature she is positively beautiful!" and 
 the lady kissed me, saying, as she lifted her graceful head 
 again, " Charles ! here is your cousin Augusta come, speak 
 to her Hugh ! " 
 
 Charlie came forward easily, held out his hand with a 
 smile, and greeted me in a pleasant, frank way, as if he had 
 known me all his life, or, at least, all mine. Hugh turned 
 at his aunt's call, but nothing further being said, he only 
 bowed to me, and stood waiting for further directions. 
 Will it be believed this grave, reserved youth pleased me 
 better than the graceful, suave lady, or the ready Charlie ? 
 A genuine, inartificial child stands ever in the palace of 
 Truth. I am convinced that at the age to which I now 
 refer, I knew instinctively the truth or falsehood of those 
 who approached me ; not that I recognized those as the 
 qualities which depressed and chilled me with some, or
 
 28 T\VO PICTUKES. 
 
 gave me, with others, a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and 
 repose. Now, I almost shrank from the touch of Mrs. 
 Charles Moray's lips I drew my head proudly up as 
 Charles spoke to me but as my eyes met Hugh's, they 
 softened, and, had he given me the least encouragement, I 
 should have gone up to him, taken his hand, and walked to 
 the house with him. But he did not encourage me, and 
 Mrs. Charles Moray drawing me to her, made me walk 
 with her, and called Charlie to my other side. My uncle 
 busied himself with seeing to the safety of the baggage, and 
 sending it up, and Hugh and Mr. Mortimer walked on a 
 little before us. We were followed by Mrs. Moray's maid. 
 As I had never seen one of my own color occupying a 
 menial station, 1 did not at all understand the position of 
 this very respectable looking young woman, and was pain 
 fully embarrassed at the remembrance that not a word of 
 welcome had been addressed to her. Mrs. Moray, at 
 length, noticed my backward glances. 
 
 " Do you want your uncle, my dear ? " she asked. 
 
 " No ma'am but if you please no one has spoken to 
 the lady." 
 
 I spoke with hesitation, directing the last epithet by a 
 glance to the girl. Looking back too quickly, I caught the 
 exchange of glances between Charles and his mother, and 
 the smiles which had not yet quite died from their lips. 
 
 " Do not disturb yourself about her, my dear," said 
 Mrs, Moray ; " it is only my maid." 
 
 My uncle came up and addressed some observations to 
 Mrs. Moray. She was immediately all attention to him, 
 ;iiid slipping my hand out of hers, I went quickly up to Mr. 
 Mortimer, placed my hand in his, and walked along on the 
 opposite side from Hugh. They were speaking of his home. 
 
 "Did you bring your telescope?" I ventured, to ask, 
 with a beating heart.
 
 TWO PICTURES. '^J 
 
 lie looked at me for a moment, his face, sombre hith 
 erto in its expression, was lit up by a bright, cordial smile? 
 as he answered, " No ! I could not bring it ; but how did 
 you hear of my telescope ? '' 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Home wrote my uncle about it. I ain so 
 sorry you did not bring it." 
 
 " Why are you sorry 1 " 
 
 " I wanted to see it, and I thought, may be, you would 
 let me look at the stars through it, and then Air. Mortimer 
 said I should learn something about astronomy." 
 
 " Then indeed I am very sorry, for I should have liked 
 to learn too from Mr. Mortimer, if he would have permitted 
 me." 
 
 " Oh ! you would, sir wouldn't you ? " I cried, eagerly, 
 to Mr. Mortimer. My heart was t>n my lips, for I felt that 
 here was a small portion of the rich feast which imagination 
 had presented to me, that might indeed be mine, and I 
 longed to secure it. 
 
 " Certainly, my dear," said Mr. Mortimer, with a smile 
 at my earnestness. " It would give me great pleasure and 
 perhaps the telescope may be supplied I cannot promise, 
 but I think it may." 
 
 I clapped my hands with delight. 
 
 " What pleases you so much, ma cousine ? " asked 
 Charlie, coming up to us. Pie had a habit, as I afterward 
 found, of using French words and phrases. His voice 
 sobered me instantly, and I left Mr. Mortimer to explain 
 the source of my pleasure. 
 
 " Will you join us, Charlie 1 " asked Hugh. 
 
 Charlie laughed gaily, and shook his head as he said, " I 
 hope neither Mr. Mortimer nor my petite cousine here will 
 think very badly of me, if I acknowledge that I should 
 like a little holiday first ; " then, turning to Mr. Mor 
 timer, he added, " I cannot be such a very good boy as
 
 30 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Hugh, sir ; my mother says my motto should be, ' Vive la 
 bagatelle ! ' " 
 
 Mr. Mortimer, ever gentle to the young, did not answer 
 Charlie by lecturing. " The bagatelle will not always 
 charm," he said gently ; " when you grow tired of it, \ve 
 shall be glad to have you." 
 
 " Thank you, sir ; you are very kind," said Charlie, and 
 Hugh added, " Charlie has had more opportunity to study 
 than I have had, sir that will account for his liking play 
 better." 
 
 And I liked Charlie better in this conversation. I felt 
 he had been true. 
 
 If Mrs. Charles Moray missed the elegancies of her 
 home, we were, happily, too ignorant to dream of such a 
 feeling, and she was too 'courteous to manifest it ; but the 
 poor girl who had come as her attendant to a land in which 
 the laboring class is separated from all others by natural 
 distinctions : holding herself superior to the one caste, and 
 held inferior to the other, led a life so lonely and so di 
 vorced from sympathy, that it touched the compassionate 
 heart of my kind Charity. 
 
 " Poor ting ! poor ting ! " I heard her say one day, with 
 a sad shake of her head, as Alice passed the window. 
 
 " Why do you call her so, Charity 1 " I asked. " What 
 makes you say ' poor thing ? ' ' 
 
 " 'Cause you see, Miss 'Gusty, him is poor, an' I tink 
 poor buckra is worse off an' we." 
 
 " But why, Charity ? Alice is a lady's maid ; her work 
 is not hard ; you work harder than she doeSi" 
 
 " I know, Miss 'Gusty ; but den you see we was make 
 for work ; it comes sort o' nat'ral, an' people doesn't look 
 down on we ; we jist as much respected, you know, as ef 
 we didn't work, an' more ; nobody tinks much o' a lazy 
 person o' color ; but tain't so wid a poor buckra, more
 
 TWO PICTURES. 31 
 
 pertickler where there ain't no other poor buckra to keep 
 company with 'em for we don't like to 'mean ourselves to 
 'sociate with 'em, nohow ; an' so, the poor tings ain't got 
 no companion ; but don't you tink, Miss 'Gusty, may be de 
 obershay an' he wife would like Miss Alice ? " 
 
 Upon this hint I acted. That very afternoon I obtained 
 permission from Mrs. Moray, on the plea that Charity was 
 busy, for Alice to accompany me in a walk, and, going to 
 the overseer's house, I had the pleasure of seeing her quite 
 at home before the visit was over. 
 
 In the meantime, my acquaintance with my new rela 
 tions progressed pleasantly enough. To Mrs. Moray I was 
 a darling, a beauty, a sweet pet, and yet, strange to say, the 
 lady did not win my favor. I liked her flattery ; under its 
 warm rays, some traits of character which I had not yet 
 exhibited, were rapidly developed ; and yet, I did not like 
 her. Why was this, I wonder. I think there was some 
 thing in the very sound of her voice, that did not ring true 
 to my ear. But some of her conversations with me may 
 suggest a better explanation of the mystery. Let me try 
 to recall one : 
 
 " My darling beauty ! how they have neglected you ! 
 Just see, Alice, that dress is really made of very pretty 
 Thibet, fine, and a good color, though I should not chyose 
 so deep a crimson for her, myself; but only see how it is 
 made ! a straight jacket for the waist, and the skirt dangling 
 to her heels. I wonder how she ever learned to walk so 
 freely and gracefully. Positively, Alice, you must set to 
 work, and remodel all her dresses. Good woman," to 
 Charity, who was with me as usual, "just give Alice all 
 Miss Augusta's dresses, and let her see what can be done 
 with them." 
 
 " Yes. ma'am," Charity answered, and was turning away 
 to obey the command, but I had heard the quiver in her
 
 32 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 voice, and seen the moisture in her eye, and I flew to her, 
 and casting to the winds all the compliments to my beauty 
 and my grace, cried almost fiercely, " I don't care what 
 you think about my clothes, I want them just as Charity 
 made them. I won't have them altered Alice shall not 
 touch them." 
 
 I caught the slight shrug of Mrs. Moray's pretty shoul 
 ders, and the arch of her brows as she turned to leave the 
 room, without a word. Had she answered me, I might 
 have remained firm ; but this silence, this waving me aside 
 from her path, as it Avere, made me feel at once the dis 
 tance between the accomplished lady and the untutored 
 child. She had seemed to mean me a kindness her words 
 had been very gracious, and I had met them with rudeness, 
 I blushed and hung my head, while hot tears, half of passion 
 and half of shame, wet my checks. Yet I could not ask her 
 pardon. I felt shame for my own want of self-control, not 
 regret for having offended her. Her contempt crushed my 
 pride, but wounded no affection. Charity saw my trouble, 
 and hastened to say for me what I could not or would not 
 say for myself. Mrs. Moray had not advanced two steps, 
 when she arrested her, placing herself in her path, courtesy- 
 ing humbly, and saying deprccatingly, "Please, ma'am, 
 don,'t go. You see, ma'am, the poor chile a'n't used to 
 strangers 'specially to great ladies, like you, ma'am " 
 Charity understood the uses of flattery "An' she didn't 
 mean nothing, ma'am, please she jist was a thinking o' 
 poor Charity, an' she was afeard, ma'am, I might feel bad, 
 'cause I made the dresses, ma'am, an' so she forgot who she 
 was talkin' to ; but please, ma'am, I'll be so glad cf you an' 
 Miss Alice will only show me how to make the frocks, 
 ma'am." 
 
 Mrs. Moray let me do her justice has a placable 
 temper. She was quite mollified before Charity had reached
 
 TWO PICTURES. 33 
 
 the conclusion of her appeal. Drawing me to her side, she 
 touched my still wet and burning cheek with her cool lips, 
 saying, "Poor little beauty ! did she think I was disrespect 
 ful to Charity ? Why, I think Charity the best mammy in 
 the world, and so, worth a dozen French dressmakers ; 
 but now Alice and I will set to work on your wardrobe, 
 and you shall see what a metamorphosis will ensue you 
 will scarcely know yourself." 
 
 She did not promise more than she performed. 
 
 I was a little awkward in my new trappings at first^ 
 especially after hearing Air. Mortimer exclaim, " The but- 
 terfly has burst from the chrysalis ; " but my uncle was 
 delighted at the change, and I soon caught somewhat of his 
 satisfaction. 
 
 When Alice' had finished the first suit and it was com- 
 plete, from the frilled pantalets, to the dress with its 
 flounced skirt and low neck and short sleeves, exposing the 
 white shoulders and rounded arms Mrs. Moray dressed 
 me herself, brushing my curls back from my forehead, and 
 so giving a new character to the childish face beneath them ; 
 then she led me into the library to my uncle. If there was 
 any one in the world of whose admiration I was covetous, it 
 was he. As the natural result of this desire, I entered, blush 
 ing, and looking foolish and awkward enough, I doubt not. 
 Yet my uncle was pleased, and looking at me with a gentler 
 smile than his face ordinarily wore to me, he said, " She 
 certainly is like that old portrait ; I never saw the likeness 
 so strongly before ; but why do you blush so, child ? If 
 you had the pride that becomes your name, dress would 
 not discompose you." 
 
 " So I think, sir," said Mrs. Moray, catching his tone in 
 an instant. " Miss Moray should be always well dressed, 
 but if by any accident she is otherwise what then ? She is 
 still Miss Moray."
 
 34: TWO PICTUIJES. 
 
 " Very true, madam," said my uncle, gravely ; u you 
 have expressed my thought better than I could have done 
 myself." 
 
 And so the best cure that my uncle knew for the vanity 
 that was shadowing the child's unconscious grace, was 
 pride ! This was setting one disease to drive out another 
 one demon to overthrow another ; and it was successful. 
 I no longer simpered, and if I could not altogether refrain 
 from blushing, I felt provoked with myself for it, consider 
 ing it a weakness unworthy of Miss Moray. Perhaps I 
 recovered my equanimity the sooner, from finding that my 
 dress did not recommend me to every one. Charlie, on 
 first seeing me in my butterfly state, exclaimed, " Why, 
 Miss 'Gusty ! " he delighted to teaze me by using the name 
 adopted by the blacks, for the high sounding Augusta 
 " How improved you are ! Ma cousine, vous etes tout-a-fait 
 belief 
 
 " Charlie, how ridiculous you make yourself with your 
 parade of French ! " cried Hugh, in a testy tone. 
 
 " Well ! it's true, if it is French," replied Charlie. 
 
 " It is not true," returned Hugh, with increasing dis 
 composure. " I don't believe any one was ever perfectly 
 beautiful I don't even think she is improved ; for my 
 part, I like to see a little girl look like a little girl." 
 
 We were standing near the library door. The boys 
 had just come in from a hunt with my uncle, and were 
 going to their rooms to dress for dinner, when they were ar 
 rested by my appearance. They now passed on, and I shrank 
 into the library, mortified and depressed. Twenty minutes 
 after, Hugh, whose toilette was always quickly made, camo 
 in to look for a book. He found me resting my head upon 
 a table, and sobbing violently. Seating himself beside me, 
 he lifted my tear-stained fad6, and insisted on knowing what 
 was the matter.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 35 
 
 " Let me alone ! " I exclaimed, struggling in vain to 
 escape from him ; " let me alone ! you know you don't care 
 a bit for me." 
 
 " I don't care for you ! You don't know anything about 
 it ; I love you as if you were my own little sister." 
 
 " But you told Charlie I wasn't beautiful," I sobbed 
 out. 
 
 " Oh ! that's it, is it ? You are crying because you are 
 not thought perfectly beautiful." 
 
 I felt the arm with which Hugh was clasping me to his 
 side, slackening its grasp. 
 
 " I don't care whether I am beautiful or not," I an 
 swered, quickly, and a little hypocritically, I fear ; " but I 
 do care to be loved, and when we love people, we think 
 they are beautiful." 
 
 " We do ? well, I don't," said Hugh, with a smile in 
 his voice. " I love both my sisters, and one of them is not 
 in the least beautiful." 
 
 " But your mother is beautiful I heard you say so," 
 I rejoined. 
 
 " And you want me to love you as I love my 
 mother 1 " 
 
 Hugh laughed, and so quickly are the tears of childhood 
 dried, that I laughed with him. 
 
 " I cannot promise to do that," he continued, playfully, 
 " but I love you quite as much as you can wish me to do, 
 as my own darling little cousin, whom I would not exchange 
 for any other, though the other were twice as beautiful," 
 and Hugh bent down and kissed me very tenderly. My 
 cheek did not burn then to receive his kiss, as it does now 
 to remember it. It was his first kiss the first kiss, except 
 Charity's, that had ever seemed to me to have love in it. 
 
 I was very happy. I longed to do something for Hugh, 
 and I whispered, softly, " Hugh, if you would like me bet-
 
 36 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 tor in my old frocks, I won't have any more altered, and 
 I'll take off this, and put on one they have not touched." 
 
 Again Hugh lifted my downcast face and kissed me. 
 
 " My dear little cousin," he said, " your dresses do not 
 make the least difference in my love. I dare say I shall like 
 this dress best when I have become accustomed to it. The 
 truth is, I believe I was a little cross when I said what dis 
 tressed you." 
 
 As he said this, Hugh's face was very grave, though full 
 of interest and affection. 
 
 " What made you cross, Hugh ? " I asked. 
 
 " Because I was afraid," he said, " that they were going 
 to spoil my simple-hearted little cousin, and to make her 
 like some of the foolish, vain girls I have seen at my Aunt 
 Moray's, who think more of their sashes and curls than of 
 anything else in the world." 
 
 " But I won't do that, Hugh, because my uncle says 
 dress cannot make any difference to Miss Moray." 
 
 " So so " said Hugh, softly, " call in pride to kill 
 vanity. Well it is the more respectable of the two ; but, 
 Augusta," here Hugh turned again to me, the first part of 
 his sentence having been in soliloquy, " do you ever read 
 the Bible ? " 
 
 " Sometimes," I answered, " with Mr. Mortimer, and 
 on Sundays." 
 
 " There are two verses in it, which I want you to learn 
 for me ; will you do it ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, Hugh ! " 
 
 I was glad he had asked me to do something for him. 
 He turned over the leaves of a large Bible on the table, till 
 he found the First Epistle of Peter, third chapter, and third 
 and fourth verses, and read : " Whose adorning, let it not 
 be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wear 
 ing of gold, or of putting on of apparel ; but, let it be the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 37 
 
 hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, 
 even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in 
 the sight of God of great price." 
 
 I J aving read it over with me, and made me read it my 
 self to him, he was leaving me to learn it, but the tender 
 conscience of the child was touched, and drawing him back, 
 I asked, " Hugh, is it wrong to wear this ? " showing, as I 
 spoke, a small camao pin which Mrs. Moray had stuck in 
 my dress. 
 
 " No, dear not wrong to wear them, but wrong to 
 make them your adornments the things for which you 
 value yourself." 
 
 Hugh left me very happy. I learned the verses, and 
 when I recited them to him that evening, he made mo 
 promise that I would repeat them whenever I was dressed. 
 I keep the promise even to this hour. Sweet memories ! 
 Ah ! who would not be a child again 1 
 
 As the hours of that winter pass before me, there are 
 few salient points on which memory may rest, few promi 
 nent traits to sketch into my picture ; yet how surely was 
 my life acquiring new tone and coloring. My sky was be 
 coming more picturesque, its blue expanse being shadowed 
 now and then by floating clouds, and far away, in the distant 
 horizon, a far seeing eye might have espied one rising, no 
 bigger than a man's hand, yet inspiring fear by the depth 
 of its hue, and its steady, though not rapid approach. 
 
 My uncle had purchased a telescope at the request of Mr. 
 Mortimer, who spent many a clear evening upon the bal 
 cony with Hugh and Charlie and me, pointing out the dif 
 ferent constellations, and giving names to those " bright 
 particular stars," which most attracted our admiration. To 
 Hugh, this was the most delightful relaxation after intense 
 study, for he soon drew Mr. Mortimer far beyond what he 
 had originally intended, by his offer of instruction in astro.
 
 38 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 nomical science. The mere elements of astronomy were all 
 that I could understand, all that Charlie cared for ; but Hugh 
 plunged at once into a deep sea, which we had no line to 
 sound, and where even Mr. Mortimer, I sometimes thought, 
 was upheld by the buoyancy of his companion. 
 
 Looking into the library one morning, and finding both 
 Mr. Mortimer and Hugh absorbed in the calculation of 
 some abstruse mathematical problem, jny uncle exclaimed, 
 " Come, come, Hugh ! All work and no play makes Jack 
 a dull boy. The old Morays were soldiers, not book 
 worms. Your horse is at the door, and this is just the 
 morning for a hunt." 
 
 I knew that Hugh loved a canter over the breezy savan 
 nas, and that the excitement of a deer hunt to him, who 
 had known little of the free joyousncss of youth till he came 
 to St. Mary's, was a source of the keenest delight. I lifted 
 my eyes from the book I was studying in the corner, and 
 fixed them on his face. His usually sallow cheek was 
 glowing, the eyes he raised to my uncle's face were 
 sparkling with pleasure, as he half rose from his chair ; but 
 he seated himself again, the sparkle died out, the color 
 faded, and he said, " I believe, sir, it will be more in the 
 spirit of the old Morays to stay till I have conquered this 
 dragon of a problem. They never left a foe but half sub 
 dued did they, sir 1 " 
 
 My uncle smiled as he answered, " No ! I think not; " 
 then added, " but, Hugh, this visit to the South was in 
 tended for a holiday. Charlie is enjoying it thoroughly, 
 while you are sitting in a confined room, and studying as if 
 you were at school. Are you so dull always ? Do you 
 not like such manly sports as riding and hunting 1 " 
 
 " Oh dearly, sir i dearly ! and I am not dull ; but 
 Charlie am go to school again when he goes home, and I 
 I"
 
 TWO PICTURES. 39 
 
 Hugh had spoken with fluency and animation, but at 
 this point, he stopped suddenly, and his eyes fell. 
 
 " Well ! " cried my uncle, after waiting some seconds 
 in vain for the continuance of his explanation, " you " 
 
 " I do not expect to go to school again," Hugh con 
 cluded, in an indifferent, matter of fact way, very unlike 
 the impulsive, animated manner in which he had com 
 menced. 
 
 " And why will you not go to school again 1 " 
 
 Again Hugh reddened, but even I, child as I was, could 
 see that the color came from a different feeling from that 
 which had lately flushed his cheek, and sparkled in his eye. 
 After a moment's pause, he answered, simply, " For several 
 reasons, sir." 
 
 My uncle looked hard at him, but left the room without 
 another word. The next minute, he and Charlie rode by 
 in a brisk canter, with the hounds barking in a glad chorus 
 around them. Hugh followed them for one moment with 
 his eyes, and then I heard a suppressed sigh, as he turned 
 again to his calculations. I slipped from my chair, and 
 approached to offer such consolation as I could give, but 
 before I reached his side, he was evidently so absorbed in 
 his problem, that I could not venture to disturb him. 
 
 Sometimes, when Hugh had conquered some great diffi 
 culty in his course, he would bound up from the chair to 
 which his resolute will had chained him, fling aside his 
 books, rush out to the stables for his horse, take his gun, 
 if he knew that my uncle was hunting, and gallop off with 
 an exuberance of enjoyment manifest in his face and move 
 ments, such as even Charlie rarely showed. Though he 
 had seldom mounted a horse before his visit to St. Mary's, 
 he had soon become, under my uncle's instruction, a fear 
 less and graceful rider, and a very fair shot. Charlie was 
 an adept in every manly accomplishment that ministers to
 
 40 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 pleasure. His gay, insouciant nature never denied itself a 
 gratification. It was said of him by some one, that he 
 seemed to be perpetually singing in his heart, " Begone dull 
 care ; " but for my part, I think care never came sufficient 
 ly near him to be sent away. He spoke truly when he 
 said that the motto of his life was " Vive la bagatelle." 
 
 Everybody was charmed with the graceful, handsome 
 boy. Even Mr. Mortimer's face kept its brightest smile 
 for Charlie. My uncle's eye rested on him with equal 
 pride and pleasure, and the very negroes, while they bowed 
 or courtesied respectfully to both the youths, kept their 
 brightest glances and mei'riest words for Charlie. I was 
 the only exception to this, and I grew jealous for Hugh. 
 Charlie's brightness seemed to throw him into shadow, and 
 I did not like it. This feeling doubtless made me unjust at 
 times. Hugh was the first to show me this. 
 
 It was a rainy morning, and no outdoor amusement 
 could be thought of. Charlie threw himself on the sofa in 
 the library, with an old novel which he had obtained by 
 climbing to the highest shelf in the room. I was doing 
 little better than he. giving only half my attention to the 
 book I held in my hand, while with the other half I was 
 watching the rain drops as they fell from a drooping bough, 
 and trickled, bright and clear, down the panes of glass 
 beside me. I was startled from my dreamy mood by 
 Charlie's springing to his feet, throwing down his book, and 
 crying, " Come, Hugh ! Put down those everlasting books, 
 and let us do something to keep us alive." 
 
 " Thank you ; I do not feel my life in any present dan 
 ger," said Hugh, with a quiet smile. 
 
 " Come, 'Gusty ! you have not read a page of your his 
 tory this half hour, you little make-believe. Now come 
 and play a game of battledore in the long room." 
 
 lie snatched at my book as he spoke, but I clung to it
 
 TWO PICTURES. 41 
 
 exclaiming, " I don't want to play battledore I don't like 
 battledore." 
 
 " You liked it yesterday, when Hugh called you to play 
 with him." 
 
 " I like to play with Hugh," I said, sulkily. 
 
 " Which means that you don't like to play with me 
 an avowal somewhat more frank than polite, Miss Moray ; 
 but chacun d son goiit" 
 
 I was not mollified by Charlie's French, for, as I could 
 not understand it, I always believed that he made it the 
 vehicle of a sarcasm. He now left the room with a height 
 ened complexion. I looked toward Hugh, and met his eyes 
 fixed upon me, with an expression of grave rebuke. I hung 
 my head. 
 
 " What made you so cross to Charlie 1 " he asked. 
 
 " I did not want to play with him," I answered, eva 
 sively. 
 
 Hugh bent forward, stretched out his hand, and drew 
 me to him. 
 
 " Why did you not want. to play with Charlie? Would 
 you not play with me if I should ask you ? " 
 
 He was answered by a smile, though I still declined to 
 meet his eye. 
 
 " Charlie is always pleasant to you he is pleasant to 
 every one." 
 
 I spoke suddenly, quickly, angrily, I suppose. " I wish 
 Charlie had never come. I am tired of hearing people say 
 ' Charlie's pleasant,' as if it was so hard to be pleasant." 
 
 " I should think you had proof in yourself, that it was 
 sometimes hard to be so. Do you remember, the other 
 day, how angry you were with the Athenian who voted for 
 the exile of Aristides, because he was so weary of hearing 
 him called the just. I am afraid you have no better reason 
 for wishing Charlie aw r ay."
 
 42 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Well, it was reason enough, if the Athenian knew 
 some one more just than Aristides, who never got any 
 praise, while every one was talking of him." 
 
 " And so you are jealous of Charlie's reputation, are 
 you ? " 
 
 " I am not jealous I don't want people to think me 
 pleasant," I said, hotly. 
 
 " No ! but you want that they should think me so," and 
 Hugh stooped and pressed his lips to my flushed brow ; 
 then, taking my hand in his, he added in that gentle, yet 
 earnest tone which always thrilled my very feeart, and 
 made me willing to attempt anything he could propose: 
 " My little cousin's love is very dear to me. I would 
 rather have that love, than know that a thousand people for 
 whom I do not care a great deal, said, how pleasant I was ; 
 but then her love to me must not make her unjust, or spoil 
 her temper. Charlie is pleasant pleasanter than I am." 
 
 " I don't think so," I exclaimed. 
 
 'That is because you love me; but strangers will 
 always find such a gay, sunny temper as Charlie's, agree 
 able, while they must wait awhile, and know what is behind 
 my grave face, before they can like me." 
 
 " 1 did not wait I liked you best at the very first, 
 Hugh." 
 
 " I think you did, but I have never understood how that 
 came about. Can you tell me why you liked me best ? " 
 
 " Because," 1 stopped ; I found reasons not so plenty 
 as blackberries, " because I liked you best I mean, be 
 cause you suited me I don't know, Hugh somehow I felt 
 comfortable with you." 
 
 Hugh laughed, and rising from his chair, said, " And 
 you suit me, and I am very comfortable with you ; but 
 now we will be generous, and find poor Charlie, and try to 
 make him comfortable too."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 43 
 
 Charlie had already forgotten his little pique against 
 me, for I must do him the justice to say, that he is, and 
 always has been very good tempered. I really think I 
 should in time have forgiven him the little conceited ways 
 that annoyed me, and have liked him heartily in the main, 
 though we might still have quarrelled occasionally, had not 
 his mother so often wounded my self-love, and irritated my 
 quick temper. I do not yet understand how it was that 
 Mrs. Charles Moray, never appearing to be discomposed 
 herself, could yet work my nature into a tempest ; how, 
 petting me as I had never been petted before, she could yet 
 infuse into my heart suspicion, never felt before, of the 
 truth and the kindness of all around me, herself included. 
 There was a falsetto tone in her voice that roused me to 
 opposition, as the trumpet stirs a war horse. And yet 
 others thought it was "so sweet." How intensely unarniable 
 I must have appeared to the onlookers in these scenes ! 
 
 I know not how soon after Mrs. Moray's arrival it was 
 that I became conscious of a change in my feelings to my 
 uncle. I have said that while sheltering me in his home, 
 and providing liberally for my wants, he had never mani 
 fested to me anything like love, had never caressed me 
 in my infancy, or taken pleasure in my society as 1 grew 
 older. But my uncle was liberal to all, and a paper of 
 candies, or a new toy, made an epoch in the life of a child 
 so lonely, and the giver was sure to be remembered with 
 pleasure. There was more than this in my feeling to my 
 uncle. I was proud of him, as I have already said, proud 
 to belong to one who seemed to my childish fancy so 
 great a man. Does he love me ? was a question I had 
 never asked myself, till Mrs. Charles Moray both suggested 
 and answered it. 
 
 It is probable that I did not immediately notice the pa- 
 hetic intonation of voice and the glance of the eye, by which
 
 44 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 she gave deeper significance to the " Poor darling ! " her 
 usual name for me when we were alone. But I was not 
 long permitted to retain this happy unconsciousness. It 
 was not long before I found myself watching my uncle's 
 words and manner, as I had never watched them before, 
 and feeling something of resentment take the place of ad 
 miration and gratitude. The serpent had entered my Eden. 
 I was no longer satisfied to accept, with glad, untroubled 
 heart, the good gifts showered upon me. I had entered the 
 path through which every earnest life must pass to glory, 
 or to shame to the joy of success, the diviner joy of self- 
 renunciation, or the unmixed bitterness of disappointment. 
 I coveted the unattainable. I would know both the evil and 
 the good. 
 
 It was cruel to disturb so early my beautiful dream of 
 life. All I have since experienced might have come, but 
 it would have come gradually, and I should have been 
 stronger to bear it. Our visitors had come in the autumn, 
 and when spring had covered our savannas with its more 
 delicate flowers, I had already begun to feel that I had no 
 more right to call St. Mary's mine my home than they 
 had. And this was very bitter, for my life seemed a part 
 of that beautiful nature, with which and in which I had 
 lived so long. Oh the desolateness of heart with which I 
 first admitted the thought, that there was no natural bond 
 between it and me ! The hour and the scene rise before me, 
 in which I was made to stand face to face with that idea, 
 already perhaps dimly imagined, but then first endowed 
 with life and power. 
 
 My uncle and Hugh and Charlie were all away. They 
 had gone to a little town on the mainland my uncle on 
 business, my cousins for the enjoyment of boating on a 
 bright, warm, spring day. The house was dull without 
 them, and as soon as my lessons were over, I had wandered
 
 TWO PICTURES. 45 
 
 off, in my old fashion, with Charity. Coming back laden 
 with flowers, I sat down upon the upper step of the piazza 
 to weave them into chaplets, with which I thought to 
 astonish Mrs. Moray. They were not yet ready for exhibi 
 tion, when she came out from the house, and putting her 
 hand caressingly on my bowed head, said in her usual soft 
 falsetto, " My poor darling ! have you come back ? " 
 
 She had often given me this pitying title, and I had 
 borne it quietly. I know not why it was, that on this 
 especial day I could not bear it. I answered quickly, 
 " What makes you call me poor, Mrs. Moray ? I don't 
 like to be called so I am not poor." 
 
 " Are you not, dear child ] I feel as if every one was 
 poor who was left an orphan, with no one to love them 
 very dearly." 
 
 " I have my uncle to love me, and " I was going 
 
 to add Hugh, but a feeling which I did not understand, 
 restrained me. Mrs. Moray finished the sentence for me. 
 
 " And Mr. Mortimer," she said. " You are right I be 
 lieve he feels as kindly to you as any one in the world, 
 poor dear ! " 
 
 " But I am not poor, Mrs. Moray," I repeated, perti 
 naciously. " My uncle is rich." 
 
 " True he is. This is a very valuable place, and you 
 love it dearly, Augusta, do you not 1 " 
 
 Love ! I had never asked myself the question ; it would 
 have been as natural to ask if I loved light, or air, or 
 any of those blessed things which are so essential to our 
 life, that they seem but a part of it, and we forget to be 
 thankful for them as for separate gifts. 
 
 " You would not like to go away, and never see St. 
 Mary's again, would you ? " Mrs. Moray again questioned, 
 as I sat mutely gazing upon the waving boughs and gleam 
 ing waters of my beautiful home.
 
 46 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Never see St. Mary's again ! " I repeated, slowly. 
 What infinite sadness there was in the words ! 
 
 " Why, you know, my dear child, it might be so." 
 Mrs. Moray seated herself beside me on the step, and con 
 tinued very gently, " You must remember you are not Mr. 
 Moray's child, and should he die, as every one, you know, is 
 liable to do at any time, he might leave it to some other per 
 son to some person whom you would not like to live with, or 
 who would not care to have you here. Indeed, even during Mr. 
 Moray's life, if you displease him, he may send you away ; 
 so you see now, darling, why I called you poor. And now, 
 my pet, I have told you these things, not to make you 
 unhappy, but because I think you will be more careful not 
 to offend your uncle, after you understand them. I know it 
 is nob easy always to please him, but you must try you 
 must not be so independent, and you are so cold in your 
 manner to him ; you must be more affectionate; you must 
 caress him ; take his hand, and lean on him, and talk to 
 him as you do to Mr. Mortimer, sometimes. You see, 
 dear child, I am thinking only of your good." 
 
 Was this true 1 Did she seek my good ? If so, she 
 was a poorer judge of character than I think. I doubt if 
 any more certain way of estranging my uncle could have 
 been chosen than the fawning, forced caresses thus advised. 
 But there was no danger of these. She might have seen 
 that there was not, by the burning cheek and sullen brow 
 that met her eyes when she strove to read, in my face, the 
 answer my tongue refused to utter ; by the cold withdrawal 
 of the hand she would have taken ; by the passion with 
 which, at last, as she began another of her soft sentences, 
 I sprang down the steps, and rushed from her presence the 
 vain, impotent passion of a child, which soon dissolves in 
 tears. As soon as 1 was fairly out of sight of the house, I 
 threw myself down at the foot of an old oak tree, and rest-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 4:7 
 
 ing my head against its trunk, wept bitterly. When the 
 fit of weeping was over, I went down to the beach, and sat 
 for what seemed to me a very long time, throwing pebbles 
 into the water, and trying to picture to myself some other 
 child living in my home, enjoying my few simple pleasures 
 my uncle's niece, Mr. Mortimer's pupil, Hugh's cousin 
 and I, separated from all these, a poor castaway, it might 
 be, begging my daily bread for a childish imagination, once 
 excited, is a wonderful exaggerator. 
 
 At length I heard Charity's voice calling me. I did 
 not wish to meet her I would have been glad to meet no 
 one that day ; for, though the passion of my grief had 
 abated, it had left me cross dissatisfied with myself, and 
 yet more dissatisfied with others. I returned home, avoid 
 ing the direction from which Charity seemed to be 
 approaching. When I reached the house, I found that my 
 uncle had arrived, that dinner had been served, and that 
 all the family were seated at table. The two greatest 
 faults I could commit, in my uncle's estimation, as I had 
 long since learned, were want of punctuality at meals, and 
 want of neatness. That day I was reckless, and I walked 
 into the dining room, fifteen minutes or more after the rest 
 had been seated, with my hair and dress in disorder, my 
 face stained with tears, and my hands soiled with the 
 flowers I had gathered in my walk, and the pebbles I had 
 since handled. Without a word of apology for my tardi 
 ness, or of greeting to those whom I had not seen since the 
 day before, I walked to my place, and was about to take the 
 vacant chair that stood there. My uncle looked up, and 
 said, not angrily, " You are late, Augusta." 
 
 I turned my face toward him without speaking. His 
 brow grew stern. He bade me come to him, and when I 
 obeyed, he looked with coldly investigating eyes upon my 
 disordered hair and dress, and my soiled face and hands. I
 
 48 TWO I'ICTL'liES. 
 
 did not shrink from the examination. I think I was in the 
 mood to be rather pleased with the prospect of a combat. 
 If so, the desire did not seem likely to be gratified, for my 
 uncle only ordered a waiter to call Charity, and when she 
 appeared, desired her to take me to my room, and arrange 
 my dress, before she suffered me to come to table 
 again. My heart swelled high with pride and anger ; I 
 shook off the light touch which Charity had laid upon my 
 arm, and turned to leave the room. I had to pass Mrs. 
 Moray's chair, and as I did so, she stretched out her round, 
 white arm, covered with bracelets, and drew me, spite of 
 my resistance, to her side. 
 
 " My darling child," she whispered in my unwilling 
 ear, " remember what I said to you to-day speak gently 
 to your uncle ask his pardon for being so careless of his 
 wishes ; " then, still holding me fast, she turned to my 
 uncle and said, aloud, " Mr. Moray, you must forgive our 
 little pet ; I am sure you would, if you knew how anxious 
 she was to please you." 
 
 Every word she had said, had been as fuel to the fire of 
 my passion, and it was no longer to be controlled. Tear 
 ing my hand from her clasp, and showing, I doubt not, in 
 looks and gesture, the fury that had mastered me, I cried, 
 in a voice that sounds even now in my memory, sharp and 
 high, " I wish you'd let me alone ; I am not your darling 
 child, and you know you're telling a story when you say 
 that I'm anxious to please Uncle Hugh ; I don't care to 
 please him I won't ask his pardon I don't care for him 
 I don't care for anybody." 
 
 My uncle had not attempted to interrupt me. Asi I 
 began, he put down, untasted, the glass of wine he had raised 
 to his lips, and looked at me coldly, calmly, as at a strange 
 study. When I accused Mrs. Moray of untruth, his face 
 flushed, and he rose from his chair ; but he did not advance
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 49 
 
 to me until I had finished my speech, then, two steps placed 
 him at my side. He laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, 
 and pushed me toward Mrs. Moray. 
 
 " You have insulted a lady a guest at my table ask 
 her pardon," he said, in a low, determined voice. Even 
 then, child as I was, his stillness awed me more than angry 
 words could have done ; but at that moment, not even this 
 could bow me to make any amends to Mrs. Moray. I was 
 sullenly silent. 
 
 " Ask her pardon on your knees," and my uncle at 
 tempted to press me down. I offered only passive resis 
 tance. I would not kneel. I did not speak, but I did not 
 attempt to escape his pressure ; I did not lift my eyes to 
 his. Perhaps if I had, the stem, unbending purpose I 
 should have seen there, would have overpowered my will ; 
 but I know not, it was very strong. My only contests 
 hitherto had been with Charity, and I had always con 
 quered her. During this scene, there was perfect silence in 
 the room. Mrs. Moray had indeed begun an expostulation, 
 but my uncle stopped her with a look, and then all were 
 still, and waited a minute or an hour I know not ; but 
 it seemed to me very long, before my uncle lifted his hand 
 from my shoulder, and said, " Go to your room you will 
 not leave it again until you are ready to obey me, and I 
 request that no one in my house will hold any communica 
 tion with you till then." 
 
 I walked out of the room with a firm step, carrying my 
 head somewhat more proudly erect than usual, went to my 
 room, and locking my door against Charity, who was fol 
 lowing me, I threw myself on the floor, and wept as only 
 a child can weep. There was no healing in such tears 
 they left me as they found me, hard, proud, and resentful. 
 One word of kindness would have melted me. Could I but 
 have seen Hugh !
 
 50 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 The long hours wore on, and no one came except 
 Charity, whom I sent angrily avr>\y. At length, there was 
 another step, a knock it might be Hugh. I sprang up, I 
 opened the door ; I saw the waving of a white dress, closed 
 it instantly, and locked it. My visitor was Mrs. Moray. 
 
 " Open the door ! " she cried, in guarded tones, as if 
 afraid of being overheard, " I have come to see you, while 
 your uncle is lying down in the library. I have brought 
 you some candy that Charlie got for you this morning. 
 Let me in, and we will make friends, and I will tell your 
 uncle you have asked my pardon, and all will be right 
 again." 
 
 The candy might have softened me, but the ofier to tell 
 an untruth for me, made me despise her more than ever ; 
 no, I could not ask her pardon, I could not be friendly with 
 her. 
 
 " If you will not let me in, I must go," she said, at last. 
 I did not speak I did not move. 
 
 " Well, good by," the last word lingeringly pro 
 nounced, as if to give me time for repentance, and then 
 she was gone. As her steps died away, I wept again. I 
 wished, perhaps, that 1 had yielded, for I was hungry, hav 
 ing eaten no dinner. The evening came on cold and dark. 
 Will they leave mo here all night alone, I asked myself; 
 and then I thought of some of Charity's stories of ghostly 
 visitants. My father and mother would they visit me to 
 night ? For the first time, the thought brought a shudder 
 with it. My spirit was not in accord with angel visitants. 
 
 Suddenly a light shone under the door, and Charity's 
 voice called to me to open it. With more pleasure than I 
 would have liked to confess, I admitted her, and with her 
 came light and fire and food. 
 
 " Did Uncle Hugh tell you to bring me my tea 1 " I 
 questioned Charity, after I had emptied the well-filled plate
 
 TWO PICTURES. 51 
 
 of buttered toast, and drank every drop of milk from the 
 bowl she brought me. 
 
 " No, Miss 'Gusty ! you think I wait for ax 'im 1 You 
 think I let strange people come here and starve my chile ? " 
 
 Charity's resentment was as strong and keen as mine, 
 and evidently pointed in the same direction. 
 
 " Charity, did you see Hugh ? " The question cost me 
 no little effort. 
 
 " I has not seen Master Hugh since he's went to Mr. 
 Mortimer's, Miss "Gusty," said Charity, in reply. 
 
 " How do you know that it was to Mr. Mortimer's he 
 went ? " 
 
 " Well, I hearn him tell Master Charles so, and he telled 
 him too as how he thought Mr. Mortimer ud be the best 
 peacemaker." 
 
 My heart sprang up, and threw off the heaviest part of 
 the load that had been oppressing it. Hugh was not in 
 different to me. Though he had not disobeyed my uncle 
 by coming to me, he was thinking of me, and trying to 
 bring me help. I was long silent and thoughtful ; then 
 came another question, spoken hesitatingly, and with low 
 and faltering tones, for I was not quite sure that it was 
 right thus to interrogate a servant, even though the. ser 
 vant was Charity. 
 
 " Charity, did you go back to the dining room after I 
 came away ? " 
 
 Charity turned her face away, and pretended to be too 
 busy at the fire to look up, as she answered, " Yes, Miss 
 'Gusty, I went back and stayed round awhile, 'cause I 
 wanted to hear." 
 
 I waited with the hope that she would tell me, unasked, 
 all I wished to know ; but she remained silent, and I was 
 obliged again to question. 
 
 " What did they say, Charity ? "
 
 52 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Oh ! Misses Moray say she's bery sorry ; she wish 
 master ud let you come back ; you is only a chile, and she 
 don't care for you to beg pardon ; but master, he say well, 
 1 don't know a'cisely, but he warn't goiir to send for 
 you.' 1 
 
 " But Hugh did Hugh say nothing ? " 
 
 " No, Miss 'Gusty ! but he looked bery sorry, and he 
 excused hisself, an' has went, as I telled you, to Mr. Mor 
 timer's." 
 
 1 was very weary that evening, and fell asleep more 
 than once in my chair ; but the house was all still before 
 Charity could persuade me to go to bed, so strong was my 
 -hope that either Hugh or Mr. Mortimer would visit me. 
 
 The next morning, Charity wanted me to remain in bed, 
 saying that I had been feverish, and talked all sorts of non 
 sense in the night with me, a common effect, as I have 
 since found, of any very great excitement. But I was wilful 
 us usual, and rising early, dressed myself, saw Charity put 
 my room in order, and then sat waiting and listening. The 
 morning was warm, and Charity had raised one of the sashes 
 in my room. Oh how lovely it was ! I can smell even now 
 the sweetbrier, which sent its delicate sprays, all gemmed 
 with morning dews, across my window. The dew lay upon 
 the grassy lawn, and its pendent drops were like a thousand 
 mimic suns suspended from every bush and tree. The 
 majestic oaks and their gray drapery looked gay in that 
 morning light, and the mocking birds seemed to feel it, as 
 they fluttered from bough to bough, and poured forth their 
 rich melody. And I, as free in general as they, must be 
 shut up in this room, catching only glimpses of the beau 
 ties of sky and sea and land, which I had till lately felt 
 were all my own, to be enjoyed at will. My spirit passed 
 into a rebellious mood. " It is too hard," I said to myself; 
 " besides, as Mrs. Moray said, I am not Uncle Hugh's child,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 53 
 
 and so I am not bound to obey him. And what more can he 
 do than send me back, and shut me up here, if he meets 
 me ? At any rate, I will have one good run." My hand was 
 on the sill of the window, my foot on a chair, from which I 
 intended to spring out, when Charity opened the door, and 
 entered with a waiter filled with all I bes't liked. She had 
 nearly let the waiter fall as she saw what I was about. 
 
 " Why, what is the chile a doing ! Here, your uncle's 
 been an' sent you' breakfast, an' you is agoin' out when he 
 is say, ' Stay in ! ' ' 
 
 Charity spoke with evident alarm. Such an act of an 
 tagonism to my uncle's will seemed fearful to her. 
 
 Her fears infected me, and I drew back from the win 
 dow, cowed and yet more depressed. I had no appetite 
 for the breakfast which, sent by my uncle, seemed another 
 mark of my bondage. Poor Charity's eyes filled with 
 tears, as she saw me push aside the dainties she had pre 
 pared so carefully, and, crossing my arms on the table, drop 
 my head upon them, and weep bitterly. I could have 
 borne punishment in the shape of pain, sharp and quick, or 
 privation of some definite pleasure ; I could have stood my 
 ground against angry words, or even against hard blows ; 
 but this stern quietude, this leaving me to myself, this 
 shutting me out from all the sweet influences of nature and 
 books and friends, this pressure of a power that did not 
 even expose itself to the contact of rude words from me, 
 which cared not for my sorrow, and would release me only 
 on submission it crushed me it ground me down be- 
 neath its heel, but it did not subdue my spirit ; it did not 
 hush the voice of passion it increased the virulence of the 
 hatred, for the expression of which I was suffering ; but it 
 made me, at the same time, feel that I was powerless it 
 reduced me to despair. 
 
 I know not how lono; it was after this for I had no
 
 51 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 means of measuring time but my own weary sensations, 
 and what seemed many hours may have been only one 
 when Mr. Mortimer turned the latch of my door, and asked 
 if ho might enter. My heart beat so as almost to slide my 
 voice as 1 strove to answer, " Yes." lie came in, and I rose 
 from my chair ;' but there was something in my heart 
 which prevented my springing to meet him as I was accus 
 tomed to do. 1 stood belbre him with my sullen face bent 
 downward, and my arms hanging lifelessly at rny side, but 
 not for long. The good man placed himself in the chair 
 from which J had risen, and passing his arm around me, 
 rested his other hand gently on my head, saying, softly, 
 " Poor child ! poor child ! " 
 
 At once the hardness seemed to melt from my heart, 
 and my head dropped upon his shoulder, as if I had found 
 there a resting place and shelter. lie looked at me kindly, 
 lovingly, for a moment, and then asked, " Have you asked 
 God to bless you, this morning, Augusta 1 " 
 
 I did not answer, for, in truth, I had not dared that day 
 to repeat the prayer which asks to be forgiven as we for 
 give. 
 
 " Let us clo it now," said Mr. Mortimer, and without 
 any change of position, he asked God's blessing and guid 
 ance for us through the day, and not for us only, but for 
 all ; for our friends for our enemies ; interweaving with 
 this petition an acknowledgment of guilt, and a prayer 
 that we might be enabled to show that mercy to others 
 which we sought for ourselves. There was about this good 
 man a simplicity, a vivid truthfulness of manner, that 
 seemed to bring the Being he addressed so near, to mnke 
 his Intercession so thorough a reality, that the impression 
 was almost overpowering to the sensitive mind of a child. 
 Thua Mr. Mortimer had made me feel that it was a duty to 
 put ftway resentment from my heart nay, he had, as it
 
 TWO PICTURES. 55 
 
 were, introduced me into a presence in which I feared to 
 show angry feeling, before he began to speak on the subject 
 which had brought him to me. We were both silent for a 
 while after his prayer ; then raising my head from his 
 shoulder, and placing me where he could look full into my 
 face, he said : " And now come, tell me what troubles you. 
 Why should you stay shut up in this room you who love 
 liberty so well when you have only to say you are sorry 
 for your rudeness to Mrs. Moray, and walk out of it? 
 Come, tell me, what is your reason 1 " 
 
 " Because I won't tell a story, and I am not sorry," I 
 answered immediately. 
 
 " Of course you cannot tell an untruth ; but did you 
 say you were not sorry for being rude to a lady who is 
 your uncle's guest, at his own table ? besides, she was your 
 guest, too." 
 
 " I only said what was true ; she did tell a story ; she 
 said I was so anxious to please Uncle Hugh." 
 
 " And are you not anxious to please Uncle Hugh Uncle 
 Hugh who loved your dear father as if he were his o\vn 
 son, and who has always taken care of you ? For shame, 
 Augusta ; can you be so ungrateful 1 " 
 
 My cheek flushed, I hung my head and answered, almost 
 in a whisper : " I did not care to please him then." 
 
 " And why not 1 " 
 
 " Because Mrs. Moray said that Uncle Hugh did not 
 love me much, and that if I did not take great pains to 
 please him, he would send me away from St. Mary's and 
 never let me come back ; and then she told Uncle Hugh I 
 was so anxious to please him just as if I was afraid of 
 him, and was making believe." 
 
 " All this, Augusta, only shows that Mrs. Moray did 
 not understand either you or your uncle very well ; it may 
 have been all kindly meant, and she may have believed all
 
 56 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 she said. At any rate, if she had done wrong, it did not 
 become a little girl to tell her so, and in her own home, 
 too." 
 
 " But she said it was not my home." 
 
 " She could not mean that it was not your home ; but, 
 even suppose it had not been, do you think it was proper 
 for a little girl like you, to speak as you did to a lady like 
 Mrs. Moray ? Answer me, Augusta ; I know you will 
 answer truthfully." 
 
 I answered " No ! " 
 
 "Then surely, my truthful little friend, you will not 
 refuse to obey your uncle, and tell Mrs. Moray what you 
 have told me." 
 
 - " But they ought not to treat me so she ought not to 
 tell me such things." 
 
 " The question is not what they ought to do, or what 
 she ought not to do, but \vhat you, Augusta Moray, ought 
 to do always the most important question in the world 
 for you, my child." 
 
 How could I resist such a teacher ! Oh that he were 
 beside me now ! Then he conquered all my opposition, 
 and led me out, if not prepared with a very ample apology, 
 willing, at least, to assent to his assurances that I saw I had 
 acted very improperly, and regretted having given way to 
 angry feeling. I was received by Mrs. Moray with the 
 utmost apparent cordiality ; her tenderness during the day 
 was wellnigh overpowering to my temper, at least ; but 
 with the help of Charlie's candies and an outpouring of my 
 full heart to. Hugh, I managed to endure it. 
 
 This was by no means the only occasion on which Mrs. 
 Moray aroused my combativeness, or insinuated, in her 
 gentle tones and tender manner, doubts of my uncle's kind 
 ness to me. I can recall now the change which passed 
 over my feelings and manner, and I can remember, too,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 57 
 
 how his indifference grew into irritability, and, as I verily 
 believe, for a time into positive dislike. Had Hugh 
 remained at St. Mary's, he might have helped me to resist 
 the evil in my own heart ; but he was gone, and under Mrs. 
 Moray's influences, I went from bad to worse, till even 
 Charity exclaimed that " she did not know what had come 
 to her chile." 
 
 My uncle seemed, at first, equally pleased with the two 
 boys. He liked Charlie's gay, adventurous spirit, and he 
 was gratified by Mr. Mortimer's report of Hugh's talents. 
 Perhaps he may sometimes have feared that a bookworm, 
 ns he was disposed to consider Hugh, must lack the quali 
 ties on which the old Morays had built their fame. If he 
 had such a doubt, it did not long exist. 
 
 My uncle and Charlie went out as usual one morning on 
 a hunt, and left Hugh, as usual too, at his studies. The 
 hunters had not returned at one o'clock, when Mr. Morti 
 mer was going home to his early dinner. Hugh and I 
 walked home with him. Ah! how spicy the woods were 
 on that warm, winter's day. Hugh and I were sauntering 
 slowly back again, stopping now to listen to the song of a 
 bird, and now to watch a squirrel jumping from tree to 
 tree, or a rabbit scampering off among the bushes, fright 
 ened by the sound of our tread upon the dry leaves in our 
 path, when we were startled by hearing a woman's scream. 
 Hugh, bidding me remain where I was, sprang off in the 
 direction of the scream, or screams, for they were repeated 
 several times. A little frightened at finding myself alone, 
 I followed, and was soon in presence of a scene which by 
 no means tended to calm my terrors. 
 
 A schooner was then lying near the Island, taking in 
 my uncle's cotton for market. The sailors from this 
 schooner had been guilty of some disorderly conduct, which 
 had caused my uncle to forbid their coming on shore,
 
 58 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 except at the point at which the cotton was to be delivered ; 
 yet here was one of them, a thickset, powerful man, with 
 a knife by his side, just sufficiently intoxicated to make him 
 insolent, and opposite to him, defending himself by a stick 
 he had caught from the ground as he ran, was Hugh, a 
 mere stripling. How noble he looked, his sallow cheeks 
 flushing, his dark eyes gleaming, his graceful form swaying 
 hither and thither, to evade the blows which his brutal 
 antagonist showered thickly on the air. Behind Hugh was 
 a young negress, who had been pursued by the sailor, and 
 whose screams had drawn us there. And now I resorted to 
 the same feminine weapon. Again and again I uttered that 
 sharp cry which terror prompts. Fortunately, my uncle 
 and Charlie were at no great distance from us, on their 
 return homeward. They heard me, and arrived just as the 
 wretch, who had drawn his knife, had succeeded in giving 
 Hugh a pretty severe cut upon the head. Of course the 
 battle was at an end as soon as the horsemen appeared. 
 The man took to flight, and, though punished afterward by 
 confinement on board the schooner, escaped then with only 
 a blow from my uncle's whip in passing, for all attention 
 was engrossed by Hugh, down whose face the blood was 
 flowing in a stream. A Southern planter is not unac 
 customed to act as a surgeon on a sudden emergency, and 
 in a, few minutes my uncle had closed the wound on Hugh's 
 head, fastened the edges together with adhesive plaster, 
 which he always carried in his pocketbook, washed the 
 blood away with Hugh's handkerchief, which he dipped in 
 the water of a neighboring ditch, and tied his own around 
 Hugh's head. While he was doing this, he complimented 
 him warmly on the prowess he had displayed, and even I 
 was not dissatisfied with the manner in which lie told the 
 story the next day to Mr. Mortimer. I was less pleased 
 Wvth Mrs. Charles Moray's remarks upon it. It is true her
 
 TWO PICTURES. 59 
 
 words were even more flattering than my uncie's. She 
 talked of Hugh's heroism, called him a "preux chevalier" 
 " un heros de roman ; " for, like Charlie, she was accustomed 
 to use many French phrases. 
 
 I did not quite understand all this. So far as it was 
 intelligible to me, I thought it just and true ; but there was 
 a tone in Mrs. Moray's voice, a sparkle in her eye, which 
 made me doubt whether she meant what she said ; and this 
 doubt was strengthened by observing that her speeches 
 vexed Hugh, and that even Charlie was sometimes annoyed 
 by them, arid answered impatiently. These little scenes, be 
 it observed, did not occur in my uncle's presence. 
 
 One afternoon, Hugh and Charlie were amusing them 
 selves with pitching quoits, on a level spot about a hundred 
 yards from the house. I was not with them, not from any 
 idea on my part that the game was unfeminine, but be 
 cause I was absorbed in a book brought me that morning 
 by Mr. Mortimer. I sat just within the library door ; my 
 uncle, Mr. Mortimer, and Mrs. Moray were on the piazza 
 near the same door, which was open. They were watching 
 the play of the young men, with occasional observations on 
 the vigor and grace of their movements. 
 
 " How we shall miss them when they leave us ! " said 
 Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 " They will be often with us, I hope," my uncle an 
 swered. 
 
 Then came the soft voice of Mrs. Moray, which always 
 had a disagreeable sort of fascination for me, and I laid 
 down my book to listen. 
 
 " I am sure, sir, nothing would give Charlie greater 
 pleasure," she said ; " but then, what shall we do about his 
 school ? Northern schools give their long vacation in the 
 summer, when it is scarcely safe to come from a northern 
 climate to your beautiful home."
 
 60 
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 My uncle did not reply immediately to this. The men 
 tion of schools seemed to have sent his thoughts off in 
 another direction. 
 
 " Hugh told me the other day that he did not expect to 
 go to school again. Does he not intend to enter college ? " 
 " I believe not," Mrs. Moray answered ; ." I have heard 
 that Mrs. James Moray intended her son to go into her 
 brother's counting house or office I hardly know how 
 they style it ; he is in some sort of money making busi 
 ness." 
 
 " And so Hugh Moray is to go into trade ? " 
 I knew by my uncle's tone, how his eyes were flashing. 
 " I believe so," said Mrs. Moray, who, I have observed, 
 seldom commits herself positively to a statement of facts. 
 
 " You surprise me, madam," exclaimed my uncle. " I 
 cannot understand how Captain Moray, himself holding an 
 honorable position in the military service of the United 
 States, can consent to suoh a thing." 
 
 " Captain Moray seldom withholds his consent from 
 anything proposed by his wife. He is an easy, good- 
 natured man, who has no great partiality for the military 
 service to which his father devoted him." 
 
 " No partiality ! " my uncle repeated, impatiently ; " a 
 military man and not love his profession ! strange in 
 deed ! " 
 
 Mrs. Moray laughed a low, merry, musical laugh yet 
 it heated me as I sat listening, and made me angry for 
 Hugh's father. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Moray, what would you have 1 Men 
 love that pursuit in which they distinguish themselves. 
 Captain Moray says the Department is unjust to him he 
 never obtains any place of distinction." 
 
 Now, every word of this statement was true, but the 
 tone ! the tone ! that said the Department was not unjust ;
 
 TWO PICTURES. Gl 
 
 that it was wise to give Captain Moray no very responsible 
 position. 
 
 I heard my uncle push back his chair, and pace the 
 piazza with the quick step that marked, with him, a ruffled 
 spirit. But a peacemaker was near. 
 
 " Hugh is a fine lad, with uncommon abilities, and a 
 brave and enterprising fellow withal," said Mr. Mortimer, 
 after allowing a little time for my uncle's irritability to 
 calm itself. 
 
 " So he is," said uncle Hugh, with decision, " and he 
 shall not go into trade." 
 
 The next morning, before Mr. Mortimer came, Hugh 
 was helping me with a Latin sentence which I found some 
 what beyond my reach, when my uncle entered the library, 
 so quietly that we were both, for a moment, unconscious of 
 his presence. Hugh was not quite unprepared for what 
 followed, for I had communicated to him Mrs. Charles 
 Moray's statements of the evening before, and the effect 
 they had produced on my uncle. The communication had 
 been made in the way of questions, beginning, " Docs not 
 your father like ? " and " does your father say ? " 
 
 I had hoped to obtain a prompt denial of Mrs. Moray's 
 facts, but to my surprise and chagrin, Hugh's answers con 
 firmed them all, and when I said, at length, " Mrs. Moray 
 said so, but I did not believe her," he answered, " It is all 
 true, Augusta, though it may be that Mrs. Moray has 
 drawn some incorrect conclusions from them. I hope Mr. 
 Moray will know my father one day, and then he will see 
 how much reason I have to be proud of him." 
 
 " Well, uncle Hugh says you shan't go into trade. 
 What does that mean, Hugh ? Is it anything bad ] " 
 
 Hugh smiled as he answered, " It means a great deal 
 more than you can understand at present ; but it is nothing 
 bad."
 
 62 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 So Hugh was prepared for my uncle's visit. Seating 
 himself in Mr. Mortimer's chair, my uncle said : " Hugh ! 
 how old are you 1 " 
 
 " Eighteen, sir." 
 
 " Why, my dear boy, you ought to have been in col 
 lege two years ago ; if you enter now, you will be of age 
 sometime before you can graduate." 
 
 Hugh's face (lushed ; he lowered his eyes and was 
 silent. 
 
 " Are you not prepared to enter ? " asked my uncle, 
 showing by the question what interpretation he put upon 
 Hugh's embarrassment. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! my teachers thought that I might enter the 
 Sophomore class, at Columbia College, a year ago, and I 
 do not think that I have lost anything since." 
 
 " And why did you not enter when you were so well 
 prepared ? " 
 
 Hugh's brow became of a yet deeper crimson. I pitied 
 the embarrassment, which I did not understand, and drawing 
 near to him, laid my hand on his. He clasped it closely, 
 and as if the contact with one who loved him gave him 
 strength : he answered : " I have no hope of a collegiate 
 course, Mr. Moray. My father has done all he could for 
 me. I have sisters to be provided for. My father has 
 given me a very good academical course, and I cannot ask 
 for more. I ought now to be doing something for myself 
 and for them too." 
 
 " And what have you thought of doing, Hugh ? I 
 should think from what I saw yesterday, that you would 
 have no objection to your father's profession ; or, would 
 you like the army better ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir ! the army West Point a West Point 
 education I should prefer to any other ; but " here Hugh's 
 uplifted head drooped again " I must not think of it.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 There is but one thing my father is obstinate about he 
 will never consent to a military life for me." 
 
 " And why not, Hugh 1 1 have little doubt that I could 
 procure a cadet's appointment to West Point for you. I 
 think it strange your father should object to it." 
 
 " Ah ! Mr. Moray, you would not think it strange if 
 you had had my father's experience. He says I may be a 
 ship carpenter if I will, but he never wishes to see me com 
 mand a ship in the United States' service, or enter its mili 
 tary service in any way ; he could not bear to see me wear 
 away life, as he has done, in the sickness of hope deferred." 
 
 " But I do not see that you need do that, Hugh ; you 
 are brave and active, you would, I hope, soon distinguish 
 yourself by promptitude and daring." 
 
 " It is hard to do that in a time of peace, Mr. Moray ; 
 but as far as it could be done, my father has done it ; he 
 has never been under arrest ; he has the highest testimo 
 nials from every officer under whom he has served ; he has 
 seen more sea service than many officers who have worn 
 the uniform of the country longer than he, and he has vol 
 unteered for every enterprise of difficulty or danger that 
 has been undertaken in his time." 
 
 " How old is your father, Hugh ? " 
 
 " Fifty, Mr. Moray ; he entered the navy at sixteen." 
 
 " Well, he is now Post-Captain we have no higher 
 rank." 
 
 " He is not Post-Captain, sir ; he is only a Comman 
 der." 
 
 " What salary does that give him 1 " 
 
 " Twenty-five hundred dollars when on duty either on 
 sea or shore, and fifteen hundred when waiting orders." 
 
 ' Is it possible that this is all he has won by the devo 
 tion of over thirty years of his life ? I had no idea our 
 naval officers were so ill paid. Of course, your father must
 
 4 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 keep constantly employed at sea or on shore, for it would 
 be impossible to support a family, as an officer of his rank 
 would be expected to do, on an income of fifteen hundred 
 dollars." 
 
 " He would be very glad to be always employed ; but 
 he cannot often obtain service on shore ; such favors are re 
 served for those who, having independent fortunes, can 
 afford to live at Washington, and make themselves agree 
 able in society there, or for those who can command great 
 political influence." 
 
 My uncle was long silent ; at length, he said : " This 
 seems a hard case, Hugh." 
 
 " No harder than many others, sir." 
 
 Hugh strove to speak cheerfully, but it would not do ; 
 tears rushed to his eyes, he bit his lip, his chest heaved 
 against the passionate emotion he would fain have sup 
 pressed, and he covered his face to hide his agitation. I 
 wept with him, and kneeling at his side, kissed again and 
 again the hand which still clasped mine, wetting it with my 
 tears as I did so. My uncle himself twinkled away some 
 unusual moisture from his eyes as he said, "Don't don't, 
 Hugh ! Calm yourself, my dear boy, and hear me ; I have 
 something to propose to you." 
 
 Hugh had already mastered himself, though his moist 
 eyes and flushed face showed with what difficulty. 
 
 " I wish to take charge of your education in future, 
 Hugh; if your father will consent to West Point, I think I 
 have interest enough to procure an appointment there." 
 
 " I am sure he will not consent, sir." 
 
 " lie may he may, Hugh I will write myself; but 
 if he should not, select your profession, and I will be 
 answerable for all your expenses while preparing for it." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Moray ! you overpower me with kindness. 
 How shall I thank you 1 "
 
 TWO PICTURES. G5 
 
 How I loved my uncle at that moment, as I looked at 
 Hugh's happy, beaming face ! 
 
 " You owe mo no thanks, Hugh," said my uncle ; " I 
 only perform a duty that devolves on me as the head of 
 our house, in making this proposition; but if you think 
 yourself indebted to me, you can repay me a thousand fold, 
 by making the name of Moray as distinguished in America 
 as it was in Scotland. Do for it, Hugh, what I have failed 
 to do, and you will make me your debtor but we will 
 speak of this another time ; write now to your father we 
 have no time to lose." 
 
 " My father is cruising on the coast of Africa ; but I will 
 write to my mother. She will know exactly how he feels, 
 and whether I may hope for West Point." 
 
 "And if you may not hope for West Point, what will 
 be your next choice 1 " 
 
 ' ; I can scarcely say, sir. I have never hoped for a pro 
 fession, the preparation was so expensive. 
 
 " Well ! think of it now. How would the law suit 
 you ? " 
 
 " I should like it very much, sir ; better than anything 
 except West Point, I think." 
 
 " You had better write without delay to your mother. 
 I will give you a note to enclose to her " my uncle took 
 out his watch while speaking, and having glanc d at it, 
 added, " It is but ten o'clock if you write immediately, I 
 will send a boat up with the letter, and it will be quite in 
 time for the weekly mail which leaves Sunbury to-morrow." 
 
 A little more than a fortnight later it must have been, I 
 think, that as we wore seated at the breakfast table, the 
 weekly mail was brought in, and my uncle having exam 
 ined its contents, handed a letter to Hugh. There Avas an 
 other addressed in the same handwriting to himself. Both 
 were from Mrs. Captain Moray, as we afterward learned.
 
 66 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Hugh glanced at his letter, turned very pale, and rising 
 from table, hurried from the room and from the house. 
 When he came back, about an hour afterward, I was sitting 
 on the upper step of the piazza waiting for him, while my 
 uncle stood but a little removed from me, taking some 
 observation of the weather, which threatened rain. Hugh 
 seemed to see no one but my uncle ; he walked directly to 
 him, and said : " My mother tells me she has written to 
 you, Mr. Moray. She has thanked you, I feel sure, better 
 than I can do ; but I will try to fulfil your wishes, and I 
 desire to be guided in all things by your advice." 
 
 " That is enough, Hugh ; " my uncle grasped for a 
 moment the hand that Hugh held out to him " never 
 speak to me of thanks. My life promised much which it 
 has not fulfilled, Hugh let it not be so with yours ; 
 exert your great talents rise to distinction in your chosen 
 career help to redeem some of my failures by the honor 
 you reflect on the name we both bear, and it is I who shall 
 be the debtor." 
 
 My uncle spoke with an emotion which I had never seen 
 him show before. This rivetted my attention, and im 
 pressed on my memory words which I did not fully under 
 stand. I was surprised and somewhat impatient that Hugh 
 did not answer ; but I suspect the glow on his cheek, and 
 the light in his eye, were a better answer in my uncle's 
 opinion, than any words could have been. They walked 
 side by side once across the piazza in silence. Then my 
 uncle spoke again. 
 
 " And so we must relinquish West Point. Were you 
 much disappointed at that, Hugh ? " 
 
 " More than I expected to be, sir. I hoped to the last 
 that my mother might find some way of reconciling my 
 father to what I wished so much ; but I am sure she is 
 right, and I am quite reconciled now."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 67 
 
 But I found it much more difficult to be reconciled, 
 when I knew that the result of all this would be to take 
 Hugh away nearly a month earlier than had been originally 
 intended. My uncle, indeed, seemed impatient of every 
 day's delay. He had thrown himself into the question of 
 Hugh's success with all the ardor of his nature. 
 
 Hugh left us the last of April. My parting with him 
 was a great sorrow. How well I remember every incident 
 connected with it ! I helped him pack his trunk, and make 
 the little arrangements necessary for his journey to Savan 
 nah and his voyage thence. He had a parting present for 
 me it was Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope." 
 
 " To-morrow you will know all about them, Augusta," 
 he said, with a smile, " for as soon as we part, you must 
 begin to hope that we are to meet again under the happiest 
 circumstances." 
 
 "And never to part again Hugh, may I hope that? 
 When you come back, will you stay always ? " 
 
 " Stay here, at St. Mary's, always ! Why, Augusta, 
 what should I do with my law-learning here 1 No my 
 dear child, I have no prospect of staying in any place half 
 so pleasant I must live in a great, bustling city." 
 
 "And will you send for me, Hugh? When you are 
 done with college, will you send for me, and let me live 
 with you 1 " 
 
 " Would you come to me if I sent ? Would you live 
 with me ? " 
 
 Hugh looked into my eyes with such an earnest expres 
 sion that it brought the hot blood into my cheek innocent 
 child as I was but I answered, decidedly, nevertheless, "To 
 be sure I will," and laid my little hand in his for confirma 
 tion of the promise. 
 
 " Would you leave your beautiful home here, and all 
 your friends for me ? "
 
 GS TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I love St. Mary's," I answered, with a childish sim 
 plicity, " but it can't love me back you will love me back, 
 won't you, Hugh? " 
 
 I was very much in earnest, and I doubt not both eye 
 and voice expressed it. Hugh's was the only hand, except 
 Charity's, from which I had ever tasted that sweet draught 
 of love which makes all other draughts insipid. He knew 
 this well, and the knowledge doubtless touched him to a 
 tenderer feeling. He threw his arm around me as I stood 
 before him, and drawing me close close to him, kissed my 
 forehead, and said gravely and impressively, " I will, dear 
 child I will love you truly, so long as I live." 
 
 As he raised his head, I saw him color, and at the same 
 time, I heard Mrs. Charles Moray's low laugh, and then fol 
 lowed words, uttered in a taunting tone. 
 
 " And so I have been present at the betrothal ! 
 Really, Hugh, you seem to bo hurrying rapidly to the 
 goal ; you are determined to secure yourself at all points ; 
 but I hardly thought you would be so dishonorable as to 
 bind a child like that by promises." 
 
 Mrs. Moray's color rose, and her breathing quickened 
 as she spoke. Hugh rose from his seat, still holding my 
 hand, and meeting her angry eyes with a firm, manly look, 
 he said, " I will not pretend to misunderstand you, Mrs. 
 Moray, but I entreat you to spare the innocence and sim 
 plicity of this child. As for me, I am willing to repeat to 
 Mr. Moray every word of our conversation." 
 
 " Oh ! I dare say ; but that is quite unnecessary as far 
 as I am concerned, quite, of course I was only jesting 
 just as J am when I remind you, Hugh, that 
 
 " ' There's many a slip, 
 
 Between the cup and the lip.' " 
 
 She turned and left the room. I suppose I looked a
 
 TWO PICTURES. G9 
 
 little frightened as well as puzzled, for Hugh smiled cheer 
 fully on me arid said, " Don't be alarmed there is no harm 
 done. 1 have promised to love you always, and I will keep 
 my word. Be sure you keep yours, and we can both 
 rejoice in the pleasures of hope." 
 
 Some time after Hugh had gone away, Mrs. Charles 
 Moray told my uncle what she had heard him say to me in 
 that interview. She did not know I was near her, yet she 
 spoke very gently of Hugh. She said he was a very fine 
 young man, but too young to know all the consequences of 
 his words ; she was sure he had no wrong meaning ; but 
 Miss Moray was such an heiress, men were so selfish, 
 one could not be too careful she had felt it her duty to 
 tell Mr. Moray, though at first she had hesitated for Hugh's 
 sake. My uncle heard her with a smile ; he was much 
 obliged to her for her care ; but the young man had told 
 him of this the evening before he left St. Mary's. 
 
 There was enough in all this to have completely turned 
 my little head, and it would doubtless have done so had I 
 understood Mrs. Moray then as I do now, had there been 
 near me any one who would have instructed me in the 
 world and the world's ways. But my only confidante was 
 Charity, and when 1 asked her for an explanation of Mrs. 
 Moray's meaning, she said : " Mrs. Moray was cross, and 
 she was sure it was right for cousins, like Hugh and me, 
 to love one another adding, " I only wish to goodness, Miss 
 'Gusty, Master Hugh had been your brother ! " 
 
 And did not I wish it too ! What a sweet word 
 " brother " seemed to me ! I long called Hugh so in my 
 heart, and sometimes in the answers that I sent to the little 
 notes that came to me through my uncle, with whom Hugh 
 corresponded regularly, though not frequently. His letters 
 I never saw, but I have since heard all of his life at this 
 time, which they could have told, from lips which reported
 
 70 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 more partially of Hugh, than Hugh would have reported 
 of himself. Desirous to complete his course of study as 
 rapidly as possible, both that he might lessen his pecuniary 
 debt to my uncle, and that he might hasten the time, when, 
 by the practice of his profession, he should not only win 
 independence for himself, but contribute also to the comfort 
 of those he loved, he pursued his preparatory studies with 
 untiring ardor. My words seem cold, as I remember how 
 his sister Esther's eyes grew moist and her lips trembled, 
 as she told me how the color our Southern sun had burned 
 into his cheeks paled away, and the fire of his eye grew 
 dim, and his movements languid, as if he were giving his 
 life in exchange for the knowledge which was to be power 
 the power of benefitting others. 
 
 Amid all the degradation, all the squalid misery of this 
 our earth, it is a pleasant thought that the pure eyes of 
 angels turned hitherward see some unwritten epics, more 
 glorious than any that the poet's genius has commemo 
 rated ; some unconscious martyrdoms, whose silent suffer 
 ing has in it as much of true sublimity as has ever poured 
 its glory around the fagot and the stake. 
 
 Mrs. Moray and Charlie left us two months after Hugh, 
 and one month later still, my uncle and I followed them. 
 Oh, that parting from my home ! How I lingered on the 
 beach that last evening ! how I kissed the very turf in my 
 favorite walk under the orange trees ! Some of that turf, 
 so green and soft, I brought away with me. It is all 
 withered and dried up long since, yet as I press my lips to 
 it even now, my heart throbs, and my eyes grow dim with 
 the memory of what it was" that day. And how I sobbed 
 myself to sleep that night in the arms of my poor Charity, 
 whose tears dropped upon my cheek, I doubt not, long after 
 I slept, for we too were to part. " Oh Times ! Times ! " 
 I stretch out my arms across that long, weary interval
 
 TWO PICTURES. 71 
 
 between then and now, and my heart aches with the long 
 ing to draw back all I lost that day my home Mr. Mor 
 timer Charity. 
 
 Yet I was not all sorrowful at that departure, for if I 
 was going from St. Mary's, I was going to Hugh, and I was 
 to see his home, and his beautiful mother and his sisters, 
 and like him, I was to be a student, for four years, my uncle 
 said, and I was to learn to paint glorious pictures, of which 
 I sometimes dreamed ; and in my dreams, there was the 
 softly blue southern sky, and the white beach, on which 
 dashed the great, foam-crested waves, and under the sky, 
 and on the beach, and sometimes borne toward me on 
 those great waves, was ever one form, one earnest, kind 
 face and the form and the face were Hugh's. 
 
 This record, originally intended only as a picture of my 
 early home, in all its aspects, varied as no pencil could 
 vary it giving all its changes from storm to calm, from 
 fragrant morn to dewy eve, from the stern and almost 
 gloomy constraint within, to the brightness and the freedom 
 without, this record should close here with my parting 
 from St. Mary's Isle ; but in the dearth of human com 
 panionship, I have learned to love the employment in which I 
 can pour out my soul, though it be but to these lifeless pages. 
 It is not the first time that I have confided the gladness 
 or the sorrow of my soul to inanimate objects ; but then, the 
 sea seemed to give me back my exulting shout the winds 
 to answer with their wail to my wild cry, and I could cheat 
 myself into the belief of sympathy, even from these " mute 
 ministries of nature." Here all is lifeless ; and yet, as I 
 turn to the dead past, it looks not at me with such a fixed 
 and stony gaze from these pages, as from the grave in which 
 I strive in vain to bury it. 
 
 Hugh met us in New York, and went with us to 
 Elizubethtown. My uncle drove to a hotel, left our bag-
 
 72 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 gage there, and then we called, under Hugh's guidance, at 
 Mrs. Charles Moray's. Here the unusual luxury dazzled 
 my childish eyes, and yet there was no vulgar glare. The 
 coloring was rich, yet subdued, the forms chaste arid ele 
 gant ; still, it had not to me a home-like look. Very differ 
 ent was that home to which Hugh and Charlie next accom 
 panied us. The house might once have been a farm house, 
 so rudely simple was its style of architecture. It stood 
 now as it had stood within its surrounding fields in former 
 times. The fields had become a part of the city. There 
 were brick pavements now where once there had been 
 grassy meadows, and rows of houses where once the clover 
 had scented the air, or the harvests of yellow grain had 
 waved. But still the great elms stretched their protecting 
 arms above the old house, which stood back from the street, 
 with its little plot of flowers in front, its porch covered 
 with climbing roses, now all in bloom, and the parlor win 
 dows draped with honeysuckles. We entered the parlor, 
 and I think we both felt at once it was a home, simple and 
 sweet. I cannot describe it, familiar as its aspect after 
 ward became to me there was nothing to describe. I 
 only know that it seemed like rest and peace. Cool and 
 shaded it was, with no bright thing in it except the flowers 
 in old-fashioned china vases, which decked the mantle shelf. 
 We were not expected, for my uncle had not permitted 
 Hugh to announce our arrival, and as the front door was 
 open, we entered the hall, and caught a glimpse of the 
 tableau in the room on our right, before we were per 
 ceived. 
 
 What a picture it was the stately lady, with her beau 
 tiful, Madonna lace, the hair yet black and glossy as in 
 youth, the dress so simple, yet so marked with refinement. 
 And the young sisters, one a year or two older than Hugh 
 how very old she seemed to me then I thought of her
 
 TWO riCTUEES. 7o 
 
 as her mother's sister. The other was about my own age. 
 The elder, Esther, was not beautiful indeed, she would 
 probably be considered plain but for the plainness of her 
 features she atoned by a countenance of thoughtful intelli 
 gence, and by a neatness of dress which satisfied the most 
 fastidious eye. On a footstool at her mother's feet, sat the 
 bright-eyed, curly-headed pet of the family, Lily, reading 
 aloud. It was but a moment's glimpse we had. Hugh 
 stepped quickly forward, saying, " Mamma, Mr. Moray, of 
 St. Mary's." 
 
 Mrs. Captain Moray, raising her graceful head, per 
 ceived us, and coming forward, welcomed the strangers 
 \vith a union of quiet dignity and genial kindness that I 
 know now, as I remember it, must have charmed my uncle. 
 I am surprised to find how vividly these pictures have 
 impressed themselves upon my memory. Perhaps it is 
 because no single trait in all our future intercourse ever 
 seemed incongruous with the impressions of that hour. 
 There are no cross lines blurring their clear, distinct out 
 lines. 
 
 How grateful I was to my uncle for consenting to Mrs. 
 Moray's request, that he would leave me in that sweet home ! 
 How dear is the memory of those bright summer weeks ! 
 Hugh and Charlie were both gone with my uncle, and by 
 his invitation, to travel through the Northern and Eastern 
 States, and into Canada. And I scarcely missed them, living 
 in Hugh's home, with Hugh's sisters and mother. Mother ! 
 There I learned all the dignity and all the tenderness 
 of that name. When Mrs. Moray's hand rested, as it 
 sometimes did, caressingly on my head, I felt as if I had 
 indeed found a mother, and but for a strange diffidence with 
 which she had inspired me, I would have thrown myself in 
 her arms and told her so. I loved Lily, and venerated 
 Esther almost as much as I did her mother. And she
 
 4 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 deserved it, for the perfect propriety of her manners, her 
 unvarying neatness, her conscientious perseverance in what* 
 ever she esteemed a duty, and her ready surrender of her 
 own pleasures for the gratification of others. I have seen 
 her plain features lit by the glow of feeling, till they became 
 almost beautiful, as she pleaded for permission to take her 
 mother's place in the performance of some necessary task at 
 home, that the dear mother herself might be free to accept 
 some proffered recreation. There was much that was new 
 to me in this family life, so regular, so self-governed, so 
 harmonious. 
 
 " Remember that this is your Northern home," said 
 Mrs. Moray, on the day I left her to enter the school 
 chosen for me in New York. 
 
 I did remember it, and my holidays were all spent 
 there. Bright and pleasant were these holidays. Their 
 very memory brings a flush of pleasure to my cheeks, as I 
 recall the bounding of my heart, when I was told that Hugh 
 was waiting for me in the parlor ; then came the walk with 
 him to the boat, the sail up the Hackensack, the drive 
 through the woods, the loving greetings from the dear ones 
 at home each of which, singly, was enough to make the 
 happiness of a day to the lonely child, thirsting for love and 
 for freedom. Ah me ! Two homes lost ! 
 
 I shall say nothing of my school life. It was, on the 
 whole, happy, but it was not picturesque ; it had its lights 
 and its shadows, doubtless ; but in the glow and the tem 
 pest which succeeded, they were obliterated. It was in the 
 second year of my school life, when I was about fourteen, 
 that dear Captain Moray returned from his cruise on the 
 African coast. At first, his presence threw a shadow on 
 the brightness of my days at Elizabethtown. He was 
 himself very grave and silent, and others became grave and 
 silent in his presence ; but, child as I was, I soon saw and
 
 TWO PICTURES. 75 
 
 loved, as all capable of one generous emotion must have loved 
 the nature at once so child-like and so manly, the quick, 
 generous sympathies, the open truthfulness, incapable of dis 
 guise, and never suspecting it in another, the more than 
 womanly tenderness and delicacy, the more than manly 
 courage and sense, which formed the rare, if not unique 
 combination of qualities in his character. Dear old friend ! 
 father as he would have had me call him ! My cold, dead 
 heart throbs still with a little life as I name him. He was 
 never cold to me ! He was very unlike his son in appear 
 ance, indeed, Esther was the only one of his children who 
 at all resembled him in features. Hugh towered above 
 him in height full half a head, though part of that was lost 
 to Captain Moray by a habit of stooping. His hair was 
 gray, yet it still retained the curl I had admired in the 
 brown locks which Esther had shown me, as having been 
 cut from his head some years before. I have said that he 
 was grave and silent, yet when he laughed, it was with an 
 entire abandonment to the pleasurable sensation, such as 
 we rarely hear after childhood, and when his sympathies 
 were aroused by another's sorrow, or his heart touched by 
 a noble or a tender trait, tears, which his manhood often 
 strove to hide, rushed to his eyes as quickly as to a 
 woman's. 
 
 And mine are flowing as I write. My pictures are 
 growing sad sad even as my present ; they bring me no 
 relief I will have done with them. Even Charlie's merry 
 face comes back to me, shadowed with the gloom which it 
 wore under the constraints of West Point, where, after much 
 opposition on his part, my uncle had placed him, and 
 whither I once accompanied his mother, during my summer 
 vacation, to see him, or with a deeper shadow still upon his 
 face and life. 
 
 I have welcomed these glowing pictures of the past, as
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the one excitement of my life. In my few hours of leisure, 
 I have locked my door upon the outer world, and said to 
 them, " Come ! " though each as it passes, plants a barbed 
 sting within my heart " come ! better the keen pang that 
 tells of life, than this 'waveless calm ' this torpor allied to 
 death." But I overestimated my strength ; there are some 
 things I dare not face some, from whose shadowy forms, 
 half revealed, half shrouded in the dark veil of mystery, I 
 shrink. No ! I will write no more. Here I leave these 
 pages ; I will not destroy them, but I will place them under 
 a seal which shall not be removed till the hand that traces 
 these characters moulders in dust unless the future shall 
 withdraw the veil from the past. The future ! what future 
 is there when hope is dead ? The past ! it is lost to me, 
 since I dare not awaken its memories. Henceforth, my life 
 moves on under leaden clouds, and through dreary mists 
 which close around it, narrowing its horizon to that space 
 on which it stands at each succeeding moment. " Live in 
 your duties, my dear," said Miss Drayton, when I said to 
 her that I had neither hope nor memory left to me. 
 
 Duties ! a cold life, indeed ! Well, there is such a thing 
 as freezing to death. But I must go farther from Elizabeth- 
 town. My poor, weak heart still throbs, tears still start to 
 my eyes when I think of the kind old Commodore. How 
 tender was our last parting ! 
 
 And now they tell me he is wounded ; if if but, no 
 he will get well again. The honors he craved, not for 
 himself, but for his loved ones, are his, and he will be hap 
 pier. Tic will forget me and better so I should only 
 trouble him now. Forget him I never shall ! Thank God ! 
 I can remember him without a pang. Into that well- 
 spring no bitterness has been infused. I know he loves me. 
 I think he will sorrow for me, but he will be comforted.
 
 CIIAPTEE III. 
 
 " I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 Loved I not honor more." LOVELACE. 
 
 THE manuscript, withdrawn from the oblivion to which 
 it had been thus determinately consigned, in a manner to be 
 hereafter made known to the reader, has acquainted us with 
 the childhood of Augusta Moray. How the proud, passion 
 ate nature, springing to meet the lightest touch of tender 
 ness, recoiling with scorn from the approach of falsehood 
 however veiled, turning from- the hopes which had faded as 
 a dream, only to pour the glowing light of a free, strong 
 spirit upon hopes that might prove as unsubstantial as 
 they, how this nature could have sunk into the " wave- 
 less calm " described in the last page, it shall be our task 
 to unfold. 
 
 Six years of a school girl's busy life had passed happily 
 orer Augusta. Her inquiring mind had found delight in 
 exploring the varied paths through God's wondrous uni 
 verse which lay open before her. Yet true to that quality 
 in woman, from which springs at once her weakness and 
 her strength, her mind drew half its power from her heart. 
 She passed the last Saturday and Sunday of every 
 month, as well as the weeks of her summer vacation, at 
 Elizabethtown, and she well knew the pleased smile with
 
 78 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 which Hugh would greet every new acquisition she 
 made. 
 
 And what had these years brought to Hugh ? lie had 
 graduated, studied law, been admitted to the bar, and now 
 life was at a standstill with him. The full tide of action 
 which had swept him so far on toward the fulfilment of his 
 hopes, was suddenly checked. Well ! he had expected 
 this ; he must " bide his time." Waiting was as much a 
 preparation for life as action was. So hopeful, so strong of 
 spirit he was, and none ever knew that he was otherwise. 
 Months a year passed the slow passing weeks grew into 
 months again, and the receipts from Hugh's practice at law, 
 had scarcely done more than clothe him. He grew more 
 quiet though quiet he had always been in manner more 
 concentrated in thought. It was such a change as might 
 come over a man, who, having entered upon a conflict, finds 
 the strength of his antagonist greater than he had supposed. 
 He does not yield, he does not even doubt, but he watches 
 more warily, addresses himself to his task with more entire- 
 ness of purpose and with more force of will. It was at 
 some time in this second year of Hugh's independent life, 
 that Augusta Moray began to feel or fancy some difference 
 in his manner toward her. With all the frankness of a 
 child, and the confidence of one who never doubted his 
 interest in her, she asked at once, " What is the matter, 
 Hugh? Have I done or said anything to hurt you. ? " 
 
 Hugh colored as he answered with a quick disclaimer, 
 " Not at all ; what could make you ask such a question ? " 
 
 " Because something is the matter with you, and it is 
 not at all like you to deny it." 
 
 " I did not deny it, Augusta ; my reply was addressed 
 to the latter part of your question, whether you had said 
 or done anything to hurt me." 
 
 " Then somebody has vexed you I knew it."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 71) 
 
 " You mistake nobody has vexed me." 
 
 " Then what is it, Hugh ? I shall think you very 
 unkind if you do not tell me," Augusta added, after a mo 
 ment's pause, during which Hugh remained silent. 
 
 "There is nothing to tell, my child," he said, gently, 
 looking into the clear brown eyes that were fixed upon his 
 face ; " nothing but the old story as old as man himself 
 of manhood awakening from the dreams of the boy, and sor 
 rowing to see his beautiful bubbles breaking." 
 
 Hugh's last words were spoken with a sort of bitter 
 ness, in which an experienced ear might have recognized ihe 
 tone of one who scorned himself, either for his past credu 
 lity, or for his present sorrow. 
 
 "What bubble is it, Hugh? Can we not do as the 
 children do blow another bubble in its place ? " 
 
 " Of course ; that is the approved mode, and we shall 
 do as others do ; but no bubble will ever take the place of 
 that, Augusta." 
 
 " I don't know ; how can I know when you will not tell 
 me what it was ; I dare say, if I only knew, I could blow 
 you up one twice as /landsome." 
 
 " Do you think so ? What if this carried away with it 
 my hope of early independence of honorable standing 
 among my fellow men, and of that home that simple yet 
 beautiful home, for so I had pictured it to which you had 
 promised to come when it was ready for you ! " 
 
 A flush suffused Augusta's face, and her eyes drooped 
 beneath Hugh's earnest look. He remembered well the 
 clear, frank, childish face that had been turned calmly to 
 his when the promise to which he had referred was given, 
 and his heart beat more quickly, and more passionate feel 
 ing made his voice unsteady, as he said, " You do not 
 answer me. You cannot promise to replace such a bub* 
 ble."
 
 80 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 The flush grew deeper on her cheeks, but she lifted her 
 eyes he saw it was with an effort and said, speaking 
 rapidly, " I do not care for bubble houses. 1 want nothing 
 more beautiful than my home at St. Mary's, or or yours 
 at Elizabethtown." 
 
 Hugh made no rejoinder, and neither he nor Augusta 
 ever recurred to the subject. From this time, she felt, 
 with a pained feeling, to which she dared not give a name 
 or assign a cause, that a change had passed over their rela 
 tions to each other. Always kind to her, manifesting some 
 times when she least expected it, watchfulness of her com 
 fort, Hugh no longer showed a desire to appropriate her 
 in any degree to himself. He was always too much 
 engaged to come for her often prevented by important 
 business from seeing her for more than an hour during her 
 monthly visits to his home. Twice he absented himself 
 altogether, sending her, in a note to his mother, an apology 
 for his seeming rudeness. The second time that this was 
 done, Augusta had felt so sure of seeing him, so sure that 
 he would be as kind as of old, or even kinder, after so loncc 
 
 * / o 
 
 a separation, that the disappointment was too great to be 
 borne with perfect quietude. She had some reason to fear 
 that Captain Moray at least read an emotion which pride 
 and girlish shame urged her to conceal, for as she tried in 
 vain to twinkle away the tears that would come, and to 
 steady the lips that quivered with an unuttered cry, she 
 felt his hand laid caressingly on her head, and when she 
 bade him "good night," she felt or fancied that there 
 was peculiar tenderness in the fatherly kiss which he 
 pressed upon her forehead. 
 
 As she was going toward her room that night her can 
 dle was extinguished, and she returned to the parlor to 
 relight it. She had left no one but Captain and Mrs. 
 Moray there, and as she drew near the door, she caught
 
 TWO PICTURES. 81 
 
 their tones in conversation, with something of earnest 
 ness in their expression which made her pause with the 
 fear that her entrance might be an inopportune interruption. 
 As she hesitated, these words reached her ear from Captain 
 Moray : " Poor child ! I cannot bear to see her suffer ; 
 but Hugh is right quite right; he could not, with honor, 
 act otherwise." 
 
 With that quick intuition which in matters of feeling 
 supplies the place of reason, and that with a precision which 
 reason never knew, she at once appropriated to herself the 
 " poor child ! " which would just as well have suited Lily, 
 or some other. But neither then, nor ever, had she a doubt 
 that she was meant, and turning, with rapid yet cautious 
 steps, she threaded the halls, ascended the stairs, and lock 
 ing herself into her darkened room, threw herself, dressed 
 as she was, upon the bed, and wept through many hours of 
 the long night. Those were tears rather of shame than 
 grief, or if grief there were in them, it was for a present 
 disappointment. A lasting estrangement from Hugh \va* 
 too large a sorrow to find entrance yet into her child heart. 
 It would have burst with the effort to entertain it. 
 
 Captain Moray had said that Hugh was right ! " Of 
 course he was when was he wrong ? " that he had acted 
 honorably " how could he act otherwise ? but it was very 
 provoking, nevertheless, to be treated so, and Hugh should 
 be as sorry for. it as she was before she made it up with 
 him." 
 
 Such was the somewhat contradictory tenor of her 
 thoughts, and then she fell asleep with tears still upon her 
 cheeks, and dreamed that Hugh came and kissed them off 
 as he had done when she was a little child, and laying her 
 head upon his bosom, soothed her into deeper slumbers. 
 Poor child, indeed ! 
 
 Charlie Moray, somewhat earlier than this, had pre-
 
 82 TWO FICTUEKS. 
 
 vailed u[)on his mother to sanction his withdrawal from 
 West Point, which he had entered with great reluctance. 
 Its discipline had been intolerable to his self-indulgent 
 nature, so fretting and wearing it, that his thin frame and 
 pale cheeks made an irresistible appeal to the sympathies 
 of his mother and Augusta, on his return home. Captain 
 Moray, it is true, looked gravely upon him, and said it was 
 a pity to have wasted two such important years ; but 
 Charlie cared little for his disapprobation. Only one thing 
 seemsd to trouble him what would Mr. Moray of St. 
 Mary's say ? He evinced such anxiety on this subject, that 
 Augusta offered to exert such influence as she might have in 
 his favor. It was a generous offer, for it cost her no slight 
 effort to depart from the stereotyped form of monthly let 
 ter, in which she informed her uncle of her health, her 
 progress in study, &c., and to rise to such an interchange 
 of feeling and thought with him as might really be termed 
 a correspondence. She awaited his answer with many 
 dou'jts. Would he think her too bold ? if he did, what 
 would he say ? or would the penalty of her audacity be to 
 suffer the mortification of being unanswered 1 Her doubts 
 did not continue long. In a shorter time than usual the 
 answer came. She opened it not without fear. It was 
 unusually kind. There was something in it, which really 
 looked like a desire to relieve her solicitude respecting 
 Charlie's health. As to Charlie's fear of having displeased 
 him, he said : " Tell your cousin Charles that I cannot be 
 angry with OTIC whose actions I have no right, and he must 
 excuse me if I add, after the vacillation he has shown, no 
 inclination to control. He is a pleasant boy, and I shall 
 always be glad to give him a hunt at St. Mary's ; but advise 
 him from me, to study Jacob's sentence on his sen Keuben : 
 K ' Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.'" 
 
 This correspondence had really brought Mr. Moray and
 
 TWO PICTURES. 63 
 
 his niece nearer together, than anything which immediately 
 concerned either of them could have done. We have seen 
 that the admiration with which she regarded him in her 
 childhood seemed to herself nearly akin to affection, and 
 we cannot believe that he was really without a warm, even 
 a loving interest, for the orphan girl whom he had reared, 
 though the coldness and reserve of his manner had been 
 
 O 
 
 deepened to her by her association with the disappointment 
 of his cherished hopes in respect to the perpetuation of his 
 name in the country of his adoption. His slight unbend 
 ing in the letter to which we have alluded, aroused a new 
 interest in Augusta's heart. She could not venture on the 
 expression of this interest to Mr; Moray himself, but she 
 said in a letter to Mr. Mortimer, with whom her corre 
 spondence was far more intimate and more full : " Do tell 
 me something of my uncle ; is he as young in appearance 
 I mean, of course as handsome, as active, as when I left 
 him ? When do you think he will let me come back to St. 
 Mary's ? I think that, without being troublesome, I could 
 do many things now which would make home pleasanter 
 to him. For one thing, he loves music, and I do not play 
 budly." 
 
 Whether Mr. Mortimer showed these sentences to his 
 friend, we know not ; but very soon afterward Mr. Moray 
 began to speak of coming North the next summer, and of hav 
 ing Augusta return with him in the autumn. The time was 
 past when Augusta would have sought an opportunity of com 
 municating this to Hugh alone, before she spake of it to others. 
 Yet she was no less anxious to know how it would affect 
 him, and obtaining permission from her kind instructress, 
 she went to Elizabethtown under the care of a faithful ser 
 vant, on a Saturday when she was not expected. It must 
 not be supposed that Augusta had frankly acknowledged 
 her motive for this, even to herself. Oh no ! she was very
 
 84 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 desirous to consult her friend, Mrs. Moray, on the best 
 course of study during the remaining months of her school 
 life, or on her reply to her uncle, or some other very 
 proper and young lady like reason ; but she was none the 
 less pleased, none the less conscious that the chief object of 
 her visit was accomplished, when about eight o'clock in the 
 evening, Hugh, little suspecting whom he should meet 
 there, entered the room. She had time to notice that his 
 face was pale and his movements languid, before his glance 
 rested on her, and the pale face flushed, and he hurried 
 eagerly forward with joy dancing in his eyes. Hugh had 
 forgotten himself, but Augusta, who had dreamed only of 
 this moment all day, who had in thought rehearsed her part 
 again and again, though her very heart quivered with the 
 long untasted joy of his presence, was able to assume her 
 intended air of nonchalance, and even to utter the words of 
 surprise at meeting him, which she had conned for the 
 occasion. But oh ! the unsteady, tremulous voice in which 
 they came. She fancied it was her cold manner which sent 
 him away to his own room that evening, to study, as he 
 said, some difficult case. Poor child again ! She dreamed 
 not that those tremulous tones, that quivering hand had 
 sent him away with a fire in his heart, which he feared 
 would make him unable to preserve in her presence the 
 tranquillity of manner he had prescribed to himself. 
 
 The following evening, Sunday, Charlie carno in after 
 toa. He was always welcome ; but his fine tenor voice 
 made him a great acquisition on Sunday evening, when 
 Captain Moray always asked for sacred music. Augusta 
 played, and added her rich contralto to the pure soprano of 
 Mrs. Moray, the deep bass of Hugh, and the full, soft tenor 
 of Charlie. The afternoon had been cloudy and blustering, 
 and toward evening, a little snow had fallen, probably the 
 last of the winter, as it was now late in April, and spring
 
 TWO PICTURES. 85 
 
 rams had already softened the frosty earth. As Augusta 
 rose from the piano, she approached a window, expecting 
 to see the same gloomy sky with which the day had closed 
 in ; instead of this, the moon had risen, and at that mo 
 ment was pouring a flood of light through the rifts of a 
 cloud, whose jagged edges gleamed golden in her rays. As 
 she looked up admiringly, Charlie followed her, and ex 
 claimed, " The moon is shining, and the snow is done ! no 
 hope for a sleigh ride to-morrow, Lily." 
 
 " Oh ! I am so sorry," cried Lily, coming up, and send 
 ing her bright glances out into the night. 
 
 *' You insatiable snowbird ! " said Charlie ; " did you 
 ever have sleighing enough, Lily ? " 
 
 " Often," she replied, trying to look dignified a diffi 
 cult, if not impossible achievement, with her petite form 
 and lovely baby face. " I was not thinking of myself at 
 all ; I wanted Augusta to have all the sleighing she could 
 this winter, as it will be her last." 
 
 " Her last ! What do you mean by such a tragical 
 announcement ? " 
 
 " I do not see anything tragical in saying that one is not 
 likely to have any more sleighing," said Lily, a little tartly, 
 for she thought Charlie was laughing at her, and she was at 
 the age most susceptible to the horrors of such a suspicion. 
 
 " So it was the last sleighing, and not the last winter 
 you were predicting for Augusta ; but why should she not 
 have sleighing another winter ? " 
 
 " Because her uncle is to take her home next fall, and 
 she is not likely, I think, to have sleighing at St. Mary's." 
 
 " You are going home ! " cried Charlie, turning with 
 animation to Augusta ; " how I wish I were going with 
 you \ " 
 
 "Well! why should you not? You know my uncle 
 said he would be glad to have you take a hunt with him
 
 86 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 that is equivalent to an invitation, for he never hunts except 
 at St. Mary's." 
 
 "Come, Hugh ! cut the law next winter, and let us go 
 to St. Mary's, ride rough ponies, and shoot fat, lazy deer 
 what do you say ? Will you come 1 " 
 
 " There are two objections to my doing so," said Hugh, 
 speaking so quietly that he did not even raise his eyes from 
 the book he seemed to be reading ; " I have no time and 
 no invitation." 
 
 Augusta, determined to appear indifferent to what she 
 desired most earnestly to hear, had moved toward the door 
 while he was speaking, and either her distance from him, or 
 the slight rustling of her dress as she moved, made his 
 words indistinct, and she mistook " no invitation " for " no 
 inclination." Stung by what in her present mood of feel 
 ing, she was ready to believe a rudeness especially aimed 
 at her, she opened the door, and, forgetful of every thing but 
 her desire to escape from his presence, she stepped out 
 upon the piazza. In an instant, Hugh had sprung from the 
 table where he sat, taken a large blanket shawl to the 
 piazza, and thrown it over her, saying as he did so, " I do 
 not think you are quite prudent to be here at all, Augusta ; 
 it is very cold." 
 
 " Do not mind him, Augusta ; stay, and have a walk 
 with me," said Charlie, who had followed Hugh, drawing 
 her arm through his as he spoke. 
 
 Hugh stopped a moment and looked in Augusta's face, 
 as if waiting some rejoinder. Inconsistent as passion ever 
 is, the power he had conscientiously determined to make no 
 effort to retain, he yet could not refrain from testing with 
 the hope that he should prove it undiminished. 
 
 There was something almost defiant in the curl of 
 Augusta's haughty lip, as, meeting his glance fully, she 
 passed her arm yet farther through that of Charlie, and
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 87 
 
 commenced her walk. Without a word, Hugh stepped 
 back into the parlor. All was very quiet there. Esther 
 sat at the table in the centre of the room, reading by a 
 shaded lamp, Mrs. Moray had gone to her room, Captain 
 Moray sat in his large arm chair dozing, and Lily still stood 
 at the window, looking out at the bright moonlight, and 
 the broken promise of snow. Hugh, stepping lightly, not 
 to arouse his father, paced the little parlor to and fro. 
 He was taking himself to task for his departure from a 
 decision adopted upon principle. He had just found an 
 excuse for himself, in the fact that Augusta had lately had a 
 very troublesome cough, and that her delicacy of form 
 might well make her friends anxious to guard her from 
 exposure to anything that might cause its recurrence, when 
 Lily exclaimed, " Where are Chai'lie and Augusta going?" 
 and looking over her shoulder, Hugh saw them with uncov 
 ered heads running through the light, inch deep snow, across 
 the yard. " And Augusta has nothing but kid slippers on," 
 said Lily. 
 
 Could Hush have surmised that the desire to test her 
 
 O 
 
 power over his self command had, however slightly, entered 
 into the inducements to this imprudence, he would, perhaps, 
 have remained where he was, whatever had been the con 
 sequent suffering to both of them. As it was, Lily had 
 scarcely spoken, when she saw Hugh crossing the yard to 
 a spot somewhat in shadow, where Charlie and Augusta 
 were now standing still. Charlie occasionally stooped for a 
 moment, then rose to give vent to his amusement in bursts 
 of laughter, that were heard even in the parlor. He was 
 laughing when Hugh reached them. It was this probably 
 that so stirred his anger, for he exclaimed, violently, " I can 
 see no cause for laughter in such absurdity such worse than 
 absurdity. I presume, having done enough to show your
 
 88 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 disregard of life, Augusta, you -will now be persuaded to 
 return to the house." 
 
 Augusta did not move, and Charlie, with another laugh, 
 exclaimed, " Hugh ! my dear fellow ! don't you see she 
 can't move an inch ? She's another Lot's wife, or Daphne, 
 rooted to the soil." 
 
 It was indeed so. This shaded spot was always wet. 
 The light snow of the evening had covered it, but through 
 that, Augusta's slippered feet had come in contact with the 
 tenacious clay, and every attempt to remove them was 
 vain, except at the expense of leaving the slippers behind 
 her. Vexed at Charlie's laughter, and scarcely less vexed 
 at Hugh's observation of her difficulty, she determined at 
 any cost to escape from them, and crying, " I shall leave 
 you to take your walk alone, Charlie," with a desperate 
 effort, she freed her feet from both shoes and mud, and 
 would have run into the house and up to her own room, 
 hoping by the quickness of her movements to escape obser 
 vation ; but she had to do with one quick to perceive and 
 to act, and scarcely had the light glanced on her white 
 stockings before she found Hugh's arm encircling her, and 
 before she had power to remonstrate or withdraw from it, 
 she was lifted from the ground, borne through the yard and 
 piazza, and set down at the parlor door, with the quiet 
 words, " I would advise you to go to your room and dry 
 your feet." 
 
 It may be supposed that she needed no persuasion to 
 adopt this advice. The next morning, when she was sum 
 moned to breakfast, Hugh had already gone to his oflice in 
 Nrw York, and she was obliged herself to return to the 
 city in a few hours. 
 
 Augusta had been deeply wounded in her pride, if not 
 in a purer feeling, by the results of this visit, and she 
 vowed a vow within herself, that Hugh should come for her
 
 TWO .PICTURES. OU 
 
 himself, and entreat her very earnestly before she would go 
 again. Six weeks passed by, and though she had a letter 
 from Esther, urging her usual visit at one time, and at 
 another, Captain Moray himself came for her ; she kept her 
 vow, finding at each time a civil and not untrue excuse. 
 One day she was called to the parlor to receive a visitor, 
 and found Hugh, not the cold, quiet Hugh from whom she 
 had parted last, but Hugh with more vivacity of manner, 
 more abandon to the feeling of the hour, than she had ever 
 known in him, even in his boyhood. All the conditions of 
 her vow were fulfilled, and with the permission of her 
 teacher she returned with him to Elizabethtown. Her 
 sympathy with his joy was in no small degree abated by 
 learning its cause. He was in a few days to sail for Europe 
 on a commission which might detain him there for months 
 or even for years, but whose successful termination could 
 scarcely fail to place wealth and professional honors within 
 his grasp. And Hugh had not a doubt of success. He had 
 studied his case thoroughly, and he was assured of the 
 justice of his cause, and fully convinced that somewhere 
 there still existed proofs of the right, recoverable by a 
 patience that would not be exhausted, and an assiduity that 
 would not be wearied. Hugh had faith in himself as well 
 as in his cause. 
 
 Two days more only were left to Hugh in his home. 
 His preparations were completed, with the exception of a 
 few of those little works which mother and sisters delight 
 to perform for the loved ones. In these Augusta had 
 sought to share, and she now sat, on a warm June aftx-r- 
 noon, at an open window through which floated the mingled 
 odors of rose and mignonette, embroidering the initials II. 
 M. on some fine cambric handkerchiefs. 
 
 On the other side of the low window, leaning on its sill, 
 .stood Hugh, watching the taper fingers that moved so deftly
 
 90 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 in his service. As Augusta laid aside a handkerchief, 
 Hugh lifted it, looked at the letters, and said, "I shall 
 bring these baek with me, whatever else 1 lose, and how 
 ever long I stay." 
 
 " You have not told me yet how long that will probably 
 be," 
 
 " The law's delays, you know, are proverbial I go for 
 six months, I may not return for two years." 
 
 " Two years 1 Oh, Hugh ! And you can be so glad 1 " 
 
 He bent down till the soft ringlets of her hair touched 
 his cheek, and said, in those low, deep tones that bear a 
 heart throb in every word, " Shall 1 tell you why 1 am 
 glad ? " 
 
 No answer came ; but he saw the lids that drooped 
 over the half closed eyes quiver, he saw the crimson flush 
 that mounted even to the white temples,, and he added, 
 " Because I hope to be ten years nearer that home of which 
 I have talked so often, and which you have promised to 
 share. "W;ill you not repeat that promise, now that I am 
 going so far away ? What! not a word! only say, 'Hugh, 
 your home shall be mine.' " 
 
 The trembling lips moved, but the words which had 
 once been uttered so easily, would not come. That sweet 
 silence, more eloquent than speech, was broken by another 
 voice, and they both started and looked up, to see Captain 
 Moray standing before them. 
 
 " Let me answer for you, my child," he said, very 
 gently, to Augusta. Her glance at him had shown her 
 that even while speaking to her, he was looking at Hugh 
 with an expression which she did not understand. She 
 too turned to Hugh. He was still more unintelligible. 
 Having risen from the careless attitude in which he had 
 been leaning over her, he stood erect, drawn up to his full 
 six feet of height, with his arms folded across his chest,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 91 
 
 while a smile, good-humored, yet with something defiant in 
 it too, parted his lips, and shone in his eyes. The smile 
 died away, however, as Captain Moray continued : " Tell 
 Hugh he cannot expect that the woman should keep the 
 promise made by the child, and that a beauty and an 
 heiress would scarcely find her appropriate place in the 
 home of a poor barrister." 
 
 It was not Hugh, but Augusta who answered him, ve 
 hemently, as if a feeling akin to indignation had restored 
 the voice which excitement of another kind had taken from 
 her. 
 
 " I am neither a beauty nor an heiress," she said, " and 
 I never made a promise to Hugh that I do not mean to 
 keep." 
 
 She was ready to die with shame the moment these 
 words were spoken, so bold they seemed to her. Unable 
 to. meet the looks of either father or son, she hastened from 
 the parlor to her own room, locked her door, and gave vent 
 to her mingled emotions in a burst of tears which had more 
 of gladness than of sorrow in them. Hugh would have 
 escaped too, but as he would have turned away, Captain 
 Moray said, " Do not go away, Hugh ; it is necessary that 
 we should understand each other on this subject." 
 
 " I have no desire for any concealments from you, sir," 
 said Hugh, overcoming his natural reluctance. He sprang 
 in the window as he spoke, and placed himself at his father's 
 side. For a moment they looked steadfastly and silently 
 each in the other's face. In Hugh's was the strong resolu 
 tion of unbroken, vigorous manhood, and the hope, which 
 long repressed, had just burst into life a life fuller and 
 more tenacious for the difficulties it had conquered. On 
 Captain Moray's was the weariness of a long struggle which 
 hope had ceased to cheer. In this very expression which 
 hiight have seemed significant of defeat, lay his power over
 
 92 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Hugh, and not over Hugh only, but over every one of ten 
 der and generous heart that knew him. It would not have 
 been so, had not all seen that the weariness was accom 
 panied by no weakness ; that there was power unsubdued 
 to struggle on, even though he felt that the struggle must 
 end in defeat. Defeat is a wrong word, for such struggles 
 know no defeat they conquer even in death. Those who 
 have ceased to strike for success, whom hope has ceased to 
 animate, are inspired by the nobler principle of duty, and 
 crowns of victory which shall be immortal await the fol 
 lowers of this " stern daughter of the voice of God." 
 
 As he looked on Hugh, the habitual depression of Cap 
 tain Moray's countenance deepened, and he turned aside with 
 a heavy sigh. That sigh seemed to have wafted tons of 
 weight to Hugh's heart. It sank like lead. He laid his 
 hand on his father's shoulder and said, " What would you 
 have me do, father ? " 
 
 " Wait till I am gone, my son. It will not be long," 
 was the despondent reply. 
 
 " Father, I have waited till every demand of honor 
 seemed satisfied ; surely when I can offer her an indepen 
 dent home, there can be no reason why I should wait 
 longer. She is now eighteen no longer a child." 
 
 " It is not years that make us old, Hugh. You are 
 older than your twenty -four years, and she she is a mere 
 child what does she know what has she seen of life? 
 And her uncle, Hugh ! You have told rne he was a proud 
 man ; what plans for his beautiful heiress for the increase 
 of his family wealth and influence through her, may you 
 not be disappointing. Oh Hugh ! my son I my son ! " 
 his voice broke a deep sob heaved his bosom, and rising 
 hastily, he turned away to hide the emotion which he 
 could not subdue. Brave old veteran ! His heart was 
 ever tender as a woman's to another's woe, but never had
 
 TWO PICTURES. 93 
 
 Hugh seen him thus moved by any personal consideration. 
 He looked toward him as he stood by another window, 
 with his gray hairs, silvered less by age than sorrow, 
 streaming on the breeze. Every hair seemed to Hugh to 
 plead against him. lie approached, stood beside him and 
 said again, " Father ! .only tell me what you wish. All 
 that depends on me shall be done." 
 
 " Only wait till I am gone, Hugh, and then do as your 
 own ripened judgment shall dictate. I have nothing, Hugh, 
 but honor. My life has been a failure in all else, but my 
 honor I hoped to carry to my grave, unsullied by a sus 
 picion. Let not Mr. Moray have it in his power to say, 
 that after all he has done for us for us I say, Hugh, for 
 what was done for you was done for us all let him not 
 think that we have solicited him to let his niece make this 
 her home while she was at the North, only that you might 
 have a better opportunity of winning the heiress of his for 
 tunes." 
 
 ' ; Father ! Mr. Moray will not think so ; he is a just 
 and generous man." 
 
 ' The more careful should we be not to deal with him 
 ungenerously, Hugh." 
 
 Hugh turned away, and paced the room with slow, 
 measured steps. The sacrifice was too great ; besides, was 
 he not already committed to Augusta ? He came back to 
 the window and said : " Father, is it not too late ? My 
 cwn disappointment might be borne, but have I not already 
 gone too far? Remember her own words; after such an 
 avowal, is not my honor irrevocably bound ? " 
 
 " Hugh, she is but a child ; it would be most ungener 
 ous to her to fetter her by promises before she has seen 
 enough of the world to know her own mind : wait, Hugh, 
 you are both young enough ; Avait till she has the power to 
 compare you with others ; wait till you have shown what
 
 91 T\VO PICTURES. 
 
 you are ; then, Hugh, perhaps you may win her uncle's 
 consent as well as hers, and I I will not then stand in 
 your way, if indeed I shall not before that have left a 
 world to which I have been but a burden." 
 
 " Oh, father ! use not such words ; I cannot bear them. 
 I repeat, I will do just what you say. Shall I tell her what 
 you have just said, and release her from her promise till I 
 have a better right to claim it ? " 
 
 " No, Hugh ; that would but be to bind her by a yet 
 stronger bond ; no, you must say nothing, not so much as 
 by looks, that shall show you are mindful of this hour. It 
 may be that she will forget it, or that she will learn to 
 think she gave a deeper significance to your words than you 
 intended she should." 
 
 " And can I leave her to such a doubt ? How base I 
 shall seem in her eyes ! " 
 
 " Better seem than be base," said Captain Moray, with 
 emphasis. 
 
 Hugh flushed and turned away again from his father ; 
 when he returned, it was to say, " I cannot trust myself. I 
 must wait a calmer moment to decide this question ; now 
 it is impossible. The conversation of this afternoon is the 
 first step in our intercourse not already confided to Mr. 
 Moray and sanctioned by him ; but on a point of honor, no 
 opinion could weigh with me as yours, sir only that I 
 would think but it is needless to speak of that. How I am 
 to meet her with such confusion in my mind, I know not. 
 I must hasten my departure ; 1 will go to-morrow, and this 
 evening, I will spend abroad. I have some papers at the 
 office that I intended to send for ; I will go instead." 
 
 Accordingly, when Augusta that evening entered the 
 parlor where stood the tea table, the timid, furtive glance 
 she cast around her, told her that Hugh was not there, and 
 while she still hesitated whether to consider his absence as
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 95 
 
 a relief or a disappointment, the information came, like two 
 galvanic shocks, rapidly succeeding each other, that he 
 would not return till very late that evening, and that he 
 must leave Elizabethtown for Boston at an early hour the 
 next day. 
 
 Excess marks one phase of man's weakness. To keep 
 the unerring line, neither approaching too near that central 
 truth that has arrested, and is, for the time, controlling us, 
 nor to fly off beyond its influence this seems impossible. 
 Most move around it in a zigzag course, delivering them 
 selves to the force of counter attractions, till, startled by the 
 distance to which they have been led, fear drives them back 
 as far in the other direction, the passive slaves of impulse. 
 A few strong spirits take their observation, mark their 
 course and walk in it, though every step be planted on 
 sharp thorns or burning coals. But even these rarely find 
 the true mean. The calculations of selfishness, the gener 
 ous determination to tread every selfish desire in the dust, 
 alike mislead. To such natures as Hugh Moray's, the dan 
 ger lay in the last direction. He feared the decisions which 
 were in accordance with his wishes. This last night at 
 home was a sleepless one to him. He reviewed every step 
 of his intercourse with Augusta Moray. In the promise he 
 had asked and obtained as a boy, no passion had entered ; 
 it was dictated by the calm, yet earnest affection of a 
 brother. He saw the loneliness of soul which, as she grew 
 
 * o 
 
 older, would weigh more heavily upon her in the home of 
 her childhood. He knew, of course, that she could not share 
 his home alone ; but, had the question of propriety been 
 suggested to him, he would probably have answered, " Of 
 course, when I have a home to myself, I shall either marry, 
 or Esther will keep it for me. In either case, Augusta will 
 be happier there, with society suited to her age, than she 
 can be here, shut out from all the world except her uncle 
 
 O
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 and his friends. I have no doubt Mr. Moray would readily 
 consent to give her to us." 
 
 Mrs. Moray's sarcastic suggestions first aroused other 
 thoughts in his mind. They made his communication to 
 Mr. Moray of what had passed, more difficult, but more 
 essential. His stammering tongue and blushing face, cer 
 tainly conveyed to Mr. Moray more than his words ex 
 pressed ; yet he received the confession kindly, praised the 
 honorable feeling which had prompted it, said he had no 
 doubt Hugh, if he were diligent, would achieve an early 
 independence, and as little doubt that he would use it hon 
 orably, and there he left the subject. And Hugh, as his 
 own feelings grew more deep and passionate, remembering 
 that their germs had been already quickening in his heart 
 when he had that conversation with Mr. Moray, overlooked 
 the fact that they had not been expressed, and felt as if Mr. 
 Moray's silence had given them his sanction, ever bearing in 
 mind, nevertheless, that the sanction depended upon his suc 
 cess. When he began to doubt that success would come 
 to him, he had withdrawn from Augusta, that he might not 
 be tempted to seek that which he felt was forbidden to him 
 except on that condition. And when fortune had again 
 dawned on him, the feeling to which he had refused indul 
 gence, sprang into fuller life and more decided manifesta 
 tion, for its temporary repression. Now, his father's sug 
 gestions pressed painfully upon him. Had a stain indeed 
 fallen upon his honor ? Had he indeed given occasion to 
 Mr. Moray to suspect him of ingratitude to brand him, 
 even in his thoughts, as a fortune hunter? Again and again 
 he travelled over the past, to find an answer to these ques 
 tions. The result was a decided negative up to that after 
 noon ; but there a doubt intruded. The attainment, not the 
 hope of success that was the condition, and then the con 
 sent was only implied by Mr. Moray, or inferred by him-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 97 
 
 self; ought he not to have waited till he could have asked a 
 confirmation of his inference from that gentleman himself, 
 before he sought to create a deeper interest, or to win for 
 himself a more assured hope ? He was afraid he had done 
 wrong afraid that in the glow of his new-born happiness, 
 he had become blind to all that opposed him. To fear to 
 doubt was with Hugh Moray, even at this period of his 
 life, only the precursor to a sterner resolve. He had not 
 forgotten after those words whose remembered tone 
 thrilled him even now he could not ignore that the bur 
 den of silence he imposed upon his own heart, might weigh 
 heavily upon another. That was the heaviest part of 
 his trial, but at least she knew his wishes he would do 
 nothing to remind her of them, but he could not unsay 
 them, and if she had faith in him, all might yet be well, 
 and hope would again have painted an enchanting vision ; 
 but he turned away from it " he would not unsay them " 
 so Hugh resolved, yet with the tendency to excess which 
 we have before noted as an attendant of human weakness, 
 the looks, the tones from which he had intended to banish 
 passion only, leaving to them the warmth and light of 
 friendship, became cold as death. The strong hand with 
 which he constrained himself, if it did not altogether still 
 the movements of his heart, at least so fettered them that 
 they were not perceptible, and before the breakfast of that last 
 day at home was over, each one of the little party at Captain 
 Moray's, the captain himself excepted, was asking, " What 
 can be the matter with Hugh that he is so distant to Augusta?" 
 and Augusta herself, with a cheek now paling with sor 
 row, now burning with a proud anger, was accusing herself 
 of having disgusted him by unwomanly unreserve. The 
 moments hastened on and brought the parting. Under 
 any circumstances, how bitter parting is ! but how is its 
 bitterness increased, when at that moment the shadow of an
 
 98 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 unsatisfied doubt rises between us and the friend who is 
 about to pass beyond our vision, and our speech a moment 
 more and the question which is now throbbing at our heart, 
 bursting from our lips, must remain unbroken till till 
 when ? it may be till the grave shall give up its dead. 
 With some such thoughts as these swelling in her heart, 
 burning in her cheek, and glittering like a fevered agony 
 in her eye, Augusta stood waiting for that last clasp of the 
 hand, that last word, that last look which should tell her 
 all, or leave it untold forever. Hugh would not look 
 toward her, yet he not only felt that she was there, but he 
 believed that in some strange abnormal way, he saw every 
 change of her color, every turn of her inquiring eye. With 
 an almost mechanical movement, he approached his mother 
 and received her parting embrace then in turn Esther and 
 Lily threw themselves into his arms, and were held for a 
 moment to his heart what he most dreaded could no 
 longer be delayed he turned to Augusta, and held out 
 silently, not venturing even to look upon her face, a hand 
 which did not shake, though it was cold as marble. She 
 touched it with fingers as cold and more tremulous than his 
 he could not forbear lifting his eyes for one moment to 
 those which were striving to pierce through the lids that so 
 obstinately veiled his own. Their glances met, and revealed 
 to each, for one flashing moment, the unuttered agony in the 
 other's heart. Her pride gave way one sob struggled up 
 from her heaving bosom the next moment he had caught 
 her in his arms pressed her with passionate force to his 
 throbbing heart touched her forehead with quivering lips . 
 then releasing, as suddenly as he had embraced her, rushed 
 from the room, leaving his father to follow at a more leis 
 urely pace with the hat and gloves which he had left behind 
 him.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 M If to her share some female errors fall, 
 Look on her face, and you'll forget them all." 
 
 Rape of the Lock. 
 
 " Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 And without sneering teach the rest to sneer." 
 
 POPE'S Satires. 
 
 " MAN walkcth in a vain show," saith the inspired 
 teacher, and who has not proof of the saying's truth in him 
 self? How peaceful and calm to the outward vision is the 
 life, when deep down below the surface, storms are raging 
 and volcanic fires are pouring out their scorching, searing 
 lava ! Especially is it thus when the storms are raised, 
 and the fires lighted by elements, whose existence we would 
 gladly conceal even from ourselves. It has been said that 
 shame entered our world as the companion of sin. It is 
 true, and so did contrition, and both are the protest of what 
 remains of the divine in the soul of man, against that loath 
 some enemy. Sometimes, indeed, that protest is made 
 most vehemently when the transgression has not been 
 against God's laws, but against those enactments of society 
 which vary with varying latitudes. Of such, according to 
 some, are those emotions which wither the self-respect and 
 cast gloom over the life of the young, and pure, and delicate 
 woman, who suspects herself, or fears that she is suspected
 
 100 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 by others, of having given her heart unsought. But 'not so 
 does it seem to us. Wo Relieve the instinct to be true 
 which feels the natural, eternal propriety of the Paradisaical 
 order ; that man should feel it is " not good to be alone" 
 that he should desire and seek his " helpmeet," ere she be 
 given to him. Those who teach otherwise, would denude 
 young life of its most bewitching charm, and make it hard, 
 and cold, and loveless, even when they do not make it foul 
 and loathsome. Thank God for those instincts adverse to 
 such teaching, which He has Himself implanted in the soul 
 of woman ; thanks be to Him that they are so strong ; 
 yea thanks even for the warning agony which defends them 
 from too rude a touch ! Yet we deny not that earth-born 
 emotion, the offspring of pride and passion, often infuses a 
 bitterer element into this agony, and drives its iron deeper 
 into the soul. 
 
 Pure, delicate and sensitive Augusta Moray suffered 
 that instinctive pang ; proud and passionate, her life was 
 steeped in that greater bitterness. Exaggerated, certainly, 
 was that suffering, for it is the characteristic of passion to 
 exaggerate ; but she was conscious of causes for it which 
 may not have been manifest in our narration. Her words 
 had been few and simple, such as friendship and sisterly 
 affection might dictate ; but she knew well what feeling, 
 awakened by Hugh's tenderness, resisting Captain Moray's 
 effort to repress it, had burned on her cheek, flashed from 
 her eye, quivered on her lip, and given its thrilling intona 
 tion to her voice, and she believed that her throbbing heart 
 had been at that moment laid bare before both father and 
 son, and had been met by the one with a coldness intended 
 to repulse, and by the other with a compassion which hu 
 miliated. Hugh's strange distance on the last morning he 
 was at home, had planted a doubt, a fear, in her heart ; but, 
 ere it grew to more, the agitated, impassioned tenderness
 
 TWO 
 
 101 
 
 of his parting plucked it out. Again, however, it had taken 
 root and sprung up, and strengthened till the doubt had 
 become conviction, and the fear, despair. Hugh was an 
 excellent correspondent. Every steamer brought to his 
 mother or to Esther, his most frequent correspondents, 
 some expression of his tender memories of home. At first 
 Augusta watched for these letters as one weary of the night 
 watches for the dawning. " Surely," she said to herself, " he 
 will send me some little word to assure rue that I too am, 
 remembered ;" but nothing came, unless she could consider 
 herself as one of " that dear circle of home," to which his 
 loving remembrance was ever sent. As month after month 
 passed away, and letter after letter arrived, kindling hope 
 but to quench it, all the fire of Augusta's nature retreated 
 to her heart, and left her manners cold and proud where 
 Hugh or Hugh's family were concerned. 
 
 " Augusta, come write a postscript to my letter to 
 Hugh ; I hate to send him blank paper across the sea, and I 
 cannot fill my sheet." 
 
 It was Lily who spoke. 
 
 " Excuse me I have nothing to say to him," was the 
 careless answer^ as Augusta lifted her eyes for a moment 
 from the book she held in her hand. 
 
 " Nothing to say to Hugh ! and you have not seen 
 him for six months J " cried the wondering Lily. " Well ! 
 I must tell him that." 
 
 " Do so, and you will find his only wonder to be that 
 you should imagine I could have," and Augusta rose and 
 left the room as if to escape a disagreeable subject. 
 
 Mr. Moray did not come north till late in the autumn. 
 When the summer vacation in her school began, Augusta, 
 according to a promise given soon after Hugh's departure, 
 went to Captain Moray's to await her uncle's coming. 
 Slowly and heavily the month of July passed away, and
 
 102 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 early in August she gladly embraced, with her uncle's consent, 
 a proposition made by Mrs. Charles Moray, to accompany 
 her to Saratoga. Charlie went with them, lie was very 
 popular and his mother scarcely less so. As for Augusta, 
 her beauty created quite a sensation. Gentlemen gathered 
 in the hall to see her pass in to dinner, waylaid her in her 
 walks around the grounds, and contended for the honor of 
 her hand in the ball room. And all this scarcely raised the 
 color on her cheek, and certainly never caused her heart 
 to beat more quickly. She was not only an acknowledged 
 beauty, but also a reported heiress, and a word, or even a 
 glance of encouragement, would have brought more than 
 one captive to her feet ; but neither glance nor word ever 
 came, and " Beautiful, but cold as ice," or " Beautiful, but 
 proud as the devil," were the verdicts pronounced on her. 
 At length, the ice seemed to thaw, the pride to bend, and 
 the world wondered more as they saw to whom. 
 
 Among Charlie's intimates at Saratoga was a young 
 naval officer a midshipman, of course. One afternoon, as 
 Charlie and Augusta were riding, he joined them. Soon 
 afterward they saw him take off his hat and make one of his 
 lowest bows to a slender, pale faced pedestrian. 
 
 " Why, Sutton ! who is that to whom you do such rever 
 ential homage ? " 
 
 " Don't you know him ? " asked Sutton, laughing and 
 coloring. 
 
 " No ! I should have thought him a Commodore, but 
 that he is too young : is he your chief the Secretary ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " and Sutton laughed again as if half ashamed 
 of what he had to say, " he is my chiefs chief the Secre 
 tary's secretary." 
 
 " I cannot see his claims to such a very low bow yet," 
 said Charlie. 
 
 " That is because you do not write yourself U. S. N.
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 103 
 
 Uncle Sam's Nigger ; that gentleman's good word will do 
 more for me than the Secretary's." 
 
 " How is that, Mr. Sutton ? " asked Augusta, as if the 
 subject interested her. 
 
 " Why, you know, Miss Moray, our Secretaries are 
 changed with every new administration ; it is scarcely pos 
 sible for them to master the details of the Department in 
 four years, so they retain, as a matter of necessity, the under 
 secretary of the previous administration, and also, as a mat 
 ter of necessity, commit themselves wholly to his guidance 
 in all minor matters. The President and Secretary may 
 plan expeditions, but what ships shall be sent, who shall 
 command them, and how they shall be officered, are ques 
 tions decided by Mr. Saville ; and as these are the matters 
 that influence our fortunes, he is the man to whom we pay 
 our court. Ah, Miss Moray ! A few smiles from you, if 
 you would deign to give them, would be as good as a 
 squadron to any captain in the navy that you wanted par 
 ticularly to recommend." 
 
 " Mr. Saville can be won by lady's smiles, then ? " in 
 quired Charlie. 
 
 " When, like Miss Moray's, they can confer social dis 
 tinction otherwise, I am afraid a box of cigars would be a 
 safer investment." 
 
 " I must ask you to introduce him to me," said Augusta. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Moray, for the permission to do so 
 such an introduction will be a trump card to me." 
 
 " So you are going to intrigue for a squadron for Uncle 
 James," and Charlie laughed at the transparency of her mo 
 tives. 
 
 " Captain Moray should not need any one ' to intrigue ' 
 for him pray excuse me, Miss Moray, for using Mr. 
 Moray's word intrigue. There is not a better officer in 
 the service or one more beloved."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Charlie looked at him with surprise. lie had been so 
 accustomed to hear his mother speak in a depreciating tone 
 of his uncle, that the ardor of young Button struck him 
 strangely, especially as he saw his check glow and his eyes 
 glisten. " Augusta saw it too. 
 
 " You speak warmly, Mr. Sutton," she said, " do you 
 know Captain Moray ? " 
 
 " Know him ! I have sailed with him, Miss Moray. I 
 cannot tell you all I owe to him, but this I will say, if every 
 young officer had found as kind a friend, there would be 
 fewer shipwrecked characters to disgrace our profession." 
 
 That evening Mr. Saville was introduced to Miss Moray, 
 and received in her most gracious manner, very much to 
 the astonishment of Mrs. Charles Moray, who had not been 
 present at the conversation we have just narrated. 
 
 " Who is your friend, my dear ? " she asked, when Mr. 
 Saville had left them, " he must have some extraordinary 
 claims to your attention." 
 
 " Don't believe it," said Charlie, " she expects to be paid 
 for all her condescension." 
 
 " Of course, in some coin or other, we all expect to be 
 paid," retorted Augusta, gaily. 
 
 " Admitted my question then is, in what coin do you 
 expect payment ? " 
 
 Augusta colored, laughed, and looked to Charlie for 
 help. -^ 
 
 " In coin stamped with a squadron, and lettered with 
 Captain James Moray," said Charlie. 
 
 " Are you sure it would be the best thing for him to 
 place him in such a responsible and conspicuous position, 
 my dear ? " asked Mrs. Morayfflh her softest voice, and 
 with a smile of peculiar meaning flitting across her face. 
 
 Augusta's face grew hot and her eyes flashed.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 105 
 
 " I am sure there is no position to which he would not 
 do honor," she exclaimed. 
 
 " I dare say Hugh will be pleased, if you succeed," and 
 Mrs. Moray smiled again as she raised her eyes quickly to 
 Augusta's face, 
 
 " I know and care nothing about Hugh's pleasure," she 
 exclaimed, warmly, with yet deepening color ; " if Hugh 
 were out of the world as he is out of the question, it would 
 not lessen my luve for Captain Moray, or my desire to 
 serve him." 
 
 " Indeed ! " it is a simple word " indeed " but its 
 meanings are numberless. As spoken now by Mrs. Moray, 
 and interpreted by a look, it forced Augusta to turn away, 
 abashed, indignant, and scarcely able to repress her tears. 
 
 Charlie did not understand his mother he seldom did 
 but he saw that Augusta was displeased, or distressed. 
 Either was an uncomfortable feeling, and Charlie did not 
 like uncomfortable feelings for others or himself, so he came 
 forward in her defence. 
 
 " Augusta is quite right, and you would think so, if you 
 could hear how Sutton speaks of my uncle and you can 
 hear him, for he is just coming this way. Here, Sutton ! " 
 he caught the young midshipman by the arm as he was 
 passing, and drew him toward his mother, adding, " come 
 and tell my mother what you told my cousin and me about 
 Captain Moray." 
 
 Sutton told her not only this but more. He seated 
 himself beside Mrs. Moray, and with an eloquence which 
 sprang from feeling, he told of the trials of a midshipman's 
 life, of the mad longing to break away from the restraint 
 and confinement of a ship, of the tempters which lie in wait 
 for them in every port, just when idleness makes tempta 
 tion most powerful. He acknowledged that lie had not 
 .always been able to resist, that he had passed more than
 
 106 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 one night on shore with companions as young and as 
 thoughtless as himself; that once twice Captain Moray 
 had advised him with a father's faithfulness and almost a 
 father's tenderness, sending for him to his cabin, that their 
 interview might be private. At length, emboldened, as 
 he blushingly confessed, by the very goodness which 
 should have made him more afraid of wrong, he was guilty 
 of such gross neglect of duty, that it demanded severer pun 
 ishment. It was not withheld ; he was reprimanded in 
 public. Exasperated, perhaps all the more because he was 
 obliged to acknowledge to himself that the reprimand was 
 well deserved, in a moment of passion he declared his deter 
 mination to resign his warrant. The words once said, pride 
 did not permit him to retract. With an aching heart he 
 wrote the letter to the naval department containing his 
 resignation. Etiquette required that this should be trans 
 mitted through his commander, who must, of course, be 
 acquainted with its contents. Here the tones and manner 
 of the young man grew so earnest, that Augusta drew 
 nearer, forgetting her fear of Mrs. Moray's raillery, in the 
 interest he inspired. He continued, " From the moment I 
 gave that letter, Mrs. Moray, my peace was gone. I had 
 taken a step which would shut me out from the career I 
 most ardently desired ; but this I could have borne ; it was 
 the thoughts of my mother's sorrow I am a mother's boy 
 her only boy, Miss Moray this was what wrung my 
 heart, and but for my pride, would have made me entreat 
 Captain Moray to restore the letter to me before it could 
 have left the ship. A week passed, every day sinking me 
 deeper and deeper in depression and humiliation. I strove 
 hard to hinder it, but at length every defence gave way, 
 and I no longer made an effort to conceal that 1 was*very 
 wretched. Just at this time Captain Moray sent for me to 
 his cabin. I supposed it was to tell me that my resignation
 
 TWO PICTURES. 107 
 
 was accepted. I was so faint when I reached the cabin that 
 I could scarcely stand. He saw it, and made me take a 
 chair. Imagine my delight when, taking a letter from his 
 desk, he said, 'Mr. Sutton, here is your resignation. I 
 would not forward what seemed to me to be written in the 
 heat of passion, till I had given you time to think on it. 
 Now, if you please, you may withdraw it; if not, I will 
 send it by this day's mail.' Oh ! how happy I was, when 
 I once more held that foolish letter in my hand, and how 
 grateful I have ever since been to Captain Moray ! " 
 
 " He is a very good-natured person," said Mrs. Moray, 
 in a tone that grated as harshly on the nerves of Augusta 
 as her " indeed " had done. 
 
 It did not seem to please Mr. Sutton any better. He 
 answered quickly, " He is the best hearted man in the 
 world ; yet he is also one of the most decided and efficient 
 officers in the service. His subordinates love, but they also 
 fear him. For this reason it is that his ship is always well- 
 disciplined. As to his men, they adore him ; you can 
 hardly meet an old tar anywhere who has not some story 
 to tell of his daring or of his humanity." 
 
 " You are very kind, Mr. Sutton, to tell us all this," 
 said Mrs. Moray, with a slight yawn, which might have 
 escaped observation had she not raised her fan to hide it. 
 
 " I thank you a thousand times over, Mr. Sutton," said 
 Augusta, warmly ; " you must tell me some of those sto 
 ries before we part. My uncle will be so glad to hear 
 them." 
 
 " My dear Augusta ! I am sorry to interrupt you, but 
 really, you are treating Mr. Delamere quite rudely ;" the 
 observation was in a whisper, but scarcely Talma himself 
 understood the art of so modulating the voice as to produce 
 the desired effect, better than did Mrs. Charles Moray. In 
 the present case it was intended that Mr. Sutton should
 
 108 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 hear, and he and Augusta both started and turned. Mr. 
 Delamere, to whom Augusta was engaged for the quadrille 
 that was forming, stood waiting to lead her to it. The 
 interruption did not prevent her hearing from Mr. Sutton 
 before they parted many of those anecdotes which in every 
 military service become traditional of favorite officers. 
 These were all of Captain Moray. They told of his daring 
 spirit, evinced when almost a boy in the search for pirates 
 in the Gulf; how he had bearded Lafitte, the terror of all 
 traders, in the fastnesses of his own island home ; and in 
 spired such respect for his heroism, that he had not only 
 come off unharmed, but had won courteous treatment, and 
 succeeded in the object he sought ; how, when disease, from 
 whose loathsome aspect all shrank appalled, made its 
 appearance at an important naval depot, and all who could 
 were finding excuses for getting away from it, he volun 
 teered for the command, and though he was himself struck 
 down and brought near to the grave, so long as he retained 
 his senses, the comfort of the meanest sailor was his care, 
 and his self-forgetful devotion to them, won a name which 
 would fill a ship commanded by him with good seamen, 
 sooner than all the press gangs in the world could do. 
 
 It has been said that every woman is born an intrigante ; 
 it is true, we believe, that few women are born without 
 that nice sensitiveness from which proceeds the tact that 
 wins its way to its object, through obstacles insurmountable 
 to man's force. Without obtruding the subject upon Mr. 
 Saville, Augusta managed that these anecdotes should reach 
 his car, and without taking the attitude of a petitioner her* 
 self, or suffering Captain Moray to appear at all, she had 
 impressed him with the conviction that to advance the pro 
 fessional interests of Captain Moray was the surest way to 
 win her favor. His own vanity deceived him into another 
 deduction, to which her manner would have led no one else
 
 TWO PICTURES. 109 
 
 that with such a card in his hand, he need not despair of 
 winning, not her favor only, but herself and the fortune of 
 which report gave a somewhat exaggerated account. 
 
 " I will see about that," thought the shrewd Mr. Saville ; 
 " investments in Southern property are not always safe 
 there are apt to be as many debts as acres, or more." 
 
 Really good-natured, rather liking his uncle, and feeling 
 more proud of him since listening to Mr. Sutton's stories 
 than he had ever expected to be, Charlie readily lent him 
 self to her plans, and at her instigation, solicited Mr. Saville 
 to let them see him at Elizabethtown on his way to Wash 
 ington. And so they parted. 
 
 It was October when Mr. Moray of St. Mary's arrived, 
 lie brought startling news with him. Measures of the ut 
 most importance to the South, and to the party with which 
 he had ever been associated in politics, were to be acted on 
 during this session of Congress, and he had been prevailed 
 on to accept a seat in the National Senate. He had refused 
 to take any active steps for his own election, but he had 
 remained at home, at the request of his friends, till the elec 
 tion of the State Legislature was passed, and the success of 
 his own party in that, had made his appointment certain. 
 He had already secured a furnished house in Washington, 
 having made the journey to New York by land, and stopped 
 a few days in the Capital for that purpose. It was here, as 
 the acknowledged mistress of his house, that Augusta was 
 to make her debut in society. 
 
 " You will need some chaperone, of course," he said to 
 her ; " I will invite either Mrs. Charles Moray, or, if you 
 would prefer it, Hugh's elder sister, who seems to me staid 
 enough and mature enough for the purpose." 
 
 A few months before, and Augusta would have answered 
 instantly, " Esther pray ask Esther ; " but now she hesU 
 tated, colored, met her uncle's eyes, fancied some peculiar
 
 110 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 meaning in them, and said," Mrs. Charles Moray, if you 
 please." 
 
 " And her son ? of course we must invite him with her ; 
 if Miss Moray were with us, I should ask Hugh to come to 
 us as soon as he arrived, and he may arrive any day, as he 
 writes me that there is only one missing link in the chain 
 of evidence he is searching for, and he will not delay a day 
 after the attainment of that." 
 
 Mr. Moray paused, but Augusta seemed to consider the 
 subject as settled. 
 
 " Then I shall ask Mrs. Moray and Charlie ? " Mr. 
 Moray said, in rather a questioning tone, fixing his eyes 
 upon her, as he lingered by the table at which they had 
 breakfasted together, and from which he had just risen. 
 
 " If you please, sir," answered Augusta. 
 
 Mr. Moray rested his searching eyes for a moment on 
 her downcast, glowing face, then turned away with a smile 
 that had in it more of bitterness than of mirth, repeating to 
 himself, 
 
 " Varium et mutabile semper focmina." 
 
 That day he went to Elizabethtown, and the invitation 
 to Mrs. Moray was given and accepted. Charlie was not 
 at home. 
 
 " Though I do not often venture to accept invitations 
 for him he is so seldom disengaged this I can quite 
 confidently answer, for I know he will be but too happy to 
 come ; and I have so wished that he should go to Washing 
 ton and hear the debates in Congress. Charlie has excellent 
 talents for elocution, and I think when he settles down, he 
 will take to public life so Washington will be a capital 
 school for him." 
 
 Mr. Moray was decidedly verging on the school of
 
 TWO PICTURES. Ill 
 
 Democritus, for again a grim smile passed over his face. 
 His words were few and simple. 
 
 " I shall expect you both, then, to be ready to leave 
 New York by the last week in this month. In the mean 
 time, I have a favor to ask of you." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it ; pray let me know what it 
 is." 
 
 " To give Augusta the benefit of your taste in her prepa 
 rations for her winter in Washington. She will have her 
 own carriage, and be at the head of my establishment, and 
 I wish her to enter into society with the distinction due 
 to her name, and to her position as my acknowledged 
 heiress." 
 
 He had risen, hat in hand, prepared to make his adieus, 
 but was arrested by a gentle sigh and the words, " Ah ! my 
 poor Charlie ! " from Mrs. Moray. 
 
 Neither sigh nor word rang true on Mr. Moray's ear, 
 and there was a little impatience in the quick glance of 
 inquiry which he threw at her. 
 
 " I was afraid you would be angry," she said, depreca 
 ting! y, " and I know Charlie would be desperately so, if he 
 ever had reason to believe that I had betrayed his secret ; 
 but I really think it is hardly fair to let you invite him to 
 your house, without telling you that he is coveting, and may 
 steal its richest ornament." 
 
 " You mean he is in love with my niece," Mrs. Moray 
 almost started to hear her euphuistic phrase translated into 
 such plain, unmistakable language " but I do not see," 
 Mr. Moray continued, " why he is to be pitied for this." 
 
 " Not for this, certainly ; but because the position in 
 which you are about to place her, must surround her with 
 admirers, many of whom may have greater advantages than 
 he of position and fortune to commend them to your 
 favor."
 
 112 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I would rather marry her to one of my own name, 
 than to the greatest fortune in Christendom." 
 
 Mr. Moray's answer had been quick and decided. 
 
 " You delight me then you will give your consent." 
 
 " Let him win her's, and mine shall not be wanting. 
 Good morning ! " 
 
 " You have made rne perfectly happy. Tell dear 
 Augusta I will be with her early to-morrow. Good morn- 
 ing,! " 
 
 " How easy it is to manage these men who think them 
 selves invincible ! My only trouble will be with Augusta. 
 But somebody said once he could move the world if he only 
 had a fulcrum for his lever ; her pride is a good fulcrum, 
 and I will soon find the lever." 
 
 Such were the lady's thoughts as she turned away from 
 this interview. Let us listen to the gentleman's as he 
 walked toward Captain James Moray's. 
 
 " Well ! so after all it is Charlie a fickle boy instead 
 of that noble fellow, Hugh, whom Mortimer as well as I 
 thought she preferred. I wish it had been Hugh ; but at 
 least it will be a Moray, and I will do all I can to enable 
 Hugh and his father to distinguish the name here, while I 
 am building up for its representatives in the South, one of 
 the largest landed estates in the country. It is little 
 enough for a man's life-work the thing by which he is to 
 be remembered ; but I have wasted so much time," with 
 a heavy sigh, " this is all that is left to me." 
 
 It was the first time that Mr. Hugh Moray and Captain 
 Moray had met. There was a simplicity and frankness 
 about the brave old officer, which at once won Mr. Moray's 
 esteem, and touched his kindlier feelings. Hugh furnished 
 them with a subject of common interest. When all had 
 been said and heard on this subject, they grew silent. Sud 
 denly, with almost startling abruptness, Mr. Moray ex-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 113 
 
 claimed, " You are now a post captain, I believe, Captain 
 Moray ? " 
 
 " Yes, poor 's death promoted me." 
 
 " What command have you had since your promo* 
 tion ? " 
 
 " None there is little hope of a command for any one 
 who has no interest in Washington." 
 
 " Are they not obliged to employ you in your turn, 
 when there is no charge against you at the dejpart- 
 ment ? " 
 
 Captain Moray smiled, threw back his head proudly 
 and said, " There are some whose turns come very often. 
 It is true they dare not positively overslaugh me, and put a 
 younger officer into the regular line of service over me ; 
 but the old favorites are sent again and again to commands, 
 and the young favorites have special service created for 
 them, while those who have grown gray in a life of hard 
 service, who, for the sake of their wives and children, have 
 clung like desperate men to the commissions which were 
 their all, after hope and ambition had been both crushed 
 out of them, doing the disagreeable duties from which the 
 perfumed pets of the department shrink these " the 
 veteran broke down, his voice was choked, and rising, he 
 turned from Mr. Moray to the window, that he might hide 
 the emotion of which he was ashamed. A moment after, 
 returning to his seat, he said, " Excuse me ; this is a sub 
 ject on which I cannot speak." 
 
 Captain Moray had said that all ambition had been 
 crushed out of him ; but it was the ambition of a heart at 
 once noble and tender, under whose pent up fires his heart 
 was agitated by such uncontrollable emotion. He knew 
 that those he loved would care little for the privation that 
 poverty brought, could .they only know that his name was 
 honored as it deserved ; but that to thorn, as to him, it gave
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 a bitter pang to have the world receive the impression, 
 which the slights of the Government could scarcely fail to 
 give, that he was unworthy of any office of trust. Mr. 
 Hugh Moray remained silent for several minutes after the 
 Captain had reseated himself. To a stranger it might have 
 seemed, from the outward quiet, that the agitation of the 
 past moment had been forgotten, but to those who knew, 
 him well, that very quiet, in Captain Moray, was a proof 
 that he was struggling against a strong tide of feeling ; and 
 to an accustomed ear, the quick tapping of Mr. Hugh 
 Moray's fingers upon the arms of his chair, would have told 
 that his mind was full of a thought which he found it diffi 
 cult to express. Yet it was but a delicate scruple at as 
 suming the position of superiority indicated in the power to 
 help he who had been all his life an idler, to offer help to 
 one who had so faithfully performed its duties. Think of 
 it as he would, however, there was but one way, and he 
 spoke out. 
 
 " I am going to Washington as one of the Senators 
 from Georgia. Tell me how I can serve you, and I will 
 use all my influence in your behalf." 
 
 " Thank you ! thank you, heartily, Mr. Moray ! All I 
 want is service, and the more work the service brings, the 
 better." 
 
 " The Gulf, if I mistake not, will soon be our most im 
 portant command," said Mr. Moray. 
 
 " If we have war with Mexico, as everything seems to 
 threaten, it would be," replied the Captain. 
 
 " Suppose, in anticipation of it, you should apply for 
 that command ; you are entitled to a squadron now." 
 
 " I may apply, but I shall never obtain it." 
 
 " I think you will ; try make your application I will 
 soon be in Washington to back it. Perhaps it would be 
 better if you made it in person."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 115 
 
 " Excuse me for interrupting you that would be im 
 possible." 
 
 However, it proved not to be impossible, for the very 
 next day Captain Moray called to say that he had decided 
 to go himself to Washington. An invitation was immedi 
 ately given him by Mr. Hugh Moray, to consider his house 
 as his home while he should be in the Capital. 
 
 " Dear Captain Moray is coming to us in Washington, 
 and I am so glad ! " said Augusta to Mrs. Charles Moray, 
 that day, in the presence of her uncle. 
 
 " I wish he were not so unstable," exclaimed her uncle, 
 " with his impossible one day, and his readiness to go the 
 next." 
 
 The instability admitted of easy explanation, and Lily, 
 proud always of Esther's good deeds, gave it to Augusta. 
 
 " Esther has been working all summer," she said, 
 " working for money writing little stories for a magazine, 
 and copying for a lawyer one of Hugh's friends no one 
 knew anything about it, except mamma, and she helped her 
 to do it and now they have given the money to papa." 
 
 " And does he know how it came ? Have they told 
 him about Esther's working ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! We are afraid it would grieve papa to know 
 that it was necessary so please do not let Aunt Charles 
 hear it, or Charlie either." 
 
 "And how does Captain Moray think the money came?" 
 
 " Oh ! he thinks mamma saved it, you know," she con 
 tinued, with a laugh ; " papa knows nothing about money, 
 and then he has such confidence in mamma's powers, that 
 he would not be at all surprised to find her performing 
 miracles." 
 
 " May I tell my uncle ? " 
 
 " Yes, I should like him to know how clever and good 
 Esther is."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " There is what is called the highway to posts and honors, and there is a cro&i 
 and by-way, which is much the shortest.' 1 ' L.v BKUYKRE. 
 
 " PARIS is France," it has been said ; but Washington is 
 not America. Washington lacks the most important of our 
 social elements. It has, it may be, our best, it has certainly 
 a fair proportion of our worst, but it lacks that middle class 
 which bears up the one and keeps the other in subjection 
 which fills the great space between the wise counsellor and 
 devoted patriot, and the political adventurer and scheming 
 speculator. It is in association with this class that the sen 
 timent of expediency, which is disproportionately cultivated 
 in political life, becomes subjected to the eternal and uni 
 versal principles of right. Without it, it must be a strong 
 man, indeed, who does not find himself in danger of rushing 
 to the goal at which all are aiming by some short cut, when 
 he believes that to preserve the straight path would be to 
 see himself certainly distanced by more unscrupulous com 
 petitors. As the diver must occasionally rise to the sur 
 face and breathe the air, so must these sometimes leave the 
 troubled waters of politics to breathe the purer air of 
 our common life, and to receive the light of Heaven 
 through a less refracting medium, if they would preserve 
 their souls alive.
 
 TWO riCTUEES. 117 
 
 But not such was Washington in the eyes of our young 
 heroine. Too proud not to be reserved and shy in the expres 
 sion of feeling, there was in her nature a lofty enthusiasm 
 suspected by few. To her, Washington was the seat of life 
 whence the body politic drew its forces. The statesmen 
 congregated there, were men who lived not for themselves, 
 but for their country. It was still possible for her to pre 
 serve such an illusion. Men yet stood too near the grand 
 old fathers of our country not to desire to assume some like 
 ness to them, if they had it not. They wore robes of the 
 same fashion, if they moved less freely in them. Our Sen 
 ate had not yet become a debating club for the discussion 
 of abstract questions, a discussion for the most part con 
 ducted with a puerility of thought, and a noisy declamation 
 that would scarcely do honor to youths fresh from college, 
 nor was our Representative chamber yet converted into an 
 arena for pugilistic combats. Webster, Clay, Calhoun the 
 triumvirate to which, it is to be feared, we shall long have 
 to look back as to our last, were still living ; and as Augusta 
 Moray gazed on the dark, melancholy eyes of the first, 
 shadowed by that wonderful brow, or looked into the face 
 of the second, where if prescient thought sometimes rose as 
 a flitting cloud, it was chased away before the glow of the 
 warm heart and the quick kindling fancy, or turned to the 
 sharp angular lines and firmly compressed lips that marked 
 the iron strength of the third, she felt that she stood in the 
 midst of her dream's fulfilment. The session was one of 
 peculiar interest. Great questions agitated the public mind, 
 and were treated greatly. Two great parties, springing 
 from the very foundations of our civil polity, strove 
 for supremacy in our legislative halls. The one, looking 
 into the depths of our colonial history, took its stand on the 
 unquestionable truth that each State of the Union was sov 
 ereign over herself, from which was drawn the corollary
 
 118 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 that she was as free to leave as she had been to enter the 
 Union. The other contended that the present Constitution 
 of these UNITED STATES defined the boundary of the powers 
 of each State as well as of the great whole into which they 
 had been voluntarily fused ; that to look behind that was such 
 a resort to first principles or natural rights as is involved in 
 revolution, and must be decided as revolution ever is, by 
 the relative strength of the ruling and the revolting forces. 
 Denying the premises, the first yet accepted the conclusion, 
 reminding their antagonists that though there was no doubt 
 of their numerical inferiority, it was not the first time in the 
 world's history that a weaker party had stood opposed to a 
 stronger, and supported by the determination to dare all, 
 and, if necessary, to lose all, for a principle, had worn out 
 the patience, even where they could not subdue the power 
 of their antagonists, taking at last from their relaxing 
 grasp what they might in vain have sought to wrest from 
 their determined hold. On neither side was there any 
 trickery, any bullying, any flimsy display of rhetorical 
 power. All was grand as the subject for which they con 
 tended, solemn as the doom to which they seemed ap 
 proaching. In the Chief Magistrate of that time all saw 
 the unflinching executor of the nation's will a man whose 
 words were the sure prefigurements of his deeds. Their 
 verdict must be carefully weighed, for it would be surely 
 executed. In stern silence each sat to hear, to deliberate, 
 to judge. The sharp logic and fiery vehemence of Hayne 
 called up no angry flash, roused no personal vindictiveness ; 
 and the deep tones of Webster found as ready an entrance 
 to Southern as to Northern hearts, while in those powerful 
 words which seemed the fit weapons of a nation's champion, 
 his mighty mind swept away all that opposed it save that 
 principle which lay embedded in the very deepest stratum
 
 TWO PICTURES. 119 
 
 of the life of his opponents, and which could not be torn 
 away from them till feeling and life were extinct. 
 
 It was in the capital and in the presence of these great 
 men that Augusta best liked to find herself. We are afraid 
 she did not always listen when men of more ordinary power 
 occupied the floor the gallery was an excellent dreaming 
 place at such times. 
 
 But this was only one phase of her life at Washing 
 ton. Under the chaperonage of Mrs. Charles Moray, 
 and with the escort of Charlie and sometimes of her 
 uncle, she went much into its gay society. Mr. Hugh 
 Moray was fully aware of the power derived from social 
 influence. It was with difficulty that his party had per 
 suaded him to enter again into the cares of a public life ; 
 but now that he was in the arena, he must succeed it was 
 essential to his personal, and yet more to his family pride. It 
 must not be through him that the name of Moray should 
 be connected with failure so every means of influence was 
 studied and seized with avidity. Augusta acquired new 
 importance in his eyes, when he saw " grave and reverend 
 seigniors " pause in their conversation to gaze admiringly 
 upon her beautiful face, or to follow with their eyes the 
 proud grace of her retreating form. 
 
 " We are greatly indebted to you, Mr. Moray," said one 
 of these, Mr. Mellen, of Virginia, on being presented to 
 Augusta ; " you have shown that there is something in which 
 the South cannot be surpassed." 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Mellen ! " exclaimed Mrs. Moray, who stood 
 near, " we shall riot permit you to claim Miss Moray as 
 Southern property." 
 
 " I heard it surmised, madam, that one of your family 
 held her in mortgage ; but he cannot prevent us from claim 
 ing her as Southern. What say you, Miss Moray ; do you 
 
 not belong to us ? " 
 fi
 
 120 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Certainly, sir ; I have been six years at school at the 
 North, but the South is my home." 
 
 Augusta spoke with a steady voice, though her face was 
 dyed with a crimson, the source of which Mr. Mellen 
 strangely misapprehended, as his rejoinder proved. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear young lady, for calling up your 
 blushes I am sorry to see them, beautiful as they are, for 
 I suppose they testify to the truth of Washington rumors, 
 and so we cannot hope that the South will continue to be 
 your home. I must not introduce my son to you, I see." 
 This was said in a subdued tone to Augusta, then raising his 
 voice he added, to Mrs. Moray, " At least, Mrs. Moray, we 
 have furnished you with the material for the beautiful man 
 ufacture, and of genuine Sea Island, too." 
 
 There were some things in this conversation which 
 grated harshly on the ears of Augusta Moray. She thought 
 she must remonstrate with Mrs. Moray surely she could 
 not be aware herself of the impression her words must 
 make on those who heard her. Could she really mean to 
 insinuate that she was engaged to Charlie, or or to any 
 one else? Oh, no! it was impossible. She would prob 
 ably laugh at the idea if it were suggested. Such were Au 
 gusta's thoughts, and having come to such a conclusion, to 
 speak of taking a bull by the horns, or of attacking a lion in 
 his den, or any other of those actions which are the conver 
 sational standard of difficulty, would have given a faint idea 
 of the effort necessary on her part to approach Mrs. Moray 
 on this subject. It was simply impossible. 
 
 Captain Moray had been detained a few days after them. 
 When he arrived, Mr. Hugh Moray announced his intention 
 to give a dinner for the purpose of introducing him to the 
 Secretary of the Navy, whom he had never seen out of his 
 office, and to some influential Members of Congress. If 
 Captain Moray could have remonstrated against this, he
 
 TWO PICTURES. 121 
 
 certainly would. The bold seaman, and hospitable and 
 courteous entertainer on board his ship, was mastered on 
 shore by a shy reserve, which forbade his finding much en 
 joyment in the society of strangers. His reluctance, how 
 ever, would not have been noticed had it not been forced 
 into observation by Mrs. Charles Moray. 
 
 " I hope you will not run away from Washington to-day 
 as you did from Elizabethtown, to avoid Mr. Jackson's 
 dinner," she said to him ; and if her playful manner hid a 
 deeper meaning, neither the simple-hearted old captain nor 
 his frank host suspected it. 
 
 " Run away from a dinner ! That casts at once an im 
 putation upon your courage and your appetite, Captain," 
 exclaimed Mr. Hugh Moray. 
 
 " I am obliged to plead guilty to it, sir ; but I will try 
 to redeem myself in your opinion, by my gallant assault on 
 your good cheer to-day." 
 
 Too modest to explain that this reserve and avoidance 
 of society on shore had originated in an indisposition to 
 receive courtesies which his small pay did not permit him, 
 without a disregard of prudence and even of justice, to 
 return, the Captain left Mr. Hugh Moray, himself a lover 
 of society, associating that taste with all that was manly, en 
 ergetic and daring in character, with just such impressions as 
 Mrs. Charles Moray had probably wished to produce. 
 
 To Augusta, presiding for the first time on such an 
 occasion, over her uncle's table, the dinner would have been 
 as formidable an affair as to Captain Moray, had she been 
 at liberty to think of herself; but, in truth, that Captain 
 Moray should make a favorable impression, was to her a 
 subject of much more anxious desire than that she should. 
 
 He was seated on her uncle's left hand, Mr. M n, the 
 
 Secretary, on his right, and before she left the table, she was 
 gratified by seeing the open-hearted, kind old Secretary's
 
 122 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 handsome face expand with cordial smiles, as the conversa 
 tion between them drew out traits of mingled shrewdness 
 and simplicity from the gallant officer. The arrangement 
 of guests at table had not quite satisfied Mrs. Charles 
 Moray ; indeed, she had ventured to suggest playfully, that 
 her place was the one assigned to the Secretary, who ought 
 to have the post of honor at Augusta's right hand ; but the 
 suggestion was overruled by Mr. Moray, who said that 
 Augusta might need an occasional hint from Mrs. Moray, 
 suppressing his most forcible reason for the present plan, 
 which was that it brought the Captain and the Secretary 
 together. 
 
 " You have done me a great favor, sir, in introducing 
 me to Captain Moray," said the Secretary, in shaking hands 
 with Mr. Hugh Moray. " I like him ; I wish there were 
 more such in the service." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear you say so, Mr. M n ; I 
 
 have an application to make to you in his behalf, this week, 
 and I was sure you would receive it more kindly if you 
 had seen him," replied Mr. Hugh Moray, as he accompa 
 nied his guest to the door. 
 
 They were alone ; for the Secretary was compelled to 
 leave early for another engagement, while the remaining 
 guests went from the dinner table to the drawing room, 
 where they were met by others invited for the evening, 
 ladies as well as gentlemen. Mr. Hugh Moray joined 
 them with a somewhat cynical smile upon his lips, excited 
 by the involuntary coldness which had shadowed the Secre 
 tary's open, cordial manner, at the mention of an application. 
 
 Among the guests of the evening was Mr. Saville, 
 invited at the special request of Augusta, who introduced 
 him to her uncle and to Captain Moray. Mindful of Mr. 
 Sutton's instructions, she was nervously anxious that her 
 gallant old friend should make a favorable impression upon
 
 TWO PICTURES. 123 
 
 this " chief of the chief/' and a little vexed to find that Cap 
 tain Moray, though sufficiently courteous, as he would have 
 been with her introduction to a coal-heaver, showed no 
 particular empresscment in his reception of Mr. Saville. 
 Following him to another part of the room, Augusta found 
 an opportunity to say, " Mr. Saville, whom I just introduced 
 to you, is the chief clerk in the Navy Department, sir." 
 
 " I know he is, my dear ; I have heard of him before," 
 was the quiet reply. 
 
 " Mr. Sutton told me he could do a great deal more for the 
 officers than the Secretary himself; at least, he said the Sec 
 retary would not do anything without Mr. Saville's advice." 
 
 " And did he tell you that the officers paid their court 
 to Mr. Saville ? " 
 
 This was said with a laugh, which made Augusta believe 
 that he saw through her manoeuvring, and, with a laugh and a 
 heightened color, she said, " I see I must pay the court for 
 you, sir." 
 
 Captain Moray turned his eyes in the direction of Mr. 
 Saville, with an unusual intenseness of expression in them, 
 then letting them fall on the glowing, sparkling face at his 
 side, he said, taking her hand as he spoke, " Better not, my 
 good child, better not ; it might be dangerous ; that is not a 
 face to be trusted ; he is a young man still, and might 
 presume." 
 
 Augusta's only answer was a proud little motion of the 
 head, which said, as plainly as possible, that such a degree 
 of presumption could not be imagined. 
 
 Captain Moray smiled. " I see I may trust you, my 
 dear, not to compromise your own dignity or mine." 
 
 " Indeed you may, sir ; but I shall get you a squadron 
 notwithstanding," she added, as she moved gracefully and 
 smilingly away. 
 
 There was something peculiarly soft yet sparkling about
 
 124 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Augusta this evening. The ice seemed to have molted. 
 She was always dignified, but to-night the dignity was with 
 out a touch of haughtiness. Mrs. Charles Moray was 
 struck with the change now as she approached her, and 
 said, " Augusta, you look as if you had found a treasure, 
 and were willing to bestow a little of it on your neighbors. 
 Pray do not forget me if it be so." 
 
 Again the glow and the sparkle were on her face as she 
 said, " My treasure is incommunicable, Mrs. Moray, and 
 indeed I feel much more like asking alms to-night, than 
 bestowing them." 
 
 " You look like it," said Charlie, laughing ; " ' so pale, 
 so sad, so woc-begone ' it moves my compassion ; what 
 can I do for you ? " 
 
 " Give me a cup of coffee, if you please." It was 
 handed her from a waiter just passing, and she added, with 
 an effort to look grave, " If every one would be as compas 
 sionate, my wants would soon be supplied." 
 
 A glance to Mr. Saville, who stood near, had drawn 
 him within their circle. 
 
 " Who would not be proud," he said, " of contributing 
 to such an object ! May I supply the cake to the coffee ? " 
 
 " Is that all, Mr. Saville 1 I hoped you would offer mo 
 a fine frigate, if not a squadron." 
 
 "A squadron let it be ; there is one trifling difficulty, 
 however : you have no commission. How shall we get over 
 that ? " 
 
 " Oh ! easily enough ; I will get seme one who has a 
 commission to command it for me." 
 
 " Captain Moray, for instance." 
 
 " Exactly ; how fortunate that he should happen to be 
 here just at this time." 
 
 "Then, for form's sake, he will receive the squadron, 
 and for form's sake, the Secretary will give it ; but you
 
 TWO PICTURES. 125 
 
 and I will understand the matter, and you will know that 
 the squadron is yours, and that I have given it."- 
 
 " Of course, and I will be your debtor forever ; how 
 shall I begin to repay you? Shall I promise to dance one 
 quadrille with you every evening this winter ? " 
 
 " Unfortunately, I do not dance ; but do not trouble 
 yourself to devise means of payment. I like the thought 
 of being your creditor." 
 
 " You are very kind, and I have no more wants." 
 
 " Where is your squadron to go ? " asked the laughing 
 Charlie, and at once destroyed, by his tone of badinage, the 
 feeling of reality which mingled with this trifling on. 
 Augusta's part, at least. He was called away, and Mr. 
 Saville, suddenly dropping his voice, and changing his tone 
 to one of great earnestness, said, " Your friend, Captain 
 Moray, may command my best services, Miss Moray.'* 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Saville, thank you a thousand times ; 
 I shall indeed be your debtor, Mr. Saville." She spoke 
 with a throbbing heart, and extended her hand, scarcely 
 conscious of what she did. 
 
 The pressure it received recalled her to herself. 
 
 " Creditor debtor that bond may go farther yet," 
 murmured Mr. Saville, as he pursued his way homeward 
 that evening. 
 
 " How glad Hugh will be when he comes 1 and he is 
 coming ! I heard his father tell my uncle that he had 
 arrived, and that he knew he %vould be impatient to accept 
 his invitation ; " so much in words, then in that deep under 
 current of thought, which she refused to shape into words, 
 yet which had throbbed in her heart, lent its fire to her 
 eyes, and its soft grace to her movements through all that 
 evening, came the conviction, " He looked at me I am 
 sure he looked at me as if I had something to do with 
 Hugh's coming when he said it."
 
 126 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Such were Augusta Moray's last waking thoughts that 
 evening. 
 
 Captain Moray's application for a squadron was made 
 the next day. It was backed by influential friends, and the 
 Secretary, having consulted with Mr. Saville, somewhat to 
 Captain Moray's surprise, appointed him to the command 
 of the squadron in the Gulf of Mexico. This was particu 
 larly grateful to Captain Moray and his friends, as there 
 seemed little doubt that war between Mexico and the 
 United States was not very distant an event which would 
 render the post one of peculiar difficulty, and therefore of 
 peculiar honor. Mr. Hugh Moray expressed very warmly 
 his sense of the Secretary's kindness in this appointment, 
 and Augusta, perhaps with more reason, thanked Mr. 
 Saville. Each accepted the thanks, without any attempt at 
 disclaiming their agency in the favor bestowed. Captain 
 Moray w r as no courtier, but he was a very exact disciplina 
 rian. He could not condescend to fawn on Mr. Saville, but 
 he was very respectful to his chief, the Secretary ; and 
 really liking him, there mingled with his respect a cor 
 diality which overcame his usual reserve. The consequence 
 was that at every visit to the department, he gained ground 
 with the Secretary, and lost it with Mr. Saville, who would 
 have been ready to revoke his decision in his favor, had that 
 been possible, or had he not felt himself rewarded by the 
 smiling reception he was always sure of obtaining from the 
 beautiful Miss Moray, whose smiles were the more valued 
 because they fell not on all. In the mean time, while Cap 
 tain Moray was losing favor with this potential individual, 
 Mrs. Charles Moray was gaining it. Soon after the appoint 
 ment of Captain Moray to his squadron, she seemed to be 
 come suddenly aware of Mr. Saville's claims to considera 
 tion, and treated him with such distinguishing respect that 
 they soon came to stand upon somewhat intimate terms.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 127 
 
 " Really, Mr. Saville," she said on one occasion when 
 they found themselves together at an evening entertainment, 
 " we are all under great obligations to you, for your advo 
 cacy of my brother-in-law's claims." 
 
 " You owe me nothing, nothing at all, madam ; it was all 
 the Secretary of course I have no power ; all I could do, 
 and more, if it had been possible, I would have been happy 
 to do for your beautiful niece." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Saville ! Now you have touched my only 
 cause of dissatisfaction with you." 
 
 Mrs. Moray kept her smiling eyes rivetted upon him. 
 She was not surprised to see his eyes fall, and his face flush 
 as he uttered the one word, " Madam ! " 
 
 " Can you wonder at it, Mr. Saville ? but I forget you do 
 not know my reasons. See her," she continued,, directing 
 his attention to Augusta, who was just passing them, lean 
 ing on the arm of Captain Moray, who, much against his 
 own inclinations, had been induced by her persuasions to 
 accompany her to this soiree, dressed in the uniform of his 
 rank, which he rarely wore except when acting officially ; 
 " now, Mr. Saville, can I help wishing to secure her for my 
 daughter ? " 
 
 " It is a very natural wish, madam ; but pardon me if 
 I say you cannot very much blame others if they wish to 
 secure her not exactly as a daughter," and Mr. Saville 
 smiled his most insinuating smile. 
 
 " Not at all riot at all, Mr. Saville ; but to give one 
 competitor such advantages over all the rest as you have 
 just given to Captain Moray's son, is a little annoying, to 
 say the least it almost throws the game into his hands, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Moray spoke in lowered tones, yet with such play 
 ful grace that her words might pass for jest or earnest, as 
 her hearer pleased. Mr. Saville seemed quite disposed to 
 take her in earnest.
 
 128 TWO FICTUBES. 
 
 " Captain Moray's son I I was not aware he had a 
 son." 
 
 " Nevertheless, he has a son a very decided son, Mr. 
 Saville ; a son whom it is impossible to ignore and mistake, 
 as you will feel when you have seen him. The only ele 
 ment of success in this suit which he appeared to lack, was 
 a position and prospects that would recommend him to Mr. 
 Moray. These, I think, you have done much to furnish him 
 with." 
 
 " By helping to give his father a squadron ? you do not 
 think he would marry upon a clerkship that is all which 
 his father can give him." 
 
 " His father can give him nothing which he would take 
 he is a lawyer with very fair prospects in truth but we 
 are proud, we Morays, Mr. Saville ; and Hugh would not 
 say to Mr. Moray, ' Give me your niece,' till success was in 
 his possession, not in prospect only I see I see what you 
 are going to say but hear me out : it is true, as you have 
 said, that Hugh is not personally advanced by your efforts ; 
 but if Captain Moray should prove a successful commander, 
 and there is little doubt he will, for he is a man of excellent 
 judgment and undoubted bravery, the prestige of his hon 
 ors will extend to all his family at least in Mr. Moray's 
 consideration." 
 
 " But I think you are needlessly alarming yourself and 
 me, madam, after all. The young man will hardly feel that 
 he has a right to wear his father's laurels, whatever Mr. 
 Moray may do ; and if I understand aright, the difficulty is 
 that he will not seek till he is more assured himself of his 
 position." 
 
 " Yes ; but, Mr. Saville, a humbler man might be en 
 couraged into confidence, and Mr. Moray," she glanced 
 around and dropped her voice yet lower, u with him, family 
 name is the first consideration ; he cares for nothing so much
 
 TWO PICTURES. 129 
 
 as continuing the old name in connection with his splendid 
 estate, except the making that name famous ; now, if Captain 
 Moray does the last, and he will if there should be a war 
 while he commands, Mr. Moray will desire Hugh above all 
 others for his heir, and he will find no difficulty in making 
 him understand that he does ; and I shall lose my daughter 
 and you your what shall I say ? " 
 
 Again her voice was light and playful she was con 
 scious it had become gravely earnest. 
 
 " Will you not walk ? " asked Augusta, pausing as she 
 passed again with Captain Moray ; " Mr. Saville must be 
 very entertaining ; I never knew you a fixture before." 
 
 " Poor Mr. Saville ! he has been very good, and I have 
 been entertaining him with eulogies on my own family, be 
 ginning with our Commodore here. Oh, Mr. Saville ! I 
 am really ashamed of myself, but the truth is, I am as very 
 a Moray as my friend the Senator himself." 
 
 " You could scarcely have chosen a subject which would 
 have interested me more, madam ; will you walk now ? " he 
 rose and offered his arm. 
 
 " No I will reward you for your patience Augusta, 
 my love, will you walk with Mr. Saville and let me have 
 my brother's arm ? " 
 
 The Commodore was perhaps the least satisfied person 
 in this arrangement, but he was one of those who could 
 never demur at any proposal made by a woman, so he sub 
 mitted to the exchange of companions with what grace he 
 could. 
 
 " Mrs. Moray has been introducing me to another mem 
 ber of your family, a son of Captain Moray, of whom she 
 speaks very highly." 
 
 He watched Augusta as he spoke, and saw the quick fall 
 of her eyes till their dark fringe seemed to sweep her flush-
 
 130 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 ing cheek ; but she said nothing, and he determined to try 
 her still farther. 
 
 " You are acquainted with him, of course," he said ; " is 
 he really so noble as she represents ? " 
 
 Augusta could not remain silent to so direct a ques 
 tion, but there was a tremor in her voice which showed the 
 effort she was making as she answered, " I know not how 
 Mrs. Moray represented him ; but of his nobleness of na 
 ture she could not have said too much." 
 
 Mr. Saville almost fancied he felt the reflection from her 
 burning cheek upon his own, as he bent toward her. He 
 was satisfied. 
 
 " I will take care that our new commodore reaps little 
 glory from his command ; she loves that man, but she is 
 as proud as Lucifer, notwithstanding all her softness. She 
 will all the sooner be won by another if she fancy herself 
 neglected by him, which she will be sure to do, if, as Mrs. 
 Moray thinks, he can be kept from proposing to her by 
 doubts of his position. Her daughter ! She will never 
 marry that brainless fellow I am not afraid of him." 
 
 Such were Mr. Saville's evening meditations on this 
 occasion. Augusta's were expressed in one intense heart- 
 cry, " When will Hugh come ? " 
 
 The two who rose earliest in Mr. Moray's house were 
 Augusta and himself. Captain, or Commodore Moray, as ac 
 cording to usage in the American navy, he was called since 
 he had obtained his squadron, had the self-indulgent habits 
 in this respect common to most seamen when on shore, and 
 Mrs. Moray and Charlie were self-indulgent everywhere 
 and at all times. The morning after the soiree mentioned 
 above, at seven o'clock, Augusta entered the little room 
 where her uncle usually wrote and read, and where the 
 morning papers were always left. Expecting to find Mr. 
 Moray there, she came to ask if he would come into the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 131 
 
 breakfast room and take his coffee with her. It was a 
 sunny room, and, what with the sun shining through the 
 crimson curtains of its one window, and the glow of the 
 coal fire casting its reflection on the bright steel bars of the 
 grate, it seemed on this especial morning to be all alight. 
 The door had been left ajar, and Augusta, treading with velvet 
 slippers on the thick carpet, entered noiselessly. A gentle 
 man was seated beside the table, writing. His face was 
 turned away from her, yet by a sudden light that flashed 
 to her eyes, and the crimson that rushed over cheek and 
 brow, it was evident that Augusta was at no loss respecting 
 his identity. No one who looked in her face could doubt 
 that she was glad, very glad ; yet there was a wavering in 
 her movements, a sudden dropping of the clasped hands 
 lifted in joyful surprise, a poise of the body, which seemed 
 to speak rather of retreat than advance, when Hugh, though 
 he could have heard no sound, seemed suddenly to become 
 aware of her presence, and, starting from his chair, ap 
 proached her with outstretched hands, and the one word, 
 " Augusta ! " uttered in a tone that said as plainly as any 
 words could have done, " I love you dearly," and " I am 
 rejoiced to meet you again." 
 
 One flashing glance from her eyes, a deepening flush, a 
 half smile, were Augusta's only answer. Hugh lifted the 
 still clasped hands which he had taken in his, to his lips. 
 Just then her uncle's voice was heard at the door of the 
 room giving an order to a servant, and, springing from the 
 detaining hand, Augusta escaped from the room, passing 
 Mr. Moray, who was entering, without a word. 
 
 " Where are you going, Augusta ? Is breakfast ready ? " 
 he called, turning and following her across the next room. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; will you come ? " The answer was given with- 
 out pausing or turning around. 
 
 " Very extraordinary," thought Mr. Hugh Moray, who
 
 132 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 was somewhat punctilious on the subject of deference from 
 the young to the old. 
 
 And while he turned back to invite Hugh to come and 
 take his breakfast with him, Augusta went on to the break 
 fast room with face and heart all in a glow. Where was 
 the coldness gone now 1 it had fled with the doubt and fear 
 and mistrust for which, if she thought of them at all, she 
 was ready to reproach herself at this moment so bitterly. 
 " Doubt Hugh good, true-hearted Hugh ? How could she 
 have done so ? He was too brave and resolute as well as 
 too true, to profess anything he did not feel she should 
 never forgive herself for having doubted him." 
 
 Such were the thoughts that floated through her mind, 
 while, hardly knowing what she did, she managed, with the 
 aid of the waiter, to pour out coffee for her uncle and Hugh, 
 with only the mistake of putting into one cup all the sugar 
 intended for both. 
 
 Mr. Moray was particular in the matter of coffee, and 
 he called sharply to Gib to give him some coffee ; what he 
 had, he declared, was syrup. The color on Augusta's cheek 
 deepened and, with a little touch of consciousness, she 
 turned her eyes inquiringly to Hugh ; but they fell in a 
 moment before the smiling glance that met them. 
 
 "I am afraid that your coffee" she began, stammer- 
 
 Mglfr. 
 
 " My coffee is excellent," he hastened to say, " but I will 
 take a little sugar," extending his cup and saucer to her, 
 and continuing to hold it to the manifest disapproval of Gib, 
 who had offered to take it. " I have not lost my boyish 
 taste for sugar, you perceive ; " he added, smilingly, as he 
 withdrew it at length, becoming conscious that several 
 lumps of sugar had been dropped into it while he was try 
 ing to gain a look from the eyes too steadily intent ap 
 parently upon the task of sugaring, to lift themselves from 
 the cup.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 133 
 
 " I must have had all yours as well as my own," said 
 Mr. Moray, innocently, as he watched this operation. 
 
 " And so, Hugh, you have succeeded in the object of your 
 journey ? " began Mr. Moray when these important prelimi 
 naries had been settled. 
 
 " So entirely, sir, that I think our case will be won by 
 a simple recapitulation of testimony." 
 
 " I heard you spoken of very handsomely the other day 
 by a New York lawyer, whom I happened to meet at a din 
 ner. He said that the resources you had shown in your 
 search after testimony, and the acumen in testing it when 
 obtained, had gained you a position in your profession which 
 you must have been years in acquiring in the usual course 
 of affairs at home ; he talked of your having had several 
 partnerships offered you is that true ? " 
 
 " It is. I have accepted an offer from Mr. Holton, to 
 whose kind interest I was indebted for the appointment." 
 
 " You have done well, Hugh I congratulate you. Mr. 
 Holton is one of the first lawyers in the land. A partner 
 ship with him ensures your reputation and your success." 
 
 " He is most kind and generous," said Hugh, thought 
 fully. 
 
 " How long can he spare you to us, Hugh ? " 
 
 " I have not entered on the business of the office yet, 
 Mr. Moray ; and as the courts are not sitting at present, I 
 have told Mr. Holton that I should be absent two weeks 
 perhaps three if my father require me so long." 
 
 There was a smile in his eyes, as he pronounced the 
 last words, which, as Augusta met it in one hasty glance, 
 seemed to her to say that this was not the only contingency 
 in which he might be induced to extend his visit to three 
 weeks at least so the sudden drooping of her eye and flush 
 ing of her cheeks would intimate. 
 
 " How do you like your father's appointment, Hugh ? " 
 asked Mr. Moray.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Very much, sir ; nothing could be better if the depart- 
 ment only acts fairly by him and gives him, with the appoint 
 ment, the means of holding it honorably." 
 
 "They cannot help it, Hugh they cannot help it the 
 public would hold them responsible for failure ; besides, the 
 Secretary is very friendly to your father." 
 
 " Sincerely so, I doubt not, sir ; but secretaries are not 
 omniscient they must trust much to their agents their 
 four years of power scarcely sufficing to give them any in 
 sight into the details of their office, and it would be ex 
 travagant to expect that their agents should be always 
 high-toned men, incapable of being warped in their judg 
 ments by selfish influences." 
 
 " But, Hugh," said Augusta, quickly, yet with a little 
 timidity of manner, very unusual but very becoming to 
 her, "Mr. Saville has promised to do everything he can for 
 your father." 
 
 u To whom did he make this promise ? " inquired Hugh. 
 
 " To me," Augusta answered. . 
 
 "To you!" exclaimed Hugh, surprised and not alto 
 gether pleased ; then, trying to speak lightly, " It is danger 
 ous for a lady to incur obligations and if I have heard 
 aright, Mr. Haville is not one to be satisfied without a quid 
 for his quo" 
 
 " But indeed, Hugh, the officers all say that you can get 
 nothing at the department unless Mr. Saville stands your 
 friend, and they think that he did help your father very 
 much." 
 
 " I have little doubt of it, if you condescended to ask his 
 help," said Hugh, trying to smile, yet evidently unable to 
 chase away the shadow from his brow. Just then Gib was 
 called out, and returned to announce a gentleman who 
 \vished to see Mr. Moray. 
 
 " Sit still, Hugh," said Mr. Moray, as he rose to leave
 
 TWO PICTURES. 135 
 
 the room, " I may return in a few minutes, and if I do not, 
 your father will soon be here." 
 
 Hugh reseated himself silently. Augusta lifted her 
 eyes to his face the shadow was still there. 
 
 " Hugh," she said, with a little tremor in her voice, 
 " you think I did wrong to speak to Mr. Saville ? " 
 
 " Wrong ! I think you did what was most kind, most 
 generous ; but, dear Augusta " there was a touch of tender 
 ness in his voice as he pronounced those simple words, 
 which made her heart thrill, ani bowed her head yet lower, 
 " do you not know that it is just where their generous im 
 pulses come into play, that your sex are in most danger cf 
 committing themselves ? " 
 
 There was a little flash from Augusta's eyes, quite 
 different in character from the humid light that had lately 
 filled them, as she said, " You need not fear for me ; Mr. Saville 
 will hardly presume upon anything I have said or done." 
 
 Hugh shook his head, yet he gave her a smiling and ad 
 miring glance, as he replied, " Ah ! it is impossible for you 
 to tell how presuming men are." 
 
 There was a pretty daring in her manner as she smiled 
 back at him, and exclaimed, " I would take the risk again 
 for the prize to get the commodore another squadron when 
 he wants one." 
 
 " Wait a while see first that this does not prove one 
 of the devil's gifts." 
 
 " One of the devil's gifts f I do not understand you," 
 said Augusta, slowly. 
 
 " You are not read in necromancy, I am afraid. Have 
 you never heard that when a poor man was at the lowest, 
 the devil sometimes appeared to him and offered gold, 
 which, if he accepted it, always brought to him more ter 
 rible evils than any he had yet known 1 ? " 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! How could you say that ? but it is im-
 
 136 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 possible he cannot harm him I will not believe it ; " yet 
 her color faded perceptibly. 
 
 " Do not believe it," Hugh hastened to say, " indeed, the 
 same old tales assure us that if the gift passed through a 
 pure hand before it reached the poor man, it lost its evil 
 properties ; no there is no danger for my father." 
 
 " A very comfortable conclusion, Master Hugh," ex 
 claimed the old Commodore, who had entered just in time 
 to hear the last words ; " pray, have you brought a suit of 
 armor from Europe proof against Mexican balls ? " 
 
 Hugh had risen to meet his father, and while he gave 
 and received a greeting so glad and affectionate, that in one 
 less manly and self-possessed, it might have seemed boyish, 
 he said, laughingly, " I shall leave you to face the Mexican 
 balls as you may, sir ; my armor is only proof against at 
 tacks at home." 
 
 " In general, by far the most dangerous. But I really 
 believe, Hugh, they are going to do the right thing this 
 time ; they have given me the Congress for my flag-ship ; 
 she is a noble frigate you must go on board to-day with 
 me. We shall drop down to Norfolk in a few days to take 
 in the remainder of our crew, and while they are being 
 shipped, I shall spend a few last days at home." 
 
 While saying this, the old Commodore had bent over 
 Augusta, and laying his hand on her dark, glossy hair, had 
 touched her glowing cheek with the fatherly salutation she 
 was accustomed each morning to receive from him. Scarce 
 ly had he seated himself at table, when Mrs. Moray entered, 
 followed soon after by Charlie, and the conversation be 
 came more general, and, Augusta thought, less interesting ; 
 it was interrupted suddenly by Mrs. Charles Moray, who, 
 pushing her chair back and rising quickly, exclaimed, " Wo 
 ought to be ready, Augusta ; you know Mr. Mellen and hit, 
 daughter are to call for us this morning on their way to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 137 
 
 the Senate. Hugh, do you go with us ? If you do, you 
 must go trebly armed, or you will be compelled to sur* 
 render to the fair Virginian." 
 
 " Has Charlie found her so irresistible ? " asked Hugh. 
 
 " Oh ! Charlie is out of the question ; he, long ago, was 
 made captive by another," by whom, her glance sufficiently 
 intimated. 
 
 " I am equally safe, and for the same reason," said 
 Hugh, significantly. 
 
 Mrs. Moray looked surprised, and, for once in her life, 
 the look was the true reflex of her feeling she was sur 
 prised ; not surprised at the attachment which Hugh's 
 words intimated that had long been no secret to her but 
 at the acknowledgment of it. A few skilful questions to 
 the unsuspicious Commodore, had made her au fait, as she 
 believed, of all that both he and Hugh felt on this subject. 
 She glanced at him now, expecting to see surprise and dis 
 approbation in his face ; but no, he was smiling broadly in 
 Hugh's face. What could it mean ? She was resolved to 
 discover, and she did. 
 
 " So Hugh has made up his mind to pocket all the hon 
 orable scruples of which you talked so eloquently, and win 
 the heiress if he can ? " she said to Commodore Moray when 
 next she saw him alone. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Hugh's pocket was not capacious enough for 
 my scruples, though it might have disposed of his own 
 Mr. Moray himself demolished them." 
 
 " Demolished them ! I am curious to know how ; 
 pray tell me that is if there is no secret involved ; you 
 know I never pretend to keep a secret." 
 
 " And I never have a secret to keep the whole thing 
 was as simple and open as day. When Mr. Moray talked 
 of inviting Hugh, I could not let him do it without telling 
 him what Hugh felt, and what had passed between us on
 
 138 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 tliis subject ; and so, as I told you, he demolished all my 
 scruples, declaring that it was the very thing of all others 
 he wished." 
 
 " And does the lady herself know all this ? " asked Mrs. 
 Moray, endeavoring, not very successfully, to assume an 
 indifferent tone. 
 
 " Oh no ! of course not ; Hugh is very desirous that she 
 should not even suspect it, so it must be a secret from her, 
 at least," 
 
 " The timidity of love, I suppose," she suggested, with a 
 sneer. 
 
 Timidity was a word the veteran particularly disliked, 
 and he answered, " Well ! I should not be disposed to think 
 it was timidity of any kind with Hugh. I don't think he 
 knows much of that feeling ; but then, every man, in such 
 affairs, likes to tell his own story in his own way, and at his 
 own time." 
 
 " I should think he would be in some hurry to tell it, 
 seeing how many rivals he is likely to have here, unless he 
 is pretty sure of his ground." 
 
 " I don't think he has great reason to be in apprehension 
 about it, do you ? " The open, kindly smile with which this 
 was asked, might have charmed away any demon less obsti 
 nate than envy. 
 
 Two weeks of Hugh's visit passed rapidly and happily 
 away. Commodore Moray's ship lay off the Portsmouth 
 Navy Yard. He himself had returned home for those last, 
 few, precious days into which the sweetness of years seemed 
 to be distilled. Precious in succeeding years, was the 
 memory of these days to those who loved him. They were 
 as a glowing twilight between a dull, lowering day, and the 
 blackness of night. 
 
 Hugh lost these pleasant days. He still remained in 
 Washington. He hoped, as he said, to be able to remain
 
 TWO PICTURES. 139 
 
 till his father should actually sail ; and again Augusta's 
 cheeks glowed, and her pulses beat more rapidly as she 
 asked herself, " What keeps Hugh ? Why did he not go 
 home with his father ? " 
 
 These were questions to which Hugh only waited an 
 opportunity to furnish an answer. He had sought this 
 opportunity daily during the last week of his stay, but had 
 been always baffled by the superior tactics of Mrs. Moray. 
 When Hugh first suspected her design, he smiled derisively 
 and repeated to himself, " Where there's a will there's a 
 way ; I can bide my time ; " but he found before the week 
 was past, that his will was not all-powerful, nor his patience 
 inexhaustible. Let us record the trials to which he was 
 subjected in one day the last day, as it proved, that he was 
 at this time to pass in Washington. 
 
 " It is a very pleasant day, and there is nothing espe 
 cially interesting in prospect at the Capitol this morning ; 
 may I hope that you will fulfil your promise of* making me 
 better acquainted with Washington and its environs ? " 
 Hugh asked Augusta, as he took his seat at the breakfast 
 table on his return from an early walk. Mrs. Moray, who 
 had become an early riser, was present. 
 
 " If my uncle can spare the carriage this morning," 
 answered Augusta, glancing at her uncle, and speaking with 
 a little more hesitation than so natural a proposition seemed 
 to account for. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Moray ; " I will only drive to 
 the Senate and send it back to you. I had a severe vertigo 
 yesterday when walking, and my head is still a little con 
 fused, or I should prefer walking. I shall not want it more 
 than fifteen minutes, however." 
 
 " Do not hurry yourself, uncle ; I shall not be ready in 
 less than half an hour," said Augusta. 
 
 " Might I ask you, my dear," said Mrs. Moray, as soon
 
 14:0 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 as the door had closed behind Mr. Moray, " to go a very 
 little out of your way, to put me down at the house of my 
 poor invalid friend, Miss Drayton? as you will be engaged 
 all the morning, it will be just the time for me to make her 
 a long, quiet visit." 
 
 Of course there could be no dissent from such a pro 
 posal, and soon Mrs. Moray, Augusta, and Hugh, entered 
 the pleasant, roomy, open carriage, and were borne by a 
 pair of spirited horses, in a few minutes, to Miss Drayton's 
 door. It was one of those balmy days in winter, when the 
 stern old tyrant seems to have yielded to the blandishments 
 of spring, who has twined her flowers around his crown and 
 sceptre, and melted the icicles from his beard, and the 
 snows from his garments by her odorous breath. At Miss 
 Drayton's, Mrs. Moray descended from the carriage, but 
 paused a moment on the step to say, " Will you wait one 
 moment, that I may see whether she can receive me," then 
 glided into the house. Five ten minutes passed away, 
 during which the coachman held in his impatient horses 
 with difficulty, and Hugh, more impatient even than they, 
 watched the door and the windows for some signal that 
 should set them free. At length, the door opened, and he 
 turned his eyes eagerly thither. Mrs. Moray appeared in 
 the open doorway, but not unaccompanied. Beside her was 
 a lady who appeared about thirty -five, perhaps forty years 
 of age. Her face was destitute of every tinge of color not 
 only the cheeks over which her dark hair was plainly 
 folded, but the very lips were pale. In spite of this, the 
 face was beautiful, from its indescribable sweetness of ex 
 pression. 
 
 " My dear Augusta," cried Mrs. Moray, " I have pre 
 vailed on Miss Drayton to take a drive with you this 
 pleasant morning. I told her that I knew it would give 
 you pleasure to take her."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 141 
 
 " I could readily believe anything kind of Miss Moray, 
 from the report given me of her by my niece, Annie Mel- 
 len," was said in a tone so gentle, that it would have 
 breathed peace, as Augusta thought, into stormier hearts 
 than any there that morning. 
 
 With a little glance at Hugh, perhaps with a little sigh 
 of disappointment at losing the pleasure of that long tete-d,- 
 lete drive, with its longed for, yet dreaded disclosures ; 
 with an inconsistency which every woman will understand, 
 Augusta turned to welcome Miss Dray ton with her most 
 cordial manner, a manner which was entirely free from the 
 pride she sometimes exhibited. Hugh did not so quickly 
 recover himself; he was courteous, but silent at first, and 
 by no means sympathetic. It was impossible, however, 
 long to retain his coldness to one so gentle and unobtrusive, 
 yet so intelligent and well-informed as Miss Drayton. He 
 was first won to listen ; the hard lines of his face relaxed, he 
 replied by a smile to Augusta's glance appealing for sym 
 pathy with her pleasure, and at last found that she had sunk 
 into silence, while he and Miss Drayton were in the full 
 flow of talk, narrating incidents of European travel, sketch 
 ing points of scenery, or commenting on national character 
 istics ; for Miss Drayton too had been abroad. It was a 
 triumph indeed to have made one's self an agreeable com 
 panion under such circumstances, and we have no doubt 
 Miss Drayton enjoyed it. Gifted with the most delicate 
 tact, she had seen in a moment that Mrs. Moray's blan 
 dishments and irresistible persuasions had made her one of 
 a party in which she was completely de trop. It was seen 
 too late, however, to retreat with dignity. Under such cir 
 cumstances, a selfish woman would have made the drive 
 painful to herself and her companions, by a cold and super 
 cilious tone ; but it was a principle with Miss Drayton to 
 add as much as possible to the sum of human happiness in
 
 142 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 little things as in great. There are some who reserve their 
 powers for great occasions. Miss Drayton was eminently 
 practical. She knew that she would rarely have opportuni 
 ties of " binding up a broken heart," or, " ministering to a 
 mind diseased ; " but that every day, perhaps every hour, 
 she might dissipate the threatening clouds of temper, and 
 call back the light of cheerfulness to a face shadowed by 
 care, by only cultivating the habit of studying rather to 
 please others than to win pleasure for herself. In the 
 present instance, trusting to the generous nature of youth, 
 she began by letting her companions see in a simple, quiet 
 way, how much enjoyment she was deriving from what had 
 cost them some sacrifice of pleasure, and the result proved 
 how true was her judgment. The drive which had begun 
 so unpromisingly, ended with a cordial feeling of admira 
 tion and interest between Miss Drayton and her young 
 friends, for friends they had become. 
 
 But Hugh's trials were not yet past. As the door was 
 opened to admit Miss Drayton, a more youthful form and 
 face issued from it. It was that of the young and animated 
 daughter of Mr. Mellen. Annie Mellon was a warm 
 hearted child of nature. Just seventeen, and educated in 
 her own paternal home in Virginia, she had seen even less 
 of the world than Augusta Moray. In her whole style of 
 character and manner, there was less depth, less power than 
 in Augusta. She had not the slightest claim to be called 
 beautiful, yet there was a charm in her bright fresh face, a 
 charm in her simple, natural manner, and yet more in the 
 glow of feeling which accompanied all she said and did. 
 She had felt for Augusta from the first hour they met, one 
 of those enthusiastic, devoted friendships, not {infrequently 
 awakened in young girls toward those somewhat older, and 
 somewhat more richly endowed than themselves ; a friend 
 ship repaid by Augusta with more of interest and regard
 
 TWO PICTURES. : 
 
 than any of the acquaintances she had made in Washington 
 had attracted from her. 
 
 " Augusta," said Annie, passing her aunt and Hugh, jind 
 coming toward the carriage quickly, " Mrs. Moray invited 
 me to lunch with you, and said you would take me home 
 with you in the carriage, when you brought Aunt Lizzie 
 back." 
 
 " Certainly, Annie," said Augusta, cheerfully, " come 
 in." 
 
 But again Hugh's glance seemed to Miss Dray ton not 
 quite so cordial. She hesitated a moment whether she 
 should recall Annie ; but, besides that it would be a great dis 
 appointment to Annie, she could think of no good reason 
 to give Augusta, so she contented herself with bending for 
 ward as Hugh was about to leave her, and saying in an 
 undertone, " Persuade Miss Moray to make me a visit to 
 morrow morning, and come with her yourself, Mr. Moray ; 
 my quiet room is an admirable place for a tete a tete, and 
 you will find me a most accommodating hostess." 
 
 Both laughed, but Hugh gave her another clasp of the 
 hand, which told that her conjecture was right, and that he 
 was grateful for her sympathy. 
 
 Annie Mellen remained not only to luncheon, but to 
 dinner. The interval between these repasts was filled up 
 with the reception of visitors. Hugh, while he remained in 
 the house, devoted himself to Annie Mellen. Their gay 
 chit-chat attracted Augusta's attention more than once from 
 visitors who were less agreeable to her. She knew not that 
 Annie's bright, cheery tones were conveying to Hugh's 
 intently listening ear more of her Washington life than he 
 could have obtained from herself in a much longer time ; 
 she only saw .that he was unusually interested, and felt 
 toward her who had excited that interest, a little touch of 
 envy, not of jealousy 5 she knew Hugh too well to fear any
 
 144 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 rivalry from an acquaintance of a day. His, she knew, was 
 not a heart to be won so easily. 
 
 After dinner, the ladies withdrew to prepare for a ball 
 at the house of the Russian Minister. This was the ball of 
 the season in Washington ; nothing was wanting to majie 
 the scene attractive, which wealth, guided by taste, could fur 
 nish. All the greenhouses of the city or of its environs 
 had been stripped to supply the orange and lemon trees that 
 made the halls and staircases a bower of fragrance and 
 beauty. Every doorway was wreathed with rare and costly 
 flowers, every mantle shelf or console was a miniature gar 
 den, where, from beds of soft greon moss, rose flowers, 
 sometimes of purest white, without mixture of any color, 
 sometimes of the most rich and brilliant and varied tints in 
 nature ; pansies of purple and gold, scarlet verbenas, many- 
 colored orchids, camellias and azalias of every shade, from 
 the most delicate pink to the deepest crimson. Through 
 this scene of enchantment moved the young and beautiful 
 hostess, fit dweller in such a temple. Beautiful as she was, 
 with that riant, sparkling beauty whose charm is felt by 
 the most insensible, she dazzled no less by the brilliancy 
 of her dress, its exquisite arrangement of graceful drapery 
 and harmonious coloring, and the diamonds which, like mimic 
 suns, flashed their rays as she moved. Yet there was ono 
 moment that evening when all around her felt that there 
 was a beauty which, without these adventitious aids, could 
 throw hers into the shade. Mr. Moray would have desired 
 always to see his niece magnificently attired. He had pre 
 sented her with valuable jewels, among which were com 
 plete sets of pearls and of diamonds. But Augusta's better 
 taste taught her that the fresh loveliness of youth needed not 
 those ornaments, and she wore them only to gratify hi-r 
 uncle. This evening she had followed in her toilette the. 
 suggestions of her own taste, it may be, not without some
 
 TWO PICTURES. 145 
 
 conviction that it accorded with Hugh's, and as she stood 
 for a few minutes beside her beautiful hostess, even Mr. 
 Moray was satisfied with the result. Her dress, of spot 
 less white, fell in soft folds, rich and glossy, to the feet, 
 not below them for according to the fashion of the day, 
 although it swept the carpet behind her, it left visible in front 
 the satin slippers, and even the arched instep. Lace of the 
 most exquisite Point d'Angleterre dropped " like a powder 
 of snow from the eaves," softening the full, yet delicate 
 outline of the rounded bust and the perfect symmetry of the 
 arms. A cluster of the delicately tinted flowers of the 
 myrtle, a sprig of its glossy green leaves, with two or three 
 flowers and a single leaf of scarlet geranium, formed her 
 bouquet de corsage. The graceful line of the beautifully 
 formed and well-set head was broken only by some of the 
 same flowers tastefully disposed, from which there drooped, 
 touching one white and rounded shoulder, a green vine 
 hung with bright red winter berries. 
 
 " Now, that's what I call beauty, Mr. Moray," said Mr. 
 Mellen, always a great admirer of Augusta, " that with two 
 or three flowers and green leaves, and just a white frock 
 without even a bit of ribbon, can out-do all the diamonds 
 and feathers and gewgaws. She just looks like a fresh 
 white flower herself." 
 
 " Doesn't she, papa ? " cried Annie Mellen, warmly ; 
 "just like a white flower on a tall, graceful stalk?" 
 
 " Yes, Nannie, and the rest of you like things made of 
 paint and patches." 
 
 " Oh, papa ! that is too bad." 
 
 " Indeed, I think so, Miss Mellen," said Mr. Moray, 
 good humoredly ; " too bad, and very unjust." 
 
 And certainly nothing looked less like paint and patches 
 than the animated young face, glowing with enjoyment, on 
 which his smiling eyes were turned.
 
 140 TWO 1'ICTURES. 
 
 Later in the evening, Hugh was standing opposite a 
 group of dancers looking with very evident admiration upon 
 the graceful movements of Augusta and of Charlie, as they 
 went slowly through the mazes of a quadrille, when he 
 heard some gentleman near him say, in a tone which showed 
 evident dissatisfaction : " She shall learn that I am not her 
 glove to be put on and off at pleasure." 
 
 " Hush sh sh ! " said another voice, on a lower key, 
 " that is he." 
 
 The last words were so low that one not remarkable for 
 aculeness of ear, could not have heard them ; Hugh not 
 only heard them, but recognized also the voice in which 
 they were spoken, and was not therefore surprised when he 
 turned, to find Mrs. Moray standing not far from him ac 
 companied by a gentleman whom he had never seen, but 
 whom by one of those intuitions which all have experienced 
 and none can account for, he at once felt to be Mr. Saville. 
 U may seem equally intuitive, it was not less certain, that 
 he applied the pronouns " she" and " he" of this fragment 
 of a dialogue to Augusta and himself. How she could ever 
 have given Mr. Saville occasion to believe that he stood in 
 any relation to her that might be symbolized by the close 
 fitting of a glove was certainly somewhat of an enigma. 
 Perhaps Hugh's professional habits of thought aided him in 
 his conclusions. His experience as a lawyer had assuredly 
 given him cause to know that a man readily believes what 
 he wishes, and that the most innocent actions of a generous, 
 unsuspicious woman, may be distorted by a designing man 
 into the shape that suits his purposes. Whence he drew his 
 convictions, he might perhaps have found it difficult himself 
 to say, but they were not the less positive that Mrs. Moray 
 and Mr. Saville had been speaking of Augusta, and that 
 they feared to have him hear what they said of her. 
 
 " There is always danger in secrecy where a woman is
 
 TWO PICTURES. 14:7 
 
 concerned," said Hugh to himself. lie looked at Augusta as 
 this thought passed through his mind. " How ingenuous, 
 how superior to everything like intrigue she looks ! How 
 impossible that she should suspect it in another ! " His 
 heart swelled with new tenderness to her a lonely orphan 
 no mother to counsel no father to defend her her only 
 guardian so unsympathizing. It gave a fresh impulse to his 
 desire to win her, that he might become to her father, 
 mother, and more and dearer still. " I will speak this very 
 night I cannot bear this distance longer we have lost the 
 old brotherly and sisterly position I doubt if she would 
 come to me now with her perplexities as she would have 
 done a year no it has been longer than that two years 
 ago. That can never come back we must be more to each 
 other or less." 
 
 A pang of doubt shot through Hugh's heart. Augusta 
 had certainly been more distant of late ; was that the timid 
 ity of new-born passion, or was it the estrangement of 
 growing indifference? Such thoughts had flashed on him 
 before perhaps they had aided Mrs. Moray in her desire to 
 prevent the speaking those decisive words which might 
 render all her plans abortive ; but to-night they came with 
 fiercer strength, rushing through the deep recesses of his 
 soul, and threatening to overthrow its most cherished 
 hopes. 
 
 Such is the rapidity of thought, that scarce a minute had 
 passed since he had been gazing with free, bright spirit on 
 the gay scene around him, from which he now turned away 
 feeling that his mood was not in accordance with it. From 
 the glare and heat of the ball room, he found his way to a 
 library, cooler and less brilliantly lighted than the other 
 rooms. No one was there. Lifting a heavy crimson cur 
 tain which fell again behind him, he entered the recess 
 formed by a bow window, and looked out upon the tran-
 
 148 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 quil night. lie drank in its stilling influence, and soon his 
 pulses .throbbed less rapidly and his thoughts grew calmer, 
 lie was about to reenter the room when he heard steps 
 approaching, and through an opening in the curtain saw Au 
 gusta come in, attended by the gentleman whom he believed 
 to be Mr. Saville. With instinctive repugnance to meeting 
 that man, he drew back into his retreat, supposing that they 
 would pass on to the rooms lying beyond, but they paused, 
 and Mr. Saville, drawing forward a chair, asked Augusta if 
 she would be seated. She declined it with a slight bow, 
 saying, in a cold and somewhat haughty tone, " Excuse me, 
 sir; I understood that Mrs. Moray had sent you for me." 
 
 " And so she did, Miss Moray, that I might have an op 
 portunity of asking to what I was indebted for the coldness 
 of your reception this evening ? " The tone in which this 
 was said betrayed uncontrollable irritation. Hugh made a 
 quick step forward, but again he checked himself, as throw 
 ing back her head with a movement of startled pride, Au 
 gusta spoke. 
 
 " May I ask you so far to explain yourself as to inform 
 mo what reception you expected from me, sir ? " 
 
 " What you were ready enough to give me as long as 
 you had anything to gain by it." The tone was as insolent 
 as the words. 
 
 " I should forfeit my self-respect should I answer de 
 mands made in such a tone." Augusta spoke low but very 
 distinctly, and then moved to the door. 
 
 " You don't get away so easily, my proud lady," cried 
 Mr. Saville, intercepting her; " you shall hear first " 
 
 What she was to hear was never known, for Hugh, un 
 able to endure more, strode hastily forward, and Mr. Saville 
 found himself suddenly dashed aside by a nervous arm. 
 Not a word \vas spoken, not a glance bestowed on him. 
 Silently Hugh drew Augusta's arm in his, and led her from
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the room ; not so rapidly but that they heard the muttered 
 curse and the " not loud but deep " " I will make you rue 
 this, if I die the next hour." 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! your father! I am so sorry I ought to 
 have been more patient I believe what you said of him had 
 made me a little afraid, and I did try to avoid him this 
 evening. What shall I do ? Had I better try " 
 
 " Do nothing try nothing lie is not worthy of a 
 thought and fear nothing for my father. I do not believe 
 such a contemptible being as that can injure him." 
 
 Alas ! Hugh forgot that the smallest insect may have 
 the keenest sting. For his part, he dismissed Mr. Saville 
 from his mind, and occupied himself wholly with Augusta, 
 giving expression by look and manner to the admiration 
 and tenderness of which his heart was full, while he longed- 
 for the moment when he might speak what he could say in 
 no presence but hers. 
 
 The hour came at last, though Mrs. Moray delayed her 
 departure to the latest possible moment. Hugh handed Au 
 gusta to the carriage in which Mrs. Moray was already 
 seated. She watched him with impatience, she even called 
 to them to hasten, but Hugh still lingered. He was say 
 ing, " I must see you alone, Augusta, though it be for a few 
 moments only I fear you have not always understood me. 
 I would put it out of your power not to do so in future ; 
 could you not give me a few minutes in the library to-night, 
 after Mrs. Moray has retired? I will not detain you long." 
 
 " It is so late but I will try," Augusta faltered, in 
 a voice that trembled even as did the little hand that lay in 
 Hugh's warm clasp. 
 
 There was no time for more. They were at the car 
 riage in a few minutes they were at home. It was Hugh 
 who opened the carriage door for them. He had ridden 
 with the coachman on the box, while Charlie preferred to
 
 150 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 walk. lie gave his hand to Mrs. Moray, for Augusta had 
 drawn herself away into the farthest corner. 
 
 " I think she is asleep," said Mrs. Moray ; " I spoke to 
 her twice, but she did not answer." 
 
 In truth, she had not heard anything but the throbbing 
 of her own heart, and the echo of those words, " You have not 
 always understood me I would put it out of your power not 
 to do so in future." She scarcely ventured to touch Hugh's 
 hand in descending from the carriage ; she hurried before 
 him, before Mrs. Moray into the house ; she would not for 
 worlds have appeared to linger. Should she grant his re 
 quest and see him in the library ? She could not decide. 
 " I will see how he looks, what he says," she- thought, " per 
 haps he will have forgotten it." She glanced at his face as 
 the lamp in the hall flashed on them ; she met his eyes no, 
 he had not forgotten. 
 
 " Gib," she exclaimed, turning hastily away, ' ; whore is 
 my uncle ? " 
 
 " Gone to bed, Miss 'Gusty he a'nt very well he head 
 is troublous, ma'am, and Mister Hugh, sir, here's a letter 
 for you, an' Master said you must read it mejantly, sir it 
 corned by a gen'lcman from New York. Master saw the 
 gcn'leman." 
 
 Before Gib had finished an explanation given with all 
 his usual precision, Hugh had torn open the letter, and 
 found it was from his partner and kind friend, Mr. Holton, 
 written in great haste, and containing but these words : 
 
 DEAR MORAY : My little daughter lies in a dangerous 
 state ; Mifllin's case comes on on the 20th I fear I shall be 
 wholly unfit to appear in it, or at least, to take the whole 
 burden. You have studied it ; besides, you can take my notes. 
 Can you come to my aid ? If you can, lose not a moment. 
 You will have this, I hope, Thursday night. I think there is
 
 TWO PICTURES. 151 
 
 a 3. A. M. train. Take it if you can I am almost dis 
 tracted. 
 
 Your friend, O. UOLTON. 
 
 " Half past two," exclaimed Hugh, looking at his watch, 
 " stop that carriage, Gib bring my carpet-bag no stop 
 I must do it myself." 
 
 Hugh rushed upstairs, and in a few minutes was down 
 again, bringing his carpet bag and travelling cloak. Mrs. 
 Moray and Augusta were in the reception room opening on 
 the hall. The door was open. Hugh entered, and took a 
 hurried leave of both. 
 
 " You will come back, Hugh ? " Augusta said, in a voice 
 which she strove in vain to render steady. 
 
 "The moment I am free," he said, turning back and 
 clasping her hand once more for an instant. 
 
 Little did they surmise how they were next to meet.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " When to mischief mortals bend their will, 
 How soon they find tit instruments of ill." POPE. 
 
 A LOUD knock on the door of her chamber, and her name 
 called in a tone of alarm, startled Augusta from the lute 
 sleep of the following morning. 
 
 " What is it, Gib ? " she cried, springing to the door. 
 
 " Miss 'Gusty ! I believe Master is a dyin', ma'am." 
 
 There are some natures which such terrible shocks 
 overpower at once to others they give a strength never 
 felt before, as the electric spark before which one falls sense 
 less, only braces the nerves of another to tenser resistance. 
 Augusta belonged to the last class. She had caught up her 
 dressing gown as she hastened to the door, and before Gib 
 had ceased speaking, she had opened her door and stood 
 ready to follow him to her uncle's room. Long before she 
 reached that room, she heard the stertorous breathing which 
 had first alarmed Gib, and caused him to enter his master's 
 room at an unusual hour. It was a sad thing to sec the 
 strong man lie there so helpless. His face was very pale. 
 Masses of waving brown hair, mixed with gray, had fallen 
 over his low, square forehead. Augusta pushed the hair 
 aside and laid her hand on the forehead, but withdrew it 
 quickly, startled by the coldness of that she touched. There 
 was no movement in the stout form except as the heavy 
 breathing stirred it.
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 153 
 
 " Oh that Hugh were with me ! " was Augusta's first 
 thought but her first words, and/" 1 they seemed to come 
 without delay, were an order to call Mr. Charles Moray, 
 and when Charlie came, it was only to receive her earnest 
 adjuration that he would go himself for the physician whom 
 Mr. Moray had occasionally consulted since he had been in 
 Washington. Charlie had seen enough to urge him to ac 
 tivity, and he soon returned with I}r. Weston, though, soon 
 as it was, the time seemed long to Augusta. Dr. Weston 
 looked at the sick man, touched his wrist and turned at once 
 to Augusta, saying, " This is no place for you, Miss Moray. 
 You must leave your uncle to our care." 
 
 " Is he dying ? " she asked, with husky voice, and tremu 
 lous white lips. 
 
 " No ; but he is threatened severely with apoplexy." 
 
 And the threat was fulfilled, and when next Augusta 
 was permitted to see her uncle, she saw that his tide of life 
 had ebbed, and though none whispered such a fear, though 
 even in thought she could not have borne to shape it into 
 intelligible words, she felt that that tide would never flow 
 again nay, that it would recede it might be slowly, it 
 might be rapidly, but slowly or rapidly, it would recede 
 till its last wave had swept beyond mortal vision. It gave 
 to her feelings and to her manner an indescribable tender 
 ness. His will was more powerful with her than it had ever 
 been in its strongest and most despotic hour, yet with this 
 submission there mingled strangely someAvhat of the ineffable 
 gentleness, the pitying tenderness of a mother to. a sick 
 child. His lightest wish outweighed with her not only her 
 own inclinations, but those of every other person. She did 
 not say, we can scarcely say she thought, but she fell it was 
 to be for 50 short a time. 
 
 Mrs. Moray was very attentive to the invalid, but she 
 lacked the inimitable tact possessed by many of her sex,
 
 154: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 less gifted in other respects than herself, by which the pos 
 sessor seems to divine what will best please the sufferer be 
 fore it has shaped itself into a wish. Mr. Moray had not 
 lost his gentlemanly self-control, but Augusta, by virtue of 
 her new power of sympathy with him, knew that Mrs. 
 Moray by her cold, shallow nature, often irritated him when 
 she meant most to charm. Surely there is no labor so ut 
 terly unrewarded as that to which hypocrisy condemns its 
 unhappy followers ; for, however closely they may study 
 their part, however perfectly they may act it, there is some 
 principle in the most guileless and unsuspecting, nay, in the 
 most stupid of human souls, if it be also a true soul, which 
 clearly recognizes that it is but acting. Especially is this 
 the case when the deeper emotions of our nature have been 
 stirred ; a discord may pass unnoticed if it clash with a 
 feeble tone, but if it break across some full deep organ tone, 
 how our hearts quiver and shrink from its sharp clangor. 
 Mr. Moray's nature had ever been far deeper and stronger 
 than Mrs. Moray could understand, and it was increasing 
 every hour in depth and strength, from the solemn shadows 
 that were gathering around it. 
 
 Charlie, though not less light, was truer than his mother. 
 His gay chit-chat sometimes amused the invalid, and Au 
 gusta never permitted him to evade his daily visit to the 
 sick room. But there were thoughts and wants in that sick 
 room in the heart both of the sick man and of his tender, pity 
 ing nurse, which they never breathed to mortal ear, which 
 they would have felt it a sort of sacrilege to breathe to 
 spirits light as these, and which made them both turn with 
 longing to Hugh. 
 
 These feelings did not lessen in intensity even when, 
 after a week, Mr. Moray resumed his accustomed habits, 
 though his movements were slower than formerly, and had 
 something of uncertainty about them, and on his face rested
 
 TWO PICTURES. 155 
 
 the shadow of a great fear. In one respect, he was greatly 
 changed. lie had always shown superabundant activity 
 of nature, sleeping but little, and never in the day. Now, 
 after the least exertion, even that of a short walk, he 
 would fall asleep, and after dinner he invariably slept in 
 his large chair by the study fire. It was a pretty picture, 
 while he thus slept, to see the beautiful young face that 
 watched beside him with a softness in the dark eyes which 
 gave a new charm to them. As they sat thus, one after 
 noon, in stillness, the book which Augusta had been reading 
 to her uncle lying half closed upon her knee, the study door 
 opened with a click which startled Augusta, and aroused 
 Mr. Moray. It was Mrs. Moray who entered. 
 
 " Did I wake you ? " she exclaimed, forgetting or ignor 
 ing that few things annoyed Mr. Moray more than to be 
 told that he had been asleep. " I am very sorry ; but I 
 wanted to know if you had any message for Hugh I am 
 writing to him. Shall I say anything for you ? " 
 
 The question was addressed to Augusta, over whose 
 face and neck rushed a quick crimson tide, as s,he answered, 
 softly, " No, I thank you." 
 
 " Have you any message, Mr. Moray ? " 
 
 " Yes ; tell him I want to see him as quickly as 
 possible. I was thinking of writing to him myself; tell 
 him to come as soon as he can. Of course, I know he must 
 stay while he is absolutely necessary to Mr. Holton." 
 
 The last words were said in a sort of sotto voce, as if 
 they were addressed to himself rather than to her, and were 
 intended to moderate his impatient longing. They were 
 scarcely effectual for this last purpose, for after Mrs. Moray 
 was gone he sat silent some minutes, and then said, with a 
 strength of desire in his tone which made the tears spring 
 from Augusta's eyes at the thought that she could not satisfy 
 it, " I want Hugh very much. I hope he will come soon."
 
 156 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Let us follow Mrs. Moray to her own room and see how 
 far her letter was expressive of this strength of desire. The 
 apparent subject of her letter was the request that Hugh 
 would attend to some business at home for her then fol 
 lowed, " I suppose you have heard of Mr. Moray's strange 
 attack. We were a little alarmed about him at first, but it 
 has passed away, and so have our fears. I have been to ask 
 if he or Augusta had any message for you. She had none, 
 but he charged me to say that he should be very glad to see 
 you here again whenever it suited you to come, though, he 
 added, you must not think of doing so while your services 
 were needed by Mr. Holton. I know somebody who I think 
 would be glad to have you come, whoever might need you 
 in New York. Had I asked Miss An a Me n I use 
 a few letters only of names which I am sure you are in no 
 danger of mistaking, because I think we have no right to 
 run the risk of compromising the delicacy of a young girl 
 by the use of her name in relation to such a subject, espe 
 cially when what we write is to pass through the Washing 
 ton post office but, I say, had I asked the young lady 
 whom those initials indicate, the question to which Augusta 
 answered with such an indifferent "No," I can imagine 
 how the eloquent blood would have spoken in her cheeks, 
 and enabled me to divine the message to which her modesty 
 might have refused utterance. Ah, Hugh ! You see, I have 
 penetrated your secret. Not much of a secret cither, for 
 your unveiled devotion made itself manifest to all. This 
 is my excuse for saying what it would otherwise be cruel 
 tivuchery to a young, pure heart, to tell you. I know you 
 are too much of a preux chevalier to value less the heart you 
 have sought, because it has surrendered to you." 
 
 About this time it was that Commodore Moray sailed 
 from Norfolk to his cruising ground. Two days before he 
 sailed, he came to Washington to receive his latest ver.bal
 
 TWO PICTURES. 157 
 
 instructions from the Navy Department, and to grasp once 
 more the hand of his kinsman, between whom and himself 
 there had sprung up a cordial friendship based on esteem. 
 
 " I am wanting to see Hugh very much when is he 
 coming ? " asked Mr. Hugh Moray. 
 
 " The moment he can get through with this case in which 
 he is assisting Mr. Holton," said the commodore ; " but, 
 if you want him particularly " 
 
 No oh, no ! " exclaimed Mr. Moray, with that readi 
 ness to disclaim the possibility of any one being needed by 
 him which is often seen in elderly gentlemen, and espe 
 cially in invalids, proceeding probably from the fear that 
 others may suspect that failure in their self-reliance of 
 which they are beginning to be dimly conscious themselves. 
 
 During this visit of Commodore Moray, and for some 
 days afterward, Mr. Moray seemed, decidedly better. He 
 resumed his habit of daily attendance at the Senate cham 
 ber, though he took no active part in what was done there, 
 beyond giving his vote when called upon. This return to 
 public life became the event of his day, the rest of which 
 often hung heavily on his hands in spite of the unceasing 
 tenderness which watched around him, and invented employ 
 ment or amusement for his idle hours. In a society full of 
 excitement like that at Washington, the man who runs not 
 with others, is soon left behind and forgotten. But a short 
 time had passed since Mr. Moray's house was a favorite re 
 sort of the powerful and the gay, and now, except kind 
 old Mr. Mcllen, who made a point of seeing, him at his 
 own house once in the twenty-four hours, though it might 
 be only for a few minutes' call, in going to the capitol, or re 
 turning from it, few entered his doors. Augusta perhaps 
 felt this seeming desertion more than he did. She could 
 not. bear that he should have cause to think himself already 
 forgotten. So completely did she lose herself in him, that
 
 158 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 she was positively grateful to Mr. Saville, who called fre 
 quently, and sometimes passed an hour or two of the evening 
 in playing backgammon with Mr. Moray. In his kindness 
 to her uncle, she completely forgot his offence against her 
 self, while Mr. Moray grew almost confidential with him, 
 and one evening when Augusta had left them at their game, 
 and gone to the tea table in the next room, he asked if Mr. 
 Saville could recommend an honest lawyer to him, as he 
 wanted to make his will, adding, that though he had quite 
 recovered from his sudden attack, it had made him feel the 
 necessity of adjusting his business. 
 
 " If we believe the general verdict, sir," said Mr. Saville, 
 with a smile, " an honest lawyer will be somewhat difficult 
 to find ; but perhaps I can do what you wish myself. I 
 have studied law and practised it for several years, though, 
 disliking it exceedingly, 1 was not sorry to relinquish the 
 practice for iny present position." 
 
 " You are very kind," said Mr. Moray, with a little hesi 
 tation of manner, " but " 
 
 " But you are afraid to trust me," interrupted Mr. Sa 
 ville, laughing, " you are quite right, if the will is at all 
 complicated perhaps Mr. Hugh Moray will be back in 
 time to meet your wishes." 
 
 " It would not help me if he were I have particular 
 reasons for not wishing him to do it." Mr. Moray spoke in 
 a tone of annoyance. 
 
 " Is not Mr. Mellon a lawyer of some eminence ? " asked 
 Mr. Saville. 
 
 " He is and he commenced the practice of law in my 
 own State, Georgia, though he removed on his marriage to 
 Virginia : yes, Mellen would suit me exactly and I spoke 
 to him about it, and he promised to do it as soon as he 
 could ; but he is so engrossed, and I I am impatient, per 
 haps."
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 150 
 
 " Well, sir, suppose you give me the necessary items, 
 and I draw up the instrument and bring it to you then let 
 Mr. Mellen examine it ; that will not take much of his time. 
 If it be correct, all is well ; if not, and he will point out the 
 errors, I can correct them." 
 
 " But I shall be taking so much of your time, Mr. Sa- 
 ville," suggested Mr. Moray, looking at the same time, 
 however, much pleased. 
 
 " Oh ! say nothing of that it will only deprive me of 
 one or two of my pleasant evenings with you here." 
 
 " Thank you ! thank you ! I shall always remember 
 your kindness as that of a friend ; but I cannot accept your 
 time unless you permit me also to regard it in the light of 
 a professional service." 
 
 " You shall do just as you please in that as in all the 
 rest." 
 
 " Then will you close that door, and I will give you the 
 memoranda at once there is no time like the present, you 
 know." 
 
 The door was closed, and the memoranda given. At ten 
 o'clock, Mr. Saville entered the parlor where the ladies sat ; 
 Charlie had gone out. 
 
 " Miss Moray, I am afraid I have kept your uncle up 
 too long he looks wearied." 
 
 If Mr. Saville had intended to send Augusta away, he 
 could not have chosen a more certain measure. With a 
 hasty good evening, she went to the library, leaving him 
 just in the act of taking leave of Mrs. Moray. From the 
 library she went first to her uncle's room, to see that every 
 thing was arranged for his comfort, and then to her own. 
 As she said " Good night " to Mr. Moray, his eyes rested 
 on her with an expression of such affection as she had never 
 seen in them before. Augusta's heart overflowed with a 
 tenderness which she knew not how to express, and taking
 
 160 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the hand Mr. Moray had held out to her, she raised it to 
 her lips. Suddenly a great sob broke from Mr. Moray, and 
 drawing Augusta closer to him, he kissed her on her cheek, 
 and said, in an agitated voice, " When your old uncle goes, 
 you will find he has taken care of you." 
 
 "And now you must take care of yourself, dear uncle, 
 for which I care a great deal more than for anything else." 
 She tried to speak in cheerful tones, and left the room 
 immediately, fearful that he would continue to talk if she 
 remained. She went to her own room, very weary, yet too 
 much excited to sleep. It was so new, so strange, to have 
 her uncle gentle and affectionate in manner. " It was pleas 
 ant, certainly, very pleasant," she repeated to herself, feeling 
 all the time a painful sense of loss and want. This kind, 
 caressing uncle might be pleasant, but he was not the 
 strong, self-relying, despotic, yet just and honorable man of 
 whom she had been proud all her life. Him she should no 
 more see. It is wonderful how much more such a character 
 is missed by those who have lived within its influence, than 
 one more amiable even, if less powerful. But Augusta's 
 thoughts at last rested on one who seemed to her to com 
 bine the strength and self-reliance, and even, on certain oc 
 casions, a little of the despotism of Mr. Moray, with all that 
 was tender and good, and her soliloquy terminated, as most 
 of her soliloquies had done of late, with, " Oh ! when will 
 Hugh come ? " 
 
 These thoughts had held her long awake, and as she 
 turned restlessly on her pillow, the clock in the hall below 
 struck one. Soon after she heard the front door creak on 
 its hinges, and she knew by that very creaking, that it was 
 opened slowly and cautiously ; for she had made quite a 
 study during her uncle's illness, of opening all the doors 
 about the house with the least possible noise, and she had 
 found that this door, while it creaked under her slow, care-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 161 
 
 ful manipulation, was perfectly silent under Charlie's care- 
 less fling. The very conviction that this person did not 
 mean to be heard made her nervous. Could it be Charlie 
 returning home ? No she was sure it could not be, for she 
 heard this person descending the steps. Her chamber was at 
 the front of the house, and a full moon was shining on the 
 opposite side, though her windows were in shadow. She 
 started from her bed, and looking out, saw could it be 
 Saville ? crossing the street. She drew nearer the window ; 
 he was now in the middle of the street. Suddenly he paused, 
 and turned toward the house, lifting his eyes toward her 
 room. The moonlight streamed full upon his face, and she 
 saw it as if she had stood beside him. There was a smile 
 upon it, and yet she shrank back and drew her breath as if 
 from actual pain as she encountered the glance which seemed 
 to flash directly upon her. It was a glance she never forgot, 
 and never recalled without a shuddering thrill the exulting 
 glance of a demon whose prey was delivered to him. It 
 haunted her even in her sleep that night ; the morning light 
 could not drive it away, and though the pleasant, friendly 
 look which Mr. Saville wore when they met, made her say 
 to herself, " It was my fancy," when he was gone, and she 
 recalled his face, it was as she had seen it in the moonlight. 
 
 Mr. Saville brought a rough copy of the will, and left it 
 with Mr. Moray for Mr. Mellen's examination. 
 
 " Clever fellow, that Saville," said Mr. Mellon, after he 
 had read it carefully over ; " there is scarcely anything to 
 correct ; but we cannot be too cautious in such matters, es 
 pecially as your niece will doubtless marry one day, and 
 her husband may try to pick a flaw so I will make one or 
 two pencil marks here on the margin." 
 
 And with these pencil marks it was returned to Mr. Sa 
 ville, with a request that he would bring it at four o'clock 
 the next afternoon, if possible, as Mr. Mcllen would be there
 
 102 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 at that time, and Mr. Moray would like to have him wit 
 ness his signature, and take charge of the instrument for 
 him. 
 
 " It is a sort of memento mori that a sick man does not 
 greatly like to keep in his thoughts," he said with a smile, 
 which he strove in vain to make cheerful ; " when once it is 
 scaled up and put in his hands, I shall dismiss it from my 
 mind altogether." 
 
 Mr. Saville w r as detained " accidentally " we use his 
 own words coming at eight, instead of four o'clock. Of 
 course, Mr. Mellen was not there. 
 
 " I am very sorry," said Mr. Saville, " but I have 
 brought the original copy with his pencil marks, and if you 
 will look over that while I read the other, you will see that 
 I have exactly conformed to his directions ; then we can 
 complete the signing and sealing, and it will be ready for 
 your delivery to Mr. Mellen when he calls again, and you 
 may dismiss it as completely from your mind as if it were 
 already delivered." 
 
 Mr. Moray hesitated a moment, for he had wished Mr. 
 Mellen's signature ; but he was very anxious to complete 
 the business he was afraid of delay, and there was more 
 earnest than jest in his desire to dismiss it from his mind ; 
 so he held out his hand at last for the rough draft, saying, 
 " Very well, I will look on while you read the other, and 
 then we will call in Mrs. Moray, and she and you can wit 
 ness my signature." 
 
 Mr. Saville took from the table where he had laid 
 it, a plain black morocco portfolio, and handed Mr. 
 Moray the rough draft ; then, holding the portfolio in 
 his hand, read the will, very slowly and deliberately, 
 glancing occasionally at Mr. Moray to see if all was 
 right. All was right ; not a word, not a letter out of 
 place. Mr. Moray asked to look at it ; it was handed to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 163 
 
 him, still in the portfolio. He read it carefully to himself, 
 while Mr. Saville, with an unnatural pallor on his face, 
 watched his every movement. 
 
 " And now the signatures," said Mr. Moray, looking up 
 gravely ; " ring the bell, if you please, and I will send for 
 Mrs. Moray." 
 
 Mr. Saville rung, the message was sent, and Mrs. 
 Moray entered. Mr. Moray sat at the table with the port 
 folio before him ; a glance quick and furtive passed between 
 Mrs. Moray and Mr. Saville ; she was flushed and restless 
 he, ghastly white, with a still fixedness of manner. 
 
 " Mrs. Moray, I troubled you to come in that you 
 might witness my signature to my will ; pray, take a seat." 
 He turned, as he spoke, to the inkstand on the table beside 
 him. " Where is my pen ? " he asked ; " I am sure it was 
 here a moment ago." 
 
 And so it had been, but Mr. Saville had dexterously 
 removed it. 
 
 " Never mind, sir, take mine ; you will find it writes 
 very well." 
 
 He dipped it himself into the inkstand, but not into the 
 ink, as he spoke, and handed it to Mr. Moray, who received 
 it silently, and signed, in a bold, full, and somewhat heavy 
 hand, Hugh Moray. The seal had been already affixed. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Moray," said Mr. Saville, in a tone which 
 seemed as rigid as his movements. 
 
 With another quick glance at him, Mrs. Moray drew 
 near the table, took the pen, and signed, Ellen Moray, then 
 handed it to Mr. Saville, who wrote underneath, Richard 
 Saville. 
 
 " And now, Mr. Saville, will you please fold it the size 
 of this envelope ? " turning to the drawer beside him for an 
 envelope as he spoke. While he was thus engaged, Mr. 
 Saville had drawn a paper from within the one thus signed.
 
 164 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 It presented a precisely similar appearance in every re 
 spect, seal and signatures occupying the same position in 
 each. 'Rapidly, Mr. Saville folded it to the size of the 
 envelope given him, and placed it within it. Then he lighted 
 the little candle in the inkstand, and gave the envelope and a 
 stick of sealing wax to Mr. Moray, who immediately scaled 
 it, impressing on it his own private seal. 
 
 Each of the three gathered there, drew a long, full breath 
 as this was done. 
 
 " I shall sleep the better for that to-night," said Mr. 
 Moray, " and I think if you will excuse me, Mr. Saville, I 
 will retire at once. Good night ! Good night, Mrs. Moray ! " 
 
 lie passed out of the library. Those he left, spoke not, 
 moved not, till they heard him speak to Augusta two rooms 
 away, and then, attended by her, ascend the stairs, enter his 
 chamber and close the door. Then Mr. Saville turned to 
 his companion, slightly opened his portfolio, and gave her 
 a glimpse of the paper just signed. 
 
 " These copying machines are invaluable," he said, in a 
 low voice ; " you see that sheet in the portfolio which looks 
 somewhat like a black slate ; there must be some pigment 
 upon it it does not come off except on considerable pres 
 sure ; but when this pen, which I suppose contains some of 
 the same pigment, is pressed on a sheet above, the sheet 
 immediately in contact with that leaf receives exactly the 
 same characters. Capital idea, isn't it?" And Mr. Sa 
 ville closed this seeming portfolio, and buttoned it up 
 carefully in the breast pocket of his coat, as if it had ac 
 quired new value in his eyes. 
 
 " Had you not better burn that copy at once ? " asked 
 Mrs. Moray, in a whisper, and glancing quickly around as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " Burn it I Oh, no, thank you ! I shallkeep it." 
 
 Mrs. Moray made no remonstrance, but she felt that
 
 TWO PICTURES. 165 
 
 her punishment had already begun. Verily our sins do find 
 us out, and that without long search ! This thoughtless, 
 selfish, false woman of the world, had still been held to the 
 days of her innocence by one memory the memory of the 
 evening prayer said first at her mother's knee, and continued 
 ever since with something of the superstitious feeling with 
 which an African recites the charm that is to secure him 
 from witchcraft. To-night she dared not repeat that 
 prayer. 
 
 The next day, Mr. Moray was in unusually good spir 
 its, and talked, as he had not done since his illness, of his 
 return home as soon as Congress should adjourn. 
 
 " I am glad I did not let you write Mr. Mortimer of my 
 illness," he said to Augusta, " he would come to me imme 
 diately, I know ; but such hurried journeys do not suit an 
 old man like him, and I could not have delayed here even to 
 give him rest ; as soon as I am free, you and I and Hugh, 
 if he will, must set out for St. Mary's. By the by, I have a 
 promise to exact from you." Mr. Moray spoke almost 
 gaily, regarding Augusta with a smile that had more of 
 playfulness in it than she ever remembered to have seen 
 upon his face in health. She had not time to question what 
 the promise was, for just then Mrs. Moray entered with the 
 papers and letters delivered by the postman at the door. 
 
 " There is one from Hugh, I think," she said, as she 
 handed the package to Mr. Moray. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, and quickly breaking the seal, and 
 glancing over it, he added, " It is to say that he hoped to be 
 here a few hours after'his letter. His cause is gained ; Mr. 
 Hoi ton is able to resume business, and there is nothing 
 further to detain him. You must give orders to have his 
 room ready, Augusta ; this letter must have arrived in the 
 night, and I should not wonder to see him at any moment 
 now."
 
 166 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Augusta rose immediately and left the room. Perhaps 
 she was not sorry to escape with her burning cheeks and 
 beating heart from the eyes, which, as a momentary glance 
 had shown her, were fixed on her while her uncle spoke. 
 If so, she did not attain her object, for she was instantly 
 followed by Mrs. Moray, who arrested her just as she was 
 crossing the hall to ascend the stairs. 
 
 " Come with me to my room, Augusta ; 1 want to speak 
 to you a moment," said Mrs. Moray. There was a tremor 
 in her usually steady voice, which Augusta had never heard 
 there before. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she exclaimed, with a startled 
 manner. " Has anything happened to Hugh ? " 
 
 " Nothing has happened to him ; and yet what I have 
 to say relates to him. But come with me ; I cannot tell you 
 here." 
 
 Mrs. Moray began to ascend the stairs, and Augusta fol- 
 lowecl, wondering and agitated, for there was something in 
 Mrs. Moray's voice and manner that told, as plainly as 
 words could have done, that she was to hear what was 
 painful. This impression did not decrease when Mrs. 
 Moray, having held the door of the room open till she 
 entered, locked it after her, and going to her desk unlocked 
 it with a little key fastened to her watch chain, and taking a 
 letter from a private drawer, placed it in her hand, saying, 
 " Read it." 
 
 " The letter is to you," said Augusta, drawn by curios 
 ity, yet repelled by some feeling to which she could not 
 give a name, from opening it. 
 
 " It is to me, from Hugh. I received it a week ago and 
 ought to have shown it to you sooner, but I wanted cour 
 age ; now, Hugh is coming, and if it be done at all, it must 
 be done quickly. Read, then." 
 
 Augusta no longer hesitated. The paper trembled in
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 167 
 
 her hand, and her color came and went. She soon forgot 
 Mrs. Moray, who sank upon a chair, as if unable to sup 
 port herself, but who never for a moment removed her keen 
 eyes from the face of her victim ; she saw the very moment 
 in which her arrow entered the heart at which it was aimed, 
 and a quick drawn breath, a sudden collapsing of her whole 
 frame, showed that she had not yet become wholly insensi 
 ble to the pang she was inflicting. That it was a pang of 
 no ordinary bitterness, the sudden, ghastly pallor that over 
 spread Augusta's face the one wild glance that shot from 
 her eyes to Mrs. Moray as if she would question the reality 
 of what she read, sufficiently proved. For a moment Mrs. 
 Moray feared that she would faint ; but that single glance, 
 the consciousness awakened that she was keenly observed, 
 roused into action what had, till of late, been the dominant 
 passion of her being pride. The current of life which had 
 retreated to her heart rushed back in a swollen tide, dyeing 
 face and neck and brow, and filling her pulses till the throb 
 bing of her heart and temples became evident to the onlooker. 
 It has been said by one of the best physiologists of our 
 time, that man contains within the circle of his being the 
 sum of all vegetable and animal life, with that higher life 
 superadded, which was breathed into him by the Creator at 
 his birth, and in virtue of which he became a " living spirit." 
 There certainly are moments when the human countenance 
 seems to wear a wonderful likeness to the type of some par 
 ticular animal. As Mrs. Moray cowered before the flashing 
 eyes that Augusta turned upon her, the fox, cunning, yet 
 fearful, looked strangely out from her handsome features. 
 Augusta had drawn herself up to her utmost height as she 
 held the letter out to her. Her lips moved, but no sounds 
 issued from them at first. She was not to be conquered, 
 however ; one struggle more, and the words came in a voice 
 soft and clear.
 
 168 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I cannot understand by what right, madam, you have 
 made me the subject of such a correspondence." 
 
 " Correspondence, my dear? indeed, I said nothing at all 
 a mere jest on a subject which I thought a perfectly under 
 stood affair ; and I never should have showed you this, but 
 I thought you ought to see it before Hugh came." 
 
 " It was perfectly unnecessary, madam ; I was under no 
 mistake such as you seem to have been ; it would have been 
 better to commit it to the flames, as you were requested to 
 do." 
 
 A little deeper tone of voice, as if some effort was neces 
 sary to keep it steady, was the only mark of unusual emo 
 tion which attended these words. Mrs. Moray was bewil 
 dered, and began to think that she had intrigued very un 
 necessarily in this instance. However, she comforted her 
 self in the belief that at least she had done no harm, and 
 taking the letter, she said, with something like a sense of 
 relief, " I will follow your advice and burn it, and we will 
 never speak of it to any one. Especially, I must beg of you 
 not to mention it to Hugh he would be so angry with me 
 for showing it to you. Will you promise me this ? " 
 
 " You need have no fear that I shall ever recur to it 
 again even in thought," she added, after the slightest per 
 ceptible pause. 
 
 " But promise ; will you promise ?" 
 
 There was in Mrs. Moray, as she rose in uttering these 
 words and placed herself between Augusta and the door to 
 which she had turned, an eagerness of tone and manner, that 
 sent a sudden dart of suspicion even into the agitated mind 
 of the proud and passionate girl. She fixed her eyes on 
 Mrs. Moray's face ; it grew visibly paler under her gaze. 
 
 " Permit me, if you please, to see that letter again." 
 
 Mrs. Moray hesitated, but only for a moment. To refuse 
 vrould be to strengthen the suspicion which she saw had
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 169 
 
 already been excited. The letter was given. Augusta 
 moved to the window, and by the full light there examined 
 the address, the seal, the post mark ; then she unfolded the 
 letter, subjected the interior to the same close inspection, 
 and then read again, " You must pardon me if I say that I 
 have never given you or any one the slightest foundation 
 for attributing to me any desire to establish other than 
 
 friendly relations with Miss A M . That you have 
 
 been equally mistaken in the young lady's views 1 feel as 
 certain. She has too much innate dignity of character to 
 have given such feeling as you intimate to one who has cer 
 tainly done nothing to deserve it from her. It is only my 
 haste to free her from insinuations which I am sure she 
 would resent, that gives me courage to use even her initials 
 in such a connection. I entreat you to burn this letter im 
 mediately, as I have already done yours." This passage 
 read, the letter was folded again and returned to Mrs. 
 Moray. 
 
 " Will you promise now ? " asked that lady as she 
 received it ; " will you promise that you will never let 
 Hugh know I have shown it to you 1 " 
 
 " If you consider such a promise necessary, it is yours ; 
 I could have little pleasure in speaking of it least of all to 
 him." 
 
 There was a world of painfully suppressed passion in her 
 tones. 
 
 "Then here ends the whole foolish affair." She lit a 
 match and held it to the paper as she spoke. " I beg your 
 pardon for the mistake I made in thinking that you needed 
 this to guard you from a more fatal error. There the last 
 word has vanished in smoke, and you ' pass on in maiden 
 meditation, fancy free.' " 
 
 She moved from the door as she spoke, and Augusta 
 passed out with a somewhat more stately and deliberate
 
 170 TWO PICTCKES. 
 
 step than usual. As the door closed after her, Mrs. Moray 
 smiled and said to herself, " I was right ; she almost deceived 
 me at one time by her proud endurance ; but I was right, 
 and she has carried away with her the sharpest arrow that 
 ever pierces a woman's heart." She moved twice across 
 the room, and then the almost fierce gleaming of her eyes 
 softened, and she added : " After all, it was really the kind 
 est thing I could do for her ; there will be nothing now to 
 prevent her from marrying Charley so no harm will come 
 to her from Saville's plans ; after all, they were more his 
 plans than mine" 
 
 Augusta left Mrs. Moray's room, intending to proceed 
 to her own ; but before she had reached it, she was met by 
 her uncle's attendant, Gib, who said : " Master wants to see 
 you, Miss 'Gusty ; I been a looking for you, ma'am." 
 
 " I will come directly, Gib," she replied, still moving on 
 in the opposite direction ; for there was a tempest in her 
 heart which she felt must have way she must be alone. 
 
 " Dere he is a calling now, ma'am ; won't you please to 
 come, Miss 'Gusty ? Master has such inviolate ways, ma'am ; 
 I'm feared he'll hurt hisself." 
 
 Augusta had immediately turned at her uncle's voice, 
 for it sounded sharp and imperative, so that Gib's conclud 
 ing words were spoken as he followed her down stairs. 
 They entered the library together. Mr. Moray looked 
 quickly up. 
 
 " You may go, Gib ; I want to speak to Miss Augusta ; 
 I am expecting Mr. Hugh ; look out for him, and send him 
 here- as soon as he comes." 
 
 Gib went, leaving the door open behind him. 
 
 " Sit down, Augusta ; what is the matter ? you look 
 pale." lie paused, but she did not answer ; indeed, it is prob 
 able that, though her eyes were fixed upon him, she did not 
 know what he was saying. lie resumed : " Poor child ! you
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 171 
 
 have had too much anxiety of late ; but Hugh will take 
 better care of you." A visible shiver passed over her frame, 
 and Mr. Moray took her cold hand and placed her beside 
 him, just in front of the fire. 
 
 " You are certainly not well. I l;ave been selfish in 
 letting you do so much for me ; when have I not been sel 
 fish ? I have never cared for you as I should, but you will 
 find I have taken care of your interests, and you will be 
 happy, you and Hugh ; you will marry him by and by." 
 
 " Never ! never ! " she exclaimed, starting from her 
 seat; the face just now so pale, flushed crimson, her pulses 
 throbbing, her form, which had seemed ready to sink beneath 
 its weight of trial, suddenly instinct with life and passion. 
 Mr. Moray looked at her with something wilder than sur* 
 prise gleaming from his eyes. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked, sharply ; " you do not 
 know what you are talking about. I said you would marry 
 Hugh." 
 
 " And I say I will never marry him ; I would sooner beg 
 my bread from door to door ; no, there is no imaginable 
 degradation that would be equal to that." 
 
 She glanced upward, as if appealing to Heaven, and in 
 the mirror that hung above the mantle shelf, she caught the 
 reflection of a tall, manly form and of a white, stony face, 
 from which dark, fiery eyes glared on her. She did not 
 dream that Hugh's eyes could look thus. Perhaps he had 
 not himself dreamed of the volcanic fire in his nature which 
 that moment unveiled to both. Involuntarily she looked 
 back ; Mr. Moray glanced in the same direction, saw Hugh, 
 and rose with an agitated smile to welcome him. He took 
 one step forward, held out his hand and strove to speak, 
 but instead of words there came a gurgling, gasping sound ; 
 he tottered, and ere Hugh, who sprang forward instantly,
 
 172 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 could reach his side, he fell heavily back into his chair with 
 convulsed features and rigid limbs. 
 
 When Augusta had seen her uncle ill before, though agi 
 tated to the very depths of her soul, she had never lost her 
 self-command ; but now self-reproach gave new bitterness 
 to her suffering, and pressed from her heart a despairing 
 cry, and " I have killed him ! I have killed him ! " burst 
 from her quivering lips. 
 
 Completely paralyzed by this horrible thought, all those 
 tender cares which had given a safe outlet and noble expres 
 sion to her burden of sorrow in Mr. Moray's former attack 
 were surrendered to others. It was Hugh who summoned 
 aid, despatched a messenger for the physician, and having 
 aided to bear the unconscious sufferer to his room, stood 
 beside him to offer the ministrations of pitying tenderness. 
 While stooping over Mr. Moray in some of these ministra 
 tions, he heard a slight movement on the other side of the 
 bed, and raising his head, saw Augusta there. The proud 
 fire had gone from her eyes, the color from her face, while 
 instead of the haughty carriage and the passionate life with 
 which her whole frame had seemed to thrill but an hour 
 before, her form was bent as if under the weight of years. 
 Never had his heart yearned over her with such unspeakable 
 tenderness as at that moment. He longed to fold her to his 
 bosom, to soothe, to comfort her ; but the memory of what 
 he had seen and heard on his first arrival repelled him. Only 
 their eyes met ; how differently from that last glance of fire ; 
 lier's were now beseeching and humble, his sad and tender. 
 Words might have followed, and the barrier so artfully raised 
 between them have been swept away in the flood-tide of 
 feeling, had not .the physician at that moment entered. 
 
 " He is better again, dear lady ; he will recover from 
 this," said good Dr. Frampton to Augusta, whom he found, 
 an hour after, standing beside her uncle's door, looking
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 173 
 
 more like an unquiet ghost than like a creature of flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 " It was I, doctor. It was I who made him ill," came in 
 husky tones from her quivering lips. 
 
 The doctor had been accustomed to minister to the 
 wounded mind as well as to the body, and asking no ques 
 tions, he took the ice-cold hands in his and said, " My poor 
 child ! that is not so ; this attack has been threatening for 
 days ; I knew when I left your uncle this morning that it 
 could not long be warded off. Only your devoted care has 
 kept it off so long." 
 
 " Are you sure, doctor ? are you quite sure ? " she 
 asked, as a slight tinge of color returned to her cheek and a 
 little life to her eye. 
 
 " Quite sure ; so sure that I do not feel satisfied for my 
 patient till I see you at his side; your cousin is very kind 
 and very considerate, but there is no nurse like a woman." 
 
 Augusta breathed freely again ; the blood flowed again 
 through the veins in which it had seemed to stagnate ; she was 
 like one awakening from a frightful nightmare. Every sorrow 
 which brings with it no remorse is endurable, and this she 
 felt as the doctor led her to her uncle's side, and she looked 
 from his pallid face, now resting in a deathlike sleep, to the 
 sterner and scarce less composed features of Hugh, whose 
 eyes, after one rapid glance, no longer sought her face. 
 Thus they sat through the darkening shadows of the evening, 
 and the long, still hours of the night, together, yet apart. 
 Their eyes never met ; their hands occasionally touched each 
 other while busied about the patient, but it was as stone 
 touches stone. As the gray light of the early dawn made 
 yet paler the pale light of the lamp, Hugh stole around the 
 bed, and stood beside her. 
 
 " Will you not leave your uncle to me, and rest for a 
 few hours ? " he said, softly.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I will rest here," she answered, leaning her head, as 
 she spoke, against the side of the large cushioned chair in 
 which she sat, and closing her eyes. He did not attempt to 
 remonstrate, but went cautiously back to his former place. 
 She did not sleep, and there was little rest in the thoughts 
 which kept up a wild tumult in her soul while she reclined 
 there with closed eyes, and all the appearance of perfect 
 tranquillity. About an hour had thus passed when her ex 
 cited ear became conscious of a slight movement. She 
 opened her eyes upon her uncle. He lay as he had done 
 for hours, breathing quietly ; but Hugh had left his place, 
 and was speaking to some one outside of the door. Again 
 she lay still, till a stealthy tread beside her, and a whis 
 pered, " She are 'sleep, Mas' Hugh," made her look up to 
 see Gib standing beside her with a tray, holding a cup of 
 coffee. 
 
 " I am not asleep, Gib ; but I do not wish anything." 
 "Set the tray down, Gib; Miss Moray will take the 
 coffee presently." 
 
 Hugh spoke in a low tone, but with something of quiet 
 decision more powerful by far than the most vehement 
 urgency. It seemed to say," No reasonable being can con 
 test a point so trifling yet so clearly right," and Augusta, 
 with a little irritation, both of feeling and manner, at being 
 thus ruled, stopped Gib by a touch on his arm, took the cup 
 from the tray, drained its contents, laid it back, and resting 
 her head, closed her eyes again, without a word. 
 
 Mr. Moray awoke from this long sleep apparently well. 
 By his physician's direction, all appearances indicative of 
 the night's watch or of his previous illness had been 
 removed, and it was soon evident that he was not only un 
 conscious of his attack, but also of the circumstances that 
 had immediately preceded it. Hugh's presence was a 
 pleasant surprise to him. He had insisted upon being
 
 TWO PICTURES. 175 
 
 dressed as usual and going to his library, and though com 
 pelled to acknowledge himself somewhat feebler than he 
 had been, he was greatly irritated by Gib's well meant but 
 injudicious efforts to induce him to remain in his own room. 
 He complained to his physician of it in a vehement tone, 
 declaring that the associations of Washington and his long 
 indulgence had made Gib quite forgetful of their relative 
 positions. Dr. Frampton met these complaints with his 
 usual tact, careful neither to deny their validity nor to treat 
 them with indifference, yet mingling with his sympathy so 
 many allusions to Gib's fidelity and traits of his conduct 
 manifesting his devotion to his master, that he left Mr. 
 Moray greatly mollified, and rather disposed to consider 
 Gib's peremptoriness as a new proof of his attachment. 
 
 " Will you come and see my new horse, Miss Moray ? 
 I consider him the greatest beauty in Washington," said Dr. 
 Frampton, as he prepared to leave the library. 
 
 Augusta rose and followed him to a window of the front 
 parlor, which was separated by a long middle room from 
 the library. As they entered this parlor, they found Hugh 
 there, waiting to learn from the doctor what he thought of 
 Mr. Moray's condition. Hugh rose to leave the room as he 
 saw Augusta enter, but Dr. Frampton laid his hand on his 
 arm as he was passing him, and said, " Stay, Mr. Moray, I 
 wish to speak to you both about your uncle." 
 
 " Not my uncle, sir," said Hugh, quickly ; " I am but a 
 distant cousin to Mr. Moray." 
 
 " But a very devoted friend, as I can testify," observed 
 the doctor. 
 
 " He has a claim on me stronger than kinship, sir," 
 Hugh replied, meeting the doctor's kindly smile with much 
 gravity of manner. " To his generous aid I am indebted 
 for my profession." 
 
 u Then you desire to serve him," rejoined the doctor.
 
 176 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I am here for no other purpose," said Hugh, with an 
 emphasis that sent the crimson blood in a rushing tide to 
 the very temples of Augusta for one fleeting moment, leav 
 ing her the next more pallid than before ; " I am waiting," 
 he added, " to know from you how I may do it most eflec- 
 tually." 
 
 " And it is to tell you this that I brought Miss Moray 
 here, and that I have now requested you to stay ; sit down, 
 my dear young lady ; you look pale and feeble this morn 
 ing, and you will need all your strength." 
 
 Hugh glanced at Augusta's pallid face as she sank into 
 the chair the doctor had placed for her, and for a moment 
 his eyes softened into somewhat of their former tenderness ; 
 it was but a moment, and they gleamed again with a light 
 as keen and cold as if it had been reflected from an iceberg. 
 
 " Dear lady, I am sorry to give you pain," Dr. Framp- 
 ton continued, retaining the hand of Augusta, which he had 
 taken to place her on the sofa ; " very sorry ; but it is my 
 duty to tell you that I have no longer any hope of being 
 able to do more than alleviate your uncle's sufferings." lie 
 paused a moment as he saw the spasm of pain which con 
 tracted the marble features he was watching ; but it passed 
 instantly, and as it came, without a sound, and he continued : 
 " Mr. Moray's symptoms this morning mark more rapidly 
 progressing disease of the brain than I had suffered my 
 self to anticipate. You have too much good sense to be 
 shocked at my asking you whether his business arrange 
 ments have been made in reference to the possibility of a 
 sudden death." 
 
 " His will was made more than a week ago," she said, 
 in a low, but steady voice. 
 
 " That is well ! then I shall not need to speak to him on 
 the subject, which in his present state I somewhat feared to 
 do. It only remains for me to give you both the best
 
 TWO PICTURES. 177 
 
 directions 1 can for his treatment. Medicine can do little 
 for him, but your cheerful society and tender care may 
 lengthen out his life for weeks, perhaps for months, and 
 make it peaceful and comfortable to the close. You must 
 be cheerful, yet sympathising ; above all, you must not 
 permit the brain to be wearied by argument, or excited by 
 opposition. However extravagant may be his propositions 
 you must assent, if you can, and when assent is impossible, 
 temporize ; divert, if you can, but never contradict or oppose. 
 On you, my dear Miss Moray, I rely principally in this, for 
 I know how unfailing is womanly tact under such circum 
 stances ; here, every man must acknowledge the superior 
 ity of your sex ; your cousin must, in all difficult cases, 
 follow your lead." 
 
 " I do not know," Hugh began, paused, dropped his 
 eyes for a moment, then lifting them to the doctor's face, 
 continued in a more resolute tone : " I am not quite sure 
 that it will be best for me to remain." 
 
 " Best ! for yourself, do you mean, or for Mr. Moray ? " 
 asked Dr. Frampton, somewhat sharply. 
 
 " Best for Mr. Moray," said Hugh, adding, with slight 
 hauteur, " the question of what is best for myself I should 
 scarce submit to another." 
 
 " Then, sir, since you consent to let me judge of what 
 is best for Mr. Moray, I must say that from what he said 
 to me this morning of his delight at seeing you, and his 
 expectations from you, your leaving him at present would 
 be a great injury and a cruel disappointment." 
 
 The doctor spoke very decidedly perhaps he was a 
 little vexed by Hugh's manner. If so, he must have been 
 mollified by the reply he received, given with, an impulsive 
 warmth all the more valuable because it was so rare in 
 Hugh Moray. Stretching out his hand and grasping the 
 doctor's, Hugh said, " Enough ! enough, my dear sir ! I am
 
 178 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 grateful far the privilege of ministering in any way to Mr. 
 Moray's pleasure or advantage ; I will bid you good morn 
 ing and go to him at once, leaving Miss Moray at liberty to 
 take the rest she so much needs." 
 
 Augusta did not take advantage of the liberty thus 
 given. A quarter of an hour after Dr. Frampton left her, 
 she entered the library with a very composed manner, and 
 an almost smiling face. 
 
 " You look as if you had heard some pleasant news, ma 
 cousine" said Charlie, who was making his usual morning 
 visit to Mr. Moray when she entered. 
 
 Hugh turned to her and read that studied air of cheer 
 fulness very differently. The manner was too still ; it 
 marked to him the heavy, crushing weight by which the 
 usually impulsive nature was held down, and beneath the 
 smile, he saw, or thought he saw, a sad, weary, hopeless 
 look, that sent a pang to his generous heart, all the more 
 bitter because he was no longer privileged to offer to her 
 either sympathy or support. 
 
 Charlie, always impatient of quietude, soon withdrew, 
 inviting Hugh to accompany him to the capitol. Hugh 
 declined. 
 
 " It is kind of you, Hugh, to stay here with a complain 
 ing old man,'* said Mr. Moray, looking gratefully upon 
 Hugh, as Charlie closed the door behind him. " Though," 
 he added, as his smiling face was turned toward Augusta, 
 " I do not take the compliment wholly to myself, I am none 
 the less pleased with it." 
 
 Had his perception been as acute as formerly, he would 
 have been startled by the impassive faces that met his kind 
 ly glances. . Perhaps he was dimly conscious of missing 
 something he had expected to meet, for after a moment's 
 silence, pressing his hand to his forehead, he resumed, 
 " There was something I wanted to say ; oh, now I have it ;
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 179 
 
 you are engaged ? " and he looked again from one to the 
 other. 
 
 There was no answer. Hugh knew not what to say, 
 and Augusta's heart seemed for the moment to have stopped 
 its beating. It was on her that Mr. Moray's glance rested 
 last and longest. While thus resting, it suddenly changed 
 its expression. Something of their former fire shot into his 
 eyes, his head was flung back with the haughty gesture so 
 familiar of old, as he said, " I hope, Miss Moray, you are 
 not playing off the coquettish tricks of your sex upon my 
 friend and relative here." 
 
 " Dear uncle, I have not the least intention to play the 
 coquette, I assure you," said Augusta, trying to take his 
 hand as she spoke. 
 
 " You are trying to evade giving me a positive answer, 
 I see," he rejoined, flinging off" her hand with increasing irri 
 tation as he spoke, " but you will find I am not so easily 
 deceived as you think. What do you say to all this, 
 Hugh 1 " 
 
 " That you must not let your kindness to me make you 
 unkind to your niece, Mr. Moray ; Augusta and I perfectly 
 understand each other, I assure you ; there is no danger of 
 any further mistake or misconception between us." 
 
 The words were assuring to Mr. Moray, but in spite of 
 all Hugh's efforts, he could not suppress a tinge of bitterness 
 in the tone which made itself sufficiently apparent to one 
 intently listening ear and throbbing heart. 
 
 "Ah! " said Mr. Moray, while the fire faded from his 
 eyes, " you speak as a man should, openly and honestly ; I 
 wish Augusta could be as open, but it does not belong to 
 her sex." 
 
 " Indeed, uncle, I am quite as open and honest in what I 
 say as Hugh is I " it was a retort she could not suppress,
 
 180 TWO riCTUEES. 
 
 and to which her burning cheeks and quickened breath gave 
 double force. 
 
 "If that is true, let me see you give him your hand and 
 promise that you will be his as soon as we are all at St. 
 Mary's again." 
 
 " Better not exact any promises from me, uncle. Re 
 member your own theory, that the more solemn a promise 
 is, the more pleasure a woman has in breaking it." Her 
 heart was trembling within her, yet it was scarcely possible to 
 distinguish from the truth it aped, the mockery of mirth in 
 her tone and eyes ; she had recovered from her first terror, 
 and was beginning to feel an excitement not altogether with 
 out a strange kind of pleasure in this conversation of double 
 signification. 
 
 " You see, Hugh, she will not promise ; I told you no 
 woman was to be trusted." 
 
 " No woman that makes promises, uncle," said Augusta, 
 in the same seemingly flippant tone. 
 
 Hugh looked at her with astonishment. Recollecting 
 the warnings of Dr. Frampton, her terror of the past night, 
 her sadness but a few minutes before, he could not under 
 stand the change, nor tell which was real, the sadness or the 
 mirth, or whether both were alike untrue. He found noth 
 ing to help his conclusions in the eyes that met his with a 
 touch of defiance in their clear, unfaltering glance. It 
 aroused an answering spirit in him, and there was haughty 
 carelessness in the smile with which he turned to Mr. Mo 
 ray, saying : " Be at rest, sir ; I already have Augusta's 
 promise to share my home when it is prepared for her ; she 
 will, I doubt not, gratify you by giving me her hand in 
 token that she will fulfil that pledge when ," he paused, 
 seized the hand which had been scarcely lifted to meet the 
 one extended by him, wrung it in a moment's passionate
 
 TWO PICTURES. 181 
 
 grasp, whether of love or hatred, he could scarce himself 
 have told, and concluded, " when I shall claim it." 
 
 " Do you promise this, Augusta ? " asked the persistent 
 Mr. Moray. 
 
 " Yes, sir, I think I may do so in a spirit as truthful and 
 earnest as Hugh's ; but now I must run away from you for 
 a little while." 
 
 She rose quickly and moved to the door not too 
 quickly ; Hugh had already seen the sudden fading of the 
 flush from her face with something like remorse for the 
 selfish passion of that clasp and those sneering words. 
 Faint, dizzy, almost blind, she stumbled to the door, and 
 finding herself unable to proceed, rested for a moment 
 against it. 
 
 Mr. Moray did not see her, Hugh did. 
 
 " Permit me," said he, springing to her side, as if only 
 to open the door, but as he did so, receiving her sinking form 
 upon his arm, and bearing her to a sofa in the next room. 
 Her eyes were closed, her features still, her face ghastly 
 white. 
 
 " Augusta ! " Hugh's voice trembled a little ; there was 
 no answer ; " Augusta ! " he repeated more sharply, but 
 with as little effect. For an instant he was almost as pale as 
 herself; but before he could utter the wild cry which even 
 remembrance of Mr. Moray could scarce have given him 
 power another moment to repress, the cool air from the 
 window beside her recalled her to life. Her cheeks became 
 faintly tinged, her eyelids quivered. With life came the 
 consciousness of suffering, and too feeble to exercise any 
 self-control, and, it may be, not yet sufficiently aroused to 
 know that she was not alone, the varied agitation of the last 
 night and of this morning found for the first time expression 
 in tears, which trickled through her closed lids and fell in 
 heavy drops from her cheek upon the sofa pillow on which
 
 182 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 her head was resting, while not a feature, not a muscle of 
 her face, was moved. Such weeping comes only from hearts 
 that have been utterly crushed. Hugh stood beside her, 
 deeply moved, longing to soothe her as he had often done in 
 lesser griefs, yet feeling that he had lost the power and the 
 right, and fearing even to stir lest the discovery of his pres 
 ence should inflict on her an added pang. A sigh, which he 
 could not suppress, startled her ; she opened her eyes, and 
 instantly started to her feet and brushed away the tears that 
 were yet hanging on her lids. 
 
 " You have been ill, Augusta ; sit down, and I will ring 
 for your maid," he said, gently. 
 
 " I will not give you that trouble," she answered, 
 coldly, and took a step forward ; but her trembling limbs 
 refused to sustain her, and she sank back upon the sofa. 
 
 Having rung for her maid, he returned to her, and 
 standing before her, said, " Augusta, I have spoken and acted 
 under the dictation of selfish passion this morning, and I am 
 ashamed of it ; can you forgive me ? " 
 
 She did not speak ; she could not, without an outburst 
 of emotion which she would rather have died than yielded 
 to. He resumed : 
 
 " You cannot ; well, I deserve it, perhaps ; but I must 
 not lose these few seconds, my only opportunity, it may be, 
 of saying that, though I overheard your scornful rejection 
 of me in the character in which your uncle presented me 
 to you yesterday evening, I will yet, if you permit it, prove 
 myself your friend. Be still, as you have ever been, dear 
 Augusta, my friend, my sister, and let me feel that you 
 confide in me ; let rne only help you in your present great 
 trials, and I will ask nothing more." 
 
 " God help me ! I have no other hope no trust in any 
 human creature ! " burst in a wailing tone from her over 
 charged heart.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 183 
 
 At that moment steps were heard approaching, and he 
 had only time to say, " Trust me or not, I will be your 
 friend, and you shall one day acknowledge it," when her 
 attendant entered.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 
 But in battalions." SHAKSPEABK, 
 
 " Pride requires very costly food its keeper's happiness." COLTON. 
 
 THE pledge with which the last chapter closed was well 
 kept by Hugh Moray. During the month which followed, 
 Mr. Moray grew feebler hourly both in mind and body. At 
 first he was peevish and impatient, but this phase of his 
 disease passed away, leaving him unusually passive and gen 
 tle. In both conditions one thought alone seemed to give 
 him pleasure : the thought that Augusta was to marry Hugh, 
 and that they would live together at St. Mary's. 
 
 " You will take better care of my poor people than I 
 have done, though I have tried to be kind to them," he 
 would often say ; sometimes he added, " Let Mr. Mortimer 
 do all he will for them ; I wish I had not opposed him, but 
 things seem so different to me now." 
 
 It was strange to see the apathy with which Augusta 
 heard these observations. They brought no color to her 
 cheek, her eyes remained calm and impassive, an unnatural 
 stillness marked her whole aspect and manner, except when 
 she was seeking to amuse her uncle, or ministering to his 
 wants. Then her countenance lighted up ; there were smiles 
 on her lips even while they quivered with a grief she would
 
 TWO PICTURES. 185 
 
 iiot express, and her eyes shone through tears which never 
 fell till she was secure within her own room. Never had 
 she been so dt'ar to Hugh as at such moments. The tender, 
 protecting sentiment with which her almost unfriended 
 childhood kid inspired him, the more impassioned feeling 
 awakened by her grace and beauty as the child grew into 
 the women, were now blended into one, while each had 
 acquired new intensity. There were times when the touch 
 of her dress, as she passed by him, thrilled him with emo 
 tions which all his manhood, aided by all his conviction of 
 their hopelessness, could scarcely repress ; there were times 
 when, as he heard her utter words of cheerful hope, in tones 
 which she strove in vain to render steady, as he saw her 
 smiles trembling through tears, he was compelled to rush 
 from the room, that he might combat in silence and solitude 
 the strong impulse to fold her to his heart and entreat her 
 to weep out all her sorrows there. Mr. Moray often fell 
 asleep in the midst of conversation with them, and as he was 
 always annoyed at finding either of them gone when he 
 awoke, they were obliged to pass hours of the day com 
 pletely tete-a-tete. Generally, these tete-d.-tetes passed in, 
 perfect silence, while Hugh would read, or seem to read, 
 and Augusta would take up some piece of embroidery or 
 other feminine work. One day, however, Augusta started, 
 as Hugh, whom she supposed to be on the other side of her 
 uncle, spoke, and she found that he was standing beside her 
 chair. 
 
 " Augusta," he said, in low tones, " I am not satisfied at 
 suffering your uncle to continue under such misapprehen 
 sions in regard to our relations to each other." 
 
 The hot blood rushed to Augusta's temples ; it was the 
 first time she had felt its flow for many days. Before the 
 quick, proud words could follow, Hugh spoke again. 
 
 " We cannot indulge a hope that he will ever be better,
 
 186 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 and he sometimes uses words that make me fear his impres 
 sions regarding us may influence his disposal of his prop 
 erty." 
 
 " My uncle's misconception is as annoying to me as it can 
 be to you," she answered, coldly and haughtily, " but after 
 what Dr. Frampton said, I cannot undertake to undeceive 
 him ; I can only promise you that any arrangement of prop 
 erty which you desire, hereafter, shall meet with no opposi 
 tion from me ; if you still fear that your interests may be 
 compromised " 
 
 " I will not permit you to finish a sentence as unworthy 
 of yourself as it is insulting to me," he exclaimed, looking 
 with dignified composure on her flushed and agitated face ; 
 " it is enough that I have your unconditional promise to 
 consent to any arrangement of property that I desire." 
 
 He was turning away, but she stopped him by a motion 
 of her hand, and said, " My promise is not unconditional ; I 
 will consent to any arrangement that is not intended to 
 subject me to obligations more humiliating than the most 
 abject poverty." 
 
 It was Hugh's turn to redden, yet his words were calm 
 and cold : " I understand you ; Dr. Frampton must under 
 take the communication which I cannot in honor delay." 
 
 He took his hat from the table as he spoke, but be-fore 
 he could leave the room, Mr. Moray awoke and called him 
 to his side. When he had an opportunity of speaking to 
 Dr. Frampton, he found, if evil had been done, it was irre 
 trievable, as the doctor declared no disposition of his prop 
 erty made by Mr. Moray now could be regarded as valid, and 
 that it was therefore worse than useless to disturb his mind 
 by a reference to the subject. " Besides," he added, " before 
 this last attack, his reason was unimpaired, and any will he 
 made then was probably free from the influence of any mis 
 conception whatever."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 187 
 
 With this, Hugh was compelled to be satisfied. 
 
 During all this lime Mrs. Moray had scarcely shown 
 herself in Mr. Moray's presence ; there was, indeed, such 
 actual fear expressed in her countenance and manner when 
 on a few rare occasions she had been forced to enter it, that 
 even Augusta pitied and excused her. Charlie never failed 
 to make his morning, noonday, and evening visit. His 
 bright face and pleasant voice were always welcome to Mr. 
 Moray, yet he never expressed any desire for his longer 
 stay, or wished for him when absent. Evening after even 
 ing, mother and son continued to show themselves in the 
 gay saloons of Washington, strange contrasts to the silent 
 watchers in the dimly lighted room where a shadow deeper 
 and more enduring than that thrown from the dusky wings 
 of Night was hovering. Sometimes they met Mr. Saville ; 
 one evening he accosted Mrs. Moray, who had just entered, 
 and was leaning still on her son's arm, with " I am glad to 
 see you out of that dreary house ; and how is my friend, 
 Mr. Moray, getting on ? " 
 
 " I do not believe there is much change ; it is very sad ; 
 I am really obliged to come out of an evening, that I may 
 keep up my spirits, for poor Augusta's sake." 
 
 " The truth is," said Charlie, who had no mock senti 
 ment about him, " that neither my mother nor I are of the 
 slightest use to poor Mr. Moray, while he can have Augusta 
 and Hugh, and so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we 
 can." 
 
 "True," replied Mr. Saville ; " and so," he added, turn 
 ing to Mrs. Moray again, " Mr. Hugh is very devoted in his 
 attentions to poor Mr. Moray ? " 
 
 " Very devoted, indeed," said Mrs. Moray. 
 
 The words were all very well, but Charlie thought -the 
 tone not sufficiently emphatic, and rejoined, " Entirely so ; 
 Mr. Moray can hardly breathe without Hugh. I do not
 
 1SS TWO PICTURES. 
 
 know another young man who would confine himself so. I 
 hope he will be rewarded for it as he deserves." 
 
 " I hope he will," said Mr. Saville, with a glance at Mrs. 
 Moray, from which she turned somewhat hastily away. 
 " By the by, Mr. Charles, will you ask your cousin what he 
 hears from his father? the department hears nothing from 
 him, and we begin to think he is a little, slow in his move 
 ments." 
 
 There were several gentlemen near, over whose faces 
 there passed a smile, not unobserved by Charlie. His blood 
 fired, and resisting his mother's efforts to draw him on, he 
 said, in a low but distinct tone, carefully modulated to reach 
 the ears of those who had heard Mr. Saville, " If I had not a 
 lady on my arm, sir, I would say that your words are a 
 little insolent." 
 
 " Charles ! my son ! " exclaimed Mrs. Moray, " you are 
 mad ! Pray excuse him, Mr. Saville; he does not know " 
 
 " His obligations to me," said Mr. Saville, bowing to 
 Mrs. Moray with a smiling face, yet with a gleam in his 
 eye which the lady little liked. " Do not be alarmed ; I 
 have no intention to quarrel with your son, and I am sure 
 that he will not quarrel with me when he knows that I 
 exerted all my influence with the Secretary to obtain tho 
 squadron for Commodore Moray, and that I must, therefore, 
 feel especial interest in his proving himself fitted for a 
 command which, now that we arc at war with Mexico, is 
 decidedly the most responsible in the gift of the depart 
 ment." 
 
 " Those who know Commodore Moray will never doubt 
 his fitness, and if I was a little quick, Mr. Saville, put it 
 down to his account, and don't call him slow again ; " and 
 with a good-natured laugh, Charlie held out his hand, which 
 Mr. Saville took. 
 
 Later in the evening, Mrs. Moray found an opportunity 
 of saying a few words to Mr. Saville apart.
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 189 
 
 " I hope," she said, "you will not heed Charlie's boyish 
 fully ; anything that touches his sense of family honor is so 
 keenly felt by him." 
 
 " I assure you I am not at all sorry to find him so sensi 
 tive. It will be all the better for me by and by." 
 
 " Mr. Saville ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 Mrs. Moray's bitterest enemy might have pitied the 
 agony in her pallid face and quivering lips as she asked that 
 question. The dread future which crime ever brings, had 
 started up before her, and she shrank cowering before it. 
 " What do you mean ? " she repeated, as Mr. Saville looked 
 silently upon her with a gleam of malice in his cold, hard 
 eye. He turned away and left her, without an answer. 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Moray I what is the matter ? You are 
 fainting ; pray lean on me this room is very close ; we 
 will get into the air," said a gentleman who, in passing, had 
 been struck by her pallor. 
 
 " My nerves have been too much tried by Mr. Moray's 
 illness," she answered, slowly and feebly. " I should not 
 have made the effort to come out this evening. I will sit 
 here," placing herself on a sofa, " till my son comes, if you 
 will be so kind as to call him for me, and say that I am ill, 
 and would like to return home." 
 
 Charlie was soon at her side, and was too much shocked 
 by her look of suffering to express any reluctance to return, 
 even if he felt it. 
 
 Mrs. Moray pleaded illness for her silence as they w r ent, 
 but she was in truth busied with the one thought, " How 
 shall I free myself from Saville ? " She almost persuaded 
 herself that she could bear the contempt and reproaches of 
 those whom she had most deeply injured, if by so doing 
 she might escape the malice of Saville, and disappoint his 
 hopes of gain. When she arrived at home, Charlie would 
 have seen her to her room, but with an impatient gesture
 
 190 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 and tone, she bade him leave her, and as. soon as he was out 
 of sight, she went to the study where Mr. Moray, Augusta, 
 and Hugh usually sat. All there was dark and still. It 
 had been the scene of her crime, and from its corners, 
 dimly lighted by the candle she carried, the malignant eyes 
 of Saville seemed to gleam mockingly upon ht-r. She 
 turned away with superstitious fear, and hastened up the 
 broad stairs, feeling that Nemesis was already treading fast 
 upon her steps. Up the stairs, through the hall, fleeing, 
 though no man pursued, she went straight to the door open 
 ing into Mr. Moray's room ; it was slightly ajar, and she 
 paused to breathe, and to listen if any one were moving there, 
 before she should enter. There was no movement, but a 
 low, soft voice, was reading in reverent tones, and these 
 were the words that first fell on the listener's ear : " Make 
 us ever mindful of the time when we shall lie down in the 
 dust, and grant us grace always to live in such a state that 
 we may never be afraid to die." 
 
 Mrs. Moray hurried away, feeling that a new and deadlier 
 fear had entered her heart, from being brought into contact 
 with the " powers of the world to come." She hastened to 
 her own room, and set down her light there ; but thoughts 
 of terror pursued her ; something seemed to whisper in her 
 ear, " Make us mindful of the time when we shall lie down 
 in the dust ;" she crept back in the dark, to Mr. Moray's 
 door. The reading was ended, and Mr. Moray began to 
 speak. 
 
 " Hugh," he said, " I was always thought a brave man, 
 but it is one thing to go forward in the strength of man 
 hood to meet possible death, and quite another thing to lie 
 here and wait for his certain coming." 
 
 " Certain ! What makes you say that, dear uncle ? " 
 remonstrated Augusta. 
 
 " Because my mind is very clear to-night, Augusta,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 191 
 
 clearer, I think, than it has long been, and I feel it is certain, 
 and want to say something to you while I have the power. 
 Tell Mr. Mortimer, when you see him, that I learned at 
 last to love the prayers that I listened to, at first, only to 
 please you, and prevent your asking me to see a clergy 
 man ; tell him I am able to forgive, as I hope to be lot- 
 given he will understand you ; and that he must help you 
 and Hugh to do all for my people, that I failed to do. And 
 now, child, do you forgive me ? " 
 
 " For what, dear uncle ? Have you not been the kind 
 est and most generous of friends to me ? " said Augusta, 
 kissing the hand which she had clasped in her own, and on 
 which her tears were fast falling. 
 
 " Generous ! " he repeated, " I never gave you what you 
 most wanted, poor child ! but you will not want it now. 
 Hugh will give it to you in full measure," and turning to 
 Hugh, with a wistful smile, he added, " You must love her 
 for me as well as for yourself, Hugh ; will you ? " 
 
 Mr. Moray held out his hand to Hugh, who stood on the 
 opposite side from Augusta, and placing his own in it, Hugh 
 answered, clearly and firmly, " I will, Mr. Moray." Even 
 there, within the shadow of that presence, before which pride 
 ordinarily stands rebuked, Augusta lifted her head, and 
 something of scorn flashed from her eyes, wet as they were 
 with tears of tender sorrow, upon one whom she believed 
 to be perjuring himself. 
 
 " And now, I have said all, I believe ; good night. I 
 shall sleep to-night, I think." 
 
 Mrs. Moray heard steps approaching the door, and again 
 hurried to her room, saying to herself, " I will see what I 
 can do to-morrow ; to-night it is too late." 
 
 To-morrow proved to be too late, for before its sun 
 arose, Mr. Moray was beyond the reach of all earthly feel 
 ing. There are few who do not think sometimes of the 
 9
 
 192 TWO I'lOTUKES. 
 
 irrevocable character which their own death stamps upon 
 their actions, but it is doubtful whether we as often remem 
 ber that the death of another as surely precludts all change 
 in the character of our acts and feelings toward him. Have 
 we been unkind to a friend, ungrateful to a benefactor, 
 unjust to our fellow man ? We may live on, and our 
 hearts be wrung with remorse long after they have passed 
 beyond the reach of our atonement. Oh, the pangs of un 
 availing regret ! Who that has felt them finds too strong 
 the imagery of the worm that never dies, and the fire that 
 is never quenched ? " It is too late ! " was the thought that 
 impressed such haggard misery on Mrs. Moray's features for 
 many days after Mr. Moray's death. And yet it was not 
 too late to have done justice, by her confession, to those who 
 had been wronged ; but with Mr. Moray had died the only 
 power that could shield her from the consequences of her 
 crime, and these she was not sufficiently sincere in her 
 penitence, to meet voluntarily. Mr. Moray, she had hoped, 
 could, and, to protect his family name from dishonor, would 
 destroy the will now in Mr. Mellen's hands, and make 
 another without revealing the cause of his doing so to any 
 one; now, her confession, to be available, must be known to 
 many. How could she bear to see her own son turn from 
 her with shame ? How could she meet the world's scorn ? 
 No ; it was too late ; things must now take their course. 
 
 The funeral rite's were over ; the body deposited in a 
 vault till it could be carried to the home which Mr. Moray 
 had so loved, there to be laid beside kindred dust. Of all 
 the long procession of Senators and Representatives, who, 
 according to that reverent custom observed ever toward 
 those whose death had left a vacant place in their country's 
 councils, had followed the remains of Mr. Moray to their 
 temporary place of rest, none but Mr. Mellen returned with 
 the family to the house which had lately been his home.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 193 
 
 Charles and Hugh Moray were both in the carriage with 
 him, and neither of them was surprised to hear that he had 
 in his possession the last will of Mr. Moray. 
 
 " 1 think it had better be read at once," said Mr. Mel- 
 len, " and for that purpose I put it in my pocket. I read 
 and corrected the first draft, so that, though 1 did not write 
 this, I am acquainted, as I believe, with its contents. Mr. 
 Saville wrote it, and as he and your mother, Mr. Charles, 
 were the only witnesses, it would be well for us to call for 
 him and take him along with us." 
 
 " I fear it will be a very agitating ceremony to Miss 
 Moray, and she is still suffering so much from the shock of 
 her uncle's death, that if it could be delayed " 
 
 Hugh paused, and Mr. Mellen replied, " My sister-in- 
 law, Miss Drayton, is with her ; I will get her to speak to 
 Miss Moray, and be guided entirely by her wishes ; in the 
 meantime it will not be much out of our way to stop for 
 Mr. Saville, and have him on hand. It is not necessary, 
 but it is as well that he should acknowledge his signature." 
 
 Mr. Saville was at home, and consented to take the 
 vacant place in the carriage. As he did so, he handed a 
 letter to Hugh, saying, " This letter from Commodore 
 Moray arrived under cover to me with a request that I 
 would forward it immediately if you had returned to New 
 York. I thought I should see you to-day, and so put it in 
 my pocket." 
 
 Hugh thrust the letter into his pocket, feeling that the 
 present hour was sacred to other interests. Augusta, over 
 powered by the shock of her uncle's death sudden at last 
 and by previous days and nights of agitation and fatigue, 
 had lain on her couch almost ever since his death, in the 
 stillness of exhaustion. Miss Drayton was the only one 
 whom she had willingly admitted, and she had sat beside 
 her through much of this day, not conversing, for of this,
 
 191 TWO MCTUKES. 
 
 Augusta seemed incapable, but repeating, in a gentle voice, 
 at intervals, some passages from the Bible, or some of those 
 hymns in which the truth and tenderness of the Bible have 
 been reproduced, and which touch the heart with such 
 soothing gentleness in the hour of sorrow, even where that 
 heart has not learned to love truth for the sake of its Glorious 
 Giver. During all this time of sorrow, Augusta had de 
 clined seeing any one but Miss Drayton, and now, though 
 she heard a knock at her door, she lay with her eyes closed 
 as if asleep. Miss Drayton obeyed the summons, and 
 found Judge Mellen standing there. His errand was told 
 in a whisper. Miss Drayton looked back for a moment to 
 the pale, still face upon the couch, and answered, " It is im 
 possible ; she could not bear it." 
 
 "What is impossible, Miss Drayton?" asked Augusta, 
 without opening her eyes or making any movement except 
 of the lips. 
 
 Miss Drayton drew near and explained it to her. 
 
 "Is it necessary ? is it not very hurried?" she inquired. 
 
 " So it seemed to me," said Miss Drayton, " but my 
 brother says that all who arc interested are now present, 
 that each of them has some reason for desiring to leave 
 Washington immediately, and that it may be long before 
 they can meet again." 
 
 "Very well; I will go." 
 
 " But have you strength for it, dear?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! I have strength for anything that will 
 bring me sooner to St. Mary's. There I shall have rest." 
 Augusta rose as she spoke, but she became conscious as she 
 did so, of greater weakness than she had suspected. Miss 
 Drayton saw that she trembled,. and passed her arm around 
 her tenderly. 
 
 " You love your home," she said, hoping to calm Au 
 gusta by drawing her thoughts away from the present.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 195 
 
 " Oh, dearly ! When I breathe its air again, I shall feel 
 as if a mother's kisses were on my brow." 
 
 " And you will have a great work to do there ; so many 
 souls dependent on you ! " 
 
 " Will you not come and see me there, and help good 
 Mr. Mortimer to teach me how to do my work ? " 
 
 They had reached the door of the parlor, and Miss 
 Dray ton could only reply by pressing the white hand which 
 lay upon her arm. Augusta's pale cheeks became slightly 
 tinged with color as the door opened, and they entered. 
 Hugh started forward to meet her, but checked himself, as 
 if at some sudden memory, and suffered Judge Mellen to 
 support her to the chair which had been placed for her near 
 Mrs. Charles Moray's. Had Augusta raised her eyes, she 
 might have been surprised at the deadly pallor of that 
 lady's face, and the languid faintness of her usually quick 
 glancing eyes. Miss Drayton, who, not having seen her 
 before during the day, shook hands with her, did wonder 
 at the cold, clammy touch of her hand. 
 
 " Miss Moray," said Judge Mellen, as soon as they were 
 all seated, " I was sorry to disturb you for what may seem 
 to you a mere form, as our lamented friend made no secret 
 of what had been his disposition of his property ; but as my 
 sister told me it was your wish to return home as soon as 
 possible, and as all our friends, indeed, are anxious to leave 
 Washington, I thought if you could make the exertion, it 
 would be better." 
 
 Augusta answered only by a bow, and all having seated 
 themselves, the Judge drew the will from his pocket, and 
 proceeded, very deliberately, to break the seals of the en 
 velope, and withdraw the paper from it. As he threw down 
 the envelope, Mr. Saville raised it and examined the seal. 
 
 " Do you use this ? " he said to Charlie, who, somewhat 
 shocked at the levity in calling attention, at such a time,
 
 196 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 to anything extraneous, answered, shortly, " Mr. Moray 
 did." 
 
 The seal had the thistle and the " Nemo me impune 
 lacessit" of the royal arms of Scotland, to which the Morays 
 claimed a right in virtue of certain ancient matrimonial 
 alliances. Had any one been sufficiently at ease to make 
 observations on others, he might have seen Mr. Saville care 
 fully remove the seal and put it in the pocket of his waist 
 coat. While the carelessness or indifference of his manner 
 was a little overacted, Mrs. Moray had lost all power over 
 herself. We have spoken of her pallor and coldness ; 
 equally remarkable was the wild expression of the eyes 
 fastened on Judge Mellen, as if from his lips she awaited 
 the sentence of doom. All this was unnoticed by the 
 Judge, who commenced reading in the somewhat measured 
 tones usual to him, the sentences in which the testator ex 
 pressed his wishes respecting his removal to St. Mary's, 
 and burial there ; then followed a few legacies the place 
 on which he lived, five hundred dollars per annum, and the 
 use of his library, being left to Mr. Mortimer during his 
 life, as a mark not only of the esteem and friendship of the 
 testator, but of his gratitude for the services he had rendered 
 to the people on his plantation, in which he hoped he would 
 hereafter meet with no obstruction ; to his friend and relative, 
 Commodore Moray, was left five hundred dollars and a signet 
 ring with the Moray crest, which had come from Scotland 
 with the first emigrants of the name, and which, on Commo 
 dore Moray's death, was to descend to Hugh. All this was 
 exactly as it had been in the will seen by Judge Mellen, 
 and he read it without a change of tone. Then came the 
 
 ~ 
 
 enumeration of certain shares in Bank stock, canals and rail 
 roads, as well as of some thousands of ready money in the 
 hands of his factor, all which was hereby willed and 
 bequeathed to Judge Mellen made a pause could it be
 
 TWO PICTURES. 197 
 
 possible? to "Mrs. Charles Moray, of Elizabethtown, 
 widow ; " the last words were read rather in a questioning 
 tone, as if the reader doubted the evidence of his senses, 
 and the glance around the circle which followed, seemed to 
 ask if he could be right. Receiving no answer, unless the 
 surprise on all faces except Mr. Saville's, and a gasping sob 
 from Mrs. Charles Moray might be considered an answer ; 
 he turned again to the instrument in his hand. Now fol 
 lowed the mention of St. Mary's ; its acres of woodland and 
 cleared fields, its houses, whether for dwelling or for plan 
 tation use, then the negroes, named by families and enumer 
 ated, then the horses, carriages, &c., nothing was omitted, 
 and all was Avilled and bequeathed to Charles Moray, son 
 of the before-mentioned Mrs. Charles Moray. Never did 
 such simple words excite such varied sensations as were 
 caused by these. As they were uttered, Augusta lifted her 
 eyes and fixed them on Charles Moray's face, which burned 
 beneath her gaze as if the brand of a shameful deed were 
 blistering there. She never removed that gaze while Judge 
 Mellen continued to read that the testator had made no 
 especial provision for his dear niece, Augusta Moray, be 
 cause she would find her home with these dear friends at 
 St. Mary's, which, he hoped, would eventually become her 
 own by her marriage with Charles Moray, which event 
 would fulfil his most earnest wish. 
 
 Before Judge Mellen had finished reading, Hugh Mo 
 ray, obeying an uncontrollable impulse, had risen from his 
 distant scat, and placed himself beside Augusta. Judge 
 Mellen was the first who spoke. Still holding the will in 
 his hand, he said, with emphasis, " This is a most extra 
 ordinary document. Mr. Saville will, I am sure, bear 
 witness, as well as I, that it is entirely unlike the will first 
 dictated by Mr. Moray. That, if I am not greatly in error, 
 placed Miss Moray and Mr. Hugh precisely in the positions
 
 198 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 occupied by Mrs. Moray and her son am I right, sir?" 
 turning suddenly to Mr. Saville. 
 
 " Yes ; but I suppose a man may alter his- will at any 
 time during his life," said Mr. Saville, in a tone of studied 
 carelessness. 
 
 " A man may, but does he without some good reason ? 
 I do not hesitate to say that, if this will be genuine and 
 after careful examination of the signatures, I see no reason 
 to doubt that it is it must have been dictated when my 
 friend's mind was so much affected by disease as to destroy 
 the validity of his acts. Indeed, he more than once, after 
 his document was in my possession, alluded to Mr. Hugh 
 Moray and his niece as his successors at St. Mary's. This 
 testimony I am willing to give before a court of justice, and 
 if you will take my advice, my dear," to Augusta, " you 
 will contest the will." 
 
 Before Augusta could reply, Charles Moray exclaimed, 
 " That you need not do, Augusta ; for 1 am as well satisfied 
 as Judge Mellon himself, that this will is no expression of 
 your uncle's real wishes, and I here relinquish at once all 
 claim that it gives me on his property." 
 
 " Thank you 1 thank you, Charlie ! for giving me back 
 my old confidence in you ; as for anything more, I cannot 
 receive from your bounty, what would have been wel 
 come from my uncle's affection. If I have been wronged, 
 I commit my cause to Him who is the orphan's friend. 
 May lie defend the right ! " 
 
 Augusta had risen as she addressed Charlie, and her 
 appeal to Heaven was made with an earnest look and an 
 emphatic gesture, which made Mrs. Moray visibly shudder, 
 and awakened a momentary terror even in the heart of 
 Saville. Shfe turned as if to leave the room, and Hugh 
 offered his arm with a manner of such graceful deference as 
 a princess might have claimed, and as he had never offered
 
 TWO PICTURES. 199 
 
 to Augusta Moray before. She accepted the support she 
 greatly needed, but ere she had made a step forward, Mrs. 
 Moray laid her hand upon her arm to detain her. Augusta 
 shook it off as if it had been some unclean thing, and turned 
 to her with flashing eyes and heightened color. 
 
 Mrs. Moray's contrition had not been sufficiently deep 
 or sincere to make her humble. Its chief effect was to add 
 intensity to her desire for Augusta's marriage with her 
 son. For the injury to Hugh she had little compunction. 
 " Hugh is doing so well he does not need it," she said to 
 herself, " and he had no more natural right to it than 
 Charlie." Were Augusta married to Charles, she believed 
 that conscience would cease its perpetual sting, and more 
 over, that Saville's power to intimidate her would be les 
 sened. All these considerations gave earnestness to her 
 manner, as she said, " You will remember, Augusta, that 
 St. Mary's is your home, and we shall be ready to set out 
 whenever you wish." 
 
 " Excuse me, madam," replied Augusta, " Your home 
 can never be mine, and I have no desire to influence your 
 movements." 
 
 Again she would have passed on with a haughty bow, 
 but Mrs. Moray, with increasing, almost with impertinent 
 vehemence, exclaimed, " Do you intend to treat your uncle's 
 last wishes with contempt ? Remember ! St. Mary's will 
 be forever closed to you if you refuse our offer now." 
 
 " Mamma ! " cried Charles Moray, " you must not say 
 that. Jf St. Mary's is indeed to be mine, it will ever be 
 Augusta's rightful home, where I shall esteem her more mis 
 tress than I am master, whenever she shall honor it with 
 her presence." 
 
 Charlie's open, boyish face was flushed, half with shame, 
 at what seemed to him his mother's strange rudeness, half 
 with eagerness to mark his own different feeling. Augusta
 
 200 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 could not answer. Indignation and pride had lent her tem 
 porary strength, but it was fast failing. Hugh felt the 
 trembling of the hand that rested on his arm, and putting 
 back Mrs. Moray, who would still have urged her point, 
 with a decided gesture, he led her from the room. Scarcely 
 had the door closed behind them, when Augusta sank upon 
 a chair in the hall, faint and gasping. Hugh felt that she 
 must not be exposed to farther trial, and, disregarding her 
 faint resistance, he lifted her in his arms and bore her up 
 the stairs to a small room opening on her own apartment, 
 where he laid her on a couch. 
 
 " Thank you ! " Avhispered Augusta, feebly ; " will you 
 ask Miss Dray ton to come to me ? " 
 
 " In one moment, dear Augusta never so dear as now 
 only let me say before I go that if not permitted to as 
 sert a nearer claim, I have at least a brother's right to cher 
 ish and to guard you." 
 
 lie pressed his lips to the hand he held, then, alarmed 
 by her increasing paleness, he hastened down stairs and sent 
 Miss Dray ton to her. That lady was the only one he found 
 in the room he had just left. Judge Mellen and Mr. Saville 
 had left the house, and Mrs. Moray had carried off Charlie 
 to her own room, to consult him, as she said, on business, 
 but, in truth, to try to reconcile him to the new dignities 
 which, she could see, sat somewhat uneasily upon his indolent 
 but kind nature. 
 
 When Miss Drayton had left him, Hugh continued long 
 to pace, with slow, measured steps, through the deserted 
 room which seemed to him, at that moment, to bear the 
 aspect of death. Suggested by the contrast, there rose up 
 the vision of that last gay, untroubled evening, when Au 
 gusta, radiant in beauty, with the flush of excitement on her 
 cheek, and a softened light in her eyes, had stood just where 
 he had seen her stand to-day in her plain, black dress, with
 
 TWO PICTURES. 201 
 
 colorless cheeks, and eyes flashing with proud disdain, or 
 dim with clouds of sorrow, yet not less beautiful to him, 
 
 That evening there had been no scornful rejection in her 
 eye or on her lip. If he could have but spoken then and 
 what had made the difference now ? Was she indeed so 
 fickle that a few weeks of absence had thus changed her ? 
 that could not be. Had an enemy come between them ? 
 that might be and his thoughts immediately reverted to 
 Mrs. Charles Moray. " She never loved me," he said to 
 himself, "and I think she has positively hated me, since 
 she has regarded me as a possible rival to Charles." Still 
 the utmost act of enmity he thought of ascribing to her was 
 misrepresentation of some thoughtless word or action on his 
 part. He had always thought her skilled in giving a gloss 
 to language which the speaker little intended skilled in 
 interpreting all things so as to advance her own ends, but 
 of conscious, wilful untruth, of absolute fraud, he did not 
 suspect her. In regard to this will, he believed, with Judge 
 Mellen, that there had been some unfair influence exerted 
 over the failing mind of Mr. Moray ; if there had been 
 more, and the remembrance of the many conversations in 
 which Mr. Moray seemed to consider him as his successor 
 at St. Mary's, sometimes suggested the doubt, he believed 
 that Saville was answerable for it. " That man hates both 
 Augusta and me. I have read it in his eye, spite of all his 
 cunning ; he would do us an injury if he could. It has been 
 no injury to me. I should be sorry enough to relinquish 
 my career at the bar for the burdensome responsibilities 
 of a Southern planter, and as for Augusta, we cannot offer 
 her a splendid home ; but my father by the by his let 
 ter," and throwing himself into a chair, Hugh drew from 
 his pocket the letter handed to him by Mr. Saville, and was 
 soon absorbed in its contents. They ran thus :
 
 202 TWO F1CTUKE8. 
 
 II. 8. FRIGATE CONGRESS, j 
 Gulf of Mexico, March 21, 18. \ 
 
 I have been trying to write to your mother, Hugh, but 
 find it impossible, and so I write to you that you may tell 
 her what I have no heart to tell myself. My bitterest ene 
 my could have chosen for me nothing more humiliating than 
 my present position, a position accepted with the hope that 
 I should be able at last to prove myself worthy of the con 
 fidence so long withheld from me. If the department 
 should continue its present course toward me, I shall come 
 home a dishonored man, while it may be that some per 
 fumed pet of theirs will be sent out to supersede me as an 
 incapable, and obtaining what I have in vain petitioned for, 
 will cast a deeper shadow on my name by his success. Three 
 or four vessels, of not over one or two hundred tons, would 
 enable me to make our naval power as much dreaded as our 
 army has become under the gallant Taylor ; but here I am 
 with ships of such heavy draught, that 1 cannot approach the 
 coast near enough to throw a ball on shore; and yet all my 
 remonstrances and appeals are met only by expressions of 
 surprise that with such a gallant force at my command, I 
 should have done so little. I am tempted to believe that 
 my letters have not all reached the Secretary's eyes. From 
 what I know of the ways of the department, I know it 
 would not be at all impossible for this to be managed by a 
 clerk who had a grudge against me, and, God forgive me if 
 I wrong him, I have no trust in Saville. I believe he suf 
 fered me to obtain this squadron because he hoped by it to 
 ingratiate himself with my rich relative, Mr. Moray, and 
 now that he, poor fellow, is too ill for him to hope for much 
 future service from him, I should not Avonder if he were in 
 triguing to give it to some other. As you wrote last 
 from Washington, and seemed uncertain when you should 
 leave it, I hope this letter may find you there. If it
 
 TWO PICTURES. 203 
 
 should do so, go at once to the navy department, see the 
 Secretary himself, and tell him what I have here written 
 you. Tell him I know the harbor of Vera Cruz thoroughly, 
 and that with three or four vessels of light draught 1 will 
 engage to land men enough to make themselves masters of 
 the city, and of the whole country indeed ; but without such 
 vessels it is simply impossible it would be throwing awa^i 
 the poor fellows' Jives to send them in open boats, when 1 
 could not bring a cannon near enough to protect them. 
 Make some inquiries where Commodore Puffer is ; I have 
 had a hint from an old friend in the service that he has been 
 a good deal in Washington of late. He is the only man in 
 the service, I think, who would supersede me without reluc 
 tance; not that I think him bad-hearted or dishonorable, but 
 he has such an opinion of his own powers, that I honestly 
 believe he considers it an act of injustice to the country that 
 any important service should be committed to another. 
 Exert yourself, my son, to save your father from this last 
 and worst humiliation the last, I say, for certain I am that 
 I should never outlive it. Send this letter to your mother, 
 and tell her that though I do not write to her by this oppor 
 tunity, my best comfort is the memory of her love and her 
 prayers. Love to your sisters. Your affectionate father, 
 
 JAMES MORAY. 
 
 Hugh looked at the date of the letter. " This ought to 
 have been here a week ago," he said, " I have not an hour to 
 lose ; but first I must see Augusta." 
 
 He went quickly up the stairs and to the room, where 
 he had left her. The door was closed, but his light tap 
 brought Miss Drayton to it ; she came into the hall to 
 Hugh, closing the door after her. Without waiting to be 
 questioned, she said : " She has been terribly agitated ; it 
 could scarcely be otherwise ; but her greatest dread seems
 
 204 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 to bo that any one should see her in that state. I have 
 promised that no one but myself shall enter this room." 
 
 " I must not ask you to break your promise, and yet I 
 know not how to leave the house without seeing her." 
 
 " Leave the house ! You are not going away ! " ex 
 claimed Miss Dray ton. 
 
 " No farther than to the navy department on important 
 business for my father." 
 
 " Oh ! you will return here, then ? I feared you were 
 talking of leaving Washington." 
 
 " 1 hope, when I do that, it will be to take Miss Moray 
 with me to Elizubethtown, where my mother and sisters 
 are they love her dearly, and would be grieved, indeed, if 
 she should choose any other home. Has she spoken at all 
 to you about the future, Miss Drayton ? " 
 
 " Not very coherently ; one thought, only, seems in con 
 nection with it, that she must make herself independent by 
 the exercise of her own powers. She has been much calmed 
 by my promise to find work for her." 
 
 " Work ! I must see her, Miss Drayton," and Hugh 
 looked resolved. 
 
 " You will not, without her permission, Mr. Moray ; 
 to-day, especially," said Miss Drayton, remaining quite still, 
 though Hugh had stepped toward the room, and even put 
 his hand upon the latch. 
 
 Her confidence was not misplaced ; Hugh withdrew his 
 hand, and stepped back again. 
 
 " You are right, Miss Drayton," he said, "it must not be 
 without her permission ; and yet I must see her. Tell her, 
 dear Miss Drayton, that I have an important commission 
 from my father, which requires my immediate attention ; 
 but that I cannot and will not leave the house till I have 
 seen her. Will you do this, dear Miss Drayton ? " 
 
 Miss Drayton could not refuse, and soon re-opened the 
 door to tell Hugh that he might enter.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 The incidents of his life, the training even of his boy- 
 Hood, had given Hugh Moray a power over himself, pos* 
 sessed by few men. Even now he was calm in appearance, 
 self-possessed in manner, though his heart throbbed and his' 
 pulses beat as they had not done when he first rose to 
 address a court, notwithstanding that was under circum 
 stances which induced the belief that his success or fail 
 ure in that first effort would influence his whole future 
 career. He had now a cause to plead requiring more deli 
 cate tact than any he had yet approached, and the verdict 
 he should obtain would affect the well-being of one dear 
 to him as his own soul. The events of this day could not 
 make Augusta more dear to him, but they had so touched 
 the springs of his tenderest feeling, that he would have 
 guarded her with his very life from the lightest touch of 
 pain. This feeling grew acute almost to agony as he en 
 tered the room in which she was, and, taking in with a quick 
 glance, its luxurious and tasteful arrangements, he contrasted 
 them by a lightning flash of thought with the home likely 
 to be that of a woman who should make herself independent 
 by her own work. Yet Hugh was very calm if any com 
 plaint could have been alleged against his manner, it was 
 perhaps the complaint of an excess of quietude. Augusta 
 sat on the couch where he had left her. A crimson spot on 
 each cheek served only to make the surrounding whiteness 
 more distinct, while her eyes glowed with excitement. Over 
 her, too, the thought of the injustice done to Hugh, had 
 exercised some softening influence. She would now have 
 risen to meet him, but he stepped quickly toward her couch, 
 and taking the hand she held out to him, gently reseated 
 her, and placed himself in a chair at her side. Retaining 
 her hand, he said, " I wanted to see you before I went out, 
 that I might know when you would be ready to set out for 
 Elizabethtown. Do you think you could go to-morrow ? "
 
 206 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Hugh, it will be acknowledged, was adroit. The place 
 was only touched in his question, and touched as an ascer 
 tained fact, the time was dwelt on as the great point at issue. 
 In ordinary states of feeling such a taking-for-granted by 
 one whose opinion she values, has a wonderful effect on a 
 woman ; but to-day Augusta Moray was in no ordinary 
 state of feeling. All in which she had most trusted had 
 deceived her. The very pillars of her life had been shaken, 
 and she stood among the crumbling ruins of the past with 
 proud self-assertion, saying to herself, " They shall not crush 
 me. I will build to myself a new world, and though it have 
 in it no beauty and no joy, it shall suffice." Ah ! how dif 
 ferent would it have been, could she have seen that it was 
 the hand of love which held the bitter chalice to her lips, 
 that the selfishness of man was but working out the loving 
 designs of Him who " chasteneth those whom He loves, even 
 as a father chasteneth his children." 
 
 " You are very kind, Hugh ; but I do not think I shall 
 go to Elizabethtown," she replied to Hugh's question. 
 
 " We will talk of that at another time, when you are 
 more composed ; at present we will only settle the time of 
 our journey ; you must be impatient to get away from this 
 house," Hugh began, with a smile ; but his face grew grave 
 before he concluded. 
 
 " I am more impatient to be understood by you, Hugh. 
 \ ou must not put me off as if I was a feeble child, incapable 
 of deciding for myself. I have no guide left ; I must mark 
 out my own path." 
 
 " Dear Augusta ! If Mr. Mortimer were here I think 
 he would remind you of the Psalmist's petition, 'My 
 Father, be Thou the guide of my youth ; ' and of his assur 
 ance, ' Commit thy way unto the Lord, and He will direct 
 thy steps.' " 
 
 " He guides and directs us, not by sending an angel to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 207 
 
 clear our way before us, but by giving us the power and the 
 will to act for ourselves." 
 
 " Or by sending friends to act for us." 
 
 " He has left me none on whom I have a natural claim. 
 I could not be happy in dependence on others. The best 
 thing that those who wish me well can do for me, is to help 
 me in finding something to do for myself." 
 
 Hugh thought of the loving, trustful child, who had said, 
 " Hugh, I will live with you anywhere," looked up in the 
 proud face beside him, and with a pang at his heart, 
 which he could not wholly control, rose and walked to a 
 window, that he might betray to no other eye what he suf 
 fered. When he returned and again seated himself at 
 Augusta's side, his face had regained its composure. Yet 
 there was a change in its expression there was less tender 
 ness there and more sternness. 
 
 " Perhaps you are right," he said, " at least, no one living 
 has the right to constrain your freedom of action. I will 
 only say that you may command my services in any way 
 you please, and until you have found your work and are 
 ready to begin it, you will not, I hope, refuse to make your 
 home with my mother and sisters at Elizabethtown. You 
 can have no cause of displeasure with them, Augusta,"' he 
 added, as he saw her hesitate, " and no one whom you do 
 not wish to see, will intrude on you there." 
 
 The color flushed to her face at his last words ; but 
 before she could reply, Hugh rose, and hording out his hand 
 to her, said, " I must not weary you now. You may trust 
 my advice it is as disinterested as a brother's ; at least, you 
 may trust the affection of my mother and sisters. But I 
 will say no more now, for you look weary ; good afternoon." 
 
 One lingering pressure of her hand, one questioning look 
 from the door, as if he hoped yet to read some softening in 
 her glance, and Hugh was gone.
 
 208 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Months passed ere they met again. 
 
 When Miss Dray ton returned to Augusta she found her 
 weeping with an uncontrollable violence, which was the 
 result of the almost superhuman restraint imposed on her 
 by her proud determination to show that she needed not 
 even sympathy from those around her. Reproach of Hugh 
 was mingling with these tears, for, with the inconsistency of 
 which most are guilty where the passions are excited, she 
 accused him of coldness and hardness, because he had care 
 fully guarded himself from the expression of any warmer 
 sentiment than friendship, completely ignoring that she had 
 more than once, of late, manifested her disdain of profes. 
 sions of deeper interest from him. 
 
 " He need not have been so careful to assure me of his 
 disinterestedness to make me feel that I could give nothing 
 in return for all this ostentatious kindness." 
 
 Such were her thoughts. Yet when Miss Drayton, after 
 letting her weep for some minutes in silence, drew her at 
 last within the shelter of her arms, and with soft caresses 
 said, " My poor child ! has he wounded you too ? 1 
 thought his truth, at least, might be trusted," she lifted her 
 head proudly, and answered, " You know little of Hugh 
 Moray if my tears can make you doubt him. Since I can 
 not relinquish my plans for my own support, he urges me 
 to go to Elizabethtown and remain with his mother and 
 sisters till I am ready to begin my work." 
 
 "And trusting him as you do, you will go, of course?" 
 said Miss Drayton. 
 
 Augusta had unconsciously set a trap for herself. If 
 she would have Miss Drayton trust Hugh, she must show 
 that she herself trusted him, and she assented, though the 
 assent was faint, and with the addition, " Unless you should 
 hear of some place for me immediately." 
 
 " That is not very probable ; there are places enough,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 209 
 
 but few such places as I could conscientiously recommend 
 you to. To know how to recognize the claims of a lady in 
 the position of a governess, the employer must be a lady 
 herself." 
 
 " And are there so few ladies ? " asked Augusta, little 
 disposed to submit to unnecessary delay. 
 
 " Very few, I fear, in my acceptation of the term ; 
 though there are a thousand counterfeits which, in the ordi 
 nary exchanges of society, will pass current without detec 
 tion." 
 
 " I must not hope, then, for one of those few, but be 
 satisfied if I find nothing worse than the common lot." 
 
 " Well, we shall see ; in the meantime, I am truly glad 
 that you have such a friend. Have you appointed any time 
 for your journey ? " 
 
 " No ; if I must go, I suppose I ought to go at once. 
 Hugh's business must require his presence in New York ; 
 he has been here more than a month ; but if I could hear 
 of something first " She paused. 
 
 " I think you are quite right not to wait for it ; Mr. 
 Moray must, as you say, have already sacrificed much ; and 
 I shall be as busy for you after you have gone as if you 
 were here." 
 
 Speech is a gift of Him whose every gift is good. 
 Thought becomes clear, passion submissive to reason while 
 we exercise it, provided passion have not so acquired the 
 sway of our whole natures that speech has itself become its 
 slave. These conversations, though not all that Hugh Mo 
 ray or Miss Drayton could have wished, left Augusta more 
 composed in mind than she had yet been. The future 
 seemed less a tangled, pathless forest than it had been. Un 
 consciously, perhaps, she derived comfort from the thought 
 that, for a time, at least, she would be within Hugh's home, 
 the object of his friendly care. The next morning she woke
 
 210 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 after a night of deep and almost untroubled sleep. Her 
 first thought was, of course, of her bereavement and of the 
 altered circumstances of her life. It is that first waking 
 thought which brings to our hearts the keenest pang of sor 
 row. That pang sent Augusta's thought not to a heavenly, 
 but to an earthly comforter. Hugh would come this morn 
 ing to know her decision. She must rise, for much was to 
 be done to-day, if she were to be ready to set out with him 
 to-morrow. Prompt as the thought came the action ; she 
 arose and breakfasted alone in the little music room that 
 opened into her own apartment. Soon after her breakfast, 
 as she was still there, giving some orders to her maid 
 respecting the arrangements for her packing, a knock was 
 heard at her chamber door. 
 
 " Say that I am here, Alice," she said to the Irish wait 
 ing maid, who turned to attend the summons. 
 
 " It's Gib. ma'am," said the girl, opening the door of the 
 music room. 
 
 " Yes, Miss 'Gusty, it's me, ma'am ; Master Charles 
 sent me, ma'am, to see how you is, and to ax to speak to 
 you." 
 
 " Master Charles 1 " Augusta repeated. " You are sure 
 it was he who wanted to speak to me 1 " 
 
 " Oh yes, ma'am ! Sure for true. It couldn't be nobody 
 else, now poor Master Hugh 's gone." 
 
 Gib spoke with emphasis. He had seen a little, and 
 suspected more, of what had been passing in the house for 
 the last four weeks, and it was his own private opinion that 
 Master Hugh had been badly treated on all hands, and he 
 strongly suspected that " Miss 'Gusty " had now put the fin 
 ishing touch to the injustice he had suffered, by sending him 
 away. 
 
 "Master Hugh gone ! " repeated Augusta, with a half 
 bewildered expression.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 211 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, gone," repeated Gib, and this time with a 
 little fierceness in his tone. He had expressed his pity for 
 Master Hugh ; the next thing was to show his readiness 
 to do battle with all his enemies. 
 
 " When did he go, Gib ? " Augusta's voice trembled 
 slightly in spite of her efforts. Gib began to be appeased. 
 
 " Well, ma'am, I don't rightly know when he's left 
 Washington ; howsomedever, he isn't been home to my 
 knowledge sence yesterday one o'clock ; I know it was one, 
 because I heard the big clock strike just as Master Hugh 
 went out the door, and I was looking after him and saying 
 to myself, Well ! who'd ha' thought that Master Charlie 
 would be our master, instead o' Master Hugh; that 
 Master " 
 
 " And has not Master Hugh been back since that time 1 " 
 asked Augusta, interrupting the flow of Gib's eloquence. 
 
 " No, ma'am ; leastways I ha'n't seen him ; and he 
 hasn't been in his room all night." 
 
 " And have you heard nothing of him, Gib ? " 
 
 " I only hearn the man that came for his valise and cloak 
 say he was a-going away with some gentlemen from the 
 hotel." 
 
 Augusta sank back upon the couch by which she was 
 standing. Now she felt how she had rested on that strong 
 arm and faithful, courageous heart. Pride might still rule 
 her words ; it might press back the tears from her eyes, and 
 close her lips against the moan that rose to them, but it 
 could not scare away the agony from her wistful eyes, nor 
 renerve her shaking frame. Gib's emotions changed their 
 direction. 
 
 " I think it's very strange in Master Hugh to go off so ; 
 and may be he's a coming back." 
 
 " Yes, that was surely it ; he was coming back," and a 
 little color returned to Augusta's pale cheeks.
 
 212 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 "And Muster Charles. What must I tell him, Miss* 
 Augusta ? " 
 
 " Say that I will see him here, Gib." 
 
 She spoke with alacrity, fur she thought that Charles 
 must have some communication from Hugh ; it might 
 Le that he was coming to bring her some message from 
 him. 
 
 " You will go on with the packing," she said to Alice ; 
 " I shall probably leave this place to-morrow." 
 
 The girl returned to the chamber, as Charles Moray 
 entered at the door of the music room. 
 
 " You still look pale, Augusta," he said, after the usual 
 salutations and inquiries had passed ; " I must see a little 
 more color in your cheeks before 1 can ask you to set out 
 for St. Mary's." 
 
 What a pang that name on his lips cost Augusta he 
 little knew ! She could not speak for a moment, and Charlie 
 continued: " When we do go, would you prefer to go by 
 land, or Avatcr ? If you are not strong enough for the land 
 journey " 
 
 " I am not strong enough for cither, Charlie." 
 
 Augusta's tone was kind, even affectionate far more so 
 than it had been to Hugh. 
 
 " Not now, but you will be soon, and we will wait till 
 you are." 
 
 " I shall never be strong enough to be at St. Mary's as 
 a visitor." 
 
 " Not as a visitor ; I would not have you feel as a vis 
 itor, let it be your home as it has always been." 
 
 "That cannot be, Charlie. If I was not my uncle's 
 child, I was, at least, his nearest living relative, and was 
 taught from my infancy to feel that I had the claims of a 
 child in his house." 
 
 " And you would say that you are nothing to me ; but,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 213 
 
 Augusta, I have no sister, and I have always envied Hugh 
 his sisters. Come with me and be my sister." 
 
 Augusta remembered Mrs. Moray, and the color flushed 
 her face and the proud light came again to her eye, as she 
 said, " Such ties are of Nature's making ; I am not your 
 sister, and cannot fancy myself so." 
 
 " Augusta," Charlie began, and paused, rose from his 
 chair and looked out of a window, reseated himself, and 
 again said, " Augusta, there is a tie we make for ourselves ; 
 will you be my wife ? you know your uncle wished it." 
 
 " No, Charlie ; I could not be your wife, even if my 
 uncle had wished it." 
 
 "And do you doubt that he did, Augusta?" and Char 
 lie's face grew hot. 
 
 " I do not doubt, for I feel quite sure that he never 
 did." 
 
 " Why, then, should he have said it in his will ? " Char 
 lie spoke rapidly, as one who was becoming roused by the 
 doubt insinuated. 
 
 " The will said it, certainly." 
 
 Augusta's emphasis was significant ; there was a festering 
 doubt in Charles Moray's own mind, and this emphasis was 
 like a touch upon " the raw " to a mettled horse. He sprang 
 from his chair. 
 
 " I think it would be more just, if you have any belief 
 that the will is a forgery, to say so at once, and let the case 
 be decided by law ; do you suspect me of fraud ? " 
 
 " I suspect you of nothing dishonorable ; but sit down, 
 Charlie, and let us talk of other things ; I cannot afford to 
 quarrel with the few friends I have left, and I should be 
 sorry not to count you as one of them." 
 
 " I am glad you will permit me to be anything to you," 
 said Charlie, reseating himself, though with a shade of irri- 
 tation still, both in tone and manner.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " That I regard you as a friend, I am going to prove, by 
 asking a favor of you," said Augusta, trying to smile. 
 
 Charlie was easily propitiated, and assured her that she 
 could not gratify him more than to show him how he could 
 be useful to her. 
 
 " It is only, Charlie, by fulfilling what I know to have 
 been my uncle's desire about his people. To Hugh and me, 
 who were with him constantly during those last few weeks, 
 he expressed it very often, and I promised him to use all 
 my influence to secure for them the kind treatment and care 
 of their future master." 
 
 " You are not going to suspect me of cruelty, Augusta ? " 
 Charlie questioned, still a little angrily. 
 
 " 1 believe no man ever was more incapable of cruelty, 
 Charlie ; but my uncle was not cruel ; he was considered, I 
 believe, not only a humane, but a kind and generous master, 
 and yet he was not satisfied with himself; indeed, he seemed 
 often troubled by the feeling that he had not done all he 
 should have done." 
 
 " That must have been nothing but a sick man's fancy, 
 Augusta ; for I am sure no set of laborers I have ever known 
 were so happy as your uncle's negroes. They were com 
 fortably lodged, well fed, not overworked, and free from all 
 anxieties for the future. I am sure I have thought of them 
 with envy sometimes, when I have incurred a heavy debt, 
 without having a red cent to pay it with. Depend upon it, 
 all that was a sick man's fancy." 
 
 " I don't know that that is at all against it, Charlie ; 
 I am afraid none of us think as we should do about these 
 things till we are sick and feel ourselves drawing near to 
 the eternal world ; I seemed to be brought near to it my 
 self when I talked with him toward the last, and I must 
 relieve my conscience of my responsibility in the matter, by 
 telling you that my uncle felt grieved at remembering that
 
 TWO PICTURES. 215 
 
 he had sometimes objected to some of good Mr. Mortimer's 
 plans for the improvement of the people, and that he hoped 
 that whoever was at St. Mary's after him would suffer Mr. 
 Mortimer to carry them all out ; and it was this I was going 
 to ask of you as a favor to myself : it will make Mr. Mor 
 timer so happy." 
 
 " I fear it will have a tendency to make the people very 
 unhappy ; but, of course, what you ask shall be done. And 
 now, Augusta, let us come back to yourself. If you will 
 not make your home with us, you must remember that 
 your uncle intended that your home should be provided out 
 of his property, so that, wherever it is, you must draw on 
 me" 
 
 " You must excuse me, Charlie, I cannot place myself 
 under pecuniary obligation to any one." 
 
 " Pecuniary obligation it would not be " 
 
 " I should feel it as such ; and, once and for ever, let me 
 say that if you would have me regard you as a friend, you 
 will never make such a proposition to me again." 
 
 " And how are you going to live, Augusta? With all 
 your finespun fancies, you are human, and must eat, drink, 
 and be clothed." 
 
 Charles Moray spoke warmly. 
 
 " It is true I am human ; but with human wants I have 
 also human powers, and can work for what I need." 
 
 " Work ! Are you going to put up a card, ' Washing, 
 and going out to day's work, done here ' ? " 
 
 There was a sneer in the tone of the question. 
 
 " Not quite so bad as that," said Augusta, while her 
 eyes flashed. " I am only going to seek, through Miss 
 
 Drayton and my old teacher Madam B , a place as a 
 
 governess." 
 
 " A governess ! I advise you to change your plan and 
 take my proposal it will be decidedly the easier life ; but, 
 10
 
 216 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 in the mean time, till this delectable governess-ship is found, 
 what are you going to do 1 Will you remain here ? " 
 
 " Till to-morrow morning, with your permission," said 
 Augusta, haughtily. 
 
 " And may I venture, without offence, to ask where you 
 may be going then ; as I understand, this ' place ' is yet to 
 seek." 
 
 " I might well refuse to answer such questions , but I 
 have nothing to conceal. I shall return with Hugh to Eliz- 
 abethtown, and remain with his mother till I find employ 
 ment." 
 
 " With Hugh ? is not Hugh gone ? " asked Charlie. 
 
 " What makes you suppose so ? " Augusta's heart sank 
 again with a sickening dread, and her cheeks grew pale. 
 
 " I did not suppose anything about it. Gib told me he 
 was gone ; but, of course, that is a mistake, if you were 
 going with him. There is the door bell now ; perhaps it is 
 he ; " and Charlie hurried from the room, glad, it must be 
 owned, of an excuse for escaping from Augusta's presence, 
 for Charles Moray was of too pleasure-loving a nature will 
 ingly to endure what gave force to a painful thought ; and 
 at the sight of Augusta, all his mother's glosses vanished, 
 and he could only feel that she had been deeply injured, and 
 that he, more than any other, had profited by the injury. 
 This thought, which should have made him peculiarly gentle 
 with her, did truly, from some of those strange vagaries to 
 which this poor, frail nature of ours is subject, make him 
 irritable and impatient. It was not Hugh who rang, but 
 Charlie did not return to say so. A new idea had seized 
 him. He would go and see Judge Mellon and Miss Drny- 
 ton. Augusta seemed to regard them as friends ; they 
 might, perhaps, induce her to give up her unreasonable pride 
 and accept a decent annuity from her uncle's large fortune. 
 And so Charles Moray sauntered out, and, finding Miss
 
 TWO PICTURES. 217 
 
 Dray ton just preparing to visit Augusta, prevailed on her 
 to stay and listen to him, and even to promise that she 
 would advocate his cause with Augusta herself, though she 
 acknowledged she had little hope of success. As to Judge 
 Mellen, he declared it was the least Mr. Charles Moray could 
 do, and it would be folly, it would be madness in Miss 
 Moray to decline it. 
 
 While this was passing at Judge Mellen's, life was not 
 standing still with Augusta. Charlie had left her but a few 
 minutes when a card was brought to her from Mr. Seton, 
 the midshipman whom she had first met at Saratoga, and 
 who had continued his acquaintance by occasional calls in 
 Washington. His present call seemed to Augusta some 
 what intrusive, as he must have heard of her uncle's recent 
 death. 
 
 " Say to Mr. Seton that Miss Moray is indisposed and 
 receives no visitors," was her careless order to the servant 
 who had brought the card. 
 
 " I did tell him the ladies were not at home to-day ; but 
 he is the most obstinatest young man, and didn't mind me at 
 all," said the man in a grumbling tone, as he turned away. 
 
 Half an hour later there was a light step in the hall, fol 
 lowed by a knock at the door of the music room. Augusta 
 opened the door herself, believing it to be Miss Dray ton. 
 It was Mrs. Charles Moray. What an intensity does crime 
 give to the emotions of the- most frivolous and shallow 
 being ! Here was a woman that had lived all her life with 
 no higher motive than her pleasure, no deeper stirring of her 
 heart than a child experiences to the giver of a toy ; she had 
 been led by a stronger spirit into crime, and the lowest 
 abysses of her nature had been stirred, and fear and hate 
 and cruelty had started forth : whatever she might be hence 
 forth, she could not be frivolous. Something of this change 
 was already marked in her face, as she stood there gazing
 
 218 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 for one moment silently upon Augusta. Augusta, too, 
 was silent, and returned her gaze with a look of haughty 
 questioning. 
 
 " 1 have not intruded on you for my own pleasure, I assure 
 you," said Mrs. Moray, answering that look as if its sense 
 had been put into spoken words. " Mr. Seton, whom you 
 refused to see this morning, requested me to give you that, 
 and to say that Hugh gave it to him for you, just as he was 
 going off yesterday evening to join his father in the Gulf of 
 Mexico. Mr. Seton wished me to say that he did not seal 
 the envelope, because Hugh thought the receiving it so, 
 would show you the hurry he was in, and you would under 
 stand then why he did not return to make any explanation 
 to you." 
 
 Augusta had had time to recover herself sufficiently to 
 ask with tolerable composure, " Is Commodore Moray ill ? " 
 
 " No. I suspect, from what Mr. Seton says, that he has 
 been showing his incapacity, as I always thought he would, 
 and there is some danger of his being superseded. I sup 
 pose Hugh has gone to give him some help in commanding 
 his squadron. I have no doubt he thinks himself quite 
 equal to it." 
 
 The sneer drew no answer from Augusta, and she might 
 have appeared quite calm, but for the slight trembling of 
 the hand in which she held the unsealed missive from Hugh, 
 and for a bright red spot that burned on each cheek. 
 
 " I will see Mr. Seton," she said, with sudden determina 
 tion. 
 
 " You are rather late for that, I suspect. Mr. Seton sails 
 himself for the Gulf at two o'clock to-day. He said he must 
 be on board his ship immediately ; his ship is the schooner 
 ' Porpoise,' and if you have anything to send to Hugh, and 
 will get it on board that vessel to him within the next two
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 219 
 
 hours, he will take it with pleasure : he will probably see 
 Hugh within a fortnight." 
 
 " I will read my note, if you will excuse me, madam, 
 and send him my answer, if 1 find that it requires one." 
 
 " To which pleasant employment 1 will leave you. Good 
 morning ! " 
 
 To the last the sneer was in her tone ; but Augusta 
 thought little of it as she closed the door after her and sat 
 down to learn what could have taken Hugh Moray from her 
 side at such an hour, when he had just promised to guard 
 and cherish her as a tender brother. She opened the envel 
 ope and drew forth its contents a narrow slip of paper ; it 
 was printed. What could it mean ? The burning flush rose 
 to her temples as she read a check for one hundred dollars, 
 drawn in her favor by Hugh Moray on the State Bank of 
 New York. She looked again into the envelope, hoping there 
 might be some word to explain this. No not a word. 
 
 " lie might have spared me this," said Augusta to her 
 self. It was not her own humiliation that occasioned her 
 keenest pang, even when she remembered that the open 
 envelope had probably made those through whose hands it 
 had passed as well aware as herself of its contents. It was 
 the vanishing away of her ideal ; it was the conviction that 
 all noble delicacy, all true generosity must be absent from 
 the mind of one capable of such an act. The Hugh Moray 
 she had loved and trusted, was as much a creature of the 
 imagination as was Hamlet or Othello. Here was the 
 sharpest thrust, the cruel thrust which killed at once both 
 hope and memory. But this was no time for thought ; 
 neither, as she said proudly to herself, was she a love-sick 
 girl, to waste her life in vain regrets. 
 
 " Call Gib to me, Alice," she said, as she roused herself to 
 action. While Alice was gone, she selected an envelope 
 from her desk, enclosed the check, carefully sealed and
 
 220 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 addressed it. By the time she had done this, Gib was 
 waiting. 
 
 " Gib, I want this note for Master Hugh taken to Mr. 
 Soton, who is on board the schooner ' Porpoise,' lying at the 
 Navy Yard. lie is to sail in two hours, so you had better 
 call a hack and drive to the Navy Yard, for it is very im 
 portant you should be there in time ; and, Gib, you must 
 give the letter into Mr. Seton's hands yourself, and you had 
 better tell him that it contains money, and that I will be 
 obliged to him to hand it himself to Master Hugh." 
 
 She emptied her purse on the table, that Gib might take 
 the money necessary for his drive; and then turned to pack 
 ing her trunks with an assiduity which would speedily have 
 accomplished the labor, had she not been interrupted by the 
 entrance of Miss Dray ton. 
 
 " Ah ! you are busy packing, I see ; what time do you 
 intend to set out ? " 
 
 " To-morrow morning," and Augusta busied herself with 
 finding a comfortable seat for Miss Drayton, aud assisting 
 her to take off her shaw r l and bonnet. 
 
 " I am very glad you can go so soon," said Miss Drayton, 
 as she kissed the flushed cheek bending down to untie her 
 bonnet. " I was afraid, from what Mr. Charles said, that 
 something had called his cousin off, and you might be de 
 tained." 
 
 " Hugh has been called away," said Augusta, in a low 
 tone, turning, as she spoke, to lay aside Miss Drayton's 
 wrappings. 
 
 " Where ? " inquired Miss Drayton. 
 
 " To his father, in the Gulf of Mexico. He went out to 
 him in a ship which sailed last evening." 
 
 " You saw him before he went ? " 
 
 " No ; but he sent Mr. Seton to let me know all about it." 
 
 " And to make arrangements for your going, I suppose.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 221 
 
 How grieved he must have been to leave you so ! . Is Mr. 
 Seton to go with you to-morrow ? " 
 
 " No ; he is ordered away, and sails this afternoon." 
 
 " How unfortunate ! And who goes with you, then ? " 
 
 " Nobody. Governesses, you know," with a faint smile, 
 " may travel without protection." 
 
 " But pretty young girls may not. Mr. Charles will go 
 with you, I do not doubt, when he hears that Mr. Hugh 
 cannot ; if he did not go, I am sure my brother would not 
 suffer you to go alone ; one of them will see you safe to 
 Elizabethtown. I could not answer it to my own con 
 science, -to say nothing of Mr. Hugh, if I should part from 
 you without knowing that you would have proper escort to 
 his mother's care." 
 
 Miss Drayton was surprised at the still, determined 
 face that rnct her, as she looked up, at the end of this little 
 speech. 
 
 " Miss Drayton," said Augusta, " you have been so kind, 
 so good I shall be sorry to seem ungrateful ; but I must 
 have my own way in this I must go alone ; it is a proper 
 beginning to my independent life. I do not ask this as a 
 favor, I insist on it as a right," she continued, as she saw 
 Miss Drayton prepare to remonstrate. 
 
 " Of course, no one can dispute your right to direct your 
 own actions, my dear," Miss Drayton replied, in a manner 
 which, though still kind, was marked by more than her 
 usual gravity. 
 
 Augusta turned away with more sullcnness in her man 
 ner than any one had ever seen there before ; for, though 
 quick in temper, she had never been sullen. 
 
 " It is but the loss of one friend the more," she said iff 
 herself; " well let them go." 
 
 But she was less stoical than she fancied herself. As 
 she raised her eyes after a while to Miss Drayton's face, the
 
 222 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 gravity there seemed to her more like sorrow than anger. 
 She could not bear it ; and drawing near, she said r " Dear, 
 good Miss Draytcn ! my last friend ! forgive me for those 
 unkind words ! I am sorry to do anything you disapprove, 
 and I feel all your generous kindness in my very heart of 
 hearts." 
 
 " My dear ! do not talk of my kindness ; I would gladly 
 do something for you, if 1 could, for I love you tenderly, 
 Augusta, arid so does my poor Annie too, whom I loft 
 weeping at home, because I would not let her come to you 
 to-day ; " and Miss Drayton, with an affectionate caress, 
 drew Augusta down beside her on the sofa, adding, " I have 
 better matters to talk of than my kindness : I have a pro 
 posal to make to you, that may alter all your plans." 
 
 Then and there, Miss Drayton fulfilled her promise to 
 Charles Moray, enforcing, with all her feminine ingenuity 
 and all the energy of her affection, his proposition respecting 
 the annuity ; but ingenious reasons and affectionate entrea 
 ties were all in vain. Augusta was firm, though the fire in 
 her heart did not again show itself in any ungentle word or 
 action. She entreated Miss Drayton to be her friend, and 
 to believe that she knew what was best for her own happi 
 ness in choosing as she did. 
 
 " I have heard Mr. Mortimer say that work was the 
 best cure for unhappiness let me try it.*' 
 
 " But, my dear, you may not obtain the work, and what 
 will you do then ? Would you rather be dependent on 
 Mrs. Commodore Moray, who, from what I know of our 
 naval officers' families, is not likely to be very rich, than 
 take that which is equitably, if not legally j'our own." 
 
 " I shall not be dependent on Mrs. Moray," said Augus 
 ta, with lowered voice, while her eyes fell. 
 
 " Ah 1 I see. Her son will take you off her hands," and
 
 TWO EICTUKES. 223 
 
 Miss Drayton looked at the down-cast face with a benevo 
 lent smile. 
 
 The smile died away before the flashing glance that re 
 plied to it, as Augusta said, " I shall not even go to Mrs. 
 Moray's or to Elizabethtown at all. I shall go to Mrs. 
 Brenton, in New York. I have no doubt she will consider 
 my services in her school to be a sufficient compensation for 
 my board, till I can get some better place." 
 
 " Well, my dear, you may be right I would not dis 
 courage you for the world ; but you know we ought always 
 to be prepared for possible failure in our plans ; it is possi 
 ble, you know, that Mrs. Brenton may have no place for 
 you. Now will you let me be your Aunt Nancy, and do for 
 you just what I would for my name-child Annie," and Miss 
 Drayton drew out the purse which she had filled this morn, 
 ing for just such a possible occasion. 
 
 " Oh, dear Miss Drayton ! indeed indeed " Augusta 
 began vehemently, laying her hand, as she spoke, upon that 
 in which the purse was held. 
 
 " My dear, listen to me ; the obligation would be mine 
 it would relieve me from so much painful apprehen 
 sion " 
 
 " But, indeed, there is no cause for apprehension ; be 
 sides I am not quite penniless, and if I could only part with 
 some jewelry, which is entirely useless to me with my 
 present prospects, I should be rich." 
 
 " Let me see the jewelry." 
 
 Augusta unlocked her jewel casket with a little key, 
 suspended to her watch chain, and showed two morocco 
 cases. Touching the spring of each in turn, the lids flew 
 back, and displayed in the one a necklace, earrings, and pin, 
 of very large and beautiful pearls in the other, earrings, 
 pin, and ring, of diamonds of unusual size and purity. 
 
 Miss Drayton raised the case containing the pearls, and
 
 224: TWO FIQTUKES. 
 
 said, " I should like to take these for Annie, if they are not 
 beyond my purse. Do you happen to know what they cost, 
 my dear?" 
 
 "I do ; for my uncle took me with him to make the 
 selection in New York they were three hundred dollars ; 
 but they have been worn two or three times " 
 
 " Which only adds to their value ; if you really wish to 
 part with them, I will gladly become their purchaser at that 
 price." 
 
 And so Miss Drayton was comforted by knowing that 
 Augusta would not be without the means of supporting her 
 self for a few weeks at least, should Mrs. Brenton be unable 
 to receive her. A small sum was also brought to her by 
 Charles, as remaining in the Washington Bank, in which 
 Mr. Moray had deposited his money, after all claims 
 against him had been satisfied. As this had not been named 
 in the will, it of course belonged to her as nearest of kin. 
 This paid the milliner and dressmaker for the simple 
 mourning, which Miss Drayton had procured for her, and 
 furnished her with travelling expenses, leaving her three 
 hundred dollars untouched for future contingencies. 
 
 With all the alleviation thus given to their anxiety, her 
 friends, Judge Mellen and his daughter, and Miss Drayton, 
 who drove to the depot to say farewell to her, felt their 
 hearts sink with a weight of pity as they saw her stand in 
 the yet gray light of the early morning, with her black 
 drapery falling gloomily around her, while the faithful Gib 
 was attending to the safety of her baggage. They could not 
 forget how lately crowds had been officious to proffer their 
 services to her who was abandoned thus to the care of 
 a menial. Those externals, which so deepened the sad 
 ness of the picture to them, were, however, scarcely felt by 
 her. Deeper sorrows had made her insensible to them. 
 They found in her none of that girlish shrinking from her
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 lonely travel for which they were prepared. Indeed, when 
 Judge Mellen would have introduced her to a lady and gen 
 tleman, who were going in the cars, and with whom he was 
 slightly acquainted, she declined the introduction with a 
 decision that did not permit him to press it 
 
 " Where is Mr. Charles Moray 1 " asked Judge Mellen. 
 
 "In his bed, asleep, I suspect," answered Augusta, 
 smiling. 
 
 " He ought to be ashamed of himself," and the florid 
 face of the kind-hearted judge flushed a deeper red. 
 
 " Pray, do not blame poor Charlie ! He meant to come 
 with me, but he did not wake in time." 
 
 Her friends Annie and Miss Drayton wept, and even 
 Judge Mellen's eyes were not free from the mist of sorrow, 
 as the cars moved off, and the crape veil was thrown back 
 for a moment from Augusta's pale, mournful face, that she 
 might look her last upon them ; but her eyes were tear 
 less. Be thankful, ye who weep, that severer grief has not 
 frozen the fountain of your tears. 
 
 We will not detain the reader by details of a journey 
 without adventure. Mrs. Brenton received her former 
 pupil with kindness, and sooner than her friends could have 
 hoped, procured her a situation as governess in the family 
 of Mr. Price, a very wealthy banker, whose house on the 
 Fifth Avenue, was one of the show-houses of New York, 
 while Mrs. Price was acknowledged by all to have the 
 handsomest carriage, the most beautiful horses, and the 
 richest livery ever seen in Broadway. Mrs. Price had been 
 herself a pupil of Mrs. Brenton's, but had left her school 
 some years before Augusta's appearance there. Her old 
 respect for her teacher exercised still a restraining power on 
 the lady of fashion, and she did not bloom out in her pres 
 ence into that overpowering ostentation, which she dis 
 played elsewhere.
 
 226 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " You will not forget that Miss Moray is a lady," said 
 Mrs. Brenton. 
 
 Oh ! certainly not. It is really very important to get 
 one who will not teach the children vulgarities why, do 
 you know, my dear Mrs. Brenton, that 1 positively saw my 
 last governess turn out her egg into a glass ; I really saw 
 her do it with my own eyes. Now, really, you know, all 
 the Latin and mathematics in the world would never repay 
 one for having children taught such absolute neglect of the 
 rules of polite society." 
 
 " Well, my dear," said Mrs. Brenton, with a good- 
 natured laugh, " since you are no longer my pupil, I do not 
 mind confessing to you that I rather enjoy taking my own 
 egg from a glass but do not be alarmed ; Miss Moray is, 
 I am sure, quite free from such solecisms." 
 
 And Mrs. Price soon made it known to all her acquain 
 tances that she had been so fortunate as to secure for her 
 governess Miss Moray, Avho had been .the belle of Washing 
 ton all last winter. " Not that I think her so very beauti 
 ful at least that style of beauty is not my favorite style," 
 the lady added ; at which one could scarcely be surprised, as 
 Augusta was tall, with dark hair, and eyes whose brown 
 seemed to deepen into black when shadowed by excited 
 feeling, while Mrs. Price was a pure blonde, " fat, fair, and 
 forty." Sometimes the friends of Mrs. Price felt some 
 curiosity to see the " belle of Washington," and a message 
 was sent by the accommodating hostess requesting Miss 
 Moray to come down and play a little for the young people 
 to dance. Doubtless among the guests on these occasions 
 there were some who pitied the young and beautiful stran 
 ger, at whom the impertinent levelled their glasses, and the 
 cold and selfish carelessly glanced ; but to pity and to imper 
 tinence alike, Augusta Moray opposed the shield of a manner 
 as cold and as impassive as if she had been indeed the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 227 
 
 marble statue she resembled in the delicate chiselling of hei 
 features and the colorless purity of her complexion. 
 
 Ou the whole, there was no want of material comfort in 
 Augusta's position. Mrs. Price was not a cruel or unkind 
 woman. Vanity and selfishness were the deepest shadows 
 in her not very marked character. Augusta's room was in 
 the fourth story ; but it was large and airy, lighted by gas, 
 nnd its cold tempered in winter by the warm air from the 
 furnace which, do what they would, could not be kept from 
 ascending beyond the rooms occupied by the family, while 
 her table, at which her pupils, two young girls, the one ten, 
 the other twelve years old, ate, was supplied with good, 
 healthy food, if not with luxuries. One complaint often 
 made by persons in her position, could not be made by 
 Augusta. Those who served her were never negligent or 
 insolent. With an intuition, which we often see in a greater 
 degree in that class than in any other, they recognized her 
 as a " real lady" a term which means a great deal with 
 them, and they did willing service to one who, even in her 
 poverty, had not lost the open hand or liberal heart, and 
 who, however haughty to her equals, or to those who con 
 sidered themselves her superiors, was always gentle to her 
 inferiors. 
 
 While thus fortunate in externals, Augusta's heart and 
 mind lived only in the past. She performed her duty faith 
 fully to the children entrusted to her, but with no affection 
 ate interest in them. Their improvement was of less 
 moment to her than was the proud consciousness that she 
 had paid for all she received. Could she have forgotten 
 herself, could she have loved her work and those for whom 
 it was done, how different would have been her life ! Love 
 is the spirit of Heaven ; pride, of Hell. She lived only in 
 the past, we have said, but even from that, pride drew not 
 nutriment, but poison. Her former life seemed completely
 
 228 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 dissevered from her present. She heard nothing from St. 
 Mary's, nothing from Hugh. Miss Drayton was the only 
 one of those she had formerly known, from whom she occa 
 sionally received a letter. It was at this period of her life 
 that the autobiography, with which we commenced our little 
 history, was begun, and the picture to which it alludes, was 
 painted. The other picture, of St. Mary's under a stormy 
 sky, was also painted then. And here we leave her, while 
 we follow the steps of one, in whom we hope our readers 
 feel some little interest.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "Mine honor ia my life ; both grow in one, 
 Take honor from me, and my life is done." SHAKSPEAKH 
 
 WHEN Hugh Moray parted from Augusta, he supposed 
 it to be only for an hour or two. He was going to the navy 
 department, to see the Secretary himself. In his honor he 
 perfectly confided. He would show him his father's letter ; 
 if there had been any treachery practised, this would un 
 mask it ; the Secretary would see the reasonableness of his 
 father's request, and the wisdom of his plans, and so all 
 would be arranged. " L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose." 
 The Secretary's office was closed at the navy department. 
 He was at a cabinet -meeting. Some naval officers were 
 waiting to see him some with anxious faces, which strove 
 in vain to look careless, others with faces stamped by the 
 recklessness of dissipation, who strove in vain to look 
 thoughtful. Among the younger men was Mr. Seton, to 
 whom Hugh bowed, having occasionally met him at Mr. 
 Moray's. 
 
 " Can I see the Secretary ? " asked Hugh of an official, 
 presenting his card, and adding, " I am the son of Commo 
 dore Moray." 
 
 " The Secretary is not here, sir ; but Mr. Saville is." 
 
 " When will the Secretary be here ? '
 
 230 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I really do not know, sir ; he is at a cabinet meeting." 
 
 Hugh turned away, and was leaving the department, 
 when he was joined by Mr. Scton, who said, " I am very 
 glad to see you, Mr. Moray ; I could not venture to call so 
 soon after Mr. Moray's death, and yet, as I sail for the Gulf 
 to-morrow, I wanted to say that I would be glad to take 
 anything you might have to send to the Commodore." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Seton." 
 
 The gentlemen walked silently on for a few minutes, and 
 then Hugh said, " May I ask in what ship you are going 1 " 
 
 " In the ' Porpoise,' a little schooner of about two hun 
 dred tons just the thing for the Gulf service." 
 
 " I am glad they are waking up to that fact at the depart 
 ment ; my father says he cannot do anything without some 
 vessels of light draught." 
 
 Mr. Seton made no comment. 
 
 " I believe you have served with my father, Mr. Seton," 
 said Hugh. 
 
 " I have, Mr. Moray ; and every man who has done so, 
 I believe, loves him certainly, every careless youngster, 
 over whom he has exercised the influence he did on me, 
 must do so. You must lay it to that love, if I ask what 
 may seem to you an impertinent question : Do you know 
 do you think the Commodore knows that Commodore Puffer 
 is to be sent out to the Gulf? It is not positively said that 
 Commodore Moray is to be recalled, but that is the conclu 
 sion ; as every one who knows Commodore Puffer knows he 
 would not accept the position of second in command, and he 
 is the junior of Commodore Moray." 
 
 " Are you sure of this, Mr. Seton ? "' 
 
 " / know that Commodore Puffer lies in Hampton 
 Roads waiting for his orders, which will be carried to him 
 by the Porpoise to-roorrow ; / know that the Porpoise is to 
 go out in company with the Flint, which carries the Com-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 231 
 
 modore himself; I know that both these vessels are to carry 
 out soldiers ; and, without looking into the Commodore's 
 sealed orders, / know we are going to the Gulf of Mexico ; 
 / know, too, that the schooner Dolphin, the fastest sailer in 
 the navy, leaves the navy yard within an hour, and carries 
 despatches to Commodore Moray. What these despatches 
 contain, I do not know, of course ; "but the belief is that 
 they will offer to Commodore Moray the option of asking 
 for a recall or of being superseded by his junior. You have 
 heard, of course, that the troops have not yet been landed, 
 and that the General is becoming impatient." 
 
 " 1 know that it has been impossible to land them for 
 the want of armed vessels of sufficiently light draught, just 
 such vessels as you tell me Commodore Puffer takes with 
 him, and my father has in vain applied for. Do you call 
 this justice, sir? " 
 
 " No, sir," said Mr. Seton, with emphasis, and with excite 
 ment equal to Hugh's. " I was sure there was a cloven foot 
 in the business somewhere, and now I see it was Saville's. 
 I would give my next year's pay, badly as I want it, if 
 Commodore Moray would hold on in spite of them till he 
 had accomplished the business, and then, when there was 
 nothing more to be done, request to be recalled." 
 
 " Could he do so ? would it not be regarded as disobe 
 dience of orders ? " 
 
 " I do not see how it could be, if the despatches that 
 precede Commodore Puffer are only to give him the per 
 mission to resign ; he certainly may refuse that, without 
 any disobedience ; and for the rest, if he had everything 
 prepared, he might go into action as soon as the vessels he 
 wanted arrived, and read Puffer's despatches afterward, 
 when he had leisure." 
 
 " Do you think I shall have time to write by the Dol 
 phin 1 "
 
 232 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Not much," and Scton shook his head ; " if you could 
 go now " 
 
 " Go I could, if I felt sure that that " Hugh hesi 
 tated ; he feared to offend one who certainly wished to serve 
 his father. 
 
 " Sure that my advice was good ; I am but a middy ; 
 yet I think all who love your father would give the same 
 advice. Come with me to the yard and consult Captain 
 Rapall. He is one of your father's warmest friends, and a 
 man of excellent judgment." 
 
 " I will ; but should he advise my going, shall I have 
 time to go back for my trunk before I must be on board 1 " 
 
 " No ; there will not be ten minutes to spare now when 
 we get to the yard ; but stop, here's a darkey who'll drive 
 there, get them, and have them at the yard as quickly as 
 you can be there yourself. If you don't go, you know, it is 
 only to take them back. Holloa, Hannibal ! " 
 
 Hannibal, who was a hackney coachman, received his 
 order, drove to Mr. Moray's, and executed it, as we have 
 seen. 
 
 The young men walked rapidly on. Hugh was thinking 
 too busily to speak. He was weighing the necessity there 
 was of his presence here for Augusta and there for his father ; 
 he was trying to subdue the almost intolerable pain which 
 the thought of her imagining that he could leave her at such 
 a time for anything but an absolute necessity, caused him. 
 
 " If I should go, Mr. Seton," he said, suddenly, " will 
 you do me a great favor ? " 
 
 " Your father's son may command me to the extent of 
 my power." Mr. Seton spoke earnestly, for Hugh's tone 
 was very earnest. 
 
 " After all," said Hugh, smiling, " it is not quite a Her 
 culean task I am going to demand of you. The greatness 
 of the favor lies in its importance to myself. If I go, I must
 
 TWO PICTCKES. 233 
 
 send a few lines to Miss Moray, explaining my not being 
 able to attend her to my mother's. Will you see that she 
 gets it ? I would not like to trust it to an ordinary mes 
 senger." 
 
 " I will deliver it myself before I sail to-morrow," Mr. 
 Seton replied. 
 
 " Into her hand ? " urged Hugh. 
 
 " Into her own hand, if she will permit me." 
 
 They were at the navy yard. Captain Rapall was in his 
 office. Hugh was introduced by Mr. Seton, and detailed 
 the information he had received, and the suggestion that had 
 been made by the young midshipman. Captain Rapall read 
 Captain Moray's letter through with a grim smile, then lay 
 ing it down, he spoke : " That is just your father, sir ; hon 
 orable, unsuspecting, too keenly sensitive for this common, 
 work-a-day world. Such a notion as Seton's of being too 
 busy to read despatches till the action was over would never 
 suggest itself to his guileless soul. lie ought to have lived 
 in Arcadia. But if you can go and induce him to do that 
 very thing, you will save both his life and his honor. No 
 fear of his being tried for disobedience of orders. They 
 know here that a courtmartial would bring out their own 
 crooked dealings ; besides, if he be successful, which he is 
 sure to be, he could afford to be tried ; they would not dare 
 to touch him." 
 
 " Then I will go," exclaimed Hugh. 
 
 " You must be quick ; the sailing signal is flying," said 
 the Captain, pointing, as he spoke, to the trim schooner that 
 lay a few yards from shore in the Potomac. 
 
 " 1 must write a letter first," exclaimed Hugh ; " it is im 
 possible for me to go without." 
 
 "Be quick, then; Seton, run down to the wharf; the 
 Dolphin's boat is just pushing off; call them back tell 
 them to hold on for ten minutes."
 
 234: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Shall I order Mr. Moray's trunk on board, sir ? " asked 
 Seton. 
 
 " Certainly, if it be here ; but we can't wait." 
 
 " Here it is, sir," and Seton hurried off with willing obe 
 dience. 
 
 Captain Rapall seated himself to write a few lines of 
 introduction for Hugh to the commander of the Dolphin, 
 while Hugh himself filled up the check that Augusta had re 
 ceived, and wrote the following note : 
 
 DEAR AUGUSTA : 
 
 Though I know I am doing what you would not forgive 
 me for leaving undone, it is with infinite pain that I leavo 
 you at such a moment. Nothing less than my father's 
 honor, in which I believe his life also bound up, would I put 
 in competition with your need of a friend, who is vowed 
 to do you service as a brother, whether you will honor him 
 by admitting his claim to a brother's place or not. 1 have 
 no time for explanations ; I must trust them to Mr. Seton, 
 who has promised to put this in your own hands. Let me 
 only entreat you, by the memory of your childhood, trust 
 me as your brother, and as a proof that you do so, use the 
 enclosed, and draw on me for whatever you need afterward. 
 It is the only way in which you can show me that I have 
 not offended you in what I am now doing. Charles will go 
 with you to my mother's, where it will be my delight to 
 find you on my return. They will not allow me another 
 moment. IT. MORAY. 
 
 " Fold it quick, Moray ; here is an envelope," cried 
 young Seton. 
 
 " Mr. Moray, the boat will leave you," cried Captain 
 Rapall ; " your ten minutes are gone." 
 
 " Give it to me, you may trust me ; I will seal it, or,
 
 TWO PICTUEES. 235 
 
 better deliver it as it is ; it will show her what haste you 
 were in, and that will plead your excuse for all omissions. 
 Good-by ; I hope you will persuade the Commodore." 
 
 " Good-by ; give that to Miss Moray herself; I can 
 trust you more fully than I can some others in the world," 
 said Hugh, as he sprang into the boat, which had been held 
 within a short distance of the wharf by a signal from 
 Captain Rapall. 
 
 The Dolphin was a fast sailer, and little more than 
 three weeks of northerly winds brought them off Vera Cruz. 
 There lay the Congress, her sails reefed, her anchors down, 
 everything about her trim and clean, and her beautifully 
 proportioned hull and tapering spars reflected in the still, 
 blue water, 
 
 " Just like a painted ship, 
 Upou a painted ocean." 
 
 A peaceful picture it was indeed without, but within the 
 idle soldiers scoffed, enraging the brave tars who loved 
 their kind commander, by wondering if he had come there 
 to show his ship to the castle ; if he was afraid that he 
 should get his pretty toy-boats knocked to pieces, or more 
 red paint on them than pleased his fancy, that he kept them 
 there broiling in the sun, while there stood the Mexicans 
 waiting for them. " Ah ! if the old General could only get 
 ashore, one sight of his noble face, rising a head and shoul 
 ders above any other man's, would send the rascals off in 
 double quick time, before we had time to fire a shot. Just 
 look at him up there now ; wouldn't he like to be at that 
 castle ! I'm afraid he wouldn't be careful enough of your 
 boats to please your nice Commodore." 
 
 Such taunts, daily and hourly repeated, and growing 
 more bitter as time wore on, but for the vigilant eye and 
 strong hand of discipline, might have caused some danger of
 
 36 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 outbreak between the saucy, idle soldiery and the brave tars, 
 each holding their own especial commander free from blame 
 in this enforced delay, for which, in truth, both were respon 
 sible. If the commander-in-chief of the land forces chafed at 
 this idle time he who had already won his crown of laurels 
 in combat against a nobler foe, on the field of Chippewa 
 how must it have galled the sensitive nature of Commodore 
 Moray, now for the first time entrusted with a large, inde 
 pendent command, and supposed by his countrymen at 
 home to be in a position in which he might show what were 
 his true qualities as a leader. Never was sight more wel 
 come to him than the Dolphin, as, with white wings ex 
 panded, she came sailing up that noble harbor, and as she 
 passed the Congress to anchor in her stern, fired her salute 
 of twenty -one guns to the Commodore's flag. The schooner 
 had scarcely anchored when, in obedience to the Commo 
 dore's signal, the gig was lowered and her commander, 
 accompanied by Hugh, took his way to the frigate. 
 
 " Hugh ! my son ! what brought you here ? " cried 
 Commodore Moray, pressing his son r s outstretched hand as 
 he stepped upon the deck, and hardly refraining from a ten 
 derer greeting than he thought becoming before so many 
 witnesses while his troubled eye showed that he felt sure 
 only some sorrow experienced or apprehended could have 
 sent Hugh to his side. 
 
 "All well at home, sir," said Hugh, briefly, and the 
 Commodore's eye brightened as, with an unspoken thanks 
 giving, he turned to give a courteous welcome to the gray- 
 haired, weather-beaten commander of the Dolphin. They 
 descended together to the Commodore's cabin, the Gen 
 eral accompanying them. A quarter of an hour passed, 
 and the General and the commander of the Dolphin again 
 appeared, and with a courteous salute, the first returned to his 
 walk upon the quarter deck, and the other, after a few hurried
 
 TWO PICTURES. 237 
 
 words with the officers standing around, went over the ship's 
 side into his boat, and was pulled back to the Dolphin. 
 
 " Confound his unsociality ; I'd have given him a glass 
 of my best sherry to know that they were going to send us 
 one or two more boats like the Dolphin," cried one of the 
 younger lieutenants, older men only looking their disap 
 pointment. 
 
 Hugh had been introduced by his father to the ship's 
 captain, and stood in conversation with him for a few min 
 utes ; but as soon as he saw that Commodore Moray was 
 alone he became abstracted, and kept both eye and ear intent 
 upon the door of the cabin, beside which the sentinel paced 
 to and fro. It was not lontj before he was summoned. The 
 
 O 
 
 door closed on him, and Commodore Moray held out his 
 hand again, saying, in a voice he strove in vain to make 
 firm, " So you have come to show your father you, at least, 
 are not ashamed of him, Hugh." 
 
 " I should hardly have taken a voyage for such an un 
 necessary object. I had other designs, I assure you, in 
 coming." 
 
 " You do not know, then, that the despatches brought 
 by the Dolphin permit me to resign my command and re 
 turn in her to the United States, as another will be sent 
 out immediately to take my place." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I know that, and yet more ; I can tell you 
 who your successor will be." 
 
 " Puffer, of course ? I see I am right. Well, I must bear 
 it ; but a Mexican ball would have been a less cruel death." 
 
 " Father ! " exclaimed Hugh, as Commodore Moray 
 turned away to hide the heaving chest and moist eyes, of 
 which he need not have been ashamed, " Father ! listen to 
 me, and all this may be redeemed. I come by the advice 
 of your best friends in the navy, to entreat you not to accept 
 this treacherous permission not to resign."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I have no such intention, Hugh ; I shall never turn my 
 back on yonder shore till I have seen the stars and stripes 
 floating there. I shall leave the Congress and go on board 
 the Dolphin ; I will not interfere with Puffer's command ; 
 1 will hoist no broad pennant ; but, since the department has 
 graciously given me command of the Dolphin, I will take 
 her as near to that shore as I can without putting her on it, 
 and every shot she fires shall "tell the world I am no 
 craven." 
 
 The brave old man's eyes flashed, and the veins on his 
 temples stood out like cords. 
 
 How Hugh longed for his mother at that moment, for 
 he felt that only a woman's gentle caressing touch could 
 soothe that agony. He had no words of comfort for it ; he 
 could only say, " This was not what I hoped you would do, 
 father ; it was not what your friends, especially Captain 
 Rapall, through whose advice I came, advised." 
 
 " What then ? " the tone of the question was abrupt. 
 
 " They thought you should retain your command, make 
 all your arrangements for landing the troops " 
 
 " They were made long ago ; I have had nothing to do 
 but study the coast and make plans." 
 
 " Then, they said, order the schooners up as soon as they 
 were near enough to make out your signal, put the troops 
 on board, and commence the attack at once ; they were sure 
 General S would cooperate with you." 
 
 " And where would Puffer be all this time ? " 
 
 " Perhaps in his own ship, perhaps in yours, but he is 
 your junior, and the despatches superseding you, you would 
 be too busy to read till the action was over." Hugh ended 
 with a smile, for he had talked himself, if not his father, into 
 very cheerful anticipations. 
 
 " A very pretty plot, Hugh, a very pretty plot ; but 
 your father was not made for a plotter."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 239 
 
 " But, dear father, there are those at the department 
 who are at war with you, and stratagems are permitted in 
 war." 
 
 " Still, an honorable man would never practise them in 
 a private quarrel." 
 
 " But, father, indeed I can see nothing wrong here. You 
 are the commander of the squadron till displaced by the 
 positive command of the flepartment, which cannot take 
 effect till you receive their despatch." 
 
 " And I, knowing that Commodore Pufler has that des 
 patch in his pocket, refuse to see him, or refuse to receive it 
 till I have executed my own will ! No, Hugh. While I 
 hold my commission I am bound to obey the orders of my 
 government, issued through its legitimate channels ; I do 
 not deny that there are occasions rare occasions when an 
 officer may run the risk of disobedience, but it must not be 
 for his private advantage." 
 
 "Captain Rapall assured me they would not dare to 
 try you, for fear of exposing their own game ; moreover, he 
 said, the country would sustain you if you were successful, 
 and of your success he did not doubt." 
 
 " Nor do I ; it is certain, if we can get within cannon 
 shot of the shore, though it will not be as bloodless as peo 
 ple at home believe ; but is an honorable man obedient only 
 because he fears punishment ? or shall we do evil that good 
 may come ? Wilful disobedience it would be, and I should 
 deserve to be cashiered ; I dread my own verdict quite as 
 much as I do that of a court ; the world may condemn me, 
 but, thank God ! my own conscience will acquit me." 
 
 " Father, will you speak to General S of this be 
 fore you decide? he is a brave and honorable man, and if 
 he" 
 
 " No, Hugh ; I will take counsel of none but my own 
 conscience ; I will strive to do right, let what will come of 
 11
 
 240 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 it, and when Puffer's pennant is in sight, I will haul down 
 mine, though I would rather cutoff my right hand than give 
 it such work to do ; and I will go on board the Dolphin, 
 simple Captain Moray." 
 
 And from this determination, though sleepless nights 
 and days of painful thoughts left their impress on his pale, 
 stern face, Captain Moray never swerved. When, two days 
 after Hugh's arrival, Commodore Puffer's flag appeared on 
 board the Flint which entered the harbor, followed at no 
 great distance by two other sloops of war, Commodore Mo 
 ray himself drew down his pennon, and with his son and 
 secretary descended to his gig and was rowed to the Dol 
 phin. It w'as a touching scene, and perhaps, could Commo 
 dore Moray have known the feelings of admiring deference 
 with which all, from the gallant General to the humblest tar, 
 regarded him at that moment, he would have felt him 
 self repaid for his outward humiliation. Something of it he 
 did know, for as soon as it was rumored that he was to 
 transfer his flag to the Dolphin, and suspected that it was 
 his intention to bring her into action, more officers and sail 
 ors volunteered to accompany him than the little craft could 
 have accommodated. Hugh knew by the glistening eyes 
 and heaving bosom of his father how these demonstrations 
 touched his heart. It was then first that it became known 
 to all on board that Commodore Moray was to be super 
 seded by Commodore Puffer in the command of the 
 squadron, and that he would return home in the Dolphin. 
 
 It was a lovely day when Commodore Puffer at length 
 arrived. The clear, blue summer sky was reflected un 
 broken in the almost waveless sea, as Commodore Moray 
 descended for the last time the frigate's side. Every man 
 was at his post, and as, after shaking hands with the officers, 
 the Commodore looked around him with a mute gesture of 
 farewell, one loud spontaneous cheer burst from the men.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 That heart-stirring sound had scarcely died away when 
 it was echoed back from the Dolphin, as Commodore 
 Moray stepped upon her deck, and again the men on board 
 the frigate caught the dying sounds and sent them back 
 across the wave, and as the Commodore's flag streamed out 
 from the little Vessel, it was saluted by the camion of both 
 ships. 
 
 " I am afraid that will not please Puffer," said Commo 
 dore Moray, as he saw the first flash from the frigate, " and, 
 indeed, Mr. Pitman," turning to the lieutenant command 
 ing the Dolphin, " I did not intend to hoist my flag on 
 board. I have no command now. I am but your pas 
 senger ; though, with your permission, I shall detain the 
 Dolphin till after the attack is made, and assume com 
 mand of her for that one day." 
 
 " We shall all be proud to be so commanded, sir ; and 
 we hope you will let us bear your pennant. Commodore 
 Puffer will not break his heart, we may hope, at carrying a 
 blue flag instead of a red for a few days." 
 
 " We will not try his magnanimity so far," said Com 
 modore Moray, with a melancholy smile, " he is Commo 
 dore of the squadron, not I ; that pennant must be lowered, 
 Mr. Pitman." 
 
 The last words were in a tone that admitted of no 
 remonstrance, and the order was obeyed promptly, though 
 with reluctance. 
 
 Commodore Puffer's flag was soon after saluted. A 
 really active and meritorious officer, notwithstanding the 
 vanity which made him sometimes forgetful of the claims 
 of brother officers as deserving as himself, but less self-con 
 scious, he lost no time in entering on his new duties. The 
 salute had scarcely ceased when he presented himself on 
 board the frigate to confer with the commander-in-chief. 
 He had expected to meet Commodore Moray also on board,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 butrfinding that he had already withdrawn to the Dolphin, 
 he sent his secretary to that vessel with a note, requesting 
 the Commodore to join their conference. Commodore Mo 
 ray declined to do this, but sent back the plan which he hud 
 himself drawn up for the landing of the troops and the as 
 sault to be made by the ships upon the castle and town, for 
 the purpose of covering their landing. In this plan there 
 was one point marked, " Important, but, I fear, not to be 
 attained. It may be held with comparative safety, if it can 
 be reached." In his note the Commodore wrote, " It is my 
 intention not to leave the harbor till after the attack, for per 
 sonal reasons, as well as because I believe the Dolphin may 
 do good service on that day. You will find on the plan 
 sent a point marked ' Important, but, I fear, not to be at 
 tained, &c ; ' if you will leave that to the Dolphin, her 
 commander will try to give you a good account of it ; I ask 
 this as a favor to myself." 
 
 The favor was, of course, granted, in a note in which Com 
 modore Puffer acknowledged the value of the plan submitted 
 to him, and said that, as the commander-in-chief entirely 
 approved of it, and as it was of the first importance to act 
 immediately, he should not delay for any further examina 
 tion, but would commence the action the next day at 8 
 A. M. This was followed by information respecting signals, 
 and the note concluded thus : " If more men are wanted on 
 board the Dolphin, they may be detached from the 
 frigate." Commodore Moray sent a note that evening to 
 Capt. Kecler of the frigate, requesting him to send him 
 twenty men, adding that, as it was a sort of "forlorn hope" 
 that he was about to lead, he should like to have volunteers 
 for it. Accordingly Capt. Keeler, after assembling the men 
 on deck, and making a little speech, in which he said that 
 their gallant old Commodore wanted twenty men for the 
 Dolphin, which he should himself command during the
 
 TWO ricxuKEs. 243 
 
 fight the next day, and which he meant to station where she 
 would get the most balls of any ship in action, asked, " Who 
 will be one of the twenty 1 " 
 
 " I I I " rang over the ship, in such a shout that it 
 was difficult to know, not who had spoken, but who had 
 been silent ; and after he had selected the twenty whom he 
 supposed most serviceable from those who offered, ten 
 others urged their claim so earnestly, that they were per 
 mitted to present themselves to Commodore Moray, who 
 would not reject the brave fellows. 
 
 The morning sun rose calm and clear ; the healthful 
 breeze stirred the blue waves into quicker life, and filled the 
 Vi'hite canvas as the ships, no longer held by their anchors, 
 were turned with their prows toward the shore. Those 
 ships looked little like bearers of wounds and death; as 
 their gay flags streamed out upon the air, their bands played 
 their inspiriting marches, and officers and men, dressed as 
 for a gala day, and wearing the cheerful faces that would 
 befit a gala day, took each his post. It has always seemed 
 to us that in naval warfare a courage of nobler character 
 was required than in contests on the land. In the last, th.e 
 blood is stirred by the rush to meet the enemy, by the 
 actual fight, often hand to hand with a visible foe, so that 
 something of personal feeling almost necessarily mingles in 
 the encounter. But he who stands to serve the cannon, to 
 pilot the ship, or to direct the manoeuvres in a naval engage 
 ment, must do all with the cool, collected courage of one 
 who stands there to do his duty even unto death, yet with 
 nothing to give a quicker flow to the blood, or to awaken the 
 feelings that are stirred in the most peaceable by a personal 
 assault. 
 
 The narration of this morning's events belongs to his 
 tory. Our business is with the little schooner, which car 
 ries those in whose fortunes we have an especial interest.
 
 244 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Commodore Moray would have had Hugh go back 
 to the Congress, telling him that it was not his duty to 
 remain, and even that his presence Avould interfere with his 
 own calmness in action ; but Hugh suggested that it would 
 discourage his men, if they saw him sending his own son 
 out of the battle into which he was leading them. 
 
 " But remember your mother arid sisters, Hugh, how 
 much they will need you if anything happen to me." 
 
 " I will not forget them, father, I will not expose myself 
 unnecessarily ; but I may be of use to you I shall at least 
 know all that happens to you." 
 
 Commodore Moray yielded. lie had taken the com 
 mand of the Dolphin, and now stood upon her deck 
 dressed in the full uniform of his rank, with a face that was 
 pale with concentrated feeling, but with a more cheerful 
 countenance than he had shown for many weeks. There 
 was a smile in his eyes, if not upon his lips, and the men on 
 board, taking their tone from what they supposed to be his, 
 laughed lightly as the formidable artillery of the Castle 
 opened its fire on the approaching ships, while they were 
 yet too distant to be touched by it. The sound of that 
 laugh aroused a new train of thought with Captain Moray. 
 He measured their distance from the Castle with his eye, 
 glanced at the course he had himself marked for the ship, 
 and ordered Lieutenant Pitman to direct the men to corne 
 aft, while he said a few words to the chaplain of the ship. 
 
 " My men," he said, when all except the helmsman stood 
 there before him, " we are going into no child's play, we 
 are not afraid of death when we meet it in our country's 
 service; but we shall not meet it with less courage for 
 knowing that it will give us entrance into heaven. A short 
 prayer from the chaplain, and then every man to his post." 
 
 Every head was uncovered, and bowed with at least the 
 aspect of solemn reverence as the chaplain asked the mercy
 
 TWO PICTURES. 245 
 
 of Heaven on the bodies and souls not only of those present, 
 but of all who were that day to meet in combat, whether 
 friend or foe. 
 
 We know there are those to whom such prayer, under 
 such circumstances, would seem an impious mockery ; but 
 not so do we regard it not so are we taught by Him to 
 whom all human wisdom is but folly. It was when the hands 
 of Moses were lifted to Heaven that Israel prevailed. Little 
 do those know of magnanimity who cannot conceive of a man 
 praying for the enemy and doing good to him as he has 
 opportunity, against whom he will yet fight so long as he 
 stands in opposition to his country, or to the cause which he 
 has pledged himself to support. 
 
 " Every man to his post ; and remember, live or die, 
 our country will know how we have done our duty this 
 day." 
 
 The order was obeyed with alacrity ; and if after this 
 the tone of the men was less gay, it was not less manly. 
 The merriment of the scoffing infidel, in the presence of 
 death, is a poor bravado, meant to hide from others the 
 heart which he feels to be trembling within him. It is the 
 Christian alone who can be at once wise and brave. 
 
 Still, for some minutes after this, the Dolphin pur 
 sued a course outside the line within which fell the shot 
 from the castle ; but when she had arrived opposite the 
 point marked out for her station during the landing of the 
 troops, the prow was suddenly turned shoreward. The men 
 had been ordered to shelter themselves, as far as it was pos 
 sible to do so, till the station at which they aimed was 
 reached. The guns of the little schooner could do little 
 against the castle, but she could do good service, first by 
 drawing its fire upon herself, while the boats from the other 
 vessels were landing the soldiers, and after she had reached 
 her proposed station, by preventing sallies from the castle,
 
 246 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 as her shot would completely rake the plain between the 
 castle and the spot selected for the landing of the American 
 forces. Within a few minutes after the Dolphin's course 
 was changed, the shot from the enemy began to fall thick 
 and fast around her. The men were sheltered, as we have 
 said the helmsman alone excepted. Some attempt had 
 been made, by order of Commodore Moray, to strengthen 
 the shelter provided for him, but it seemed only to offer a 
 mark for attack, and was soon knocked to pieces, and the 
 man himself so wounded, that he fell helpless on the deck. 
 Another started forward to take his place. 
 
 " Back ! buck, sir ! " shouted Commodore Moray, as he 
 stepped at once to the spot, beside which he had stood to 
 deliver his orders more rapidly, and seized the wheel himself. 
 
 " Pardon me, sir," said Mr. Pitman, springing to 'iris 
 side, " but that is my place rather than yours." 
 
 " Your place is the one I assigned to you, sir ! back to 
 it, this instant ! " again shouted the Commodore, too impera 
 tively to be disobeyed. 
 
 Fast and furious fell that iron hail ; and still, though 
 some of her spars were carried away and her sails torn, the 
 gallant craft held on her way with one form only rising 
 above her bulwarks the form of Commodore Moray. 
 Every eye on the deck was turned to him, and none saw an 
 instant's change in that smiling eye and calm face* Hugh 
 saw him not, for his father had taken care to give him em 
 ployment with the surgeon below. Long it seemed as if he 
 bore a charmed life, but at length a sudden spasm contract 
 ed his brow, and his right arm fell helpless to his side. 
 Scarcely paler than before, scarcely less cheerful was his 
 face, as he laid his left hand on the wheel, and moved so as 
 to use it with effect ; the blood soaked his sleeve, and ran in 
 a little stream where he stood, but the strong spirit did not 
 falter. Another ball shattered his thich ; he bent to his
 
 TWO PICTURES. 247 
 
 knee, yet still his hand grasped the wheel, and even as he 
 sank into unconsciousness, his fainting voice uttered, " Not 
 yet ! back for one moment ! " to those who approached to 
 bear him below. But there was little farther need for 
 such an order. They had got beyond the line which it had 
 seemed madness to enter. Her hull leaking badly, her sails 
 hanging, one mast shot away, and lying a helpless ruin on 
 deck, the Dolphin slowly, with the help of a single sail, 
 reached her station and began the work assigned her. It 
 was brave work, and those who saw it felt that no ship had 
 done more for the cause than had the Dolphin, as her 
 fire, steadily and skilfully delivered, again and again drove 
 back the advancing foe. 
 
 Two days after the landing of the forces, the Congress 
 was sent home with those who had been seriously wounded. 
 Commodore Moray occupied his former cabin, in which a 
 hammock had been slung for Hugh. His leg and part of 
 his thigh had been amputated ; but the surgeon still hoped 
 that his arm might be saved. He was too weak to do any 
 thing but look his wishes, and to- Hugh's anxious inquiries 
 the surgeon could only answer with hopes. Before they 
 arrived in New York, to which port the ship had been 
 ordered by Commodore Puffer, principally on Commodore 
 Moray's account, fever had set in, which lent him tempora 
 ry strength, even while diminishing the chance of his ultimate 
 recovery. The surgeon, though desiring to keep him silent, 
 could not prevent his speaking to Hugh at this time. " Hugh, 
 there is one thing I must say to you," he began, as soon as 
 he had strength for speech. 
 
 " We shall have time enough for it by and by, father, 
 better not exhaust yourself now." 
 
 " We know not what time we shall have, and I must say 
 it. They told you, I heard them, that I had exposed myself 
 madly thrown away my life. That would have been un-
 
 2-18 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Christian. They did not know, Hugh, that there was some 
 personal feeling mingling with the motives that made mo 
 volunteer for that service I am afraid the personal feeling 
 was the strongest," and a groan, which his physical suffering 
 had never wrung from him, quivered from his pale lips : 
 " God forgive me 1 I felt when that poor helmsman fell at 
 my feet he is better now, Hugh ? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " I felt then as if he had fallen, not in the service of his 
 country, but in my personal quarrel ; it was a terrible 
 pang, and I determined none but I should take that exposed 
 place while God gave me life and strength to hold it. Tell 
 your mother how it was, Hugh, and do not let her think 
 1 threw away the life she valued, and which was God's, not 
 mine." 
 
 " You will tell her yourself, dear father," said Hugh ; 
 " to-morrow evening we shall be in New York." 
 
 Before the Congress had reached New York, the news 
 of the landing of the forces by the fleet under the command 
 of Commodore Puffer, had been carried there by the tele 
 graph from New Orleans. For some days the daily papers, 
 throughout the country, were as eulogistic of that officer as 
 if he had himself written the articles treating of the event. 
 How bitterly fell these articles, full of ungenerous com 
 ments on the incapacity of him whom Commodore Puffer had 
 superseded, upon the hearts of the little household at Eliza- 
 bethtown. They could have borne any wound better than 
 one that reached them through his sensitive heart. Mrs. 
 Moray never lost her faith in him for an instant. 
 
 " Oh ! mamma, if he had only landed them ! " cried the 
 weeping, excited Lily. 
 
 " Wait, Lily, you will find he has done all that was his 
 duty." 
 
 A few days before the arrival of the Congress, a new
 
 TWO PICTtTRES. 240 
 
 light began to dawn upon the public. A letter from the 
 commander-in-chief had given honor where honor was due, 
 without breathing the spirit of a champion against wrong. 
 By a simple detail of facts, it was seen that no means of cov 
 ering the landing of troops had been given to Commodore 
 Moray ; that Commodore Puffer had been able to act so 
 promptly only because he found everything prepared for 
 him ; that the plan of operations, which had been so much 
 lauded, had been given by Commodore Moray to his suc 
 cessor, and that the most difficult and dangerous part of that 
 plan had been undertaken and executed by himself. 
 
 The papers, with more or less grace, unsaid their says, 
 so far as they reflected on him who was now acknowledged 
 to be the true hero of the day. Transparencies of Commo 
 dore Puffer's full-length likeness figured, it is true, at all the 
 illuminations, and over the doors of the Whig headquarters 
 in every town Commodore Puffer was a whig but every 
 one knew that the transparencies, having been painted, must 
 be used, and the democratic party soon had Commodore 
 Moray suspended over their headquarters. It is true, the 
 likeness was not very good, as Commodore Moray had 
 never been thought a man of sufficient importance to be 
 asked to sit for his picture ; but the transparency was, we 
 must acknowledge, much handsomer than the Commodore 
 himself, so he surely had no reason to complain ; and 
 besides that, the artist had guarded against mistakes by 
 labelling his picture, Commodore James Moray. It could 
 scarcely have been mistaken by any who had read the letter 
 sent by Mr. Seton, though without his name, to the New 
 York Herald, giving a detailed account of the action, since 
 the moment chosen for representation was that in which the 
 Commodore was sinking to the deck under his second 
 wound, while his left hand still grasped the wheel, and his 
 right hung useless at his side. The city of New York had
 
 250 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 promised itself the enjoyment of a grand demonstration 
 in a public reception of the Commodore, in expectation of 
 which one alderman had bought up large quantities of pow 
 der, and another had speculated in fireworks, both intend 
 ing to sell out to the city, of course, doubling their money. 
 Both these gentlemen felt themselves aggrieved when they 
 understood that Commodore Moray's condition was such as 
 to render rejoicings at his reception somewhat ill-timed. 
 Had not an astute associate suggested that public rejoicings 
 at the success to which he had so largely contributed would 
 be admissible, even if the Commodore should prove to be 
 mortally wounded, they would have changed sides and 
 backed Commodore Puffer as the hero of the day. The 
 same gentleman added that, should the Commodore die on 
 his way home, the city would doubtless pay well for funeral 
 honors, out of which a pretty thing might be made with 
 good management. So the two city fathers took the Com 
 modore's reputation again under their guardianship, hasten 
 ing their preparations for the rejoicings, lest. the funeral at 
 which the fireworks and much of the powder would be 
 unnecessary, might interfere with them. It was in conse 
 quence of this haste that the Congress anchored amidst a 
 blaze of light thrown across the bay from the illuminated 
 city, and that the wounded men, many of them delirious 
 with fever, were disturbed by the booming of cannon long 
 after the surgeons had hoped to see them lulled to repose 
 by the cessation of motion in the ship. Early the next 
 morning, when the sun was scarcely an .hour high, a boat 
 approached the Congress from the navy yard. In her stern 
 sat the Commodore of the yard, and beside him a lady, who 
 was so closely veiled and shawled that it was not easy to 
 distinguish either face or figure ; yet, as she was handed 
 with respectful attention to the deck, Hugh Moray recog 
 nized his mother in the movements so full of gentle dignity,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 251 
 
 and hastened to her side. She raised her veil, and all read 
 in the pale, but beautiful face, the sorrow which has no 
 words. To the mute questioning of her melancholy eyes, 
 Hugh answered, "Alive, dear mother, and I hope he will 
 know you, and be better for the knowledge," yet there was 
 something in his voice which forbade her to hope. 
 
 " You may trust my mother's self-command," said Hugh, 
 turning to the surgeon. 
 
 ' 1 hope so," was the reply, in a tone which showed 
 how needful it was considered, and the surgeon preceded 
 them into the Commodore's cabin, intimating by a gesture 
 that they should wait a moment at the door. 
 
 It was but a moment, and he passed out, bidding them 
 enter. Commodore Moray looked up with an agitated 
 smile, " My wife ! " 
 
 A silent, quivering kiss upon his trembling lips, a soft, 
 caressing hand upon his gray locks, was her greeting. She 
 could not speak, lest sobs should come with her words she 
 turned aside her face that the big, silent tears should not 
 drop upon his. He closed his eyes for a moment, and 
 brushing away her tears, she pressed her lips to his broad 
 forehead. He looked up with a faint smile, and whispered, 
 " Did you know I had left part of myself behind me ?" 
 
 " I know you have brought me all I value in your own 
 great heart, my hero ! " 
 
 He smiled ; such praise was sweet to his childlike, 
 loving heart. 
 
 " How did you hear ? " he asked a moment afterward. 
 
 " Through the papers ; letters were sent by the way of 
 New Orleans all the world knows now what I knew 
 always " Her voice was choked it was not the present 
 sorrow that overcame her, for that she had nerved herself. 
 It was the memory of those long years of injustice under
 
 252 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 which his life ha^ faded away in silent sorrow, and to vindi 
 cate himself from which he had faced such deadly peril. 
 
 Dr. Maxwell, the surgeon, soon became convinced that 
 Commodore Moray could have no nurse like his wife ; 
 and as it was impossible that he should remain on board 
 the Congress, which Commodore Puffer had requested 
 should be ordered back to the Gulf, it was determined to 
 attempt to convey him to his home at Elizabethtown. This 
 was rendered comparatively easy by the ready civilities of 
 railroad corporations and steamboat directors, all pleased 
 to bring their names before the public in connection with 
 one whom all now delighted to honor. A steamboat came 
 alongside of the Congress, and received the Commodore, 
 who was lifted on board in his couch, and accompanied by 
 his surgeon and son, and by eight or ten stout sailors who 
 were to bear him from the steamboat at Jersey City to the 
 special car, which had been offered by the railroad com 
 pany for his use, and from which several seats had been 
 removed to make room for his couch. The same men at 
 tended him in the car, and bore him with careful tread to 
 his own home, asking as their reward to be allowed before 
 they went, to press their old commander's hand, in token 
 of their love and reverence, and positively refusing the 
 money that Hugh would have pressed on their acceptance. 
 And at every place at which they stopped on the route, 
 crowds paused to gaze with eager eyes upon the carriage, or 
 the curtained couch, that contained one who but a little while 
 ago had walked amonjr thorn with " none to do him rev- 
 
 CJ O 
 
 erence." 
 
 Let us close this sad and " o'er true talc." The sum 
 mer passed away with varying hopes and fears to those 
 with every cord of whose loving hearts, the brave old vet 
 eran's life seemed bound. Autumn came, and clinging to 
 the hope which grew fainter day by day. they said, " The
 
 TWO PICTURES. 253 
 
 bracing air will revive him ;" but he shrank from it. What 
 braced them, chilled his exhausted frame. He had- been 
 able, after his leg had healed, to sit in a large chair for sev 
 eral hours each day, and even occasionally to take a turn or 
 two across the room with Hugh's assistance and the use of 
 a cane ; but day by day, as the winter came on, his strength 
 decreased, he sat up less, and at length there came a day 
 when he begged to have a couch placed beside his bed, and 
 only to be helped from the one to the other. These changes 
 formed sad epochs to the loving heart which had shared his 
 griefs and watched beside his bed of suffering without one 
 selfish thought. When the couch was brought, her gentle 
 hand smoothed its pillows, and as he laid his head upon 
 them, he looked up with his old, sweet smile, and said, 
 " How sweet it is to have you to nurse me, darling." 
 
 She could bear no more. Falling on her knees beside 
 him, the long repressed agony burst forth. Her tears and 
 kisses, mingled, fell upon his hands, his cheeks, his lips, and 
 when he passed his arm around her neck and drew her head 
 to his bosom, she lay there and sobbed as a weary child 
 sobs on its mother's breast. Not a word was spoken till 
 her sobs had ceased, though her tears still dropped and her 
 kisses were pressed upon the hand that embraced her ; then 
 he said, " I am glad, darling, since we were to part, that it 
 was so they cannot refuse you the pension now." 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! it would be to me the price of your 
 blood," she answered, in a hoarse whisper, and with a 
 shudder. 
 
 " You must not feel so, love. You know if they had 
 left me undisturbed, we must have had the fight just the 
 same." 
 
 " No ! oh no ! not the same. You would not have been 
 there I " 
 
 " Some one must have been and this was God's order- 
 injr."
 
 254 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Yes there was the one stilling thought. It was God's 
 ordering ; and more and more, as the gloom settled down 
 upon them, they anchored themselves upon it. Some 
 earthly consolations they still had. Commodore Moray's 
 native State, New Jersey, voted him, by its Legislature, the 
 gift of a handsome sword. As he could not go to the cap 
 ital to receive it, it was sent to him. His name and Vera 
 Cruz were engraved on the golden handle. 
 
 " You will keep it for your children, Hugh/' said the 
 veteran, as, after examining it, he placed it in his son's 
 hand. 
 
 Congress met, and in the speeches of senators and repre 
 sentatives, allusion was made to the gallantry of Commodore 
 Moray ; and the navy department was questioned why one 
 who had proved himself fitted for any command should have 
 been displaced, and a life so valuable to the country, im 
 perilled by the position which it was rumored he had been 
 compelled to assume in vindication of his own honor ; to 
 which questions the department replied somewhat oracularly, 
 yet in terms of high compliment to the wounded Commo 
 dore. Last of all there came a letter from the Secretary 
 himself, written with his own hand, and marked private, in 
 which, without alluding to the past, he complimented Com 
 modore Moray's gallantry, regretted his wound, and assured 
 him the government as well as the people of the country 
 were ready to do everything that could manifest their regard 
 for him. 
 
 " Then they will not refuse a pension to my family," 
 was the Commodore's thought as he read these words. 
 
 We have narrated these testimonials, because, trifling as 
 they may seem, they were very dear to the dying officer. 
 Little do those who, to serve some party end, cast a slur 
 upon our gallant navy, representing the vices or indolence 
 of a few as characteristic of the whole, know how coldly and
 
 TWO PICTURES. 255 
 
 heavily fall their words upon the men who have looked to 
 their country's approbation as the great reward for all their 
 years of self-denial and of hardship. 
 
 But, pleasant as they might be, there carne an hour when 
 these things sounded like the far-off murmurs of a dream, 
 when the loving hearts around that couch would have given 
 all the fame, all the hope of fortune, for one word more 
 from the still lips, one glance from the closed eyes, when 
 the last tender whispers were dearer than would have been 
 the loud huzzas of millions. But all was over, and to him 
 who lay there so still and cold, human love and human glory 
 were alike nothing. 

 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " Not so sick, my lord, 
 
 As she is troubled with thick coining fancies, 
 That keep her from her rest." SHAKSPE ABB. 
 
 AND during all these months had Hugh been quite for 
 getful of Augusta ? That was impossible. The love, which 
 has its birth in the untouched heart of a boy, which has 
 grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength, 
 which has given life to his hopes and vigor to his action, 
 being the very mould in which his life has shaped itself 
 such a love is not forgotten easily even in one of ordinary 
 firmness of character and tenacity of affection ; and the firm 
 ness of Hugh's character, the tenacity of his affections, was 
 not ordinary. 
 
 Mr. Seton had been faithful to his trust ; he delivered, 
 what he supposed a note from Augusta, safely. Hugh 
 waited till he was alone to open it, and found his check re 
 turned, without a word. His first feeling was of indigna 
 tion. " Proud, foolish girl ! " he exclaimed, as he tore the 
 paper into bits and scattered it to the winds ; " you may 
 live to feel the want of the friend you have rejected." 
 
 For a few days this conviction brought with it a 
 certain sense of satisfaction, but softer feelings were soon 
 awakened. 
 
 " Poor child ! What does she know of the life that is
 
 TWO PICTURES. 257 
 
 opening before her. She must be saved from it, if possi 
 ble," and Hugh wrote to Mr. Mortimer, asking his aid in 
 accomplishing this object. 
 
 " I owed her uncle for money expended on my collegiate 
 and professional education. I always intended to pay it as 
 soon as I could. I can now, and as he is not living to re 
 ceive it, it is justly hers not only justly, but legally. Im 
 press this upon her, I entreat you, since she refuses to hear 
 me." 
 
 To this letter Mr. Mortimer replied that he did not even 
 know where Augusta was, his correspondence with her 
 being carried on through Miss Drayton, whose address in 
 Virginia he enclosed to Hugh. 
 
 " I cannot be your medium of communication with 
 Augusta," he added, " for she has declared that any mention 
 of any one, with whom she was associated in the past, ex 
 cept Charity, her old nurse, will at once put an end to our 
 correspondence. Poor child ! Her trial has been great, 
 and with no true faith in the divine, how can she be other 
 wise than distrustful of the human ! She says, if she is ever 
 to recover strength, it must be through forgetfulness ; her 
 own words are, ' my past is indeed dead let it be buried 
 out of my sight.' " 
 
 Miss Drayton, to whom Hugh next applied, had also 
 promised not to mention anything connected with Augusta's 
 past life in her correspondence, but her womanly ingenuity 
 found a way to reconcile her promise with her wishes. Pain 
 ful and inconvenient as travelling was in her imperfect health, 
 she went to New York and found her way to Mrs. Price's 
 door. It was between eleven and twelve in the day when 
 she rang at the door. Visitors were not usually admitted 
 at that hour, and the man who opened the door hesitated for 
 a moment ; but Miss Drayton was wrapped in an India 
 shawl, and Mrs. Price's servants had been taught to pay
 
 258 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 respect to India shawls, so Miss Dray ton was admitted 
 into the reception room as a small, tastefully furnished 
 parlor was called and her card was carried to Augusta, 
 who was engaged with her pupils. The next moment Mrs. 
 Price, who was languidly descending the stairs to her car 
 riage, was astonished beyond the power of expression at 
 being, as she afterward expressed it, " literally swept out 
 of the way " by her governess, who, haughty to all others, 
 had ever been proudly deferential proudly humble, we 
 might have said, for there is no contradiction in the w r ords 
 in her manner to her employer. She was scarcely less 
 surprised, when she looked up to question the meaning of 
 this, to see that there was color on the marble cheeks, and 
 the play of feeling on the chiselled features, which, till then, 
 seemed to her so sternly still. 
 
 " Why, Miss Moray ! " she cried, but cried in vain ; 
 Augusta did not hear her. " After all, she is beautiful," she 
 said to herself, " but she must have a lesson." 
 
 Perhaps the lesson was none the less sharp for the per 
 ception of the beauty. She had seen a card in Augusta's 
 hand, and watched her till she entered the reception room. 
 
 " Edouard ! " she cried, as she reached the door of the 
 reception room, raising rather, than lowering the tone of her 
 voice as she spoke, " Comment a-t-il arrive que vous avez 
 admis un visiteur a Mademoiselle Moray a cette heure ; ne 
 savez vous pas qu'elle est engagee, de rigueur, jusque deux 
 heures?" 
 
 All Mrs. Price's servants were French, and it would 
 have shocked her to give an order in the English language. 
 
 " Mais, Madame" began Edouard. 
 
 " II n'y a pas de raison pour une telle chose. Ne le 
 faites jamais encore c'est tout." 
 
 Augusta was in Miss Drayton's arms, feeling her heart 
 beat with a sensation unknown to her for months, pressing
 
 TWO PICTURES. 259 
 
 her tremulous lips again and again to the hand that rested on 
 her shoulder, when these words reached her ear. Disengag 
 ing herself from Miss Dray ton's arms, she stood haughtily 
 erect till the " c'est tout," told her that all was said ; then 
 she stepped toward the door ; but Miss Dray ton arrested 
 her, and passing before her, presented herself to Mrs. Price 
 just as that lady's velvet mantilla was disappearing through 
 the inner door of the vestibule, while Edouard stood pre 
 pared to throw open the outer one at her approach. 
 
 " Permit me, madam, to speak to you for one moment, 
 if you please," said Miss Dray ton. 
 
 There was something in the very tone which announced 
 a woman of gentle breeding, and when Mrs. Price had turned 
 and* seen Miss Dray ton, there was a quiet dignity about 
 her, aided a little, perhaps, by " that love of a cashmere," 
 which enforced courtesy. 
 
 " You will pardon my having called at such an unsea 
 sonably early hour ; I was impatient to see my young 
 friend. Indeed, the desire to see her, after so many months 
 of absence, was the only incentive to a winter journey from 
 Virginia to New York a formidable thing to an invalid ; 
 but I will not now trespass on your courtesy and Miss 
 Moray's time longer than to ask if she will be at liberty to 
 come to me this afternoon, after two o'clock, at my friend, 
 Mrs. Gerald Rashleigh's ] " 
 
 Now it so happened that Mrs. Gerald Rashleigh was to 
 Mrs. Price what Mordecai had been to Haman. Mrs. Rash 
 leigh's was the only desirable circle in New York into which 
 she had vainly sought to obtain her entree. 
 
 " And she has such delightful foreign society, you know. 
 Why, do you know, she came to church one Sunday last 
 winter with an English lord and a French count in her car 
 riage at the same time, and one of them, the Englishman, 
 I believe, stayed with her for several days ; I should really
 
 200 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 like to know her, for the sake of my daughters." A degree 
 of forethought for her daughters, this, which was truly hon 
 orable to her maternal love, considering the very tender 
 age of those daughters. This little digression will explain 
 to the reader the cause of that almost obsequious deference 
 with which Mrs. Price was according her permission to this 
 arrangement, when Augusta stepped forward, saying, " I 
 shall be quite at liberty at " she glanced at her watch, 
 " say a quarter past two. 1 have some minutes to make up, 
 you know." 
 
 " Then Mrs. Rashleigh begged me to say that she would 
 be here in her carriage at, shall I say a quarter to three ? 
 can you be ready in half an hour 1 " 
 
 " Oh yes ! but Mrs. Rashleigh's coming is quite unne 
 cessary." 
 
 " She insists on it, and she says you must take it as a 
 call, \vhich would have been paid long ago, if she had known 
 where to find you." 
 
 " She is very kind, but I neither receive visits nor pay 
 them, except to you ; and now I must leave you. Good 
 ly." 
 
 Augusta bent to receive her friend's kiss. 
 
 " Pray do not go, Miss Moray," began Mrs. Price, 
 who had stood in the vestibule during this colloquy. 
 
 " Excuse me, madam ; I am engaged, de rigueur, until 
 two o'clock," and with her usual bow of proud deference, 
 she ascended the stairs, leaving Miss Dray ton still below. 
 
 " Our young friend is unpeu tropjiere" said Mrs. Price, 
 with a smiling glance at the ascending form. 
 
 " She cannot readily adjust herself, perhaps, to her new 
 circumstances ? " said Miss Drayton, kindly. 
 
 " Oh ! I cannot say that ; she makes a capital governess, 
 and never obtrudes herself, which saves a great deal of 
 awkwardness I mean to herself," said Mrs. Price, hastily,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 261 
 
 suspecting by a slight tinge on Miss Drayton' s cheek that 
 she was not commending herself to the friend of Mrs. Ger 
 ald Rashleigh ; " we should be glad to see more of her." 
 
 Miss Drayton only answered by a bow, and moved 
 toward the door, beside which Edouard still stood. lie 
 opened it, and both the ladies passed out. Mrs. Rashleigh's 
 carriage was in waiting for Miss Drayton. 
 
 " Pray come whenever it suits you to see your friend," 
 said Mrs. Price, as she turned to hers, which was also there. 
 " It was on her account that I gave the order you may have 
 overheard to Edouard j she dislikes very much to receive 
 visits." 
 
 Miss Drayton bowed coldly and went on her way, quite 
 as well au fait of the lady's meaning as was Augusta her 
 self, and feeling that her house, with all its grandeur, was 
 not the place in which she would have chosen that her 
 young friend should commence her new career. 
 
 Mrs. Rashleigh was punctual to the appointed hour. 
 Augusta was punctual, too, and presented herself as soon as 
 she heard the footman inquire for her, not permitting Mrs. 
 Rashleigh to descend from her carriage, as she was prepar 
 ing to do. 
 
 A single glance at Mrs. Rashleigh, as she held out her 
 hand to assist her, and seated her beside her in the carriage, 
 was enough to disarm Augusta of half that reserve from 
 which, as from a shield of glittering ice, the obtrusive sym 
 pathy of the little minded, or the insolent assumption of the 
 vulgar crowd fell harmless. So far did this lady win her 
 confidence before they parted on this day, that Augusta 
 promised sometimes to visit her. 
 
 " Will you let me call for you sometimes on Sunday ? 
 or are you, like your friend Miss Drayton, too much of a 
 churchwomnn to go with me we are Presbyterians at
 
 262 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 least the church we attend is Presbyterian ; where do you 
 go?" 
 
 " Nowhere, in New York ; I have no pew, you know," 
 she added to Miss Drayton, who had exclaimed at this. 
 
 " You must not say that again, Miss Moray," said Mrs. 
 Rashleigh, taking her hand kindly in hers. " 1 shall call for 
 you on Sunday next, and you will remember, after that, you 
 have always a seat with us ; it will be vacant if you stay 
 away," she added, with a smile. 
 
 " You are very kind, madam," and a faint smile from 
 Augusta's face reflected that on Mrs. Rashlcigh's ; " but " 
 
 " But you cannot go the Presbyterianism. it is not very 
 deep dyed. Come and try us." 
 
 " I have no objection to that. I was accustomed from 
 childhood to its simple forms, and love them for the sake of 
 the lips from which I heard them, though I feel the beauty 
 of the English service. I will go with you, Mrs. Rashleigh ; 
 I only hesitated for fear there were others of your family 
 whom my coming might annoy." 
 
 " Do not fear ; my family is " 
 
 " A unit," said Miss Drayton, smiling. 
 
 " At most a duet," replied Mrs. Rashleigh, returning the 
 smile ; " Mr. Rashleigh and myself." 
 
 Almost as soon as she was left alone with Augusta, 
 Miss Drayton began upon the subject which had brought 
 her to New York. Augusta had been expressing her warm 
 est gratitude to her for the interest which had induced her 
 to travel so far only to see her, and Miss Drayton replied, 
 " There is no one in the world, except my own Annie, whom 
 1 would go farther to see ; and yet, I scarcely deserve all 
 the gratitude you are giving me, for I should have waited 
 till the winter was over for my visit to you, had I not hoped 
 to do you an important service by coming." 
 
 " You have done me an important service ; I had begun
 
 TWO PICTURES. 263 
 
 to doubt whether there was such a thing as pleasure in the 
 world, and to-day I have felt it." 
 
 " My poor child ! " and Miss Drayton lifted her eyes, 
 full of a tender pity that made them beautiful, to the face 
 that was bending over her as she lay upon her couch ; " have 
 you seen no pleasure around you in your new home ? " 
 
 " Much of what they call pleasure, for I often am obliged 
 to join their evening parties, to minister to their enjoyment ; 
 but my eyes have been touched with the magic ointment ; I 
 see now how little truth there is in all that charmed me 
 so much but a year ago." 
 
 " Perhaps, my dear, there was more truth than you are 
 now disposed to think ; the position you looked from then, 
 and that at which you stand now, are extremes both ; nei 
 ther, probably, would give you a view that was quite true." 
 
 " You may be right," said Augusta, listlessly. 
 
 " I have something to say to you which I hope may in 
 troduce you to a better point of view than either ; it will, at 
 any rate, prove to you that the world is not destitute of 
 truth and honesty. I would have written to you about it, 
 but it concerns one of those of whom you had forbidden 
 me" 
 
 " To write or to speak equally ; you must excuse me, 
 Miss Drayton, if I say it is cruel thus to disturb my hardly- 
 won equanimity," and Augusta rose, trembling with agita 
 tion, and turned as if to leave her friend. 
 
 Miss Drayton also rose. 
 
 " Augusta," she said, and her hands were outstretched 
 and her eyes humid with tenderness, "you will not leave 
 me leave me in anger, when I have come so far, through 
 such difficulties, to visit you ? " 
 
 Augusta stood still, but did not return to her seat. 
 
 " Come back, dear Augusta ; sit down, and hear me." 
 
 Miss Drayton sank back, with an exhausted look, on her
 
 264: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 couch, and pointed to the chair at her side, from which 
 Augusta had risen ; but she paid no heed to the gesture, 
 and placed herself in one at a greater distance. 
 
 " Then I must come to you," and Miss Drayton was 
 rising ; but Augusta took the seat she had indicated, saying, 
 coldly, " I will not put you to that trouble." 
 
 " Thank you, my dear," said Miss Drayton, gently ; 
 " and now, if you will read that letter, you will see that I 
 could not fail to communicate its contents to you." 
 
 Augusta took the letter and glanced at the address. It 
 was in the well-known handwriting of Hugh. She laid it 
 down. 
 
 " I will not read it," she said, passionately ; " it is cruel, 
 I say again, to persecute me thus ; they are happy ; let mo, 
 at least, enjoy such peace as they have left me." 
 
 " Augusta," said Miss Drayton, " this letter is written 
 by one who, as far as I know, has committed no offence 
 against you ; and if you knew where it was written, you 
 would not call him happy." 
 
 Augusta glanced at Miss Drayton and then at the 
 letter. 
 
 " Where was it written ? " she asked, slowly, as if the 
 words dropped from her without any effort of her will. 
 
 " Beside his father's dying bed." 
 
 " His father's dying bed 1 " in the same way, as if but 
 half conscious that she spoke ; then, with sudden force, 
 " Commodore Moray's dying bed 1 " 
 
 " Even so ; did you not know he had been dangerously 
 wounded in that battle at Vera Cruz ? " 
 
 " I saw the pictures, and I heard people say he had come 
 home wounded ; but dangerously dying " Augusta's 
 voice altered. 
 
 " It is a very sad affair altogether ; people blame the 
 Government very much. They superseded him just on the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 265 
 
 eve of the battle, when he had made all the preparations for 
 it. I have heard that some of his friends urged him to re 
 tain the command till after the battle, which, as the oldest 
 Commodore on the station, he was entitled to do ; but he is 
 very punctilious, and would not palter with what he thought 
 his duty ; so he resigned the command of the fleet, but took 
 the little schooner that had been offered him for his return 
 home, into the very thickest of the fight. She was not built 
 for a war vessel, they say, so the helmsman was not suffi 
 ciently protected, and he took the helm himself. Every one 
 admired his gallantry, though some think he was wrong to 
 expose himself so madly ; the wonder is, he was not killed 
 immediately. lie was wounded in the thigh and in the arm 
 very badly." 
 
 Miss Drayton paused, for Augusta had grown very 
 pale; but she faltered out, "Tell me all; was Hugh 
 there ? " 
 
 " He was, for he had resisted all his father's persuasions 
 to leave him, and a young relation of mine who was on 
 board, and from whom I had some particulars not men 
 tioned in the papers, says he seemed entirely to forget him 
 self after his father was wounded, and exposed himself al 
 most as madly as the Commodore had done, but the worst 
 of the danger was over then." 
 
 '' And Commodore Moray ? " 
 
 " Had his leg amputated and returned home to die 
 among those but, my child, you are fainting ! " 
 
 Augusta's pale lips moved to say no, but the room was 
 reeling, the air was darkened, her eyes closed, and with a 
 faint sob, she sank back upon the cushions of the large chair 
 in which she sat. Miss Drayton threw some water into her 
 face from a goblet that stood beside her, and with a con 
 vulsive gasp, life came back life and consciousness and
 
 206 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 dropping her face into her hands, she wept with passionate 
 emotion. 
 
 "What strange revelations of our own nature do we find 
 in those moments when its depths are stirred. With what 
 rapidity does the past rush upon us. It can scarcely be said 
 that we recall it. It lives, and we live in it, though for 
 years we may have thought it dead and buried. We live in 
 it, not as we once did, minute by minute, hour by hour, but 
 all its hours seem concentrated into one flash of full, perfect 
 life a life which is an agony, whether of joy or sorrow. Is 
 it thus that in the future state of being, the life of earth is 
 to flash on our consciousness, kindling in the hearts of the 
 redeemed a more intense fervor of grateful love, and adding 
 keener tortures to the imperishable regrets of those who re 
 jected the only refuge for sinful man ? 
 
 To Augusta, at that moment, little things at least they 
 seemed little when they were passing words, looks, full of 
 the tender, gentle, chivalrous, yet childlike character of her 
 old friend, were distinctly present ; his joy at the oppor 
 tunity given by the command of the squadron to show what 
 was in him not for his own vain glory, but for the justifi 
 cation of those who loved and confided in him. And this 
 squadron she had taken some pride in believing had been 
 her gift, a fatal gift. And he would die without her seeing 
 him ; he had loved her, she knew. She had thought little 
 of it through all those weeks and months when she had shut 
 herself up in proud isolation, saying, " They do not care for 
 me, neither will I care for them." 
 
 Now she knew that he had cared very tenderly for her ; 
 she had had it in her power to add a pleasure or a pain to 
 the life which was so rapidly passing away, and she had 
 chosen to add the pain. And this she had done to one who 
 had been so unoffending ! Suppose Hugh had been cruel 
 had sported with her love, and trampled on her pride was
 
 TWO PICTURES. 267 
 
 this gentle and noble heart to be slighted for Hugh's fault ? 
 And now, when she saw this plainly, when for one look of 
 tender forgiveness one gentle " My child," one word of 
 guidance from those wise and loving lips, she would have 
 given the best year of her future life, she heard the fatal 
 words, " He is dying," and that wail " It is too late ! " 
 earth's bitterest cry went up from her full heart. 
 
 " But is it too late ? " she said, with gasping breath, un 
 covering her pale face, and turning her tear-swollen eyes on 
 Miss Dray ton. " Is it not possible for me to see him yet ? " 
 Then, as pride, too strong to be wholly subdued, even by 
 that agony, awoke, she added, " If I was sure he would see 
 me ; but, perhaps, he has forgotten me ; he would hardly 
 think of any at such a time, but those most tenderly 
 beloved." 
 
 " Read your letter, my dear, and you will see," said 
 Miss Dray ton. 
 
 The letter, Hugh's letter, was in her hand ; the color 
 flushed to her pale cheek as she opened it not " the blush 
 to wooers dear," but the angry flush of pride, which ex 
 pected again to be stung by the indelicate offer of money as 
 of alms to a beggar. She read : 
 
 ELIZACETIITOTVN, Nov. 23d, 18 . 
 
 DEAR Miss DRAYTON: 
 
 When you know that I write beside what I fear to be my 
 father's dying bed, you will readily believe that no common 
 interest could claim a thought, or win me for one moment 
 from the duties that have become our dearest solace. That 
 you will sympathize with us in our dread of a sorrow whose 
 bitterness can be in some degree appreciated by all who had 
 any knowledge of him, I am quite sure, from my past ex 
 perience of your kindness ; but not even to claim this sym 
 pathy, dear as it would be to me, could I have written at 
 this time. You will see, then, the force of the feeling which
 
 2G8 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 prompts this appeal to you, and you will not refuse to help 
 me if you can. Mr. Mortimer, from whom 1 have just 
 heard, tells me that you only know where Miss Moray is. 
 That you do know is an unspeakable comfort to us all to 
 none more than to my father. He loves her very tenderly, 
 and has never ceased to mourn the strange circumstances 
 that have acted so fatally upon her finely-strung nature, 
 making her forgetful of the suffering she is inflicting upon 
 all who love her. Knowing her as you do knowing how, 
 amid all the faults of ungoverned impulse, and an almost 
 insane pride her innate nobleness manifests itself in every 
 movement of her life, making us almost forgetful in the 
 deeper feeling it excites, of her unrivalled personal beauty, 
 and of the witchery of her manner, you will not wonder that 
 we, to whom she has been as a daughter or sister from her 
 childhood, cherish the tenderest regard for her, and cannot 
 rest until we know something of her present condition. 1 
 have sad reason to know that I have in some way excited 
 her displeasure ; but I feel sure that if she knew my father's 
 desire to see her, she could not in his present state refuse to 
 gratify him ; he says this is his only unsatisfied wish." 
 
 " I must go," cried Augusta, looking wildly around her, 
 when she had read thus far ; " [ must go to him." 
 
 " Not to-night, my dear, not to-night," said Miss Dray- 
 ton, coming to her as she began to cloak herself for her in 
 tended journey ; " see, it is already growing dusky." 
 
 " Do not stop me, I have not a minute to spare ; see," 
 pointing to the clock on the mantlepicce, " it is half past 
 four ; the last train leaves at five." 
 
 " But listen, my dear child, you will be too late ; you 
 cannot go alone at this hour ; besides, you have no money 
 with you," said Miss Dray ton, glad of any excuse that 
 might stop her. 
 
 " That is true," exclaimed Augusta, as she put her hand 
 in her pocket ; " you must lend me some."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 269 
 
 " I do riot think I can ; to-morrow I will go with you." 
 
 " No no ; if you cannot lend me, I must beg my way ; 
 to-morrow will be too late ; he wants to see me ! Oh, Miss 
 Drayton, why did you not come sooner ? Why not send 
 the letter 1 " 
 
 " I came as quickly as I could, darling ; and I feared to 
 send it, lest you should send it back and withdraw yourself 
 from me too." 
 
 Augusta groaned ; it was all her own fault. How poor 
 and mean seemed now that isolation which pride had coun 
 selled ! She had thought only of herself. She might suffer, 
 she had said, but she would prove that she could live with 
 out them. It had never occurred to her till now that they 
 might need her ministrations that she was resigning the 
 blessed privilege of soothing as well as of being soothed, of 
 serving as well as of being served. She had steadily con 
 tinued to prepare herself for going out in spite of Miss 
 Drayton's remonstrances, and was now half way down 
 stairs, followed by Miss Drayton. 
 
 " Where are you going, Miss Moray ? Surely you will 
 not leave us before dinner ; we dine at five," cried Mrs. 
 Rashleigh, who was coming up in her bonnet and shawl. 
 
 Augusta turned her pale face toward her, and tried to 
 speak ; but the voice would not come. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " cried Mrs. Rashleigh, turning 
 to Miss Drayton. 
 
 " She insists on going to Elizabethtown to-night, to see 
 Commodore Moray ; she had not heard of his illness be 
 fore." 
 
 " But, my dear Miss Moray, you cannot go to-night ; 
 there is a snow storm coming on see " pointing to the 
 window " to-morrow " 
 
 " It will be too late ; I must go." 
 
 " Then John shall drive you to the boat. Run, Florine,
 
 270 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 tell John to bring the carriage to the door again and drive 
 Miss Moray to the steamboat for Jersey City ; she \vill 
 hardly have time for the train now." 
 
 The carriage, in which Mrs. Rashleigh had just returned 
 from a visit of charity, was driven to the door, and Augusta 
 ascended it, without a word of thanks for the kindness thus 
 extended to her. Poor child ! her heart was full of one 
 thought : Would she be in time 1 Miss Dray ton thrust her 
 purse into the hand that continued to grasp the letter with 
 an almost convulsive tenacity. 
 
 " I wish I could have gone with her ; but I was afraid I 
 should only add to their troubles," said Miss Drayton, as 
 she shivered at the chill air of the damp November evening, 
 and drew her shawl more closely around her. 
 
 It was dreary, indeed ; a red glow in the Avest was all 
 that relieved the dull, leaden line of the sky. Through the 
 thick air a few snowfiakes flew, presaging the night, and 
 the wind already swept in gusts through the streets of the 
 city, and lashed the darkened waters of the bay into angry 
 waves. Augusta saw nothing of all this, and if she heard 
 the wind, it was but to wish that it would sweep her onward 
 on its wings more rapidly than boat or car could bear her. 
 It was not only that her affections had been touched at the 
 thought of her friend, her " father," as she had sometimes 
 called him in the intimacy of their intercourse, bearing her 
 on his heart, suffering for her, in the midst of his own great 
 agony ; it was not only that bitterest of all thoughts, that 
 he should die with an unsatisfied desire to which she could 
 have given its fulfilment her trouble lay deeper than this. 
 The depths of conscience had been stirred, and its waves 
 were overflowing her soul. There was a voice within her, 
 saying, " You have chosen your way, and you must walk in 
 it ; you separated yourself from them, and God will sepa 
 rate them from you. He will die without your seeing him,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 271 
 
 and they will remember you only as the troubler of his 
 peace the cruel one who added another pang to those 
 under which he was already sinking." 
 
 " How exaggerated ! " does the reader exclaim. True, 
 for passion is ever an exaggerator, and Augusta Moray was 
 still the slave of passion ; nothing was changed but the di 
 rection in which it propelled. 
 
 She reached the boat in season, and in less than two 
 hours from the time she had left Mrs. Rashleigh's door, 
 she was set down in Elizabethtown. 
 
 " Did you see that tall woman in black that got out just 
 now 1 " asked the conductor, of a gentleman in the car. 
 
 " No ; why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Why, she seemed sort o' queer to me, and I thought 
 maybe you noticed her, as she sot just before you, and I 
 was going to ask if you thought she was crazy." 
 
 " I was reading my paper, and did not see her ; but 
 what was there queer about her 1 " 
 
 " Why, she never seemed to hear me when I asked for 
 her ticket ; I had to take it out of her hand, and I don't 
 think she knew it then ; and just now the horses in a car 
 riage were jumping about so the driver could hardly hold 
 them in, and she walked right straight under their heads ; 
 and though the driver hallooed at her and cursed her, and 
 the people ran to her to pull her away, she didn't walk a 
 bit the faster ; the fact is, I don't think she heard the hub 
 bub." 
 
 " And did she get safely by 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; but if she wasn't such a young lady, and a pretty 
 nice looking one, too, I'd think she was drunk, or crazy." 
 
 " Pretty people do get drunk or go crazy sometimes, 
 and young ones too," said the gentleman, carelessly, as he 
 returned to his paper. 
 
 In the meantime Augusta, absorbed as she had been rep-
 
 272 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 resented by the conductor, was pursuing her way toward 
 the well-known house where the happiest hours of her life 
 had been spent. Her heart seemed to stand still for a mo 
 ment, and then to hurry on with quicker beats, as through 
 the thickening dusk and the falling snowflakcs she caught the 
 first view of its dimly-defined outline. 
 
 " If he still lives, I shall feel that I am forgiven, and may 
 yet hope," was the thought that flashed upon her at that 
 moment. 
 
 She drew near. There was no bright light streaming 
 out upon the stormy night. She entered the porch. No 
 cheerful voices, as of old, were heard within. With a 
 trembling hand she touched the bell, but it gave no sound. 
 Again she tried, throwing into the effort more power than 
 was needed. The sharp, clear ring startled her, and made 
 her hold her breath in alarm. No one came ; yet she wait 
 ed long before she dared ring again. "When siie did, it was 
 with a lighter touch, yet it was more effectual. A dim light 
 was seen through the glasses at the side, the key turned in 
 the lock, the door opened, and Augusta, trembling with cold 
 and fear, looked once more upon the familiar objects in the 
 hall. She turned to the face of the servant who had opened 
 the door ; it was the face of a stranger ; she tried to utter 
 the question she had come so far to ask, but her trembling 
 lips refused to shape the words ; she raised her heavy crape 
 veil, and the servant afterward said, '"She was jist that 
 skeered, she was ready to let the lamp fall, when she seed 
 sich a white face, with the two eyes a starin' so." 
 
 " Please, ma'am, would you tell me what you want, for 
 we haven't got no time to spare, seein' the poor Commo 
 dore's jist after dying." 
 
 " Dying then he is not dead ! " and Augusta stepped 
 forward. 
 
 " And sure, ma'am, he is dead enough, though it hasn't
 
 TWO PICTURES. 273 
 
 been for long, an' I'd ask you in, ma'am, but the missus an' 
 Mister Hugh an' all, is more dead than alive, an' couldn't 
 see no strangers." 
 
 Augusta turned silently away. It was true, she was a 
 stranger made so by her own act. What place had she 
 within their home at such a time ? Through the increasing 
 storm and the now almost rayless night she made her way 
 with some difficulty back to the railroad station. She could 
 have wished the difficulties greater ; the struggle with them 
 seemed to dull somewhat the sharp pain in her head, and 
 to interrupt that never ceasing wail, " Too late ; too late J " 
 
 Arrived at the depot, Augusta found a seat in its darkest 
 corner, where she might await the coming in of the return 
 train. This seat was behind the stove, whose red hot sur 
 face sent out the smell of burning iron through the room, 
 and scorched, with almost intolerable heat, the face of Augus 
 ta, and that part of her person which was presented to it, 
 while on the back of her neck and shoulders there poured a 
 stream of cold, damp air from the window behind her, in 
 which there was a broken pane of glass. Unconscious of 
 these physical ills, or if she was conscious of them, too much 
 absorbed in more intolerable pain to think of relieving her 
 self from them, Augusta sat, while hour after hour of that 
 inclement night passed heavily away. The cars were due at 
 a quarter before nine, but nine, ten, struck, and still they 
 came not. At length the shrill whistle was heard, and a 
 red, fiery light shot past the windows of the depot.' People 
 rose and hurried out, and Augusta rose too and followed them 
 with a sort of automaton movement ; they entered a car, 
 and so did she ; again the steam whistle shrieked, and they 
 were in motion. A few minutes after, the conductor passed 
 around. It was the same who had gone up on the last train, 
 as far as New Brunswick, and was now returning to Jersey 
 City, where he resided. He came to Augusta, and iinmedi-
 
 274 TWO riCTUKES. 
 
 ately recognized her as the woman who had acted " sort o' 
 queer " on his up trip. 
 
 , " Ticket, ma'am," he said, touching her on the arm, fur 
 she did not notice him, and he supposed her to be asleep. 
 
 There was no answer to his appeal, no apparent con 
 sciousness of it, except that she moved slightly, as if to es 
 cape his touch. lie raised his lantern and cast its light di 
 rectly upon the face of ghastly white, which had so alarmed 
 the servant at Mrs. Moray's. Augusta's eyes closed to shut 
 out the light, which it gave her intolerable pain to look at, 
 and she murmured " Too late ! too late ! " 
 
 " Well, we was late ! there was a smash up this morn 
 ing just above Trenton, and the cars was a long time getting 
 by. Ticket, ma'am, or," meeting the bewildered expres 
 sion of her eyes, which were at last turned upon him " if 
 you haven't a ticket, I'll take the money." 
 
 The last word seemed to carry some meaning to her 
 mind, for she handed him her purse; but when, setting 
 down his light, he had taken from it the amount of her pas 
 sage, and would have returned it, he found some difficulty 
 in making her take it. 
 
 Those who have travelled in the United States cannot 
 have failed to perceive the kindness with which the conduc 
 tors of public carriages watch over the comfort of ladies who, 
 travelling without a gentleman, seem peculiarly dependent 
 on their care ; especially is this the case when age or illness 
 increases this dependence. The conductor of the car in 
 which Augusta Moray was returning to New York was no 
 exception to this honorable class, and when they reached 
 Jersey City, he came to see whether his interesting pas 
 senger needed his aid. He found that she had not risen 
 from her seat, though the car was already nearly empty. 
 
 " We're to Jersey City now, ma'am, and if you want to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 275 
 
 cross, you'd better be quick, for it's so late the boat won't 
 wait longj I'm thinking." 
 
 He received no distinct answer, but hearing a muttering 
 sound, he bent down his head and heard : " Too late ! too 
 late ! " 
 
 " No, ma'am, I don't think it's too late if you'll go at 
 once, and I'll help you." 
 
 He tried to take her hand to draw it through his arm, 
 but she drew it quickly away with a little cry, saying, " You 
 shall not force me away till I have seen him. I do not be 
 lieve he is dead ; she says so because she is afraid I shall 
 see Hugh." 
 
 Again he flashed the light of his lantern on her face. It 
 was no longer pale, fever burned on her cheeks and spar 
 kled in her eyes. 
 
 " Now, my goodness ! what am I to do, I wonder 1 I 
 can't leave the poor thing here, that's certain ; if I could get 
 her to the boat, it wouldn't be no better. Suppose I was to 
 take her to the hotel. She'd be a deal more comfortable in 
 that nice, quiet room that Jean's just got ready for her sis 
 ter, and I know Jean would tell me I ought to carry her 
 there. It will only be for one night, for I dare say to-mor 
 row, when the fever's off, she'll tell us where she lives, and 
 I'll send her home, or Jean will go with her herself; and 
 her clothes are handsome, and she's got a watch ; I shouldn't 
 wonder if her friends are rich ; it may be a good piece of 
 work for me, after all." 
 
 The first part of this soliloquy was spoken the next was 
 thought only ; and so, with these mingled motives of gen 
 erous kindness and self-interest, he assumed the care of Au 
 gusta, or, should we not rather say, accepted it from the 
 Providence which had seemed so evidently to lay it upon 
 him? 
 
 Hiram Brown, the name of the conductor, did not want
 
 276 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 for ready wit, and after listening for a moment to Augusta's 
 ravings, he said, in a kind, friendly tone, " Come with me, 
 and you shall see him. Poor thing ! " he added, as her 
 large, melancholy eyes were lifted to his face, " I am sorry 
 for you." 
 
 If she did not understand the words, she did the tone and 
 the look, for they were of that universal language of human 
 ity which is the first and the last to be comprehended by 
 us ; and when again he said, " Come with me, and you shall 
 see him," she arose, took his offered arm, and accompanied 
 him without a word. They had but a few steps to go, and 
 he thought it best not to call a carriage, as she might be 
 unwilling to enter it ; so he led her at once to the little 
 white cottage, containing only two rooms below and two 
 above, in the clean, bright kitchen of which sat his Jean, 
 impatiently expecting him. The delay in the arrival of the 
 train had caused cruel suffering to her faithful heart ; but 
 she had heard the whistle which announced its coming, had 
 piled more wood upon the warm, clean cooking stove, had 
 placed upon it again the tin coffee pot, the beefsteak, and the 
 covered dish of milk toast, which had been drawn away 
 some time before, in despair of his return. These things 
 done, she had only to listen for the well-known step. It 
 came at length, but not till she had begun to fear again, and 
 then it was slower than its wont. " Could he have been 
 hurt ? " 
 
 The door was opened before he reached it, and Jean 
 peered forth into the darkness. She could just see ap 
 proaching forms ; one was his, certainly ; she knew the 
 movement ; who was the other 1 
 
 " Hiram, who've you got there ? " called Jean. 
 
 Hiram did not answer immediately, and as they came 
 nearer, Jean perceived, not altogether with satisfaction, that 
 it was & woman who leaned upon his arm ; but before the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 277 
 
 dissatisfaction could shape itself into word or action, Hiram 
 
 (entered, and indicating by a gesture that she must not speak, 
 led the lady through the dark front room, and placed her in 
 Jean's own rocking chair by the fire. This done, ne turned 
 to Jean, and before he had said a word, the little cloud had 
 left her brow, chased away by his close embrace and his 
 warm kiss, and when he said, " The poor lady is very ill, 
 I'm afraid, Jean ; the fever's got in her head, and she 
 couldn't tell rightly where she' was to go nor nothing ; I 
 know'd you'd say I ought to bring her here, and so I did." 
 
 Ah Jean ! Well may your brown cheek glow so bright 
 ly. Let others talk of woman's rights as they will, you 
 know that you are enjoying woman's highest privilege, and 
 exercising her noblest duty, while you are thus keeping a 
 human soul true to the best instincts which God has im 
 planted within it. 
 
 " She thinks she's going to see somebody ; 'twas the 
 only way I could get her along," said Hiram, in further ex 
 planation ; " I don't know how you'll get her to bed now." 
 
 Augusta's mutterings had ceased while in the open air, 
 which had probably rendered her circulation less rapid. 
 She still continued quiet, though her eyes were kindling, 
 and her cheeks flushing again with fever. 
 
 " Will you come up stairs to bed, ma'am? " asked Jean, 
 with a voice and look as soft as pity could make them. 
 
 " Can I not see him ? Is it too late ? " asked Augusta. 
 
 " Too late to-night, ma'am," said Jean, with a woman's 
 ready tact. " He'll be asleep now, and you wouldn't want 
 to wake him ; but to-morrow morning, right early, you'll 
 see him." 
 
 " Then he isn't dead. I knew it could not be ; he would 
 not die, you know, till he had seen me ; it was his only un- 
 gratified wish." 
 
 " Then come, ma'am ; I'll show you to your room ; and
 
 278 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 to-morrow morning, when he's awake, you'll see him." 
 Jean took the burning hand of her guest as she spoke, and 
 Augusta followed her without any apparent reluctance to 
 the tidy Tittle room prepared for the young sister, who was 
 coming from her distant Western home to spend the Christ 
 mas aud New Year with Jean. All was ready for her, even 
 to the little grate filled with coal, and the box of light kind 
 ling wood beside it. We are not sure that there was not a 
 little regret in Jean's heart as she touched the kindling be 
 low the coal with the flatne of the lamp she had brought up, 
 and saw the ruddy flame spring up, thinking that the bright 
 polish would be burned off the grate before Carrie saw it. 
 It -was a sacrifice, but the sacrifice was made. There was a 
 little rocking chair in this room too, and Augusta was seated 
 in it, while Jean untied her bonnet and cloak, and laid them 
 aside. 
 
 " How beautiful she is ! " thought Jean, as she saw her 
 thus unveiled. Augusta's comb had been drawn out in tak 
 ing off her bonnet, and her dark hair fell in thick waving 
 tresses over her face and shoulders. This seemed to rouse 
 her for a moment. She gathered the hair up as she was 
 accustomed to do, and asked for her comb. The familiar 
 action seemed in some degree to restore her to conscious 
 ness. She looked around her with surprise, regarded Jean 
 for a moment earnestly, and then said, with a little trepida 
 tion, ". Who are you ? and where am I? " 
 
 " You didn't seem well in the cars, and my Hiram he's 
 the conductor brought you home with him," Jean an 
 swered, with a quiet simplicity that was reassuring. 
 
 " The cars ! " exclaimed Augusta, in a startled accent ; 
 then, after a moment's pause, " Oh yes ! I remember ; I 
 was too late ! too late ! " and again the wild look came to 
 her eye. 
 
 "Too late for to-night," said Jean, " but if you will go
 
 TWO ricxuKEs. 279 
 
 to bed and sleep good, you will see him when you wake in 
 the morning." 
 
 Again the promise had the effect of quieting the disturbed 
 mind, and Jean was able to undress her, to put on her one 
 of her own tidy little wrappers, which, if not fine, was as 
 neat and clean, she herself said, " as any lady in the land 
 could wear," and to lay her in a bed as clean as the wrap 
 per, and very comfortable, though it was made of straw. 
 
 Ah Jean ! I wonder if you thought that night of the good 
 Samaritan, as you gave up that dearest pleasure of the 
 twenty-four hours, getting Hiram's supper ready, and sitting 
 to see him enjoy it, to pour out his steaming coffee, and to 
 hear him say again and again what a dear little wife he had, 
 what a comfortable .home she made for him, and how much 
 better a man could be when he was so taken care of, and 
 when, instead of this, you knelt beside the bed to chafe the 
 cold feet of the stranger with your warm hands, and sat all 
 night beside her, listening to her strange, wild talk of per 
 sons of whom you had never heard, and when, hardest of all, 
 at the earliest dawn of light, you woke Hiram, abridging by 
 a quarter of an hour his little time for sleep, that he might 
 be able to go for the doctor before he was obliged to be at 
 the depot. Perhaps Hiram might have grumbled a. little at 
 this, as people are apt to grumble when first awoke, had he 
 not seen that though his Jean had evidently not even lain 
 down through the night, she had prepared his clean linen and 
 warm socks, and hot coffee, and notwithstanding a little 
 paleness, looked as cheerful and bright as if she had never 
 known care or watching. Jean may not have thought of 
 the good Samaritan, but I am sure she had something of the 
 spirit of Him who has given us that beautiful example. 
 
 The doctor did not have a cheerful Jean to wake him, 
 and he, like Iliram Brown, had been up late the night before ; 
 so he grumbled and growled terribly when he was called, de-
 
 280 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 claring that " he would not go at such an unreasonable hour ; 
 that he would not be such a pack horse for the community." 
 Hiram saw that he was sufficiently awake to understand 
 him, and hurried off to his cars, quite sure that, in spite of 
 all these cross speeches, the doctor would go ; and so he did, 
 and quickly, too, though he grumbled all the time he was 
 dressing himself, only changing his decision not to be for an 
 assertion that he loas " a perfect pack horse for the com 
 munity." 
 
 The doctor's cheerfulness had not been perfectly restored 
 even when he reached Jean's pretty cottage, and he listened 
 to her details of the lady's case with a clouded brow, " poli- 
 pohed " all idea of anything serious, saying, " And so Hi 
 ram's going to take charge of all distressed ladies that travel 
 in his cars ? A perfect knight-errant ! I hope he has some 
 thing more than his thousand dollars salary to do it upon ; 
 that's all." 
 
 " But, doctor, who was to take care of the poor lady 1 
 Somebody must, you know, for she was all crazy like, and 
 couldn't take care of herself." 
 
 " Let the public take care of her, then." 
 
 " But the public wasn't there, you know, doctor, and Ili- 
 ram was," said the simple Jean, not at all satisfied to have 
 Hiram blamed. 
 
 " Well, let me see her," crie<l the doctor, feeling some 
 what puzzled to answer this, yet unwilling to acknowledge 
 himself vanquished ; " I've no time to talk here without my 
 breakfast, too, and very probably for nothing at all. I dare 
 say this woman is one of those foolish people that have a 
 fever whenever they are excited, and get delirious whenever 
 they have a fever, and if you had only waited an hour, all 
 this fuss " 
 
 The doctor stopped suddenly ; they were in the sick 
 room, and as Augusta, roused from unquiet sleep by their
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 281 
 
 entrance, raised herself in bed and turned her startled face 
 toward them, there was something in her looks that filled 
 his heart with pity, and something which told to his prac 
 tised eyes that the case was more serious than he had pro 
 fessed to believe it. He drew near the bed, the little pee 
 vish expression all gone from his face, leaving nothing there 
 but the large-hearted philanthropy and the acute sense for 
 which he was noted. 
 
 Augusta drew away as he approached. 
 
 " It is the doctor, come to see you, to make you well," 
 said Jean, on the other side of the bed, taking her hand 
 kindly. 
 
 " The doctor ! oh, sir, is he better ? can I see him ? " 
 
 "Him!" said the doctor to himself; "I knew it; a 
 man's always in the case if a woman goes out of her head, 
 and a woman, if a man does." 
 
 " Can I see him ? " repeated Augusta. 
 
 " Certainly, as soon as you are well enough," the doctor 
 answered. 
 
 " I am well enough now ; let me go ! " she said, vehe 
 mently, to Jean, who held down the covering she would have 
 thrown aside, and prevented her rising. " Let me go, or he 
 will die without seeing me ! " 
 
 " You cannot see him yet ; it would agitate him too 
 much, and perhaps prevent his recovery ; you must wait till 
 he is better then you shall see him." 
 
 "Are you sure? Will Hugh let me come ? " 
 
 " Hugh 1 I cannot tell you unless you tell me his whole 
 name. Hugh what ? " 
 
 " Hugh Moray," she breathed, softly, almost in a whis 
 per, looking around her with a stealthy glance, as if afraid 
 some one was present whom she would not have to hear 
 her. Jean withdrew quickly out of sight, but not quickly 
 enough to prevent Augusta's seeing her dress just as it dis 
 appeared.
 
 282 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " There ! " she said, turning to the doctor, " I knew she 
 was listening ; she will tell him I know she will." 
 
 " She has gone now, and if you will only tell me where 
 he lives, I will bring him here. Tell me, where does he 
 live this Hugh Moray ? " 
 
 The partial gleam of sense was gone, and she repeated, 
 "Hugh Moray, of St. Mary's; Hugh Moray, of St. Mary's," 
 as a child sometimes repeats a name in sport, scarcely con 
 scious of what he is doing, while her eyes closed wearily. 
 The doctor touched her pulse ; it bounded beneath his finger 
 like a frightened steed. The conviction of her illness only 
 made him more anxious to discover her friends and home. 
 Her muttered tones sank into silence ; he thought she slept. 
 Jean went down to see if Hiram had left any coffee, that she 
 might get a cup for the doctor. Suddenly Augusta's eyes 
 opened. 
 
 " Good-by," said the doctor, as she turned them on him ; 
 " I am going to bring Hugh Moray from St. Mary's." 
 
 "But he is not there ; don't you know he died in Wash 
 ington? and we all died then; I died in New York; and 
 then I came to to Elizabeth Elizabeth well, I don't 
 know ; I can't remember," passing her hand over her eyes, 
 and speaking like one in a dream. 
 
 Generally, Doctor Foster would have said to a patient, 
 under such circumstances, " Never mind don't try ; " but 
 instead of this, he said now, " You came to Elizabcthtown 
 to see him and he would not see you ] " 
 
 " Yes, he would ; he loved me she couldn't help that 
 and he called me ' dear child,' and and oh ! I must go ; 
 it will be too late," and she raised herself in bed ; but the 
 doctor's strong arm held her back. 
 
 " You must be quiet now," he said, "and do just as you 
 are told, or I cannot promise that you shall see him." 
 
 Doctor Foster had gained, as it seemed to him, all that
 
 TWO PICTURES. 283 
 
 he was likely to gain from this delirious- ramble ; the next 
 thing was to do what he could for his patient's recovery ; 
 afterward he would see about informing her friends where 
 she was to be found. Unfortunately for himself, and yet 
 more unfortunately for those who came under his treatment, 
 the doctor had not accepted fully the new medical light that 
 had dawned upon the world. Yet, had he not been entirely 
 without profit from it. Even on those who flee from its 
 ray, there falls a twilight reflection from it which makes it 
 no longer midnight with them. Doctor Foster called ho 
 moeopathy a humbug ; but it was the boast of his friends 
 that he gave very little medicine, scarcely any, relying 
 very much on the vis medicalrix of nature. " Only," said 
 the doctor, "nature is sometimes unable to act from the 
 state of the system, and we must remove what clogs her 
 beneficent energies." 
 
 Well, we are not writing a medical treatise, for which 
 we would be duly thankful, and so we need only, as vera 
 cious historians, record that in the present case the blood, ac 
 cording to Dr. Foster, clogged the beneficent energies of 
 nature, and the lancet was employed with unsparing hand. 
 The result was to render the patient, at least for a time, less 
 troublesome. The ravings of delirium were exchanged for 
 the stupor of exhaustion. During this temporary lull, Dr. 
 Foster sent his own housekeeper to watch her, and adminis 
 ter the cooling draughts, which were all the medicine he 
 deemed necessary, while Jean obtained some rest. 
 
 The next visit of the doctor was made at an hour when 
 he knew that Hiram Brown would probably be at home. 
 He knew that Hiram's three years as a conductor had given 
 him an almost universal acquaintance with persons living 
 on his section of the railway. 
 
 " Do you happen to know anybody of the name of Mo 
 ray, living at Elizabethtown ? " he asked.
 
 28-i TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " To be sure,- 1 do ; everybody about here knew the 
 poor old Commodore that I see by the newspaper to-day 
 is just dead." 
 
 " Dead ! Was his name Hugh ? " 
 
 " No ; they call him James in the paper ; but his son's 
 name is Hugh ; I've often heard that young cousin of his'n 
 that's gone away, and had a great fortune left him, call him 
 so." 
 
 " Well, I must write a note to this Mr. Hugh Moray, and 
 you must get it to him this evening. The lady up stairs is 
 some relation or friend of his." 
 
 " You don't tell me so ! well, I'm right glad I brought 
 her home to Jean, if 'twas only for the good old Commo 
 dore's sake ; but, doctor, how will it do to trouble them just 
 now ; the Commodore only died yesterday they must be 
 in great trouble." 
 
 " But if this poor girl should have wandered away from 
 their house in this delirious state, it would be a great relief 
 to them to know where she is." 
 
 " That's true," said Hiram, reluctantly convinced, for he 
 was too genuinely kind not to have that delicacy which 
 shrinks from any intrusion on sorrow. 
 
 The doctor wrote his note, and Hiram took charge of it. 
 Of course he could not himself stop at Elizabethtown long 
 enough to deliver the note he was almost glad he could 
 not ; but he committed it to an acquaintance whom he saw 
 at the railroad station, with many charges that he should 
 tell Mr. Hugh that the lady was comfortable, and had a 
 good doctor and nurse, and " he need not be a bit troubled 
 about her indeed, that the doctor only wrote to keep him 
 from being troubled." 
 
 It is not certain that Hugh Moray understood all these 
 well intended assurances. The doctor's note gave such a 
 description of the lady that there was no doubt in his mind
 
 TWO PICTURES. 285 
 
 who it was ; he also learned from it that she had come to 
 Elizabethtown in the afternoon train and returned at nieht. 
 
 & 
 
 Could she have been at the house? The servant who at 
 tended the door was questioned, and her tale -was heard. 
 Hugh never hesitated for a moment on his own course. 
 His father lay dead he could no longer serve him. His 
 
 mother and sisters were safe in the shelter of their home a 
 
 home not less sweet or less holy because of the consecrating 
 presence of their dead ; and this young girl, whose vision 
 ever rose up before him as the embodiment of a free, bright 
 childhood, or of youth crowned with all the best gifts of 
 God, whom for long years he had treasured in his heart of 
 hearts not as a saint, to be worshipped, but as a woman, to 
 be loved not the less dear to his manly nature because, 
 among qualities noble and beautiful, she had faults to be 
 forgiven and weaknesses from which to be protected ; she, 
 whom he would have shielded with his life from the lightest 
 touch of harm, who, but a few months ago, had never 
 stepped beyond her threshold without a guardian, now pre 
 sented to him a melancholy picture of unfriended woman 
 hood, wandering alone through storm and night, and when 
 mind and body had both failed beneath her trials, indebted 
 to the compassion of a stranger for shelter and care. To 
 read the note he had received to his mother, to tell her he 
 should be at home again in the morning, and to take his 
 place in the next train returning to Jersey City, were things 
 of course with him. It was after nine o'clock when he was 
 led by Hiram Brown to his home. Jean was in the sick 
 room, but hastened down when she heard her husband's 
 step. 
 
 " This is Mr. Moray, Jean," said Hiram, " the lady's 
 cousin," for so Hugh had announced himself. 
 
 " Oh, sir ! I am so glad to see you. It seemed so sad,
 
 28C TWO PICTURES. 
 
 like, that she should be ill and maybe die here, without so 
 much as a soul that knew her name even." 
 
 Hugh thought he had nerved himself for all, but that 
 word die had overpowered him. He turned away for a 
 moment from the observation of Jean's tender eyes, and 
 though he immediately mastered himself so far as to ask the 
 question, " How is she ? " his voice sounded husky and in 
 distinct. 
 
 " Well, sir, I hardly know what to say to that ; she was 
 quiet all day, slept all the time, and didn't seem to have 
 much fever ; but now her face is all red and hot again, and 
 she's begun to talk just the same. But won't you come up 
 and see her yourself, sir ? " 
 
 Come up and see her ? Hugh's heart bounded at the 
 thought. He had so longed to look upon her so feared 
 he never should see her more and now, but a few steps 
 separated him from her, what was to prevent his passing 
 them ? what was to prevent his watching beside her, uncon 
 scious as she was, through this night, ministering to her 
 wants, and, it might be, listening to her voice? What was 
 to prevent it ? That which was stronger than bolts and 
 bars : the delicacy of a noble soul, which would not debase 
 itself by taking what another was powerless to withhold 
 nay, what would have no value unless freely yielded, was 
 his second thought, as, with an unconsciously haughty ges 
 ture, he declined Jean's invitation. 
 
 Dr. Foster had purposely delayed his evening visit till a 
 late hour, that he might see Hiram, and learn the result of 
 his note. When he came, he found that the first effect of 
 the bleeding had passed, and the fever had returned with in 
 creased violence. Later in the night the delirium became 
 more violent than ever. She was less easily influenced than 
 on the preceding evening, and, as Jean prevented her rising, 
 cries of distress and terror thrilled through the house, and
 
 TWO PICTURES. 287 
 
 made Hugh start from his seat, and ascend the stairs toward 
 her room. Did some influence, imperceptible to others, act 
 ing on her excited nerves and brain, tell her that he was 
 near ? We know not. Many such mysteries there are to 
 tax the acuteness, perhaps to disappoint the hopes of the 
 physiologist. 
 
 " He is there," she whispered softly, as if to herself, 
 glancing at the same time at the door, behind which Hugh 
 had stationed himself. She tried again to rise, but Jean 
 gently laid her arm on her, saying, " Lie still, dear lady ! " 
 
 " Hugh ! Hugh !" cried Augusta, wildly, " Will you let 
 them kill me ? " 
 
 Then, as Hugh involuntarily sprang into the room, she 
 held out her hands to him, exclaiming, " Oh, Hugh ! why 
 didn't you come sooner ? She would not let me go to you, 
 and now it is too late." 
 
 " No, dear Augusta ! It is not too late ; I am here now, 
 and no one shall trouble you." 
 
 He took her hands as he spoke, and seated himself in the 
 chair Jean placed for him beside the bed. 
 
 Her eyes softened, her crimson lips parted with a smile, 
 and she said softly, " They won't trouble me while you are 
 here. But what made you stay so long ? Mr. Mortimer 
 was waiting for me no not Mr. Mortimer who was it 
 wanted me, Hugh ? " 
 
 " I wanted you, dear one," said Hugh, with a full heart 
 in his voice, as he bent down and gently kissed the hand he 
 held. 
 
 " Oh no ! " she said, speaking again with a little wild- 
 ness, " No, she said you didn't want me. Oh ! let me go to 
 my uncle he will die before I get there." 
 
 " He does not want you now ; you must rest and I will 
 take care of him." 
 
 " And you will let me come when he wants me ? " 
 13
 
 288 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Yes, if you will sleep now.'' 
 
 " But if you go, Hugh, she will come back, and then she 
 will never let me see you again," and Augusta held tightly 
 the hand in which hers was lying. 
 
 " No, she shall not come ; I will leave a kind friend with 
 you, who will not let her come." 
 
 He beckoned to Jean, who had with instinctive delicacy 
 withdrawn to the farther end of the room, and she came 
 near. 
 
 Augusta clasped Hugh's hand tightly again and came 
 near to him, whispering with a frightened look, " Hugh ! 
 she is coming ! " 
 
 " No, dear one ; that is a friend who has promised to 
 watch by you till I come back. Look at her, see ! she is 
 not like her." 
 
 Augusta looked earnestly at Jean, who smiled kindly 
 on her. The smile was returned after a little while ; the 
 hand relaxed its clasp, and with a gentle, submissive tone, 
 Augusta asked, " Will you stay with me till Hugh comes 
 back ? " 
 
 Jean gave a cordial assent, and took the seat which Hugh 
 gave her. How hard it was for him to leave her, no words 
 can tell. How tenderly his eyes met the glance she turned 
 upon him as he rose ! How his very inmost heart seemed 
 to leap forth in the kiss he again pressed upon her hand ! 
 It was his farewell, for the night had passed and it was with 
 in a few minutes of the time for the early train, by which he 
 must return home. That day he must be at his mother's side. 
 
 " Hugh ! you w r ill come back 1 " said she, as he turned 
 again to look at her from the door. 
 
 " As surely as I live ! " was the emphatic reply ; yet, even 
 as he spoke, his heart was sinking within him with the fear 
 that he might come back to find her no longer there. He 
 had written a note to Miss Drayton, telling her of Augusta-'s
 
 TWO PICTURES. 289 
 
 illness, and giving her address, requesting that she would 
 send the best nurse she could obtain, to relieve Jean, until 
 his mother and sisters were able to come to her assistance, 
 and he had forced into Hiram's hands a purse, which would 
 procure whatever might be needed for her comfort. 
 
 Hugh's note was sent to Miss Dray ton by the morning 
 boat, and he had the satisfaction, a little after noon, to re 
 ceive a few lines from her, written by Augusta's bedside, 
 assuring him that she was sleeping quietly, that Jean re 
 ported her to have been more composed from the time he 
 had seen her, and that the doctor considered her symptoms 
 more favorable. 
 
 Much did he need the comfort and the strength thus 
 given him. The father, of whom he had been so proud, 
 whom he had loved all the more because the world had 
 been unjust to him, was this day to be borne to his grave. 
 In that procession walked many who had never looked 
 upon his living face. All sought to render honor to the 
 worth, known too late. His brother officers, from the 
 Brooklyn navy yard, civilians of the highest dignity, all 
 whose presence could give distinction sought a place there. 
 Distinction they may have given, a short-lived distinction, 
 but scarcely pleasure to the hearts of those whom his death 
 had left desolate, for in them sounded ever the sad words 
 that Augusta had so often uttered, " Too late ! too late ! " 
 
 But we will not dwell upon a scene which no pen can 
 adequately describe. They bore him forth with reverent 
 hands, they laid him tenderly to rest in his last bed, and 
 gently covered his resting place with the green turf. There, 
 watched by love, undisturbed will be his repose till He in 
 whom he trusted shall appear. We may not linger there. 
 From him, who has entered the haven, we turn to those who 
 are yet tossed on the troubled waves.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " OL ! Low this spring of love rescmbleth 
 The uncertain glory of an April day; 
 Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, 
 And by and by a cloud takes all away." SIIAKSPEABK. 
 
 DECEMBER'S dark, stormy days have come. Winter's 
 snows have covered the fields around Hiram Brown's cot 
 tage. The winds whistle bleak and cold around it, but 
 within there is brightness and warmth for the stranger who, 
 after weeks of illness, is just able to rise and sit for a few 
 hours each day, beside the fire in the little grate which had 
 first been lighted to welcome her, and for the friends who 
 have tended her with loving hearts and hands. 
 
 When Augusta awoke to perfect consciousness, feeble as 
 a child, and with the child-like tenderness, the child-like 
 longing for love, all reawakened in her heart, the first object 
 on which her eyes rested was the face of Mrs. Commodore 
 Moray, bending over her with anxious tenderness. For a 
 moment she thought herself dreaming, and after one earnest 
 gaze, closed her eyes, then opened them again to see if the 
 vision had faded away. No ! there it stood beside the bed, 
 the hair a little grayer, the face a little sadder and paler 
 than of old, but not otherwise changed, except by the deep 
 mourning dress. 
 
 " Do you not know me, love ? " asked Mrs. Moray, 
 thinking there was recognition in the glance turned to her.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 291 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Moray ! " was breathed in- a low, feeble 
 voice. 
 
 " Say dear mother, as you used to do when you were a 
 little child," said Mrs. Moray, pressing her lips tenderly to, 
 her forehead. 
 
 ' ; Dear mother ! " and Augusta smiled, as none had 
 seen her do for many a month ; then, with a little sigh of 
 weariness, she added, softly, " But where am I, and what 
 are you doing here ? " 
 
 " Hush ! you must not ask any questions till you are 
 a great deal stronger." 
 
 " You will not leave me ? " 
 
 No, dear child ! " 
 
 Augusta laid her wan, white hand on Mrs. Moray's ; her 
 eyelids fell wearily, and she slept again. From this hour 
 her recovery, though slow, was steady. Who has not ob 
 served how dependent are the soul's manifestations upon the 
 physical condition ? Augusta Moray, with health which 
 had never known disturbance, was, as we have seen, proud 
 and self-reliant; Augusta Moray, enfeebled by illness, was 
 touchingly submissive. Day by day, as her own dim 
 memories prompted her inquiries, the past was unfolded to 
 her. The months in which, repelling the kindness that would 
 have soothed and cherished her, withdrawing herself from 
 all that could have made life attractive, she had sat in chill 
 loneliness months, in which her life could have been sym 
 bolized only by a frozen sea, in the midst of whose desert 
 vastness rose an icy statue of herself at once deity and sacri 
 fice such are the marvels wrought by pride the blow 
 which struck that statue from its pedestal, and revealed all 
 that its glittering surface had hidden from her view all, 
 all came back to her. It was as if she had been under some 
 strange glamour, such as we are told could make the meanest 
 hovel seem a splendid castle, could transform a beautiful
 
 292 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 young prince into a hideous beast, or restore him to his 
 proper shape. I low magnanimous had seemed her conduct 
 in withdrawing from all on whom she could be supposed to 
 have any claim, in resting only on her own resources, re 
 lieving them of all draft on their sympathies or their aid. 
 Now, this magnanimity was dwarfed into the littleness of 
 selfish passion. Instead of relieving them, unless she could 
 believe them all false and hollow, she saw that she had 
 inflicted on them the deepest pain, and in the end far greater 
 trouble and expense than she would have done by accepting 
 their proffered care at first. And why had she rejected that 
 care ? Had it been indeed to spare them ? The conscious 
 blushes that dyed her cheeks said a thousand times No ! 
 It had been the feeble revenge of a slighted woman. She 
 had been willing all should suffer, if only she could reach 
 the cold, stern heart that had not wronged, not rejected, 
 that had offered her a brother's protecting and honoring 
 affection. With the usual tendency to swing from one 
 extreme to another, she saw these things, not as mistakes 
 that might be rectified, not even as sins that might be par 
 doned, but as a total shipwreck of her life. Others had not 
 been deceived, she argued ; what was so clear to her now, 
 must always have been manifest to them ; and how they 
 must have pitied her throughout ! Yes, they pitied her 
 they were so noble that they had not cast her off, though she 
 had so tried them ; but veil it as they would, must not con 
 tempt mingle with their pity 1 And with this sentiment she 
 must learn to be content she, who had flung scornfully away 
 all that was not the passionate devotion of a lover, must 
 receive with gratitude this. And the one who was most 
 tender, to whom it was so much a part of his nature not 
 only to love, but to throw a sanctifying halo around that 
 he loved, which permitted him also to honor it, he, on 
 whose tender heart she had probably inflicted the keenest
 
 TWO PICTURES. 293 
 
 pang, had passed beyond the reach of her confession or 
 atonement. 
 
 Such depressing thoughts weighed heavily upon her, 
 making her recovery very slow, as we have said. She 
 seemed to herself to have lost all self-control. In the 
 shadowy twilight, and often in the day, when hidden behind 
 the white curtains of her bed, tears stole from her closed 
 eyes, quiet tears no sobs, no distortion of her features 
 marking passionate emotion. 
 
 " Will you see Hugh, dear ? " Mrs. Moray had asked, 
 the second morning that Augusta was able to rise from her 
 bed and sit up, with a wrapper of crimson cashmere thrown 
 over her white gown. 
 
 Scarcely less deep was the crimson that flushed to her 
 pale cheeks as she asked, " Is he here ? " 
 
 " Yes, he has never failed to call as he went down to his 
 business or came back again, since he knew you were here." 
 
 " He is very good ; I will see him if he wishes it." 
 
 " You must not agitate her, Hugh ! she is very weak." 
 
 " I will be careful ; I would not have asked to see 
 her yet, but I think she will be better when she has seen 
 us all, and has no more agitations of that kind to look for 
 ward to." 
 
 Hugh intended to speak cheerfully, as he entered 
 Augusta meant to meet him with a smile ; but the first look 
 at her hollow cheeks, tinged though they were with a faint 
 flush, and at the pale thin hand extended to him, silenced the 
 words on Hugh's lips, and the'first glance into Hugh's eyes 
 brought tears instead of smiles to Augusta's face. 
 
 " You will soon be well enough to come home with us, 
 I hope," said Hugh, after some observations on her improve 
 ment, on the weather, on Jean's and Hiram's kindness, 
 things that, lying within the range of their life, yet did not 
 press too nearly on their hearts.
 
 294 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " I am well enough, I believe," with a little emphasis on 
 well." 
 
 " Not quite yet ; but you will come when you are, will 
 you not ? " 
 
 The tears which had been just dried, came faster ; the 
 lips quivered, there was a little sob. Hugh was frightened. 
 
 " I did not mean to agitate you," he said ; " forget it till 
 you are stronger, and then, if my wish gives you pain, let it 
 pass forget it still." 
 
 " No, no, pardon me this weakness I cannot help it. I 
 am so weak ; but I shall feel better when I have said just 
 this : I will do whatever will be least troublesome to-* to 
 you all ; I have tried my own way, and and " 
 
 " Dear Augusta ! " and Hugh took again the hand he 
 had suffered to fall from his, after one silent pressure ; " do 
 not use such a word as troublesome ; let it be the way that 
 will make you most happy, and that shall be our way as 
 well as yours ; but we will say no more now. Here comes 
 my mother to turn me out. Do you expect Miss Drayton 
 to-day, or shall I let her know how you are ? " 
 
 " If you could send her a message, I should be very 
 thankful she looks so delicate, and is so little accustomed 
 to exposure, that her visits, in such weather, lie heavily on 
 my conscience." 
 
 " Your conscience is too tender, my dear cousin. You 
 should think at present only of what will make you well. 
 Good-by ; I shall see you to-morrow." 
 
 " Hugh was mistaken ; she is not more cheerful for hav 
 ing seen him," was Mrs. Moray's unspoken comment on 
 Augusta's state after this visit. 
 
 " How foolish I am ! Am I never to be taught that 
 kindness is all I can expect from him 1 Shall I never 
 be able to imitate his indifference, his composure 1 " was 
 Augusta's.
 
 TWO PICTUBE8. 
 
 295 
 
 " I am afraid I betrayed a little too much of my agita 
 tion at first ; but she will learn in time that she has nothing 
 to fear from me, and then she will trust in me again. Poor 
 child ! when in her delirium she had forgotten my foolish 
 hopes, how she returned to the tone of her childhood ! If I 
 dared, I should like to ask her about some things she said 
 then ; but it would not do. I dare say, after all, it was only 
 a vague feeling that my good aunt had done her some 
 injury, applied in her delirium to what occupied her 
 thoughts just then ; yet it may not have been. I wish I 
 knew all nonsense ! 1 dare say there is nothing to know, 
 as if there must necessarily be some special cause for her 
 not giving me I will not think of it again " and Hugh, 
 whose musings we have thus jotted down, took out his notes 
 on a case he was to argue that very day ; and Augusta, 
 could she have seen the attention he gave to them, and the 
 steady hand with which he made further comments on the 
 margin of his paper, would probably have felt her envy of 
 his calmness increase. And yet, Hugh Moray felt even 
 when thus engaged that a change had passed over him, that 
 had left him not only a graver, but a harder man ; that he 
 had less trust in others, less sympathy for them, than he 
 had once. Many, who would have pitied the unfriended 
 boy, probably envied the fortunate barrister, who was fast 
 winning both fame and fortune ; but Hugh would gladly 
 have exchanged his near prospects of both, for the confiding 
 tenderness which had made the boy's heart soft and glad. 
 
 In a week from this time, Augusta found herself again 
 at Elizabethtown. It was a removal she would fain have 
 resisted. Far rather would she have buried herself in the 
 little cottage with Jean and Hiram. There were moments 
 when she felt that she would rather bury herself beneath the 
 white heaps of snow, or the ice of the sullen, gloomy river ; 
 for suffering, mental or physical, had not changed this proud
 
 29G TWO PICTURES. 
 
 and passionate nature ; it had only made her less confident 
 in her own decisions, and burned into her heart the convic 
 tion, scarce welcome at this period of her life, that she could 
 not immolate herself without bringing suffering to others. 
 There is a mood of mind in which even this may be braved ; 
 but such was not Augusta's at present. She could not 
 so soon forget him who had passed away, with " but one 
 ungratified wish." To Mrs. Moray's question whether she 
 felt strong enough to go, she answered, " Quite strong 
 enough ; but " and here she paused. 
 
 " But what, my dear child ? Speak freely to me, 
 Augusta ; you shall do nothing you do not wish." 
 
 " I have no wishes," she said, a little petulantly ; then, 
 as she met the sad eyes that looked pityingly into hers, her 
 heart smote her, and with a sudden gush of tears, she added, 
 " Do with me, dear Mrs. Moray, what you please. I have 
 no wish but to give as little trouble as I can to you, who 
 have been so kind to me. Do not think me ungrateful for 
 all your goodness ! Who but you would have come to mo 
 at such a time 1 " 
 
 Augusta raised the hand which Mrs. Moray had laid 
 caressingly on hers to her lips. 
 
 " Any one, dear Augusta, who had loved you as we do. 
 You once confided in my love, my child, and spoke out 
 your heart to me ; and why not now ? " 
 
 A slight color rose to Augusta's pale cheeks as she said, 
 " I have nothing to speak ; I only thought it might be better 
 for me to go back to Mrs. Price, and finish my engagement, 
 now that I am better." 
 
 " That would be, indeed, to trouble us. Indeed, I bo- 
 lieve," Mrs. Moray added, smiling, " that Hugh has put 
 that out of your power. You must excuse him ; you know 
 that Hugh does not often lose his self-control, but I do not 
 think he was quite master of himself when he did it ; Miss
 
 TWO PICTURES. 297 
 
 Drayton's account of what passed on her visit to you had 
 made him so angry, that he wrote a note to Mrs. Price, in 
 forming her of your illness, asking that whatever you had 
 left at her house might be sent to his office, and requesting 
 her to release you from an engagement which you were 
 unable to fulfil. Are you angry with him, my dear ? " 
 
 Augusta's cheeks had flushed to a deeper crimson ; but 
 it was not with anger. 
 
 " I cannot be angry with what was so kindly intended," 
 she said, softly. 
 
 " You are right, my dear, it was kindly intended it 
 was just as Hugh would have felt and acted for his sisters," ' 
 rejoined Mrs. Moray. 
 
 The glow faded from Augusta's face. 
 
 "'Still," she said, " Mrs. Price's was not a bad place 
 her impertinence never did more than excite my contempt." 
 
 " Well, a place is not a very good one which gives us 
 frequent occasion for the exercise of such an unchristian 
 emotion as contempt. Good or bad, however, you are not 
 fit for any place now you still have fever every evening." 
 
 " I think I must often have had fever before my illness. 
 I had violent headache often all night ; sometimes, indeed, 
 when I was playing for them to dance, I was almost wild 
 with it." 
 
 " That proves what Dr. Foster thought. He said this 
 illness could not have come on so suddenly as we supposed; 
 he thought the exposure and the great shock you had re 
 ceived," and Mrs. Moray drew Augusta's head toward her 
 till it rested on her bosom and pressed her trembling lips 
 to her forehead, as she remembered what that shock was 
 " he thought that these," she resumed, after a moment's 
 pause, " had only brought on more rapidly and aggravated, 
 perhaps, an already existing disease."
 
 298 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 They were silent a little while ; then Augusta returned 
 to the subject. 
 
 " I have no doubt Dr. Foster is right," she said, " yet 
 even in that condition I was able to teach with satisfaction 
 to my employer ; ought I not, then, to do it again ? " 
 
 " It was not with satisfaction to yourself, Augusta ; it 
 would now be with exquisite pain to your friends. Will 
 you give us this pain, child ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! dear Mrs. Moray never 1 never again ! " 
 
 " Then you must come to us, at least for the present. 
 We will talk of the future when you are quite well. Come 
 and bo my daughter and Hugh's sister, will you ? " and 
 she bent over and kissed her. 
 
 " 1 will be anything you wish," said Augusta, but so list 
 lessly, that Mrs. Moray turned away with a sigh at her 
 powerlessness to give pleasure or inspire confidence. 
 
 Often, very often, did Hugh, during the succeeding 
 month, have to sigh for the same cause. How could it be 
 otherwise, while with success unattainable to one less prac 
 tised in self-mastery, he was striving to prove to her 
 that she might rest in his affection as in that of a brother ; 
 an affection too unimpassioned, too free from selfish de 
 sires, to require that she should repress it by reserve, or 
 fear to encourage it by yielding to its guidance ; while she 
 was seeking in all their intercourse for some proof that the 
 past had not been all a dream ; or, at least, that the dream 
 had had some better foundation than a mere girlish vanity, 
 
 the very suspicion of which, humiliated her beyond endur 
 ance. 
 
 " Was not that," she asked herself, " the very window at 
 which I sat when he said those words which confirmed, 
 more than confirmed, all I had dared to believe ? did not 
 his father think as I did ? And yet, had we not both mis 
 taken him? Did not what followed show that we had?
 
 TWO PICTURES. 299 
 
 But then, that parting scene ! there he sat now on that very 
 spot, reading a letter, and what meant the long neglect of 
 his absence ; on the other hand, what meant that meeting at 
 Washington, those happy days that followed 1 ah ! but that 
 letter ! his own hand and seal ; there was no mistaking 
 that. Fool ! fool that I am ! " and with an impatient move 
 ment she threw her head back, as if to cast off the thoughts 
 that at once irritated and mortified her. In doing so, she 
 met Hugh's eyes fastened upon her with something like a 
 smile in them, and as bright a flush rose to her cheeks, as if 
 he thought he could have read what had been passing 
 through her mind. 
 
 " What subject occupies you so deeply, my cousin ? 
 my mother spoke to you twice without your perceiving 
 it." 
 
 " Don't look so shocked, my dear," said Mrs. Moray. 
 " It was only to call your attention to this beautiful sun 
 set." 
 
 "I beg your pardon; I was thinking " then, as her 
 conscience reproved her for the untruth, she changed her 
 phraseology ; " I am thinking that I am really quite well 
 enough now to be doing something, and that I ought n'ot t(> 
 be idle any longer." 
 
 " Do you call your present life idle, my dear ? " asked 
 Mrs. Moray, with a pained expression of countenance ; " a 
 very busy idleness, as I could, prove by the exhibition of 
 various articles of your neat handiwork." 
 
 " Are you weary of us, Augusta 1 " asked Hugh, draw 
 ing near, and leaning against the casement of that very 
 window outside of which he had stood that summer after 
 noon. 
 
 Augusta made a little impatient movement with her 
 hand, which was peculiar to her, and which Hugh well 
 understood.
 
 300 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 "Those who have few friends do not readily grow 
 weary of them," she said, as he continued to look at her 
 smilingly, yet as if he would have an answer. 
 
 " That is not your case, Augusta, and I can prove it to 
 you. Do you see these three letters ? I have received 
 them all to-day, and they are all full of you. First Miss 
 Drayton writes that she and Miss Mellen are very anxious 
 about you, that she does not like your own account of your 
 present condition, and she wishes me to ascertain from your 
 physician, whether he thinks a change of climate would be 
 of service to you ; if he does, and you will consent to come 
 to her, Judge Mellen will himself come on to escort you. 
 Then Charlie and Mrs. Moray " 
 
 " Mrs. Moray ! " with an expression of contempt, " pray 
 let her pass ! " 
 
 " I am content ; but we cannot let Charlie pass." 
 
 " It would be as well while he is with his mother. He 
 :s but her echo, understanding, too, as little as does the echo, 
 the sound it repeats." 
 
 " Well ! the sound he repeats at present is a very kind, 
 pleasant sound ; they are anxious to know how you are, and 
 Charlie would himself come for you, if you would go out 
 and spend the rest of the winter with them. His mother 
 has been very ill he hopes she will be able to travel next 
 summer, when you can return with them, if you wish." 
 
 " That proposition has been answered already. I cannot 
 be a guest in my early home, with Mrs. Moray for my host 
 ess. Is that all 1 " 
 
 " No ; I have a third letter. It is from Mr. Mortimer. 
 Ho is very anxious about you ; but read for yourself," and 
 opening the letter, Hugh handed it to Augusta, pointing 
 to the following passage as that which he wished her t<i 
 read. 
 
 " I believe a return to her native climate and to a life as
 
 TWO PICTURES. 301 
 
 free as that of an intelligent being can ever be from respon 
 sibilities, will be her best cure ; but this is not my only or 
 my strongest reason for begging that she would come. I 
 want her for my own sake. I am old I cannot come to 
 her, and I long to see the child who is the only living thing 
 that I can flatter myself will miss me a little when I die. 
 Tell her that hour cannot be very far away for one as old 
 as I it may be very near ; ask her if she will let me die 
 with this my strongest, almost my only earthly wish un- 
 gratified." 
 
 " I will go," said Augusta ; returning the letter without 
 raising her eyes. There followed a moment of struggle on 
 her part, and of embarrassed silence on Hugh's ; then her 
 head sank, her face was covered with her hands, and she 
 burst into a perfect passion of tears. It was long since she 
 had wept thus, and now it would have been hard for her to 
 tell the cause of her tears. In truth, they were from very 
 mingled feelings ; tenderness to Mr. Mortimer, agitation at 
 the thought of seeing the old home, regret at leaving the 
 friends with whom she now was ; and last, and strongest of 
 all, perhaps, grief and humiliation at the thought that Hugh 
 wished her to go, or he would not have shown her such a 
 letter all these emotions contributed to her tears. 
 
 Mrs. Moray had been called out of the room, while 
 Augusta was reading the letter, so that she and Hugh were 
 alone. To a nature like Hugh Moray's, the pain of estrange 
 ment from those beloved, is never so keenly felt as M r hen 
 they are in sorrow. Involuntarily Hugh approached Au 
 gusta at the first sound of her weeping. His arm was out 
 stretched as if to draw her to him that he might soothe her 
 as he had often done before ; but with sudden recollection, 
 he drew back and walked once or twice across the room, 
 before he could master himself sufficiently to speak without 
 betraying more emotion than was consistent with the calm-
 
 302 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 ness of a disinterested friendship. When he spoke, though 
 his manner was composed and undemonstrative, his voice 
 had still unusual softness in its tone. 
 
 " Dear Augusta ! I would not have shown you this 
 letter," he said, " fearing that it might agitate you too 
 much, had not Dr. Foster, whom I went to see this morn 
 ing, not feeling quite satisfied with your progress toward 
 health, told me that he believed nothing but entire change 
 of climate would restore you completely. It will grieve us 
 all to part with you even for a few months. I shall write 
 Mr. Mortimer that we spare you only on condition that you 
 are to come back to us in May ; Charlie will be glad to find 
 so good an excuse for coming as your need of an escort, 
 unless, indeed, I should be able to leave my business for 
 two or three weeks, and you will let Esther and me come 
 for you." 
 
 " Thank you ! " said Augusta, recovering her voice dur 
 ing this speech, which had probably been prolonged for 
 this very purpose ; " you are very kind ; but it will hardly 
 be necessary to trouble you and Esther ; travelling is very 
 safe in our country." 
 
 " But travelling alone is not very agreeable." 
 
 " When must I go?" asked Augusta, waiving the last 
 proposition entirely. 
 
 " The doctor said as early as possible ; and as I found 
 Mr. Mortimer's letter at my office, and thought it probable 
 you would not refuse his entreaty, I have been making in 
 quiries about packets and passengers. I find a vessel will 
 sail a week from to-day, in which a clergyman, with whom 
 Mr. Ilolton is acquainted, has taken passage for himself and 
 his daughter. I have secured for you the refusal of a state 
 room till to-morrow " Hugh paused a moment; Augus 
 ta's face was still downcast and somewhat averted from 
 him ; he could not read its expression ; but there was no
 
 TWO PICTURES. 303 
 
 mistaking the dejection indicated by the attitude. Taking 
 the hand that rested on her lap, he added, " You know not 
 how painful it is to let you go without some of us accom 
 panying you ; but the doctor thinks it so necessary and 
 and " he paused again he could not bear to refer to 
 money, to acknowledge that he could not afford to meet the 
 cost of more than one traveller at present, even if lie were 
 able to leave his business. 
 
 " And it would be the cost of three," he said to him 
 self, " for she would not be comfortable with me, without 
 Esther." 
 
 Suddenly Augusta looked up she had been trying to 
 gather composure for the very subject which Hugh was 
 endeavoring to avoid. 
 
 " Before I decide, I must know what the expense will 
 be," she said, somewhat brusquely, as people are apt to say 
 things about which they are very decided themselves, yet 
 anticipate a contest with another. 
 
 " Oh ! very little not worth speaking of. I will ar 
 range that before you go, so that it will give you no 
 trouble." 
 
 " I cannot decide till I know exactly what it will be," 
 she repeated, very firmly. 
 
 Hugh saw the question must be met and answered. 
 " The passage is twenty-five dollars, and surely such a 
 sum " 
 
 " Can be easily met by me," Augusta interrupted ; " I 
 have about one hundred and fifty dollars part of it from 
 my six months' salary at Mrs. Price's, and part of it 
 from " she hesitated a moment, not willing to speak of 
 the sale of her jewelry, then resumed, " part of it remaining 
 from the sum 1 brought with me ; you would oblige me 
 very much if you would get Dr. Foster's bill for me in the 
 morning ; till I have seen that "
 
 304: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " That is paid already," said Hugh, somewhat coldly. 
 
 " And the amount ? " 
 
 " Need not trouble you, Augusta ; it is paid, I said." 
 
 " So I understood you ; that changes my creditor ; to 
 whomsoever it is due, I must know the amount." 
 
 " Still so proud, Augusta ? " he questioned, sadly. 
 
 " It is not pride, it is simple justice for all your kind 
 ness and that of your mother and sisters, for your generous 
 care of me in illness, your generous hospitality " 
 
 " We give hospitality to strangers," Hugh interrupted ; 
 but she went on as if she had not heard him. 
 
 " For all, I thank you ; but my heart would break under 
 pecuniary obligation. I pray you do not force me to lie 
 undc'r its crushing weight." 
 
 " You are under no pecuniary obligation to me. I owed 
 your uncle more than twenty times the fifty dollars paid to 
 Dr. Foster. What I owed to him is now yours, since you 
 are his heir-at-law, and this sum was not disposed of by 
 will." 
 
 " It was not disposed of, because it was intended that it 
 should remain with you. I have no more claim on it than 
 I have on anything else that is yours." 
 
 " And must we be altogether as strangers, then, Augus 
 ta ? " Hugh asked, in an accent in which, in spite of all his 
 efforts, there was some bitterness. 
 
 " Should I have submitted to a stranger's guidance, and 
 dwelt so long in quiet, in a stranger's home ? " she asked, 
 quickly. " Your kindness, in any other form, I repeat, I will 
 accept money, never ; I have been humbled enough on this 
 subject, let me hope that you will never name it to me again." 
 
 In saying this, Augusta looked, for the first time, steadily 
 into Hugh's face. Her own was flushed with passion, and 
 her lip was curved with an expression which he could 
 scarcely interpret by anything except disdain. As she con-
 
 TWO PICTUEES. 305 
 
 eluded, she rose from her seat ; and though he began to 
 expostulate on the injustice of her words as applied to him 
 self, she seemed not even to hear him she certainly did not 
 heed him, not deigning even a glance as she withdrew to her 
 own room, leaving him bewildered, yet indignant. 
 
 Her proud displeasure evaporated in another fit of weep 
 ing when she found herself alone, and when, at Esther's call, 
 she descended to the parlor to tea, her face had lost its flush, 
 and her manner its unusual excitement. But the sterner na 
 ture she had roused had not been able so quickly to regain 
 its equilibrium. When she ventured to look at Hugh she 
 saw that he was very grave ; and though the courtesies of 
 the table were offered with punctilious attention to her as 
 well as to his mother and sisters, his countenance never lost 
 its expression of grave reserve. After tea, Lily asked if he 
 would not finish, a poem which he had begun to read for 
 them the last evening ; but he answered that he should be 
 engaged in his study, and they must read it themselves. As 
 he said this, he withdrew into the said study and remained 
 there all the evening, though Mrs. Moray expressed the fear 
 that he must be very cold there, as the room was not easily 
 warmed, and the fire had only been ordered by Hugh while 
 they were at tea and Augusta said to herself, " It is I who 
 have made him angry and driven him from his family." 
 
 Before returning to their rooms, each of the family in 
 turn, first Mrs. Moray, then Esther, then Lily, stopped at 
 the study to say good night to Hugh. 
 
 Augusta and Lily had left the parlor together, lighted 
 by one candle, which Augusta carried, for Esther and Lily 
 occupied the same apartment, and Esther had already car 
 ried their light up stairs. 
 
 " You will come in and say good night to Hugh," said 
 Lily, pausing, as they reached the study door. 
 
 " No ; but I will wait for you." Then, in reply to Lily's
 
 306 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 questioning eyes, she added, " Hugh is busy ; he will not 
 care to see me this evening." 
 
 " I will ask him," said Lily, tripping in with a smile on 
 her face. 
 
 Hugh was sitting with his back to the door, which care 
 less Lily left so far open that Augusta could both see and 
 hear what passed within. 
 
 " Hugh, you are very unsocial, this evening," said Lily. 
 
 Hugh did not turn, nor did his pen cease its movement 
 across the paper, as he said, in a dry tone, " I am very busy, 
 Lily." 
 
 " Well, good night ; " she bent down and gave him her 
 sisterly kiss, exclaiming, as she rose, "I believe Augusta 
 was right, after all, when she said you were so busy that 
 you would not care to see her." 
 
 " She was mistaken," still in the same, dry, curt tone ; 
 " tell her, if you please, that I shall be glad to see her here 
 for a moment, if it will not give her too much trouble to 
 come to me." 
 
 " Oh, no ! she is just outside of the door. Augusta I 
 Hugh wants to see you," said Lily, as she went out. 
 
 Augusta entered. The haughty air she had worn, when 
 she left Hugh in the afternoon, was gone. Her eyes were 
 heavy, her face pale, her movements languid. 
 
 Hugh rose, placed a chair for her, and closed the study- 
 door. Augusta felt very weak, yet she did not seat herself, 
 as his action had seemed to invite her to do ; she only 
 rested her hand upon the back of the chair. Hugh had 
 gone to his desk, and now approached her with a paper in 
 his hand. 
 
 " Augusta," he said, " here is Doctor Foster's bill. You 
 will perceive by the little note appended to it, that he be 
 lieved me to be your accredited agent ; you will excuse, I 
 hope, the liberty I took in permitting him to entertain that 
 idea."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 307 
 
 His voice had no softness in it ; in his manner, though 
 perfectly courteous, Augusta missed that peculiar deference 
 which she had been accustomed to find there. 
 
 " Hugh ! " she said, falteringly, " you are angry with 
 me." 
 
 " Not angry at least not now" he said, in the same 
 restrained manner, " but I cannot deny that I was deeply 
 wounded by your remarks this evening. It is too agitating 
 a subject for you at present, however," his tone softening a 
 little, " but some day I shall ask my cousin to be so kind 
 as to tell me in which of my efforts to serve her I have been 
 so unfortunate as to inflict on her a humiliation." 
 
 " It is better that I should tell you now, Hugh," said 
 Augusta, in a voice that was almost a whisper. 
 
 " As you please," was the somewhat nonchalant reply. 
 
 It was very difficult for Augusta to speak on such a sub 
 ject with so little encouragement ; but she was determined 
 to make the effort. Hugh might have some apology, some 
 thing to say that would make that one ungenerous, ignoble 
 action seem more in harmony with the rest. It could not 
 be excused it might be palliated. Yes ! she would speak. 
 
 It was not very certain that she could, for twice her lips 
 opened and no sound came. Hugh waited. Suddenly a 
 flush came to her face and she spoke. Indignation had 
 awakened again, and she was strong. 
 
 " When we give alms to a beggar, Hugh, we are taught 
 to do it without ostentation ; surely a delicate reserve is at 
 least equally desirable when we would force our favors 
 upon those who have not solicited them." 
 
 " Your proposition is incontrovertible ; but excuse me 
 if I say I cannot see how I have sinned against it." The 
 manner and tone were alike haughtily repellant. 
 
 " By sending me money, or its equivalent, a draft, in an 
 open envelope without a word of explanation or apology ; I
 
 308 TWO PICTUKE8. 
 
 would rather have wanted bread," she went on warmly, 
 " than to have been compelled to convict you of an act 
 untrue alike to the principles of a Christian and the instincts 
 of a gentleman." 
 
 " Somewhat hard words these, I should say, to one who, 
 hurried away by the intelligence that peril to what was 
 dearer than life, overhung his father " Hugh's voice soft 
 ened at that word, but soon grew hard again ; " peril which 
 might be averted by his presence, begged for ten minutes 
 delay, and spent every moment of them in writing such a 
 note as he believed would convince you that, in what he 
 enclosed, you were only receiving a part of what was your 
 own, and " 
 
 " You wrote me a note, Hugh ? You wrote me a note 
 with that draft which you sent by Mr. Seton ? " 
 
 " Exactly so ; by Mr. Seton, whom you had introduced 
 to me as a gentleman, and your friend, I think ; and as I 
 had used up my last minute in this poor note, which seems 
 to have escaped your eye or your memory, Mr. Seton prom 
 ised that he would seal it and deliver it himself." 
 
 " He did come to the house to deliver it ; but, not know 
 ing his object, 1 declined to see him, and he sent me by Mrs. 
 Charles Moray, an open envelope, with the message that 
 this would show me the hurry you were in ; and, Hugh, 
 I solemnly declare that the envelope contained nothing but 
 the draft which I sent back to you." 
 
 Augusta thought this must free her from all blame in 
 Hugh's mind ; but she was mistaken. Instead of the return 
 to his usual gentleness, which she had expected, his words 
 were more indignant, his attitude more haughty than ever. 
 
 " And you could believe this of me ? " he exclaimed, 
 " you there was not in your heart one memory of the past, 
 to plead for me nothing that would say ' he is incapable 
 of such an act?' I do not wonder that you refuse so
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 309 
 
 haughtily to accept a service from me. I do not wonder 
 that you desired to withdraw from all association with one 
 capable of such I have no name base enough for it ! " he 
 cried, suddenly turning away, and striding across the room. 
 As he turned at the farther end of it, he saw her standing 
 where he had left her, with her eyes fixed upon him, and 
 her clasped hands resting on the back of the chair he had set 
 for her. He could not see that the eyes were full of tears 
 and the hands trembling ; yet something in the attitude 
 touched him, and he came back to say, more gently, " It is 
 enough, Augusta; I cannot deny that you are fully excused." 
 
 " Excused ! but not forgiven, Hugh," she said, softly. 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " What could I believe, Hugh ? " 
 
 " Believe ! " he cried again, with a force that made her 
 sfart, " believe that Mr. Seton or Mrs. Moray had abstract 
 ed it, as one of them most certainly did ; believe the paper 
 had been blown away, had melted into thin air ; believe any 
 impossible marvel rather than this." 
 
 " I should have done so, Hugh ; but " 
 
 She hesitated for a moment, and he exclaimed, " You 
 would have done so, but that you had already learned to 
 distrust me but that you had already ceased to esteem me 
 worthy of your friendship." 
 
 This was not the truth ; but it was something so like the 
 truth, that Augusta knew not what to answer. She could 
 not speak of the letter which had put an impassable gulph 
 between them. Even had she made no promise to Mrs. 
 Moray, how was it possible to name it without betraying 
 the nature of the hopes it had crushed of the affection it 
 had outraged. Might there have been treachery here too ? 
 She grew bewildered, oppressed. Hugh was startled as he 
 saw her press her hand to her forehead, and gasp as if her 
 breath came with difficulty. He remembered her late ill-
 
 310 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 ness for the first time during this conversation, and he came 
 to her side with more quietness of movement and said, " I 
 fear I have agitated you ; do not let us speak of this any 
 longer." 
 
 " And will you not forgive me, Hugh 1 " she said ; " I do 
 not know quite how it was I was so sad and confused ; 
 I am confused now, I believe ; but I wish you could say ' I 
 forgive you ; ' can't you, Hugh ? " 
 
 Hugh was subdued. There was no anger, but only sad 
 ness in his tone, as he replied, " I do forgive you, Augusta ; 
 will you forgive me, my poor child, for forgetting for a 
 little while all you have been suffering lately ? Good night, 
 you must forget all this and sleep ; Lily has gone, I sup 
 pose, but I will get a light for you." 
 
 He lit one of the candles that stood in bright silver 
 candlesticks on the mantlepiece, and handed it to her. She 
 went to the door, then turning round, looked at him with 
 sad, weary eyes, and said, " You do forgive me, Hugh ? " 
 
 Hugh had no words for such an appeal. " Forgive and 
 forget ! " that was just what he did. For a moment he 
 went back to the old days when she was the little child she 
 looked just then, and his heart was as free from any debas 
 ing passion and as full of tenderness as heart could be, as he 
 folded her in his arms, and gave, in one soft pressure of his 
 lips upon her cheek, the only answer of which he was at 
 that moment capable. Only a few hours before, such a 
 familiarity from Hugh would have been resented as an 
 oU'encc, and not the less deeply resented if supposed to indi 
 cate the freedom of a brother ; but having discovered that 
 she had so greatly wronged him in her thoughts, Augusta, 
 with her womanly generosity, repaid the wrong by giving 
 back to him all her childlike confidence. Even that letter 
 was scarcely remembered for that night ; and when it did 
 force itself upon her thoughts, there came with it a convic-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 311 
 
 tion that could she only speak of it, which was, of course, 
 impossible, it could be so explained that she would see 
 there was no want of consistency in Hugh. He had not 
 sought her that was a point the letter clearly settled ; well, 
 let that dream pass he was still her friend, and what was 
 better, he was noble, and she might still esteem and trust 
 him as of old. And so gentle and so trustful had these 
 thoughts made Augusta, that Hugh found it harder than 
 ever to keep within the limits of that calm friendliness of 
 manner he had prescribed for himself, during the few days 
 that intervened between this interview and her sailing. 
 
 " Hugh ! will you take this ? " Augusta said, the next 
 day, offering him the fifty dollars he had paid to Dr. Fos 
 ter. " I think I have enough without it," she added, with a 
 deprecating timidity of tone and manner. 
 
 " You will not have too much with it," said Hugh, 
 clasping the hand she held to him, for a moment, but leav 
 ing the money in it. 
 
 Augusta did not press it on him. She would show him 
 how she trusted him, and Hugh understood and thanked her 
 in his heart. 
 
 " Will you let me go to Jersey City with you 1 " she 
 asked, after this point had been settled ; " I want to see my 
 good, kind Jean before I go ; I will come back at twelve 
 o'clock, under Mr. Brown's own care." 
 
 " I am afraid it will be too cold for you." 
 
 " I will wrap very warmly." 
 
 Augusta went. She found Jean neat and smiling as 
 ever, sitting on one side of the bright, warm kitchen grate, 
 while sister Carrie, a younger Jean, sat at the other her 
 visit had been delayed, but not prevented by hospitality to 
 the stranger. 
 
 " Oh, Miss ! I am so glad to see you, and looking so 
 well, too," cried Jean, " with such a color in your cheeks." 
 14
 
 312 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 It was pretty, that color, though only the frosty air had 
 brought it there, and it faded even while Jean was speaking. 
 
 " I am much better, thank you, Jean ; and so this is 
 Carrie. I was sorry to disappoint you of your Christmas 
 visit, Carrie." 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, please don't mention it. I must have gone 
 home by this if I had come at Christmas, so you see it was 
 all for the best, ma'am, every way." 
 
 " You are very good to say so. Here, Jean, I have 
 brought you a few little things that I thought you might 
 value because I made them." 
 
 Augusta unrolled a package as she spoke, and showed 
 various knitted articles, over which Jean and Carrie went 
 into raptures. 
 
 " They are for the little stranger, Jean ; I brought them 
 now, because I cannot be here to welcome it when it 
 comes." 
 
 " Dear rna'am ! you are so good." 
 
 "-The goodness, dear Jean, was on your side and Mr. 
 Brown's ; what would have become of me but for you ? " 
 
 " Well, I am sure, ma'am, we did no more than was our 
 duty, and we've been paid for it over and over again ; 
 besides the pleasure of serving you, there's that beautiful 
 picture you sent us Christmas day." 
 
 " It was a trifle, Jean, but I thought you would like it 
 because I painted it myself, and I tried to make it like what 
 you had told me of your home in the West." 
 
 " It is, ma'am, 'tis wonderful like. Hiram knew the 
 big oak with one branch broke off, right away, though it 
 stands t'other side the house ; but then I always put it right 
 in my rnind, you see and you painted that yourself for 
 me ! and there's the big rocking chair and the sofa in the 
 parlor ! " 
 
 "But I did not send you the rocking chair and sofa, 
 Jean."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 313 
 
 " You did not send them yourself, ma'am ; but when we 
 went to thank the gentleman Mr. Moray, I mean, ma'am, 
 because the men that brought it said he had sent them he 
 says, ' You mustn't thank me,' says he, ' it's all for the lady 
 though she'd rather you would not speak to her of it ; ' 
 but, ma'am, indeed, I couldn't help speaking, and so I told 
 Hiram." 
 
 " But, indeed, my good Jean, I had nothing to do with 
 it it was all Mr. Moray's own friendship for you ; I never 
 even saw them." 
 
 " Is it possible, ma'am ? then you must come and see 
 them, for they are rale handsome and no mistake." 
 
 Jean led the way into the little parlor and exhibited, 
 with a glow of pride and pleasure, the really pretty sofa 
 and chair, not being satisfied till Augusta had taken her seat 
 in the last, and so verified her assurance that it was " the 
 easiest thing ever was." Jean colored a little as she added, 
 " Ah, ma'am ! I didn't need them to tell me that the gentle 
 man loved the very dust you walked upon, and couldn't do 
 enough for anybody that was good to you. I seen that, the 
 very first night he come here, when his own father was a 
 lay in' dead." 
 
 " Was he here before the funeral ? " asked Augusta, half 
 ashamed of questioning Jean, yet longing to hear all she 
 could tell. 
 
 " Indeed he was, ma'am ; he came soon as the train 
 could bring him after he got the doctor's note, and he sat up 
 all that night by the kitchen fire. When he first corned, he 
 looked quite quiet like, though he was so sad ; but when I 
 was a telling him about you, he just broke down like and 
 turned away, as if he couldn't bear to hear it ; then I asked 
 him to go up and see you." 
 
 " Go up and see me 1 " cried Augusta, with a quick flush. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, I asked him ; but he said no, and so I left
 
 314 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 him and went to take care of you, and you was asleep. The 
 doctor gave you something to put you to sleep, you see, 
 and after a long time you woke up ; and soon as you woke 
 you tried to get up and you kept saying, ' 1 will go to him,' 
 and when I held you back, you screamed ' Hugh ! Hugh ! 
 come to me ! ' just as if you knew he was there ; I declare I 
 was that weak you might have knocked me down with your 
 little finger, I was so scared ; and I dare say you'd have 
 gone from me, but the gentleman, he heard you scream, and 
 come flying up stairs, and the minute you seen him and he 
 spoke to you, you was just as quiet as a lamb. He went home 
 the next morning, for you see his father was to be buried, 
 and the lady from New York came ; but when night came, 
 there he was, sure enough, and all the sleep he got was on a 
 bench in the kitchen, wrapped up in his cloak, and that he 
 did for many a night after. I only wish the sofa had been 
 here then ! " 
 
 Augusta heard without a word. As Jean spoke, from 
 the darkness of that delirium, looks and tones flashed forth 
 like the shadows of a half forgotten dream. That dream 
 hovered about her all the day, mocking her attempts to 
 grasp its vanishing views. No wonder her head ached at 
 night with the vain effort. 
 
 A fortnight later, Augusta was once more at St. Mary's. 
 We will precede her, and see what changes she will find 
 there.
 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " He who would fight the devil at his own weapon must not wonder if he finds 
 him aii overmatch." SOUTH. 
 
 THE reader may remember that Mrs. Charles Moray 
 and her son had announced their determination of returning 
 immediately to St. Mary's, before Augusta had parted from 
 them in Washington. To tell the truth, Mrs. Moray did 
 not expect much pleasure from that visit ; ghosts, she knew, 
 would meet her there, which it would be hard to lay ; but 
 ghosts would now meet her everywhere, and Charlie must 
 go, must take possession of his property the ghosts must 
 be met. But she would not meet them in the loneliness 
 which she had formerly known there. What good Mr. 
 Mortimer enjoyed as the serene stillness of nature, -would 
 have been to her a frightful desert, peopled by demons im 
 patient for their prey. 
 
 " And so you are really going to live on a Southern 
 plantation, my dear Mrs. Moray ! " exclaimed Mrs. Cullen, 
 one of the gayest of the gay world of Washington, at that 
 time. She was a widow, who had brought her only daugh 
 ter there to introduce her into society. " Where could such 
 society be found as in Washington ? " she asked, and justly, 
 too, " and how could mothers expect their daughters to 
 marry well, if they did not give them an opportunity of 
 seeing the world ? "
 
 316 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Mrs. Cullen had conscientiously done her duty, in this 
 respect. Her daughter had seen the world at one, two, 
 sometimes at three balls, every evening, except Sundays, 
 during the winter months ; yet the great desideratum of 
 being well married had not yet been attained. Not that 
 Miss Cullen was without admirers. She was, in truth, very 
 much admired. Tho term is cold j men called her beautiful, 
 at least those men on whom she exercised the bewildering 
 charm of her coquetry. Her mother's reputed wealth would 
 have ensured her attentions, had she been less pretty than 
 she really was. We know not how it was, and fortunately 
 are not compelled to account for it. Some said her sharp 
 tongue had spoiled the fortune of her pretty face; some 
 that she was too great a flirt to be trusted by a wise man ; 
 however, this was certain, Miss Cullen had seen the world 
 and been seen by it, and still remained unappropriated. 
 Mrs. Cullen and Mrs. Moray had met often in their round 
 of gaieties, had indeed been quite intimate, and Mrs. Cullen 
 had been one of the first after Mr. Hugh Moray's funeral to 
 call on the mother of " that fortunate young Mr. Moray," 
 prepared to offer condolence or congratulation as the case 
 should seem to demand. She found it well that she had 
 thus provided herself, for both were called for. First, the 
 condolence, for " dear Mr. Moray had been always so much 
 beloved ; he had won her heart the first hour she saw him 
 by his partiality to Charles strange as it might seem, 
 considering how talented Mr. Hugh Moray, Jr., was, and 
 having his own name, too, Mr. Moray had always prc- 
 f.-nv,l Charlie." 
 
 Then, as to the congratulation, " It was quite natural 
 that she should be glad that Charles had come into posses 
 sion of such a noble property one of the finest in the 
 Southern States, and she was glad, she could not be hypo 
 crite enough to deny it."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 317 
 
 *' And they say you have something very handsome 
 yourself? " suggested Mrs. Cullen. 
 
 " Well, nothing very great fifteen or twenty thousand 
 dollars enough, with what I had before, for me to live on 
 Avithout troubling Charlie, when he gets another mistress to 
 his house." l 
 
 " That will be very soon, I suppose, as we understand 
 that his marriage with his beautiful cousin is une affaire ar- 
 rangee" 
 
 11 You do not believe all Washington reports, do you, 
 Mrs. Cullen ? " 
 
 " Ma foi ! if I could do that, I might hope to move 
 mountains." 
 
 " Then you would do well to put that among the things 
 you do not believe. Mr. Moray wished it, but there are 
 some things one cannot do to please even the best of friends. 
 We offered Miss Moray a home, and would have provided 
 handsomely for her ; but well you must excuse me 
 Charlie would not like that I should talk of such things even 
 to you, dear Mrs. Cullen ; but you know there are some 
 people who must have all, or they will have nothing." 
 
 " Ah ! 1 understand ; and when is she going ? " 
 
 "Gone, my dear! actually gonel flounced out of the 
 house in a passion at her disappointment, without even say 
 ing good-by to me, who have been a mother to her, as every 
 one knows, and gone to Mrs. Commodore Moray, at Eliza- 
 bethtown. She is the mother of young Mr. Hugh Moray. 
 He is rapidly rising in his profession, you know, so he 
 would be no bad parti for her. I sincerely hope he will 
 marry her ; I should be sorry, if only for her uncle's sake, 
 that she should come to harm." 
 
 " And so you are going to one of those triste Southern 
 plantations without even a companion?" cried Mrs. Cullen, 
 compassionately.
 
 318 TWO PICTUBE8. 
 
 " Indeed, I have no such idea ; it would kill me ; and 
 though I would sacrifice my life for my son's interest, I 
 would not choose to die of the blue devils. 1 don't intend 
 that St. Mary's shall be triste. I shall remain in Savannah 
 till Charlie has got through with the first sad scenes. It 
 will do no good, you know, for me to go through them 
 again." 
 
 " Of course not; and it is your duty to keep yourself 
 cheerful for your son's sake ; the Quakers say cleanliness, 
 but I say cheerfulness, is next to godliness." 
 
 " 1 agree with you ; so after that is over, I shall take 
 with me upholsterers and all sorts of workpeople, to make 
 the old house completely new, and refurnish it in every re 
 spect. The place has really great capabilities, but it has 
 been horribly neglected. In a couple of months I shall 
 make quite a different thing of it. All this will amuse me, 
 you know, and as soon as it is in perfect order, we shall 
 come away for the summer. Mr. Moray stayed there all 
 the year, but I could not think of such a thing. We will 
 go to Saratoga, or Newport, or somewhere where we can 
 get a little life ; and in October or November we shall go 
 back with as many agreeable people as we can persuade to 
 go with us. I hope you and Miss Cullen will be among 
 them." 
 
 " You are very kind, but I am afraid my Eliso," the 
 name had been Eliza, but was Frenchified to please Miss 
 Cullen's taste " my Elise would never stand such a quiet 
 life." 
 
 "A quiet life is not what I design, I assure you. Char 
 lie has the promise of several young gentlemen to come and 
 spend a month at a time with him to hunt St. Mary's is 
 full of deer. I shall try to have half a dozen pleasant young 
 ladies always on hand. Of one thing you may be sure ; the 
 gentlemen shall be good partis always ; I have told Char-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 319 
 
 lie if he wanted me to invite young ladies there, he must 
 always make sure of that ; for, you know, when young peo 
 ple are brought so near together for a whole month, some 
 thing must grow out of it." 
 
 " Can you tell me some of the young gentlemen's 
 names ? " 
 
 Two or three names were given by Mrs. Moray. 
 
 " Very good very good ; I don't quite like Keardon ; 
 they say he plays ; but the rest are capital." 
 
 " Keardon plays, my dear Mrs. Cullen, but they say ho 
 is always fortunate; I had a little hesitation about him on 
 Charlie's account ; but Charlie insisted on it. He says he 
 is the most entertaining fellow in the world, and that as 
 to any danger to himself, he has not the least fancy for 
 play." 
 
 " Ah ! but the fancy may come and the luck may 
 change. Well, I must be going ; I'll tell Elise what you 
 say. You'll have a piano, of course ? " 
 
 " A grand piano ; one of Chickering's best." 
 
 " The young people can dance, I suppose, by that, some 
 times ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; besides, every plantation has more than one 
 fiddler on it ; you know they call a violin a fiddle." 
 
 " Well, I think you may depend on us ; but I will hear 
 what Elise says." 
 
 Mrs. Cullen took an early opportunity of consulting her 
 daughter on a subject which seemed to her by no means un 
 important. 
 
 " They do say that this Mr. Moray was immensely 
 rich," she said, " and the young man is good-looking and 
 agreeable enough ; what do you say to going ? " 
 
 " I'll try it, if you wish ; we shall spend nothing there, 
 and I suppose, with riding, and driving, boating, and pic-nic- 
 ing, and dancing, and flirting, if there are pleasant men 
 there "
 
 320 TWO PICTUBES. 
 
 " You will let the flirting alone, if you please, we have 
 had enough of that this winter ; if you go, I expect you to 
 behave yourself discreetly ; do you understand, Elise ? " 
 
 " I am not quite destitute of understanding ; I take your 
 meaning to be that I am to do all in my power to become 
 Mrs. Moray. I hope, before the bargain is consummated, 
 you will make sure of the fortune. Kemember, if that 
 should be light, there are no brains to turn the scale." 
 
 ' If you don't take care, your tongue will ruin all your 
 bargains, and what good will your brains do you then ? " 
 
 " Teach me not to regret the loss of fools." 
 
 "The loss of their fortunes would be a more serious 
 evil." 
 
 " I might gain the fool and Mr. R card on the fortune. 
 How then ? " 
 
 " It will be your own fault if it should be so ; I think it 
 would be common charity to that poor young man and his 
 mother to exert yourself to keep him out of the hands of a 
 gamester." 
 
 Whatever might be the variance between this worldly 
 mother and her daughter, they were agreed in accepting an 
 invitation which promised them some gayety for the ensuing 
 winter without expense, Mrs. Cullon declaring that she had 
 spent the income of two years upon her winter in Wash 
 ington. 
 
 u I shall give no more invitations till I go to Saratoga," 
 said Mrs. Moray, on receiving this promise ; " I want our 
 little coterie to be altogether of the tlite." 
 
 In thus playing the part of " lady of the manor," Mrs. 
 Moray had almost forgotten the poison drop in her cup of 
 j 'leisures, when it was recalled to her one morning by a ring 
 which she had learned to know, and a voice that made her 
 heart leap with a strange sensation of terror. She was at 
 the head of the stairs, going to her room, and turned hastily
 
 TWO PICTURES. 321 
 
 to bid the servant remember she was " not at home." It 
 was too late, the gentleman was already in the hall. She 
 heard him say, " Oh ! Mrs. Moray will see me ; just tell 
 her I am in the study ; say I am sorry to hurry her, but I 
 cannot wait" 
 
 He had not seen her ; she walked quickly to her room 
 she would delay going down it might be that he would 
 be obliged to go without seeing her. The messenger soon 
 knocked at her door. 
 
 " Mr. Saville, ma'am, in the study ; sorry to hurry you, 
 but he can't wait." 
 
 Her door was partially opened, and she spoke from be 
 hind it. 
 
 " Tell Mr. Saville I am extremely sorry ; but I am just 
 dressing to go out." 
 
 A minute it seemed to her a second only and the 
 man was heard reascending the stairs ; there was another 
 tap at her door, and when she opened it, a slip of paper was 
 handed in. 
 
 " Mr. Saville send that, ma'am ; he's a waiting." 
 
 The paper contained but a single line : " I must sec 
 you ; it is of the utmost importance." 
 
 " Can anything have been discovered ? " she asked her 
 self, growing visibly paler at the thought ; and without a 
 word to the man who stood waiting her commands, forget 
 ting that to give effect to her pretence of dressing for going 
 out, she had loosed the cord that confined her morning dress 
 at the waist, she went hurriedly down the stairs, crumpling 
 the slip of paper nervously in her hand. 
 
 Mr. Saville, enjoying the thought of his triumph over a 
 lady whom the world perhaps regarded as his superior, had 
 followed the waiter to the hall, and stood looking up the 
 stairs, and listening for the tones that might conic from 
 thence. 
 
 V
 
 322 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Take care, madam ! you will fall," he cried, springing 
 forward with outstretched arm to catch Mrs. Moray, around 
 whose feet the tasselled cord had become entangled. 
 
 She shrank back from his touch, saying, coldly, " There 
 is no danger," as she drew the cord around her and knotted 
 it carelessly. There was a smile upon his face which she 
 would once have resented as impertinent, as he turned 
 toward the study, and her cheek burned with an indignation 
 she dared not express in words as she followed him. As 
 she entered, he closed the door, and throwing himself into a 
 chair, looked up at her and laughed. At that moment she 
 would have been glad to see him fall dead at her feet ; and 
 yet Mrs. Moray was not generally esteemed an ill-tempered 
 woman. Perhaps there was something in her eye which 
 told him he was going too far ; he may have rememWred 
 that a woman excited by passion will do mad things. His 
 laughter suddenly ceased, and he exclaimed, " Excuse me, 
 but, indeed, I could not help laughing at the thought of what 
 a fright you must have been in to come down with your 
 gown loose ; what did you think had happened 1 " 
 
 " Something very serious, I supposed, since it had in 
 duced Mr. Saville so far to forgot what belonged to a lady 
 as to insist upon seeing me, although 1 sent him word that 
 I was preparing to drive out." 
 
 A slight smile again curled his lip, as he said, " In the 
 intimacy between us, such ceremonious observances may 
 surely be dispensed with. I must confess I was hurt at 
 your excuse ; to put me off with a sham, as I knew it must 
 be at this hour ! Let me tell you, madam, it was scarcely 
 grateful to one who has served you and yours as I have." 
 
 " I am here now, Mr. Saville, to hear your business ; as 
 to gratitude and service and all that, it is as well to be si 
 lent." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right ; the service speaks for itself,
 
 TWO PICTURE3. 323 
 
 and the gratitude may show itself more worthily in deeds 
 than words. To cut the matter short, and speak plainly, as 
 I think we ought to do to each other, you and your son are 
 enjoying fortune through my means; I want to know how I 
 am to be benefited by it ? " 
 
 " How you are to be benefited ! I do not understand 
 you sir." 
 
 " Oh ! you thought, doubtless, that I acted in this busk 
 ness from pure disinterested friendship ? that is the style, is 
 it not ? " 
 
 There was deadly fear at Mrs. Moray's heart, but noth 
 ing in her words betrayed it, though they came from pale, 
 trembling lips. She rose from her seat, saying, "I will not 
 stay to listen to such language." 
 
 " Yon are mad, to brave a quarrel with me in this way," 
 said Saville, placing himself between her and the door ; " do 
 you know that I have here," touching the breast pocket of 
 his coat, " what, if made public, would cast you down in a 
 moment to poverty and contempt 1 " 
 
 " Since you cannot gratify your malice without endan 
 gering yourself, I have little fear." 
 
 "Endangering myself!" with an accent of contempt ; 
 " you do little credit to my ingenuity or your own wit, if 
 you suppose I have left myself so helpless. Are you aware 
 that your son, not wishing to be detained in Washington, as 
 he says, or hating all business, as others say, has given me a 
 power of attorney to act for him here ? " 
 
 " What of that ? the power of attorney does not extend 
 to the drawing up a new will for a man already dead, does 
 it?" 
 
 " Not exactly ; what I have done in that way has been 
 under commission from you ; but it places all Mr. Moray's 
 papers in my hands to examine at my leisure, and I may
 
 324: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 find among them another will of later date by one week than 
 the one entrusted to Judge Mellen." 
 
 " And both wills written and witnessed by you ! How 
 will you account for not having given notice of this later 
 will ? " 
 
 " I drew up and witnessed two wills ; how should I 
 know which was preserved ; why was I to disturb people's 
 minds, and do mischief, perhaps, by talking of another will 
 when this had never been withdrawn from Judge Mellen, 
 and the other had probably been dictated by a passing 
 caprice, and destroyed as soon as made ; of course, it be 
 comes a very different matter when I find it carefully placed 
 in an envelope, the envelope sealed with Mr. Moray's seal, 
 and indorsed in his hand, ' My last will and testament, to 
 supersede all others.' " 
 
 As Mr. Saville referred to the seal and indorsement, he 
 exhibited each in turn on the packet which he drew from his 
 pocket. They seemed incontestibly genuine to Mrs. Mo 
 ray. Even the villain before her felt some touch of pity as 
 she sank pallid and gasping into a chair, and threw her 
 clasped hands up, as if in a sudden agony. 
 
 " I have no desire to quarrel with you," he resumed in a 
 more peaceful tone, as he saw that she had recovered suffi 
 ciently to listen ; " indeed, I have meant by all this to prove 
 to you that we cannot afford to quarrel ; all I want is that 
 you should be my friend as I have shown myself yours." 
 
 " What do you wish me to do, Mr. Saville ? " asked 
 Mrs. Moray, in a faint, agitated tone. 
 
 Mr. Saville saw that the lesson had been taught that 
 he could now afford to be civil, and he said, " Nothing that 
 will put you to any inconvenience, I hope ; I shall always 
 be glad to arrange our little affairs in the manner most 
 agreeable to yourself. All I desire now is that you should 
 give me your note for five hundred dollars, payable in sixty.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 325 
 
 or even ninety days, if you prefer it ; you see how easy I 
 make things for you ; I have even drawn the note," placing 
 the paper before her as he spoke, " so that all you have to 
 do is to sign your name here." 
 
 The name was signed with a trembling hand. 
 
 " There, that is all," said Mr. Saville, carefully deposit 
 ing the note in his pocketbook. " It was scarcely worth 
 agitating yourself about that. As to the rest for I think it 
 would be as well we should understand each other fully, that 
 we may have no more such unpleasant scenes as that of to 
 day you have in Georgia Bank stock and Central Railroad 
 bonds stop, I have made a little note of it here, thirty-one 
 thousand, four hundred dollars. Now you can empower me 
 to sell out fifteen thousand, or less than half of this ; if any 
 questions are asked, you can say that I have promised to 
 invest it profitably at the North. Mind, I don't say invest 
 for you, but only invest profitably, for I never tell a story 
 if I can help it. You will not object to this, of course ? " 
 
 " If I did, it would matter nothing ; I am the slave of 
 your will," in a dreary, hopeless manner. 
 
 " Slave ! oh no ! no ! my friend ; if you were my slave, 
 I should take the whole, and yourself too, perhaps, ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " If you are a man, spare me unnecessary insult. I am 
 ready to do all you demand - f only show me how." 
 
 " Oh ! I will make it quite easy to you. You can rest 
 a while on this ; when I come next I will bring the form 
 you are to sign, empowering me to sell. If it should require 
 me to come out to Savannah, in order to accomplish it, I 
 suppose you will give me a Christmas dinner at St. Mary's ; 
 I think I can get a fortnight about that time, to visit my 
 poor old mother, you know, ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 "Do the fiends mock us thus while they torture?" 
 questioned Mrs. Moray with herself but she said nothing. 
 " Well, good-by ; we part friends, don't we ? " he attempt-
 
 326 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 ed to take her hand ; but she snatched it from him. " De 
 pend upon it, you are wrong ; we must be friends ; now be 
 good and give me your hand put it right into mine youi> 
 self, like a willing slave, did you say ? no, friend, and I 
 will tell you how you may draw my teeth, make me 
 powerless, get this," tapping his pocket, " into your own 
 hands, and burn it or do what you like with it. Will you 
 hear ? " and he held out his hand. 
 
 Slowly, with the reluctant movement with which one 
 might put out the hand to touch a noxious reptile, she put 
 her hand in his. He clasped it tightly, wrung it with a 
 violence that made her writhe with pain ; then, as he threw 
 it from him, while his face flushed, and his eye sparkled 
 with passion, he said, " Contrive to get that girl into my 
 power, and you shall make your own terms." In another 
 moment he was gone. 
 
 Mrs. Moray went hurriedly into her room, with a heart 
 bursting with passion, to lock her door and give vent to 
 tears of penitence 1 no ! to tears of rage and mortification. 
 Repentance, atonement, were not in all her thoughts ; not 
 her crime, but its consequences she mourned ; not how to 
 make restitution, but how to escape this horrible thraldom, 
 was the question that long engrossed her, and to which she 
 found no sufficient answer, as was proved by the alternations 
 of forced gayety and horrible depression in which her life 
 passed for weeks, or until she had buried, under a crowd of 
 self-created engagements, this terrible scene. It is thus we 
 are prone to talk of the " dead past," and say we will bury 
 it. Fools ! it is not dead it will never die ; we think, per 
 chance, we have buried it, but its Gorgon head rises when 
 we least expect it from that grave, freezing us with a dread, 
 more fearful because of our fancied escape. 
 
 Two weeks after, or about the middle of April, Charles 
 Moray stood, the acknowledged master, in the house which
 
 TWO PICTURES. 327 
 
 had first received him a gay, careless boy. He could not 
 be gay in that first hour at home, for there had been another 
 arrival there. 
 
 Hugh Moray lay once more within the walls of his early 
 home, on the soil he had so loved, and for the continued 
 connection of which, with his own family, he had schemed. 
 But the busy brain schemed no more ; the feet, which had 
 planted themselves so firmly there, were still ; the hands 
 were folded in a quietness never to be broken till time 
 should end. The stranger might lord it in his halls, the 
 niece, who was nearest to him of any living thing, might be 
 compelled to give place to the woman he had regarded with 
 contemptuous indifference ; what mattered it to him ? He 
 had done with the relations of earth and time there is no 
 work nor device in the grave whither he had gone. 
 
 There was no grandeur, no pomp, in these second funeral 
 rites ; but there were more true mourners there. At night, 
 and by torchlight, he was borne by his own people to his 
 narrow bed beside kindred dust. Mr. Mortimer and the 
 inheritor of his fortune followed next ; and then a long pro. 
 cession of those whom he had ruled, and whose simple, 
 affectionate natures, retained no memory but of kindness 
 from him. As they wound their way along the narrow 
 path, untrodden for almost twenty years, the torches threw 
 a weird light upon the old oaks, under whose shadow he and 
 his fathers had played, and whose long gray moss swept his 
 coffin, as it passed along on the shoulders of its bearers. 
 The sighing wind, which swayed gently those giant branches, 
 seemed to Charles Moray a fitting requiem ; he was startled 
 when, about midway their sad march, there rose on the air 
 of night, a wild mournful strain, sung by the blacks. Those 
 who have ever heard this people sing, will not easily forget 
 the wild melody of their music, or the readiness with which 
 they improvise words to suit at once the music and the
 
 328 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 occasion. The music of this melancholy march required a 
 stanza of eight lines, four of which were improvised by a 
 leader, while the last four, in which all joined, was a chorus 
 evidently familiar on such occasions. One stanza of it ran 
 thus: 
 
 Leader alone. "We carry we massa to 'e long, long sleep, 
 
 Tru de trees, wid de torch a shinin' bright, 
 An' we lef ' him dare iii de grabe so deep 
 All alone by hisself in de dark, dark night. 
 
 Chorus. Jesus hab open de door in de heaben 
 
 Higher dan eben de eagle fly, 
 And to white wing angel de order gibcn 
 To carry 'e soul clean up to de sky. 
 
 It was an impressive scene, and one not easily forgot 
 ten ; and when, over the grave, Mr. Mortimer breathed the 
 words of solemn prayer, uttered with the broken voice of 
 one who mourned his last friend, especially when he asked 
 that " lie, in whose hands are the hearts of all the children 
 of men, would enable him who was to take the place thus 
 left vacant, so to lay to heart this scene that he should 
 remember his own latter end, and live so that he might 
 meet it with a consciousness of having performed his duty 
 to those whom God had committed to his care," Charles 
 Moray thought the influence of that hour would remain with 
 him while he lived. lie thought of the time when these 
 men around him, or their descendants, might bear him to 
 the same place, and for the first time, they presented them 
 selves to him in another aspect than as the representatives 
 of so much gold. He resolved to keep his promise to Au 
 gusta, and rejoiced the heart of good Mr. Mortimer as they 
 walked back by the light of a single torch the rest had 
 been extinguished at the grave by expressing his wish to 
 do everything that he should advise for the advantage of the 
 people, whom he was now to consider as his.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 329 
 
 Alas for human resolutions ! 
 
 The next week brought Mrs. Moray ; and in a vessel from 
 Savannah came, nearly at the same time, the boxes of furni 
 ture, paper, &c., &c., with an upholsterer and a head carpen 
 ter, to direct the workmen on the plantation in the improve 
 ments to be made. All was bustle and life at St. Mary's, 
 where stillness had reigned so long. Charles Moray found 
 a friend or two from the mainland always willing to come 
 down and hunt or fish with him. Mrs. Moray was busy 
 every moment planning for the workmen, and sometimes 
 aiding, with her own hands, the execution of her designs. 
 Even Mr. Mortimer took some pleasure in arranging with 
 the aid of this excellent carpenter, to spend some part of his 
 legacy in the improvement of the little church, and more, in 
 fitting up a room in his own house very neatly for the occu 
 pancy of Augusta Moray, whenever he could persuade her 
 to come to it. The negroes, generally, were well pleased, 
 proud of their new master and his works ; but Charity 
 looked on with a dissatisfied air, and often turned away with 
 streaming eyes and clasped hands to ask, " Lord ! what has 
 dey done wid my chile ? " 
 
 These exhibitions, on her part, became at length so dis 
 agreeable to Mrs. Moray, that she insisted on her being sent 
 out of the house where, through all changes, she had con 
 tinued to occupy the room which had been Augusta's from 
 her babyhood. 
 
 " Send away Charity ! " cried Charles Moray, with sur 
 prise ; " why, where could I send her to 1 " 
 
 " Send her where you please," was the answer ; " I should 
 think in the field, to work, would be a very good place it 
 would teach her to be less impertinent." 
 
 " That is out of the question I am sure you do not 
 mean it ; Charity seems to me to have a right here almost 
 as good as my own ; I could not think of sending her away."
 
 330 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Then you may order the boat for me to-morrow morn 
 ing ; I will not stay in the same house with her." 
 
 " My dear mother ! " and Charlie tried to take her hand, 
 but it was passionately snatched away. 
 
 " Don't call me your dear mother, when you would 
 rather keep an old negro in your house than me." 
 
 Charlie would have continued to remonstrate, but, with 
 these words, Mrs. Moray rushed out of the room ; and put 
 ting on his hat, he walked out and took the direction to Mr. 
 Mortimer's. 
 
 How much he told that gentleman of what, in his own 
 mind, he called his mother's unreasonableness, we know 
 not ; but that evening Mr. Mortimer sent for Charity and 
 asked if she would come and live with him. At first she 
 shook her head, saying, " I w r ouldn't hab no rejection, sir, 
 for de ole place don't seem like heself no more ; but you 
 see, sir, ef I come away, who's a going to take care o' my 
 Miss 'Gusty's room ? " 
 
 " Why, Charity, it is for that very thing I want you 
 here," said Mr. Mortimer, as he opened the door of the 
 room he had just arranged, and showed her into it ; " this is 
 Miss Augusta's room, and when I am gone, this will be her 
 house. She will never live up at the big house again ; and, 
 you know, she would like to find you here." 
 
 " In course, sir, I know she would ; and I'll come, if 
 you'll let me bring all de tings she been left behind when 
 she was gwine." 
 
 Of course, a ready consent was given to this ; and the 
 next day Charity transferred thither not only herself and 
 her own bedding and clothes, but the crib in which her 
 nursling had once slept, the little dark mahogany bureau, in 
 which were still kept all of her childish articles of dress, 
 which had not been taken with her ; the shells she had gath 
 ered for her play, the defaced set of cups and saucers, the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 331 
 
 broken doll and picture books all, all were brought with 
 her and arranged, as nearly as possible, as they had been in 
 the old home. Amidst these mementos of the past, Charity 
 took her place, adding greatly to Mr. Mortimer's comfort 
 by her oversight of his little household, and especially of 
 his wardrobe, and looking confidently forward to the 
 moment when Miss Augusta should come to take posses 
 sion of her property, as Charity now considered Mr. Morti 
 mer's house and all that it contained, to be. She even per 
 suaded the good man, who loved to act upon her strong faith, 
 though he might vindicate his understanding to others, by 
 smiling at it a little, to make a flower garden before his 
 door, because " Miss 'Gusty always loved flowers." 
 
 And so, while Augusta was pining drearily in the midst 
 of the isolation she had herself created, fond hearts were 
 building a bower of rest for her under the soft skies she 
 loved so fondly ! Of what happiness does self-assertion de 
 fraud us even on this side the grave ! 
 
 Late in June, the " big house," so changed and so deco 
 rated that, as Charity said, " It didn't know its own self," was 
 again closed, while Charles Moray and his mother sought 
 health and pleasure in the waters of Saratoga and the 
 breezes of Newport. They returned early in November, 
 accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Cullen, and followed in a 
 few days by the Harry Reardon of whom we have already 
 heard, and by two of those brainless inheritors of wealth 
 who seem born to disperse again, for the benefit of the 
 many, the fortune which has been accumulated by some 
 more gifted progenitor. In the present case, however, the 
 ends of their being appeared likely to be disappointed. In 
 stead of their fortune being dispersed, there was some ap 
 parent probability of their becoming united in the hands of 
 Mr. Reardon. This gentleman was one of those who pre 
 sent a constant puzzle to that class of people who interest
 
 332 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 themselves in their neighbor's modes and means of living, 
 lie had no ostensible fortune, and nothing to do ; yet he eat 
 and drank of the best, was clothed with the finest, and, al 
 ways gay and entertaining, found hosts of friends wherever 
 he went. To men living in his own circle it was no secret 
 how Mr. Rcardon lived. When Charles Moray invited this 
 very agreeable gentleman to come and kill some of his 
 game at St. Mary's, he hardly understood, though others, it 
 might be, did, the laughing answer, " I'm afraid I sha'n't find 
 any of my game there, Mr. Moray." 
 
 " We have all sorts of game there," said Charlie. 
 
 " Have you a billiard table ? " asked Mr. Rcardon. 
 
 " I will have I like billiards myself." 
 
 " Who will you have that I can play with ? " 
 
 " There's Briggs and Douce coming in November, and 
 several others have promised before the winter is over ; be 
 sides, I will play with you myself, sometimes." 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Moray, but I never play with my 
 host ; it isn't safe." Then, in an aside to one of his intimates, 
 " I might kill the goose that lays the golden eggs." 
 
 " Isn't safe 1 Why, you don't think I'd quarrel with 
 you for beating me 1 " said Charlie, laughing. 
 
 " Perhaps not, but it's a principle of mine. Every man 
 has his principles, you know." 
 
 " Oh, well, you sha'n't sacrifice your principles for me. 
 We shall both have people enough to play with ; I'll take 
 care of that." 
 
 " You may count on me for one, though I don't know that 
 I shall add much to your game ; I am not much of a shot." 
 
 " Then I will promise you some capital misses" and 
 Charlie's laugh showed that he had perpetrated a pun, which 
 might otherwise have escaped detection. 
 
 " I understand Miss Cullen is to be one of them," said 
 Mr. Reardon.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 333 
 
 " Yes, so my mother says ; do you admire her ? " 
 
 " I should, if I could afford it ; she is the most piquant 
 woman I know/' 
 
 In such a society we need hardly describe the mode of 
 life. All were bent on killing that time which it is the part 
 of the wise to redeem. Around them lay the noblest work 
 ever allotted to man, waiting to be done ; the great Task 
 master who had made the work for them and them for the 
 work, waited, gave them time, hour by hour, day by day, 
 waited, and they rattled dice, knocked about smooth, shining 
 balls over a green cloth, handled painted cards, danced, 
 rode, and yawned wearily, wondering what they should do 
 next to get rid of the time so mercifully given. 
 
 Christmas came. Its approach gave promise of jollity 
 to all but Mrs. Moray. She was very evidently depressed 
 she could not hide it ; indeed, she did not seek to hide it ; 
 she edified all her acquaintances by declaring that she was 
 very sad thinking of " dear Mr. Moray," whom this season 
 brought strongly to her mind. Why this should be so 
 might seem mysterious to her guests, did seem mysterious 
 to Mr. Mortimer, who knew that she had never spent a 
 Christmas at St. Mary's with Mr. Moray ; but will be un 
 derstood by the reader, who remembers that Mr. Saville 
 had threatened to eat his Christmas dinner with her. As she 
 believed him to be approaching, the Gorgon's head, which 
 looked dimly forth from the gayest scenes into which she en 
 tered, grew more distinct and terrible. The day before 
 Christmas brought her a letter, " From our kind friend 
 Saville, Charlie he cannot come now ; indeed, he says it 
 may be February before he can be spared." 
 
 " I am sorry ; capital fellow, Saville so kind ; though he 
 has so much to do already, is willing to undertake all sorts 
 of unpleasant business for a friend." 
 
 Harry Reardon smiled Charlie wondered what the
 
 331 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 smile meant, but only for a moment. Reardon caught his 
 look of inquiry, and soon diverted his thoughts to other 
 subjects. 
 
 The Gorgon head retreated, and Mrs. Moray was gay 
 once more. 
 
 " I don't understand her," said Mrs. Cullen to her 
 daughter ; " it seemed strange that she should be so gloomy 
 about this Mr. Moray, who was a very distant relation, if 
 he was any at all ; especially as she thought it foolish in 
 her son to stop our dancing for one week, at the time his 
 own uncle died." 
 
 " But, my dear mamma ! How could you be surprised 
 at that 1 why, Commodore Moray didn't have a doit to leave 
 to any one how could he expect people to be sorry ? 
 Now, when one is paid generously for mourning " 
 
 " Hush, Elise ! you get such a sharp way of talking, 
 you will make everybody afraid of you." 
 
 " Not everybody ; it would take something more than 
 a sharp tongue to make that rogue, Harry Reardon, afraid. 
 I don't believe he fears anything alive, or dead either, in 
 deed." 
 
 Mrs. Cullen did not like a certain little glow and sparkle 
 about her daughter, as this was said. 
 
 " I hope you are not getting up any intimacy with 
 Harry Reardon. His "gambling is really becoming quite 
 disreputable ; I have no doubt, from the melancholy look 
 of that poor Douce, that he went away from here quite 
 cleaned out." 
 
 " Well, if people will fancy they can play when they 
 can't, what is Mr. Reardon to do? I think he is very 
 honorable, for my part, in refusing to play with Charlie 
 Moray. This estate, and those ' loves of negroes,' as that 
 simpering Miss Mills calls them, would soon be his, if he 
 did."
 
 TWO PICTURES. o^O 
 
 "Simpering or not, Miss Mills understands her interests 
 better than you seem to do yours ; and I should not wonder 
 if she was soon in a position to offer you an invitation to 
 spend the next winter here with her." 
 
 " Poh ! don't you believe it ; Charlie Moray's not so 
 spooney as all that. He does know a thing or two ; I am a 
 great deal more afraid of that cousin of his, who was thought 
 such a beauty in Washington." 
 
 " Why ! they don't even know where she is," cried Mrs. 
 Cullcn. 
 
 " They didn't know. It seems her madness Harry 
 Reardon says we are all mad about something her mad 
 ness is of the romantic style ; she wouldn't be dependent 
 on her friends, forsooth ! as if there was anything else for 
 a lady to do, when she has no fortune so she went off to 
 be a governess. Of course, she soon got sick of that ; 
 Charlie Moray has just heard that she is with some cousin 
 or aunt of his, and has written to ask her here ; though, he 
 says, he is half afraid to tell his mother about it, for they 
 are not very good friends, it seems." 
 
 " I think that shows Charles Moray to be very amiable," 
 said Mrs. Cullen, who lost no opportunity of praising the 
 possessor of such a fortune. 
 
 " He is soft-hearted, I think ; but nobody gets much 
 good from it ; he's never of the same mind two minutes 
 together. Why, before we came here, he had promised that 
 old Mr. Mortimer to have plantation schools and all that 
 sort of thing ; and now his mother and Harry Rear don have 
 laughed him out of the notion. It was a silly notion, to be 
 sure, and, as Harry Reardon says, would only have made 
 the negroes discontented with their situation, whereas now 
 they are the happiest laboring people on the face of the 
 earth ; but I like to see a man carry out his own notions, if 
 they are silly. I like to see people consistent." 
 15
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " My dear ! I heard some very great man, 1 don't 
 remember his name, but he was one of those men that are 
 so wise nobody understands them, say that ' consistency 
 was the mark of a little, narrow mind.' I remember it 
 because your poor, dear father had often accused me of 
 being inconsistent, and it was such a good answer." 
 
 " That you used it, I dare say." 
 
 " Certainly I did, and your father said, I remember, 
 then I had a very large mind." 
 
 " So must Charlie Moray have. Poor fellow ! he has 
 sometimes as much difficulty as ^Esop's old man had with 
 his ass. I was sorry for him, this morning, when Mr. Mor 
 timer found him giving out the rum to the negroes instead 
 of the molasses and coffee and sugar, and I don't know what 
 else, that he had promised him to give in its place." 
 
 " "Well ! I think it was very unkind in Mr. Mortimer to 
 wish them not to have it. It's hard to grudge them this one 
 jollification in the year." 
 
 " They'll have a double allowance of rum this year ; 
 Harry Rcardon made Charlie Moray give it." 
 
 And so had Charlie Moray kept his resolutions and his 
 promises ! 
 
 This conversation will give the reader a sufficiently cor 
 rect idea of life in the " big house." To amuse one's self in 
 the present so to take care of one's interest as to secure 
 the means of amusing one's self in the future these are the 
 two great commandments of this class of people. Unfor 
 tunately they can never perfectly attain their end ; for even 
 with them, there lingers some feeble spark of those aspir 
 ings after the Infinite, which the whole earth would fail to 
 satisfy.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." GOLDSMITH. 
 
 " THE whole earth would fail to satisfy," we wrote, and 
 yet ever we turn from one object to another, believing that 
 we have at last found the panacea. Once the cry of Augusta 
 Moray's heart had been " Home ! Home ! " the green shades, 
 the blue sky of St. Mary's ! In these she could die content. 
 Die content, perchance ; but not live so. 
 
 Little content was in her heart when she bade Esther 
 and Hugh adieu, on the deck of the packet to which they had 
 accompanied her ; and her sad, almost pleading eyes, as he 
 turned on the wharf to wave his hajid once more to her, 
 were present to Hugh that day in scenes that were strange 
 ly out of harmony with such memories, and caused him 
 once even to lose a point in the argument of the opposing 
 counsel. 
 
 Love presents itself under many aspects ; and in saying 
 this, we mean a genuine love, not its counterfeits, which are 
 innumerable. There is a love born of what is bright and 
 beautiful in its object, which lives and grows only in that 
 brightness and beauty ; there is a love, which takes root 
 only in strong and noble souls, which is mellowed into
 
 338 TWO ncTUKES. 
 
 deeper tenderness and nourished into more vigorous life, by 
 the sorrows and necessities of its object. Such was the love 
 of Hugh Moray. Augusta, proud, gay, admired, might be 
 relinquished, not without a pang perhaps a life-long pang - 
 but Augusta in sorrow, Augusta forsaken by the flatterers 
 of her summer days, had a hold on his generous heart 
 strong as his own life. She walked mute and sad by his 
 side ; her face threw its shadow on his page and, as he 
 thought of her return to St. Mary's, under such altered cir 
 cumstances, of the coldness, perhaps the malignity, she 
 might meet there, he could scarcely resist the desire to fol 
 low her, and, if he might not win her within the safe shelter 
 of his love, at least to show her enemies that they could not 
 strike at her with impunity. 
 
 The packet, in which Augusta sailed, arrived in Savan 
 nah in the night. The moon was still shining brightly on" 
 the sandy bluff, and the long, low stores under it, when she 
 dressed herself, and wrapping a shawl around her, went on 
 deck, to breathe once more the soft air of those southern 
 skies, beneath which her life began. That air does not in 
 vigorate, but it heals it docs not give strength to resist, 
 but it induces a languor which, like an opiate, seems to lull 
 the senses to forgetfulness, and so to steal from sorrow half 
 its bitterness. At least so felt Augusta on this night. 
 Earth seemed very sad and lonely to her, Its glory had 
 departed, but its storms also had past ; she said to herself, 
 " I have nothing more to lose," and with a languid despon 
 dency, which she called resignation, she believed herself rec 
 onciled to walk henceforth in the shadow. 
 
 Poor child ! for a child, notwithstanding her twenty 
 years of life, she yet was how little allied was this sensa 
 tion, born of these soft airs acting on a mind wearied by its 
 own frantic efforts to rise above a humiliating sorrow and 
 on a body debilitated by illness how little allied was this to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 339 
 
 the resignation which finds some sweetness in the bitterest 
 cup that Divine Love has mixed, and when earth is all 
 gloom, rejoices the more in the brightness of heaven. As 
 yet, the eyes of Augusta were determinately fixed on the 
 earth, to the heavenly glory which yet shone around her, 
 she was blind. 
 
 The day had scarcely dawned, when Mr. Mortimer, hav 
 ing been told by one of the waiters at the hotel, whom he had 
 bribed to bring him the earliest news of the Isabel's arrival, 
 that she lay at the wharf, rose and hastened thither in a car 
 riage. Augusta had not expected him, yet the first glance at 
 the white locks and the venerable face, unseen for nine years, 
 was enough ; and the languid step, with which she was still 
 pacing the deck, quickened, as she stepped forward to meet 
 him. There was no recognition in his eye, as it rested 
 .upon her. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Mortimer ! " she exclaimed, drawing near 
 him with an outstretched hand, " do you not remember 
 me?" 
 
 " My child ! my dear child ! " he cried, as he folded her 
 in his arms, and pressed a fatherly kiss upon her cheek ; 
 then, holding her off for a moment, as if to examine her 
 more fully, he drew her silently to him and kissed her cheek 
 again. They could not speak again for some minutes. 
 Thoughts of the past were swelling the hearts of each almost 
 to suffocation. Mr. Mortimer first recovered his voice, and 
 said, with a little huskiness in his tone, and with a smile 
 that gleamed through tears, " You were a good child to 
 come Charity and 1 will grow young again in the delight 
 of seeing you." 
 
 Augusta looked up to smile ; but the dear, kind face, the 
 familiar voice, the old, unchanged love expressed in both, 
 were too much for her ; and dropping her face into her 
 clasped hands, and yielding to the fatherly caress, which
 
 34:0 TWO riCTUKES. 
 
 drew her to his side, she rested her head upon his shoul 
 der and wept there silently and long, soothed by an occa 
 sional word of tenderness. 
 
 Charles Moray had always intended to meet Augusta in 
 Savannah till the time of her arrival drew near, when he 
 was easily persuaded that it would be better to send Mr. 
 Mortimer for her, and to stay at home himself and assist his 
 mother in the entertainment of the guests, with which she 
 had, somewhat inopportunely, filled the house just at this 
 time. 
 
 " You can go up in the boat for her, you know that is, 
 if you really think it necessary to meet her at all," said 
 Mrs. Moray to him. 
 
 " Necessary to meet her ! Certainly, I think it neces 
 sary," Charlie was always very decided in words " I wish 
 Augusta to feel that she is coming home, and we must both* 
 do everything we can to inspire her with such a feeling." 
 
 " Then 1 had better hold myself in readiness to depart ; 
 you know she has declared she will not make her home 
 where I am." 
 
 " Words spoken in a moment of passion, and forgotten, 
 I dare say, as soon as said." 
 " 1 do not believe it." 
 
 " At any rate, you will forget them, for my sake ; " 
 Charlie bent down and kissed his mother's cheek, as he 
 added, " we can afford to be generous." 
 
 " Like a foolish mother, I will do just what you say ; but 
 I wish I could make you see this affair just as I do ; depend 
 upon it, it will be better for all parties that Augusta Moray 
 should stay at Mr. Mortimer's he wants her." 
 
 " And so d6 I want my cousin," said Charlie, with a 
 flushed face. 
 
 " You must like tragedy better than I, if you do," said 
 Mrs. Moray, with an emphatic shrug of the shoulders. " No,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 34:1 
 
 Charlie ! I do not want her ; I do not want to have our 
 pleasant coterie here broken up by her foolish conceits and 
 mad suspicions, and I cannot pretend to want it I am no 
 hypocrite." 
 
 " But, pardon me, if I say you are acting upon what are 
 only conceits and suspicions yourself." 
 
 " You are mistaken ; I am speaking of what I know ; 
 and I tell you, when she comes into this house, all pleasure 
 is at an end ; her black robes and sombre face, if they do 
 not frighten your friends away, will at least make them feel 
 all gayety to be out of place in her presence." 
 
 This was not an alluring prospect to one of Charlie's 
 temperament ; and remembering Augusta's last days at 
 Washington, he could not deny that his mother had some 
 reason for her apprehensions ; yet lie still insisted that the 
 invitation should be given. He wished very much that it 
 should be given by his mother, as well as by himself he 
 made quite a point of this ' if she would write a note to 
 Augusta, so would he ; and he would send them both by 
 the boatmen ; for, after all, it was not necessary that he 
 should go in the boat, as Mr. Mortimer would be with Au 
 gusta.' Mrs. Moray did not let him see her smile, though 
 smile she did, at this abatement in his view of Augusta's 
 claims. She saw that she had touched the right chord, that 
 Charlie was beginning to fear lest Augusta should stand in 
 his sunlight. 
 
 The two notes were written ; and really, that of Mrs. 
 Moray seemed the more cordial of the two. They ran thus : 
 
 " DEAR AUGUSTA : 
 
 " I am sorry not to be able to go for you myself; but it 
 was impossible for me to get away. I know Mr. Mortimer 
 will do everything for your comfort. Eemember, however, 
 that your home is with us > not with him. I received his
 
 34:2 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 letter announcing your arrival in Savannah, this morning, 
 and I send the boat immediately, with orders to the men tc 
 await your coming and be subject to your commands. 
 " Believe me, ever, 
 
 " Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 " C. MORAY. 
 
 " ST. MART'S, Feb." 
 
 " And so, my poor Augusta, you are once more in your 
 native State and on your way to the home of your child 
 hood. You will find things greatly changed I hope you 
 will find all the changes, improvements. We left your own 
 particular room long untouched, dear, hoping that you would 
 come to order your own alterations ; but you gave us no 
 hope, and at last we refitted and refurnished it, much to 
 your old nurse's annoyance. It is very pretty. At present 
 it is occupied by Mrs. and Miss Cullen. I wish they had 
 gone away in time for us to prepare it for you ; but, the 
 truth is, our visitors all find St. Mary's so pleasant, that I 
 believe nothing but the heat of summer, or the dread of 
 fever, will drive them away. I shall be truly glad to see 
 you, dear, and to have a little rational conversation once 
 more. From the oldest to the youngest here, all seem 
 equally mad in their pursuit of pleasure. I am quite 
 weary of the click of the billiard balls all day, and the sound 
 of music and dancing all night. They have driven good Mr. 
 Mortimer away from us altogether. Tell him that I know 
 he will come to see you, and so I shall be doubly a gainer 
 by your residence with us. Only think of his expending so 
 much money on his house with the hope of making it a 
 pleasant home to you. 1 was quite touched when I heard 
 it. But I cannot spare you to him ; so come quickly, dear 
 Augusta, to the home and the heart of 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " A. MORAT. 
 
 " ST. MAST'S ISLE, February 5&. 18."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 3i3 
 
 If Mrs. Moray really desired to secure Augusta to her 
 self, she had certainly been peculiarly infelicitous in her 
 mode of presenting the attractions of her house. 
 
 " She knew that, if I had entertained any design of going 
 to her house, such a letter would have prevented it," said 
 Augusta, as, with something of the hot spirit of her child 
 hood burning on her cheeks and flashing from her eyes, she 
 handed the note to Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 " I am glad of the result, my child ; but you must not 
 be too hard on this silly woman. This is her way of being 
 happy ; and you know she could not be expected to feel to 
 your dear uncle as we did." 
 
 " My uncle ! ah, true ! Some respect was certainly due 
 to his memory in the house which they owe to his bounty ; 
 but it was not of him I thought. Oh, sir ! if you had 
 known Commodore Moray, you would wonder with me how 
 one so gentle, so noble, could be so soon forgotten. In his 
 home " 
 
 Augusta had spoken with effort from the time she named 
 her dear old friend, and here her voice failed entirely, and 
 she burst into tears. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer let her weep in silence for a moment ; 
 then, intent on his charitable design of peace making, he 
 said, " We are all frail, human creatures, and must make 
 allowance for each other's errors, my dear. It may be that 
 your friends err by nourishing a gloom which is incompat 
 ible with the cheerful resignation that our Heavenly Father 
 has a right to expect from us." 
 
 " Gloom ! oh no, sir ! Indeed, you are mistaken. 
 Nothing can be farther from the truth than that word. 
 They are peaceful, even cheerful thankful for his noble life. 
 But they cannot, they do not desire to forget, and in the 
 presence of that memory, how can they be gay ? Mrs. 
 Commodore Moray herself said to a friend, who urged them
 
 344 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 to visit, ' We have been brought too near heaven to find 
 much enjoyment yet in earthly pleasures.' Surely this is 
 not gloom." 
 
 " No, my child, you are right this is peace ; but I am 
 afraid it passeth the understanding of this poor lady, so we 
 must not blame her that she does not entertain it." 
 
 A glowing sunset was turning the still waters of the 
 sound to molten gold as Augusta neared the home she had 
 so dearly loved. A breeze as soft and warm as that of a 
 summer evening rustled the leaves of the old oak at the 
 landing place, which threw its lengthening- shadow far out 
 upon the water, as if to meet and welcome her, and, as she 
 stepped on the green shore, a mocking bird trilled out its 
 glorious song above her head. The scene, the sounds, the 
 very touch and odor of the soft air, woke a thousand mem 
 ories, sweet and sad. Words are powerless, even if words 
 were possible at such a time. Augusta did not attempt 
 them, though deep down in her heart, " My home ! my 
 home ! " went sounding on through every variety of tone 
 and tune, gladsome or sad. Yes, it was her home by a tie 
 which no human power could dissolve hers as it could 
 never be another's a part of her life. 
 
 Accustomed as he was to the exuberant emotional nature 
 of the African race and their uncontrolled expression of feel 
 ing, Mr. Mortimer was touched almost to tears by Charity's 
 reception of her former nurseling, as, kneeling before her, 
 she covered her hands with kisses, and even, before Augusta 
 could prevent it, bent down and pressed her lips to her feet, 
 exclaiming, " My own chile ! my own Miss 'Gusty ! Please 
 Farra, 1 is ready for go, now I see your face once more." 
 
 She seemed never weary of gazing at her, noting with an 
 outspoken admiration, which often gave a richer glow to the 
 complexion she so much admired, the regal beauty into 
 which her childish promise had developed
 
 TWO PICTURES. 345 
 
 " Just see how 'e step ! " she would exclaim to some com 
 panion, as they stood together, watching her receding form, 
 as she walked under the old oaks to some of her childish 
 haunts, where she thought herself in little danger of meeting 
 any of Mrs. Moray's gay visitors, " It seem like her foot 
 neber tetch de ground. Dat Miss Moray to de building 
 would gib all 'e money to be han'some as my Miss 'Gusty." 
 
 " I bin tought she an' me young maussa bin gwine to 
 married." 
 
 " You young maussa ! " said Charity, with an expres- 
 sion of the most withering contempt in voice and look ; 
 *' you young maussa ! when my Miss 'Gusty married, 'e'll 
 married somebody what can hab 'tority. You young maus. 
 sa ! " and Charity turned away indignantly. 
 
 And Charity's criticism would have been accepted by 
 Charles Moray's best friends and greatest admirers. He 
 was certainly not one who exercised authority over other 
 minds. On the contrary, he was bent and swayed by every 
 passing influence. 
 
 When his boatmen returned, bringing him a pencilled 
 note from Augusta, asking that he would come and see her 
 at Mr. Mortimer's, whose quiet home suited her better in 
 her present state of health, he was just leading Mrs. Cullen 
 to the six o'clock dinner, which Mrs. Moray had introduced, 
 to the great annoyance of cooks and waiters, accustomed to 
 the unfashionably early hour of three. 
 
 " Augusta has come," he said to his mother, who passed 
 him at the moment. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the lady, while a cloud gathered on her 
 brow ; " she will hardly care to join us to-day ; I will " 
 
 " Oh, she is at Mr. Mortimer's. I shall go to see her 
 after dinner. Suppose you leave Mrs. Cullen to do the 
 honors of the tea table, and go with me 1 " 
 
 me; I do not choose to expose myself unneces-
 
 34.6 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 sarily to rudeness. I did my duty in inviting her here ; as 
 she has not accepted or replied to the invitation " 
 
 " She has replied to mine." 
 
 " That only makes the rudeness to me more marked." 
 
 " You ladies are such sticklers for etiquette," said 
 Charles to Mrs. Cullen, as he seated her on his right hand 
 at the round table, which "\vas another of Mrs. Moray's in 
 novations. 
 
 " You must pardon me if I say that this seems to me 
 more than a point of etiquette, Mr. Moray ; I have heard 
 that Miss Moray was a little eccentric; I think this looks 
 like it ; to treat the mother with such disrespect, and yet 
 expect to maintain friendly relations with the son." 
 
 " Of whom are you speaking, Mrs. Cullen; of Miss Mo 
 ray, who was the belle of Washington a w r inter or two ago ? 
 By George ! what an air she had ! the handsomest woman I 
 ever saw and the haughtiest," he added, in a low tone, to 
 Miss Cullen, " so the poison carried its antidote." 
 
 The depreciating words were met by a smile ; but none 
 the less did Miss Cullen remember the superlative of the 
 commendation and resolve to exert all her fascinations that 
 this haughty beauty should not win one adorer from her 
 circle. Gifted herself with an energetic spirit, she had felt 
 something very like contempt for the easy good nature of 
 Charles Moray, and spite of her mother's exhortations, had 
 refused to make any effort to win the heart which she be 
 lieved at any time within her power. Now, that it might 
 be in danger, she was roused to exertion, and from the mo 
 ment he left the table, when she entreated him just to stop 
 for five minutes and let her hear the end of that story he was 
 telling her mamma at table, of which she had just caught 
 enough to interest her, and which nobody could tell so well 
 as himself, to that in which, starting from the piano as with 
 silvery tones the mantle clock rung forth eleven tiny strokes,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 347 
 
 she exclaimed, " Oh, Mr. Moray, eleven o'clock ! and I have 
 kept you singing all this time ! Well, indeed, you must lay 
 the blame on your own delightful voice," she devoted her 
 self to him unceasingly. 
 
 Had her mode of attack been the display of her own at 
 tractions, Charles Moray might have broken from her snares ; 
 but many a man of stronger spirit than his, has submitted 
 unresistingly to the more delicate and more potent flattery 
 of one who draws out his powers to charm rather than ex 
 hibits her own. Certain it is, though Harry Eeardon cast 
 many a smiling glance at the pair as they talked, waltzed, 
 or sung together, Charles Moray's perceptions were only of 
 a very pleasant evening which had slipped away so unac 
 countably fast that he had not been able to visit Augusta, as 
 he had fully intended to do. 
 
 " Perhaps it is as well ; my mother would have looked 
 like a thunder cloud all the evening, and spoiled everybody's 
 sport here, if she had seen me go ; now, I can breakfast with 
 Mr. Mortimer and Augusta in the morning, before a soul 
 here is up." It was a well-arranged plan, but as Charles 
 was not himself an early riser, he slept the next morning 
 till the breakfast bell informed him that he would find the 
 whole party collected below stairs, while he was two hours 
 too late for Mr. Mortimer's early breakfast. After break 
 fast, Miss Cullen urged the accomplishment of a promise 
 carelessly made many weeks before, that she should see a 
 deer hunt, to which Mrs. Cullen would consent only on the 
 condition that he would promise to give his undivided care 
 to her daughter. So much was said of Charles's perfect 
 command of his spirited horse, and of his wonderful accu 
 racy in shooting, that the sport assumed new attractions for 
 him, and again Augusta's claims were postponed. Indeed, 
 he can scarcely be blamed if she was forgotten altogether, 
 as he swept over the green savannas to the inspiriting music
 
 348 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 of the hounds as they pursued with fleet steps and unerring 
 scent the monarch of the sylvan scene, who bounded away 
 far in the distance, through low brushwood, or grass, above 
 which, at every bound, rose his branching antlers, while be 
 side him, as eager in the chase as he, rode a young and 
 handsome woman, her eye kindling, her cheek glowing with 
 excitement. 
 
 The hunt was ended ; the deer lay bleeding before them ; 
 and now they turned, at a more moderate pace, homeward. 
 The path they pursued led them near Mr. Mortimer's. 
 
 " Have you seen Miss Moray yet 1 " asked Miss Cullen, 
 as she glanced at the simple yet pretty parsonage, embow 
 ered in oak. 
 
 " No ; I have not been at leisure one moment since I 
 heard of her arrival," said Charlie, reddening with a slight 
 consciousness that the excuse was scarcely valid. 
 
 " That is my fault," said the lady, while the smile that 
 played around her mouth showed that she did not consider 
 the fault unpardonable ; " I will not be answerable any 
 longer for such neglect ; you must call immediately." 
 
 " And leave you to make your way home alone 1 Au 
 gusta would be the last one to pardon me for such a depar 
 ture from les bienseances" 
 
 " There need be no departure at all ; I shall go with 
 you ; of course, I intend to call on your cousin." 
 
 She wheeled her horse into the little cross road which 
 they were just passing, as she spoke, and Charles followed, 
 with the doubt whether it was quite the thing to bring a 
 stranger to call in such an informal manner upon Augusta, 
 contending in his heart with the relief from the dread of this 
 first interview, which the presence of another would afford 
 him. 
 
 Augusta was standing in the piazza, trying, with Mr. 
 Mortimer's aid, to train the wild jessamine and rosa multi-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 349 
 
 flora, now both in bud, to wind around the rude columns, 
 formed of pine trees denuded of branches and bark, and to 
 meet in an arch above the entrance. The glow of healthful 
 exercise mantled in her cheek, and as she stood on the light 
 steps used by Mr. Mortimer in mounting to the upper 
 shelves of his study, and looked smilingly down upon him 
 and Charity, who were busy disentangling the hitherto un 
 trained branches and handing them to her, or winding them 
 around the columns at her suggestion, Charles thought he 
 had never seen her look more beautiful, in spite of the 
 gloomy black which enveloped her from the tapering neck 
 to the slender, arched foot. The riders came up rapidly, 
 and the sound of the horses' feet on the firm earth was heard 
 while yet they were at a distance. 
 
 Charity was the first to see them, as, turning, she shaded 
 her eyes with her hand, and peered out into the half sun-lit 
 and half shadowed road. 
 
 " Hi ! Miss 'Gusty, here's Mas' Charles and dat Miss 
 Cully to the buildin' ; you better come down." 
 
 Mr. Mortimer and Augusta both turned in the direction 
 of the sound for a moment, then Augusta reached out her 
 hand for the branch he held. 
 
 " Had you not better come down to receive them 1 " 
 asked Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 " There is quite time enough for that," she answered, 
 quietly, receiving the branch, conveying it to its destined 
 place, and securing it there. They had reached the steps to 
 the piazza before she began to leave her eminence, and 
 Charles, springing forward, cried, " Stay, Augusta, let me 
 help you," but in vain. She moved gently, quietly, almost 
 languidly ; yet there she was on the piazza before he could 
 reach her. 
 
 " Independent as ever ! " he exclaimed, mercilessly shak-
 
 350 TWO PICTTJKES. 
 
 ing the hand Augusta placed in his, in his desire to appear 
 cordial and unembarrassed. 
 
 " Pray assist Miss Cullen," was her rejoinder, as that 
 young lady was ascending the steps, with her habit skirt, 
 which had in some way slipped from her arm, falling around 
 her feet. If the slip had been a ruse, intended to prevent 
 Charlie's desertion, it had been ineffectual, and the flush that 
 rose to Miss Cullen's brow, and the slight brusqucness in 
 the movement with which she waved off the gentleman's 
 assistance and recovered the trailing skirt, may have marked 
 her disappointment. If so, it was not the only disappoint 
 ment she experienced this morning. She had intended to 
 meet Augusta with a condescending courtesy which should 
 at once charm Charles Moray and give " the governess," as 
 she had lately been accustomed to style Augusta when nam 
 ing her to her mother, her proper place ; but she found her 
 self powerless before an impassive calmness and indifference, 
 which seemed impervious to attack as a steel coat of mail, 
 while the most punctilious courtesy left her no legitimate 
 subject of complaint. 
 
 " What a good memory you must have for faces. You 
 called me by my name at once, and I should never have re 
 membered you, though I dare say we met in Washington," 
 was one of Miss Cullen's observations. 
 
 It was met with, " I may have seen you there, but I can 
 not remember it. My old nurse here mentioned your name 
 as you were approaching." 
 
 " Do you correspond with Mrs. Price ? I used to know 
 her at Saratoga. I should like to hear something about 
 her." 
 
 " I am sorry I cannot gratify you ; but I know nothing 
 of Mrs. Price ; I was only the governess of her children," 
 was the calmly courteous reply. 
 
 " Dear me ! how you must have disliked it."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 351 
 
 " Not at all ; it was a very profitable engagement." 
 
 Miss Cullen gave up in despair ; she might as well shoot 
 her arrows against a granite wall. Besides, a glance at 
 Charles Moray's face showed her that she was annoying him 
 by her sharpshooting. This was far removed from her 
 present intention, and fearing that she could not resist her 
 warlike propensities, she gave the signal for their departure. 
 
 " You will come to see us," said Charles, retaining the 
 hand which Augusta had given him at parting ; " I want 
 you to see the old house in its new dress." 
 
 It cost Augusta some effort not to say that she would 
 rather have seen it in its old one ; she only answered, " I 
 will come as soon as I am strong enough to walk so far ; 
 you know I have not been very well of late." 
 
 " You must not walk ; you must have your riding 
 horse." 
 
 " My poor little pony ? They tell me he is dead. If 
 he were living, he would hardly be able to carry me now." 
 
 " Of course not you must have another ; I will see to 
 that." 
 
 " Thank you for your kind intentions, but Mr. Mortimer 
 keeps no stables." 
 
 " Oh, the carpenters can soon knock up a stable ; I will 
 see to it." 
 
 Charles Moray hurried away as he spoke, to join Miss 
 Cullen, who was already standing beside her horse and look 
 ing impatiently back, as if to chide his delay. 
 
 " I hope he will do no such thing," said Augusta, in 
 somewhat annoyed accents, to Mr. Mortimer ; " I should 
 dislike it very much." 
 
 " Do not be disturbed, my dear ; I think he will for 
 get it." 
 
 And Mr. Mortimer was right. Charles Moray found 
 himself just at this time crowded with engagements ; the
 
 352 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 late breakfast unfailing result of the night's festivities 
 was succeeded by hunting, fishing, boat racing, picnicing on 
 a neighboring island engagements into which he seemed 
 thrust without will of his own, and which were succeeded by 
 the late dinner and that by music, dancing, card or billiard 
 playing till the early hours of another morning sent him to 
 his bed, to recruit his exhausted energies for another day of 
 forced gaieties and wearied satiety. Charles Moray, light 
 as was his nature, never asked himself if this were happiness 
 he knew it was not ; but he did sometimes ask, Why am 
 I not happy? Here were all the elements he had ever 
 asked for to constitute his Elysium, fortune, friends, and 
 nothing to do but to amuse himself. Ah ! there was the 
 rub : he had yet to learn that man withers without work as 
 surely as a plant without water ; that though labor the 
 labor which makes the brow to sweat and the back to bend, 
 which dwarfs the soul and holds it down to the earth, may 
 be a curse work, the work which gives exercise to all 
 man's faculties, and thus stimulates the growth of his whole 
 nature, is an immeasurable blessing. His soul was even 
 now withering within him for the want of it, and yet all 
 around him lay, not work in. the abstract, but his own work 
 work the highest and noblest that can be allotted to man, 
 and for which his position of master gave him peculiar ad 
 vantages. Indeed, it was not only work that could not be 
 done so well, but work that could not be done at all by an 
 other, while he held that position. 
 
 Charles Moray was not the only one on St. Mary's Isle 
 who was reaping the bitter fruit of neglect of this great prin 
 ciple of our nature. With a richer and deeper nature than 
 his, Augusta Moray had been unable even to fancy that she 
 could find her life in the sports that charm none but the light 
 est spirits for more than an hour. Her Paradise had been 
 of another kind more refined, ministering to higher enjoy-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 353 
 
 merit, yet bounded to herself and those whom love had 
 made as parts of her own being. Could she have realized 
 it, it would have been but to write on it as others had done 
 before, " Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of 
 spirit." It had been denied to her, and she felt that nothing 
 was left worth a struggle, except to keep her pride intact 
 from the soil of dependence, and thus to eat and drink and 
 die. None, save one who has felt it, can conceive the bitter 
 ness of this aimless existence to a spirit conscious of power. 
 It is a daily, hourly death. None need feel it the world's 
 great Creator intended it for none. He has given a place 
 and a work to every creature to whom he has given life. 
 He who leaves the place unfilled, the work undone, does 
 so at his peril ; on his head will assuredly fall the pen 
 alty sooner or later. Happy for him if it fall ere the 
 curtain of death divide him from all the interests of his 
 present existence, and the neglect and its consequences be 
 therefore irretrievable. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer was grieved to see that though Augusta 
 would enter with at least the appearance of pleasure into any 
 scheme devised by him, or even by Charity, for her enjoy 
 ment ; that though she would say, " Oh yes ! that would be 
 delightful ! " as she took her book, or work, or drawing 
 materials to the rustic seat under the great oak which he 
 had arranged for her, or would declare that nothing could 
 be more charming than a ramble with Charity to the old 
 haunts she had loved as a child, the book, or work, or draw 
 ing often proved but an excuse for musings that left her 
 sadder than before, and she returned from the rambles with 
 an expression of weariness in countenance and movement, 
 for which she could not plead delicacy of health, all symp 
 toms of illness having rapidly disappeared under the soft 
 ministerings of her native air. 
 
 Though grieved, as we have said, Mr. Mortimer was
 
 354 T\VO PICTURES. 
 
 long silent. One Sabbath evening they sat together in the 
 shaded piazza, which the warmth of the advancing season 
 it was now the last of March made the pleasantest part' of 
 the house, Augusta reading to her old friend, who had 
 suffered much lately from increasing dimness o sight. The 
 book chosen by him was " Taylor's Holy Living and 
 Dying." 
 
 " Do you agree with that ? " said Mr. Mortimer, as she 
 finished one of those long rhythmical sentences in which we 
 know not whether to admire most the clearness and force 
 of the reasoning, the poetic beauty of the language, or the 
 devotional feeling. 
 
 " Do you agree with that ? " he asked again, as she hesi 
 tated. 
 
 To many, to most, perhaps, it would have been easy to 
 answer " yes " or " no," or " I do not know ;" but Augusta 
 never equivocated in her life, scarcely ever evaded meeting 
 a question fairly and fully ; so now, after a minute's vain 
 attempt to recall what she had been reading, finding that 
 Mr. Mortimer still awaited her answer, she said, with a 
 flushing cheek, " I- am not quite sure that I understood it." 
 
 " And yet it was not difficult to understand. Are you 
 quite sure you knew what you were reading ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, sir ; it is ' Taylor's Holy Living and Dying,' " 
 she said, but her eyes sank before the mild, steady gaze of 
 his, that seemed to her, tenderly reproachful. 
 
 " My child, where is your heart ? " asked Mr. Morti 
 mer, gently ; " I have seen from the first it was not with 
 us," he added, mournfully. Augusta was touched. Tears 
 sprang to her eyes. Again she seemed a little child, and he, 
 her kind teacher, as she said, softly, " Forgive me, dear sir ; 
 I will be more attentive," and raising the book from her 
 lap, she would have read again. 
 
 Mr. Mortimer laid his hand upon the book.
 
 rwo PICTURES. 355 
 
 " No, my dear, I will not ask you to read any more this 
 evening." 
 
 " Are you ofFended with me, dear Mr. Mortimer ? " 
 asked Augusta, with a little tremulousness in her voice. 
 
 " No, my child, not offended ; I have no right to be 
 that, nor have you given me any cause ; but I arn disap 
 pointed. Ah, my dear ! you do not know what disappoint 
 ment is to the old, who have but little left here to love or 
 hope for, and who know that from even that little, death 
 must divorce them soon." 
 
 " Oh, dear sir, say not such cruel words ! " exclaimed 
 Augusta, with streaming tears. 
 
 " Hush, hush ! my child ; I did not mean to wound 
 you." 
 
 " Only tell me what you wish what I can do ; I came 
 at your wish, hoping to give you pleasure." 
 
 " It was very kind in you, my good child, as kind as has 
 been your compliance with all my wishes since you were 
 here ; but your heart has not been in these kind acts, your 
 heart is not here ; where is it, Augusta ? " 
 
 The flush rose from Augusta's cheek to her brow, a thrill 
 shot through her whole frame ; she would have escaped from 
 the piazza, but had no power to stir. To any other but 
 Mr. Mortimer she would have answered such a question 
 proudly, defiantly, perhaps ; but for this gentle, good old 
 man, this kind, constant friend, she had no pride. 
 
 " My dear," said Mr. Mortimer, again, as he read that 
 flushing and downcast face, " do not think that I meant to 
 ask an impertinent question, to pry into the secrets of a young 
 and delicate nature ; I want to know only so much of your 
 life as will enable me to help you to the paths of peace ; 
 you seem to me now like a little child which has wandered 
 away from its home into the solitude of a vast wood, where 
 it stands affrighted at its loneliness."
 
 356 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " You are right loneliness ; yes, that is it." 
 
 " And yet, it may be, the home is just at hand, if some 
 friendly guide would only point to the path," 
 
 Augusta did not speak, and her downcast eyes forbade 
 his reading there her unuttered thoughts. 
 
 " Shall I try to be your guide, my child 1 " 
 
 The voice was so tender and gentle, and when Augusta 
 lifted her eyes to the face, the flowing gray locks, the kind 
 smile, laid such a bond upon her, that even the strength of 
 her pride could not break it, yet she shrunk from the probe 
 that might be applied, and could only answer with a falter 
 ing voice, " It is hard to guide one, sir, whose wanderings 
 are aimless, who has no home and no hope." 
 
 " No home ! no hope ! God forbid that this should be 
 your case ! There is but one place in God's dominions over 
 whose door is written ' No hope.' " 
 
 " I was speaking but of this life," said Augusta, sadly. 
 
 " Our life is one ; the mistake the fatal mistake is to 
 think of the portion spent on earth as the whole. Do not 
 think that age has made me cold that I have forgotten the 
 force of human love and human hopes ; memories, Augusta, 
 grow very tender in the light that falls on them from the 
 world to which I am so near." 
 
 He sat a little while in quiet thought, whose outward 
 expression was not sadness, but peace ; then resumed. 
 
 " What I would say is that these hopes and loves must 
 bring us more disquiet than happiness, so long as they cen 
 tre on ourselves, or on those whom love has made as parts 
 of ourselves ; it is only when their action is as wide as the 
 world as high as the heavens that they bring happiness. 
 It is not through self-seeking, but through self-renunciation, 
 that we attain to a true peace." 
 
 " Self-renunciation ? I do not quite understand," said 
 Augusta, interested by the apparent paradox.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 357 
 
 " Yes ; it is he who is willing to lose his life for a good 
 cause, who finds a higher, nobler, and even happier life 
 even in that act." 
 
 "I understand that the martyrs who lay down their 
 earthly lives for their faith, win a richer, heavenly life." 
 
 " Your explanation is good ; but you must bear in mind 
 that martyrdom is but the highest expression of that prin 
 ciple which must govern the whole Christian life ; it is only 
 thus that we can reconcile the ' peace ' and the ' tribulation ' 
 which were alike our Saviour's promise to his people." 
 
 It seemed to Augusta that Mr. Mortimer had forgotten 
 her individual case in the enunciation of a general principle, 
 and pleased at the change, she turned readily to what she 
 considered a new subject. 
 
 " I fear," she said, " that a religious persecution would 
 find few martyrs among us of the present day." 
 
 " I do not know," was the thoughtful answer ; " there 
 were many more than Elijah suspected who had not bowed 
 the knee unto Baal ; there are many, I hope, even in this 
 self-seeking age, who live in this spirit ; many who do not 
 pause in their course of beneficent action for any pressure 
 of personal sorrow, or absorption in personal joy who seek 
 not their own, but the things of others." 
 
 " It seems to me, my dear sir, that you are inculcating a 
 stoical disregard to our own pain or pleasure, which may be 
 very beautiful in theory, but which is quite unattainable, or 
 attainable only by those whom nature has not endowed with 
 very keen susceptibilities." 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear ; the highest expression of my 
 ideal was in one who was gifted with the tenderest of human 
 hearts, and exposed to the extremity of human woes, yet who 
 spent his life not in vain repining, but in going about doing 
 good ; who, even when dying a death of agony, prayed not 
 for himself, but for his murderers from whom no pang ex-
 
 358 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 torted a cry till he felt that desertion which, blessings on 
 His Holy Name ! no mortal need feel, which none can feel 
 or understand, perhaps, save those who have been banished 
 from the presence of God into what the Scripture calls 
 ' outer darkness.' Was this stoicism, or want of keen sus 
 ceptibilities 1 " 
 
 Augusta sat awed and still. It appeared to her almost 
 irreverent to make that Divine life, yet more that sacrificial 
 death, the subject of conversation. Nor did Mr. Mortimer 
 pursue the theme farther ; he had cast the seed, he could 
 now only pray that God would give the increase. 
 
 Another week had passed away, and again the aged 
 teacher and the young girl, whom he had loved and prayed 
 for, sat in the same piazza. The rustling of the leaves, 
 stirred by a gentle breeze, and the singing of the birds, 
 which had built their nests in the great oaks, were the only 
 sounds that broke the stillness of the evening. 
 
 " Great peace have they whose hearts are stayed on 
 Thee," softly repeated Mr. Mortimer. The words had 
 furnished the subject of his sermon on the morning of that 
 day, a sermon in which, with a simplicity that placed what 
 he said within the comprehension of the humblest intellect, 
 and a directness that suffered no earnest heart to evade its 
 grasp, he had elaborated and enforced the truth presented to 
 Augusta in conversation. 
 
 " Do you not desire this great peace, my dear ? " he 
 asked, turning suddenly, but not ungently, to Augusta. 
 
 " I fear it would be a vain desire," she said, timidly. 
 
 " Try, my dear, try." 
 
 " How, my dear sir, how shall I try ? " 
 
 "Get away from yourself let your sympathies and 
 work be no longer for yourself, or for those few beloved 
 friends who are parts of yourself, but for the needy and 
 sorrowing wherever you find them ; and let your trust, your
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 359 
 
 reliance be not on yourself, not on any human arm, but on 
 God." 
 
 " This is very general, dear friend ; I want to know what 
 I shall do now for whom can I work ? with whom can I 
 sympathize ? " 
 
 " I think, just at present, the most unhappy person within 
 your reach, the one who has the greatest claim on your sym 
 pathy and charity, is Mrs. Charles Moray." 
 
 The quick crimson flushed Augusta's brow ; she raised 
 her head proudly, and said, " I can do nothing for her." 
 
 " Bless your enemies do good to them that despitefully 
 use you and persecute you," said Mr. Mortimer, in the tone 
 of one rather reciting to himself than addressing another. 
 
 " What good could I do to Mrs. Moray ? " asked Augusta, 
 hotly. 
 
 " I do not know ; I only know that she needs all sorts 
 of good, and I do not think you should so determinately 
 withdraw from her as to make it, as far as your act can 
 make it, impossible to act beneficially upon her." 
 
 " I have already declined Mrs. Moray's invitations^ and 
 I cannot now solicit them or approach her unsought." 
 
 " You cannot lay that much prized jewel of your pride 
 on the altar of Him who is your peace? Well, in this case, 
 it is not demanded ; she told me this morning that since you 
 would not come to see her, she was coming to-morrow to 
 see you." 
 
 " Since she has delayed it so long, I wish she had omitted 
 it altogether," said Augusta, haughtily. 
 
 " Hush, my dear ! Remember, daily dying is the 
 Christian's life and peace." 
 
 " Did she tell you at what hour she would be here 1 " 
 
 " No ; only in the morning." 
 
 " You will not leave me alone 7 ' 
 
 " Are you afraid of her ? " 
 16
 
 3GO TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Not of her, but of myself." 
 
 " You know where to turn from that fear but I will be 
 present and assist at the sacrifice," he added, with a smile, 
 which Augusta had scarcely the power to return. 
 
 What had changed Mrs. Moray's tactics, so far as to 
 induce her to seek one whom she hated with a bitterness, 
 which only a consciousness of having done a great injury, 
 for which we have no desire to atone, can infuse into the 
 heart, we may perhaps learn by a more minute survey than 
 we have yet made of her life at home.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "Upon my brad they placed a fruitless crown, 
 And put a barren sceptre in iny gripe, 
 Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand." Macbeth. 
 
 " Frailty, thy name is woman ! " Hamlet. 
 
 WE said, some pages back, that Mr. Mortimer was right 
 in the opinion that Charles Moray would probably forget 
 his promises to Augusta. He did forget them, in the ordi 
 nary sense of the expression that is, he forgot to execute 
 them ; yet they did not altogether vanish from his sphere 
 of thought. They returned to his memory at inopportune 
 times, when it seemed impossible to take any step toward 
 their fulfilment, rousing him for a moment from the dull 
 despondency of ennui, to a keener pang of shame. Weary 
 of others, dissatisfied with himself, this is precisely the 
 condition in which a man, especially a self-indulgent man, 
 is most in danger. It would be an interesting study to the 
 psychologist to follow our present subject through daily and 
 hourly alternations of feverish unrest and despondent inac 
 tion, to mark the sullen expression and jaded movements 
 of the morning to hear hirn again and again meet the first 
 proposition of the day's amusements by the declaration that 
 he must leave his guests to themselves, as business, too 
 long postponed, demanded his attention, or as a message 
 from the plantation required his presence ; or, with an 
 expression of unconquerable determination in the glance
 
 3G2 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 directed to his mother, as he had an engagement with iits 
 cousin, /which he could no longer postpone. Then, to mark 
 the gradual relaxation of his purpose, under the influence of 
 the temptations presented, in which presentation his mother 
 never appeared, though an acute observer would easily have 
 surmised that she sat behind the curtain and moved the 
 wires. Let us give but one example. 
 
 The scene is the old dining room, in which Mr. Hugh 
 Moray had entertained the stranger, who had exercised so 
 large an influence over the destination of his property ; but 
 it would scarce be recognized by one who remembered it 
 only in its former state. The large windows opening to the 
 floor were now richly draped ; the floor was carpeted ; the 
 oak furniture is of the modern antique style, the breakfast 
 table glitters with its display of silver. Charles Moray, 
 Harry Reardon, and two young gentlemen, sons of planters 
 on the main-land, are seated at the table with Miss Cullen, 
 Mrs. Marvel, a gay young widow, and her younger sister, 
 Miss Tanner, both Saratoga acquaintances of Mrs. Moray, 
 who had only lately arrived to pass the weeks of spring, so 
 dolorous in a northern clime, so riant and sparkling in a 
 southern one, with " dear, darling Mrs. Moray and her 
 charming son." 
 
 " What are you going to do this delightful spring day 1 " 
 
 " Suppose we take to the boats and show Mrs. Marvel 
 and Miss Tanner one of the pretty islands in your neighbor 
 hood," said Mr. Reardon. 
 
 " I vote for a brisk cantor to the other end of this island 
 and a picnic under the oaks," exclaimed Miss Cullen, who, 
 conscious that she looked well on horseback, always pre 
 ferred riding to boating. " How do you vote, Mrs. Marvel 1 " 
 
 " Is there a carriage road to the other end of the 
 island?" asked Mrs. Marvel, w r hose role was excessive 
 timidity. " I am afraid Mr. Moray's horses are too gay for
 
 TWO PICTURES. 363 
 
 me, and as to the sea, it almost killed me when I came here 
 those great waves ! " and the widow shuddered slightly. 
 
 " A beautiful carriage road, level and smooth as a bowl 
 ing green so you will be on my side ; now, Miss Tanner, 
 your vote." 
 
 " One moment's delay, Miss Tanner ; let me assure you 
 the sea to-day is as smooth as Miss Cullcn's carriage road, 
 an unbroken mirror for the bluest of blue skies, and that the 
 island is a perfect Isola Bella. " 
 
 " Oh ! I dote on the sea, and the blue sky, and the 
 islands and all that," cried Miss Tanner, enthusiastically. 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Tanner ! " exclaimed Mr. Reardon ; 
 " now we have a tie, but I hope " 
 
 " No, no ! Mr. Moray, your vote ; you will not deny me 
 your vote," cried Miss Cullen. 
 
 " You must excuse me to-day ; I shall have to leave you 
 to your own devices ; I must see my cousin, Miss Moray, 
 to-day ; but I am sure either Mr. Maxwell or Mr. Howell," 
 glancing at the two young gentlemen visitors, " will ride 
 with you with pleasure." 
 
 Both the gentlemen named, offered their services eagerly, 
 though timidly, to the handsome, dashing Miss Cullen, whom 
 they greatly admired. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, with a very slight bow and an 
 expression of pique, " I shall stay at home ; I believe I have 
 letters to write." 
 
 " I protest against that," said Mrs. Moray ; " the weather 
 will soon be too warm for any active exercise, you must not 
 waste this beautiful day in the house ; Charles will not let 
 you, I am sure, if it depends on him." 
 
 Harry Reardon bent his face over his plate with a smile, 
 which called up a quick, bright flush, half of shame, half of 
 vexation on Miss Cullen's cheeks. That smile did not speak 
 the feeling she had hoped to excite. Charles Moray saw the
 
 304 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 flush, which he attributed to a more flattering cause, and 
 addressing her alone, he said, " I wish I could go ; I will try 
 to join you at the picnic ; but, indeed, I must see my 
 cousin first." 
 
 " Let us all go there and carry her off with us. Mrs. 
 Marvel will have a seat to spare in the coupe. I want you 
 to sing that beautiful song, ' Woodman, spare that tree ! ' 
 fur us ; I shall put my guitar in the carriage." 
 
 " But, indeed, " Charles began, but after another glance 
 changed what he was about to say into " Well ! if we are 
 going to the Northend, we must make our preparations 
 quickly ; we shall find it warm at midday, and it is a seven 
 miles' ride." 
 
 " Shall we call for your cousin ? " asked Miss Cullen, 
 scarcely able to repress a little exultation in her tone. 
 
 " Oh no ! it would take us quite out of our way. I 
 must put off my visit till this evening." 
 
 " Miss Tanner, shall we go to Isola Bella?" asked Mr. 
 Reardon, with mock earnestness. 
 
 " I am afraid it won't do," said Miss Tanner gravely, 
 mistaking the tone. 
 
 Miss Cullen's eyes turned with mischief in their glance 
 to Mr. Reardon, and with a readiness which showed that he 
 had not outlived his gentlemanly instincts, ho said to Miss 
 Tanner, " Since we must submit to the majority and go to 
 the Northend, permit me to have the pleasure of driving you 
 in Moray's brougham. Mrs. Moray will, I dare say, ac 
 company your sister.' 1 
 
 The proposal was accepted, and in this order they went, 
 not altogether to the satisfaction of Miss Cullen, as Mrs. 
 Cullen and her maid, too, divined, from her captiousness 
 and impatience while arranging her dress for the drive. 
 Charles Moray lost half his value in Miss Cullen's eyes, 
 when Harry Reardon was not by to bear witness to her
 
 TWO PICTURES. 365 
 
 power. Of course, Charles Moray returned top late arid too 
 much fatigued to walk over to Mr. Mortimer's that evening. 
 
 Notwithstanding the manoeuvring of his mother and the 
 easy pliability of Charles Moray, it was obviously impos 
 sible that two persons living within a mile of each other, 
 and neither of them in strict confinement, should not some 
 times meet, especially when Augusta's restored strength 
 rendered her capable of the long, quiet rambles she loved. 
 One day she was walking leisurely over the narrow, shaded 
 path, strown with the sere leaves of the last autumn and 
 winter, which led by the burial ground to the plantation, 
 when the sound of approaching voices and steps made her 
 draw closer the light mantilla she had thrown from her 
 shoulders and exchange her languid, pensive movement for 
 a quicker step. Move as quickly as she would, she was 
 soon seen, and almost as soon overtaken by Charles Moray 
 and Mr. Eeardon. 
 
 " Augusta ! " exclaimed Charles Moray, " how very glad 
 I am to meet you ! I was going to see you this morning 
 was I not, Harry ? My friend, Mr. Reardon my cousin 
 Miss Moray." 
 
 Augusta bowed to Mr. Reardon in acknowledgment of 
 the introduction, as she said, with a smile, which seemed to 
 him to speak more of carelessness than of pleasure, " Your 
 assurance needs no corroboration from another. It is well 
 your intention was not put into action as you would have 
 found neither Mr. Mortimer nor me at home." 
 
 " Where are you going ? let me carry your basket 
 plants ? What are you going to do with plants out here ? " 
 
 Augusta glanced at Mr. Reardon ; but he had stepped 
 on ahead, and seemed out of earshot ; so, lowering her 
 voice a little, she said, " I hope you will pardon my coaxing 
 the gardener to give me some cuttings from my uncle's 
 favorite rose tree ; I am going to plant them at his grave."
 
 366 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Charles Moray reddened with shame, and said, ingenu 
 ously, " It is a disgrace to me that this should have been 
 left to you. I have been intending to call and consult Mr. 
 Mortimer about an epitaph for a monument that I am going 
 to write to Hugh to send me from New York. Dear old 
 Hugh ! how I wish he were here ! Do you think he would 
 come if I should write for him ? " 
 
 The blood that flushed Augusta's cheek, was called there 
 more by indignation at this expression of a weak selfish and 
 increasingly indolent nature, this intending, was going, and 
 ^oisking, than by the name of Hugh or the thought of his 
 coming. To Charlie's question she answered somewhat 
 coldly, if not curtly, " The best way to ascertain that, will 
 be to write." 
 
 " Augusta," said Charles Moray, struck by her manner, 
 " you must not think me the heartless fellow I seem. If 
 you could only be one day in our house, you would see how 
 impossible it is for a fellow to do as he wishes." 
 
 " Unless he will exercise a little decision to secure his 
 independence," Augusta responded. 
 
 " A man may be decided with men ; but what is he to 
 do with the women, Augusta 1 " asked Charles Moray, with 
 such an expression of helpless perplexity that, had Augusta 
 been one whit less provoked by his weakness, she could not 
 but have laughed. As it was she shrugged her shoulders 
 and was silent. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Reardon stopped, and as they came near, 
 bowing to Augusta, said, " I am sorry, Moray, to disturb so 
 pleasant an interview ; but I find it is past ten, and I must 
 remind you that the ladies will expect us." 
 
 " Will you go to them, Reardon, and say I am neces 
 sarily detained, but will join them as soon as I can " 
 
 " Not detained by me" said Augusta, hurriedly. 
 
 " Not by you, only with you she is doing, Reardon,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 3G7 
 
 what I ought to have done long ago ; I cannot leave her to 
 do it alone." 
 
 " It is a work which certainly does not need two to per 
 form it ; so, if you are really anxious to do it yourself, I 
 will give you the slips and return home," and Augusta held 
 the basket toward him. 
 
 For one who boasted of his savoirfaire, Charles Moray 
 both felt and looked awkwardly enough. He was provoked 
 with Augusta for her cool rejection of his attendance, and 
 scarcely less provoked with Mr. Reardon for being a wit 
 ness to it. 
 
 " I have no desire to drive you homo," he said, a little 
 sulkily to the first. 
 
 " Then I would advise you to hasten on with Mr. Ecar- 
 don, and not keep the ladies waiting." 
 
 As she said this, glancing toward Mr. Reardon, she saw 
 a smile curl his lip ; old kindliness to Charlie awoke in her 
 heart ; she would not expose him to that bold man's mock 
 ery, so holding out her hand with a friendliness, which at 
 once restored his self-possession, she added, " You know, 
 Charlie, I will not help you to break a promise ; come to 
 me when you have no other engagement, and I will take 
 this walk with you with pleasure. Good morning." > 
 
 Both gentlemen felt themselves dismissed, and moved on 
 rapidly, and for some time, silently. 
 
 " What a complexion ! " cried Mr. Reardon, suddenly, 
 " what hair ! what eyes ! all glow and sparkle in her looks, 
 and cool as an icicle in manner. Moray, you must pardon 
 me, but I cannot help laughing," and he suited the action to 
 the w r ord, "I cannot help laughing, when I think how you 
 looked I never saw a man so coolly plante in my life ; yet 
 with that last word and look and movement, she made me 
 envious of you. What a witch she is ! That is the sort of 
 woman who could move the world, if she chose."
 
 3G8 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 "She is too proud to choose to exert her influence on 
 any but her friends I am used to being the butt of her 
 caprices. With all her glow and sparkle, I prefer one who 
 will not plunge me in a second from the genial glow of a 
 summer's day into an ice bath, even though she should at 
 last restore me to the sunshine." 
 
 The gentlemen had moved rapidly on ; yet, when they 
 reached the house of the manager or overseer on the planta 
 tion, they found the ladies collected in the piazza to await 
 their coming, astonishing the staid wife and wild, sunburned 
 children of Mr. Carter, the manager, by their gay dress and 
 lively talk. 
 
 " I told you so, Mr. Reardon ; I knew we should be here 
 before you," cried Miss Cullen and Mrs. Marvel at once. 
 
 " How long is it since you arrived 1 " asked Mr. Rear- 
 don. 
 
 " Fully fifteen minutes," was the answer, as each lady 
 examined the tiny watch hanging at her girdle. 
 
 " We should have been here long before that, had we 
 not met the Queen of Fairyland in our walk, who turned 
 poor Moray here into a tree, planted him, ladies ; I could 
 not leave him, of course, so there we should even now have 
 been, had she not taken pity on us and ' with her rod re 
 versed and backward mutters of dissevering power,' set him 
 free again." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Reardon?" cried the bewil 
 dered Miss Tanner, whose wits were somewhat slow at 
 guessing riddles. 
 
 " What nonsense you talk ! " exclaimed Miss Cullen, 
 who had reasons of her own for disliking the account. 
 
 " That is the way truth is always discredited. Well, 
 all I say is, try your power on him, ladies, and see if you 
 are not attacking a charmed man." 
 
 Mrs. Marvel and Miss Tanner laughed ; Miss Cullen
 
 TWO PICTURES. 69 
 
 flushed, and her eyes flashed, and her lips settled themselves 
 into a line of unwonted firmness. To her sensitive ear 
 there was a challenge in Mr. Reardon's words, which the 
 glance she caught, seemed to direct especially to herself. It 
 was as if he had told her, " You have tried to play him off 
 against me, you will henceforth find him as little impressible 
 as you have found me." 
 
 " I will try, at least," was her inward response. Was it 
 this decision which prompted the manner half advancing, half 
 receding ; the eyes lifted to his, then sinking before them ; 
 the burning flush, with which she met Charles Moray as he 
 returned from a colloquy with Mr. Carter, in which he had 
 been engaged during this by-play ? Perhaps the gentle 
 flattery of such a reception was more felt by Charles Moray 
 from its contrast to the cool reception Augusta had given 
 him ; it may have been this, or it may have been the new 
 character imparted to her face by the counterfeit emotion, 
 which made him think her at that moment more charming 
 than he had ever seen her. It was to her and not to Mrs. 
 Marvel, as he had intended, that he offered his arm to lead 
 the way to the sugar works, the ladies being desirous to 
 taste the warm, luscious sirup, as it comes from its first 
 boiling. It was a strange scene to them, and would have 
 been stranger still, if they had waited till night and seen it 
 lit by the red flames. Brawny men, with bared arms, flour 
 ishing dippers with long handles, were moving about among 
 the boilers, where simmered the thin, clear juice of the cane, 
 or where boiled with a bubbling sound, the dark, thick sirup. 
 No one who had heard their laugh, blithe as a child's, or lis 
 tened to the jests, with which they responded to the merry 
 salutations of their visitors, could have deemed them op 
 pressed or melancholy men. 
 
 "While the visitors were in the sugar-house, Mr. Carter, 
 by Charles Moray's order, had sent over for his horse and
 
 3 TO TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Mr. Heard on's, and the whole party returned together by 
 the carriage road. 
 
 " I say, Moray, were you afraid of meeting the Queen 
 again, if you walked ? " cried Mr. Keardon, gayly, but a 
 little maliciously, as he mounted. 
 
 Charles Moray busied himself about the arrangement 
 of Miss Cullen's drapery, not appearing to hear the ques 
 tion. The lady received his attentions with the same air of 
 newly-awakened sensitiveness, which had already proved 
 effective in drawing him to her side. This was revealed 
 rather in looks and manner than in words ; indeed, the near 
 neighborhood of the coupe and the frequent interruptions 
 from Mr. Reardon, rendered anything like confidential con 
 versation difficult. Yet there was an undertone of feeling 
 accompanying even the most commonplace observation, 
 which, where the feeling is genuine, is a source of the most 
 exquisite pleasure. 
 
 " How warm the sun is to-day, and yet it is only the 
 last week in March," observed young Moray. 
 
 " The last week in March ! May will soon be here ! " 
 cried Miss Cullen, in a voice which could not be inter 
 preted as an expression of gladness. 
 
 " You will not leave us so soon." 
 
 " Mamma says we must." 
 
 " But what do you say ? " in a low and very earnest tone. 
 
 The answer was a sudden lifting of the eyes to his, and 
 as sudden a drooping of their lids, Avhich quivered as with 
 suppressed emotion. 
 
 Had they been alone, Charles Moray would at that mo 
 ment have spoken the irrevocable words which would have 
 placed St. Mary's and its master at the feet of Miss Cullen. 
 Not that he was what might be called in love, but in pure 
 idleness, and lor the want of something to excite him, he had 
 played around the flame till his wings were scorched, and
 
 TAVO PICTURES. 371 
 
 though half suspecting a snare, he was ready to drop into 
 it. Do not say, reader, such weakness is impossible. To 
 the young man who is a mere idler or pleasure seeker in a 
 world where every reflective, earnest soul finds work that 
 tasks his utmost power, no weakness is impossible ; he drifts 
 at the will of circumstance hither and thither, till he be 
 comes unable to resist the current, even though he knows 
 that it is floating him to ruin. Charles Moray was not 
 wholly ignorant of the tactics of flirtation, as practised by 
 the frivolous of either sex ; but he was not quite au fait of 
 that deeper coquetry of which practice had made Miss Cul- 
 len mistress, which could simulate successfully not merely 
 the sensitiveness of an awakened heart, but the modest re 
 serve necessary to render that sensitiveness alluring. The 
 sensation it awakened in him was welcome ; he fostered it, 
 he dwelt on all that was calculated to increase it, till he half 
 persuaded himself that the sparkle of fancy was indeed the 
 glow of passion. Then why should he pause or hesitate ? 
 he was his own master. He determined to speak at once. 
 But this was not so easy as it seemed. The lady liked to 
 display her power. Especially did she take pleasure in this, 
 in the presence of Harry Reardon; yet she shrank with a 
 reluctance which perhaps she did not herself fully under 
 stand from saying the words that would commit her irre 
 vocably. Thus affairs rested for some days, affecting the 
 various lookers on with emotions differing, according to the 
 stand-point of each. To Harry Reardon it afforded at first 
 quiet fun, changing to a less complacent feeling as the flirta 
 tion became more serious ; to Mrs. Marvel it was provok 
 ing to see the only marrying man in the company so en 
 grossed ; to Mrs. Cullen it was a source of exultation, the 
 expression of which, in manner, at least, it was difficult to 
 restrain ; while to Mrs. Moray it brought vexation scarcely 
 disguised. Bitterly did she regret that she had not made
 
 372 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 more honest and strenuous efforts to draw Augusta Moray 
 into her circle. " Charlie certainly liked her once," she said 
 to herself, " and she is so much handsomer than that girl 
 he could never have been made such a fool of, if he had had 
 Augusta near him to compare her with ; she would not have 
 married him of that I am sure ; but so much the better, if 
 she had only kept him from desiring to marry another." 
 
 And on that hint she spoke first to Mr. Mortimer, as we 
 have seen, proposing to call on Augusta the next day, saying 
 that she had waited with the hope that Augusta would come 
 to her, but she had been disappointed, and she could no 
 longer submit to this estrangement from one in whom she 
 felt so deep and tender an interest. 
 
 The visit was made. Mr. Mortimer complied with 
 Augusta's request that he would not leave her, the more 
 readily, because he thought his presence might bring the 
 interview to a more peaceful conclusion. Mrs. Moray never 
 had studied more to ingratiate herself than on this morning. 
 She acknowledged with a singular degree of frankness that 
 she had not done her duty by Augusta, whom, considering 
 her as a sacred trust from Mr. Moray, she ought to have 
 made more strenuous efforts to win. " But you know, Au 
 gusta," she said, " you harbored most unjust suspicions of 
 me when we parted, which showed themselves in your man 
 ner, if not in your words. You will not wonder that they 
 made me indignant ; I was very angry with you, my dear, 
 and it has taken me all this time to get over it ; but now I 
 would gladly prove to you, if you will let me, that I love 
 you too well to have injured you intentionally." 
 
 A courteous, general acknowledgment of her kind in 
 tentions was all that the exquisite tact of this address won 
 for Mrs. Moray. 
 
 To her invitations the answers given were not more sat 
 isfactory.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 373 
 
 " Come with me today," said Mrs. Moray. 
 
 Augusta regretted that it would be impossible. 
 
 " Mr. Mortimer, cannot you persuade her ? She wants 
 a little gayety to make her forget the past." 
 
 Mr. Mortimer looked at Augusta without speaking ; 
 their eyes met, and it was to him that she addressed her an 
 swer, in which she seemed to lose all consciousness of an 
 other presence. 
 
 " Neither my dress nor my feelings are suited to gayety," 
 she said, as she glanced at her black dress, "and you would 
 not desire me to forget the past ; you know it is all 1 have." 
 
 There was a moment's embarrassed silence, and then 
 Mr. Mortimer said, " I am afraid you must excuse her from 
 the gaieties, Mrs. Moray ; she is hardly strong enough fob 
 them ; but we will keep a little cheerfulness for you if you 
 will come and see us often." 
 
 And unable to obtain any greater concession, Mrs. Mo 
 ray went away, promising to come very often. 
 
 How strange are the revelations we sometimes obtain of 
 the oneness if we may so express it between man's lower 
 nature and the material world by which he is surrounded. 
 We mark a mode of action in this material world and an 
 nounce it as a physical law ; but lo ! when we turn our ob 
 servation on the world within us, while its movements arc 
 unrestrained by those higher powers which connect us with 
 the Infinite, we find the same law ruling there. Reaction is 
 always proportionate to action, says the student of nature's 
 laws ; resistance but increases the force of that which it is 
 not sufficiently powerful to overcome. 
 
 Harry Reardon had thought Elise Cullen, as he said to 
 Charles Moray, the most piquant woman he had ever seen. 
 Her beauty charmed, her wit entertained, her coquetry ex 
 cited him. A languid wish had more than once been awak 
 ened in him that he could secure her for himself, yet the
 
 374: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 wish had been followed by a laugh at his own folly, for how 
 could he, with his expensive habits, afford to marry without 
 fortune 1 and he had ascertained that Elise was wholly 
 dependent on her mother, who was not likely to give, with 
 her own good will, either daughter or fortune to him. 
 
 Such had been his cool reasoning while he believed this 
 pretty sparkler had given to him all the heart with which 
 nature had gifted her ; but within a few days this had seemed 
 not quite certain. It grew daily, hourly, less so, and as it 
 did, the languid wish grew into a strong desire, a passionate 
 determination. Under the frank, gay exterior of this man 
 was concealed, almost from himself, a nature, slow to rouse, 
 but, once roused, unsurpassed in the force of passion and the 
 persistency of will. The experiences of his life had taught 
 him not to subdue himself, but to bear down opposing cir 
 cumstances. Left an unconnected orphan while yet but a 
 boy, he found that his father had dissipated his fortune in 
 the pursuit of pleasure, and there was nothing which lie 
 could justly call his own. In his father's life of pleasure he 
 had shared, and the education his powers had thus received, 
 and the direction given to his character, had neither fitted 
 him for any employment by Avhich fortune could be gained, 
 nor given the habits of hardihood and self-denial which might 
 have enabled him to do without fortune. Like the steward 
 in the Bible, " he could not dig, and to beg he was ashamed," 
 and like him, he found a resource in the habitations of his 
 friends. These friends, the former companions of his father, 
 invited him at first from pity, but he exercised his agreeable 
 qualities with such success that the pity soon became liking. 
 These associations gave him currency in what is called good 
 society. How he maintained himself there, how he man 
 aged to be the best-dressed man of their acquaintance, and to 
 ride the finest horse, they never asked. " Clever fellow that ; 
 see how he gets along he never wants anything," they ex-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 375 
 
 claimed; perhaps, had he wanted anything, these friends 
 might have proved less constant. It was at this period of 
 his life that Harry Reardon formed the wise determination 
 never to play at games of chance with those who were his 
 hosts, or who had been so and might be so again. 
 
 Such was the man who now found himself in circum 
 stances in which a departure from the one self-restraining 
 principle of his life opened to him the prospect of fortune ; 
 and with fortune, would not the faithless Elise be his too ? 
 The circumstances of his life had not been favorable to the 
 cultivation of delicacy of feeling, or purity of taste. There 
 was nothing repellent to him in the thought that before he 
 could win her, she must prove that the graceful flatteries she 
 was now lavishing on another, were only the tribute of a 
 venal soul to fortune. Rather was it a pleasant thought to 
 him that in her heart if heart she had she preferred him ; 
 and when prudence and inclination coincided, a new and 
 warmer light would gleam from her eyes, and shed its red 
 glow upon her lips. 
 
 Perhaps it will be thought that the new sentiment exci 
 ted in Charles Moray would render the designs of Mr. Rear 
 don innocuous, by steeling him against the attractions of 
 dice, cards, or billiard balls. This would be a mistake. An 
 engrossing passion might, indeed, have produced such an 
 effect, but the pleasant excitement of his vanity, which he 
 now mistook for love, rendered him only the more eager to 
 seize, in the absence of his charmer, on all that might pre 
 serve the agreeable elation of his spirits. 
 
 And so it grew into a habit that, at night, when the la 
 dies had retired, and the young men were left alone, instead 
 of smoking their cigars together in the library, and then 
 separating for their respective rooms, as had been their ear 
 lier custom, they repaired to the billiard room one of the 
 late additions to the house and spent some time in " knock-
 
 376 TWO PICTUEES. 
 
 ing about the balls," as Reardon expressed it a process 
 which somewhat depleted Charles Moray's purse, for Rear- 
 don very frankly acknowledged that play was no play to 
 him without betting. The bets grew larger after some 
 time ; then Reardon grew delicate " Moray must excuse 
 him ; the luck was so constantly in his favor, he could not 
 consent to be winning his money in this way, yet to play 
 without betting he would as soon pitch quoits, play mar 
 bles, or any other boyish game." 
 
 Of course, Charles Moray, the new possessor of fortune, 
 made light of his losses, and would not be so niggardly as to 
 grudge a few hundreds a night for his own amusement and 
 his friend's. Then the luck changed somewhat. Charles 
 Moray won about one game in five sometimes about one 
 in three ; he grew exultant, acknowledged he had begun to 
 weary of being beaten all the time, but now that they played 
 on equal terms, it was another affair. It was, indeed, an 
 other affair ; the bets were doubled, quadrupled, in amount 
 the hundreds became thousands but " what of that ? " Charles 
 Moray said to himself; " he would soon win them back." 
 
 But, somehow, in spite of all his success, he found, at the 
 end of the week, that the account stood largely more large 
 ly than he liked to think against him. Then the wine and 
 even stronger drinks began to show themselves at the board, 
 and Charles Moray, when he grew heated with them, would 
 play wildly and grow quarrelsome, if Reardon attempted in 
 any way to restrain him. He lost his gay, debonnaire manner, 
 grew moody with all but Miss Cullen, to whom he became 
 more impassioned and less gracefully sentimental. She re 
 garded these changes but as proofs of her power, and played 
 off upon him the full battery of her coquettish airs. Mrs. 
 Moray was provoked with her son's infatuation of his play 
 she knew nothing. She remonstrated with him, and the re 
 sult was a coolness, which put the last seal on her unhappi-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 377 
 
 ness, for amidst all the worldliness and selfishness and cold 
 inhumanity of this woman, she had still one green oasis in 
 the barren desert of her heart she loved her son. And at 
 every new disappointment, every new pang, there was a 
 voice within her which told her that the pain was punish 
 ment ; and the present sorrow oppressed her not so much 
 by its own weight as because it cast on her the cold, form 
 less shadow of a deeper woe. 
 
 In the mean time, a change of a very different character 
 was passing over the life of Augusta Moray. Very gently 
 and patiently did Mr. Mortimer lead her half-reluctant steps 
 toward the. fountain of living waters at which her thirsting 
 heart might drink and thirst no more forever. She had had 
 sufficient religious instruction, but little religious influence 
 in her life. This the Christian pastor, waiting with a serene 
 spirit his dismissal from the ministries of earth to the enjoy 
 ments of heaven, was admirably fitted to supply. In the 
 light of his life, so full of tender care and active labor for 
 others, Augusta grew dissatisfied with her own. It was the 
 dawning of a new life the true life within her. Feeble 
 might be the germ, yet it lived, and would live, and attract 
 all the powers of her nature into its own perfect develop 
 ment. Henceforth her voluntary life would be not for her 
 self, but for Him who had redeemed her by that which was 
 not only more precious than silver or gold, but more pre 
 cious than all she had valued or coveted hi the past. Already 
 was there a stirring of this new life within her on that peace 
 ful Sabbath evening, when she had asked of Mr. Mortimer, 
 " What shall I do now, dear sir ? with whom shall I sym 
 pathize now ? " The whole strength of her old nature had 
 risen up against his answer that Mrs. Charles Moray seemed 
 just then the person who of all within her reach most needed 
 sympathy and help. In the spirit of the great captain of 
 old, who had been prepared to do some great thing at the
 
 378 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 prophet's command, but whose pride revolted from the sim 
 ple act of bathing in the Jordan, she thought that she would 
 readily have made herself a servant of servants, devoting 
 herself to the ignorant and sometimes disgustingly filthy ne 
 groes around her, who, she had heard Mr. Mortimer lament, 
 sometimes needed more kindly and intelligent care than 
 they found in illness. There would have been something 
 of heroism in such ministrations to her peculiar delicacy of 
 constitution it would have been a sacrifice' worthy of the 
 altar on which it was to be laid. Oh ! how little do we 
 know ourselves ! Here was the old pride showing itself 
 under the very mask of humility, and many weeks was ft 
 before she detected the counterfeit, and accepting Mr. Mor 
 timer's test, came to him with an ingenuous blush, and asked 
 if he would go with her to see Mrs. Moray. They went, 
 but the time had passed when Mrs. Moray believed that 
 Augusia could do her service the infatuation of Charles 
 was beyond her help and she received her coldly. 
 
 It was now the last of May. All the visitors except 
 Harry Reardon and Mrs. and Miss Cullen were gone, driven 
 north by the hot breath of the coming summer. On Charles 
 Moray the coil of that which men call fate, but which supe 
 rior intelligences see to be the serpent we have nourished in 
 our own bosoms, was fastening with a deadly grasp. Pleas 
 ure had been the object of his pursuit ; never had he resist 
 ed its siren voice, and now it was luring him rapidly down 
 to ruin, and he knew it, yet could not resist its fatal attrac 
 tions. There were times when something almost like fear 
 crept along his veins, as he looked at Harry Iveardon send 
 ing the ball with cool precision to its destined spot times 
 when the coquettish glance of Miss Cullen changed suddenly 
 to one of mocking malice from which he shrank ; but he 
 quelled the creeping fear and silenced the misgiving with 
 courage won from the wine cup.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 379 
 
 Why linger on the tale the end must come. Charles 
 Moray reeled to his bed one night with confused noises 
 ringing in his ears, which even in their confusion shaped 
 themselves to the terrible words, " I am a ruined man." 
 
 Throwing himself on his bed dressed as he was, he slept 
 heavily and awoke late. No noises now, but a silence which 
 seemed like the silence of death. Was it not death, seeing 
 there was nothing more for him to hope, or fear, or do ? 
 Suddenly he remembered Miss Cullen. There was some 
 thing then for him to do. She must know that he was now 
 a poor man ; if she still loved him why did his heart sink 
 lower rather than bound at the thought ? Why V Because 
 the shock of a great misfortune shivers every false sentiment 
 and silences passion, while it only brings out in added 
 strength the true and simple affections of our nature. 
 
 Still, pleasant or unpleasant, he must see Miss Cullen ; 
 he had gone too far to leave her without explanation he 
 must give her the choice to accept or reject him ; though, 
 should she do the first, Heaven only knew what he should 
 do with such a wife. 
 
 As these thoughts passed through his mind, he made his 
 toilet rapidly, and refreshed by his morning bath and by the 
 very act of dressing, he sallied from his room, with less of 
 despair at his heart or in his face. He was going to the 
 breakfast table, but as he approached the room, he heard his 
 mother's voice, and with a pang like the swift stroke of an 
 arrow through his heart, he turned aside to the library, de 
 termining, under the plea of letters to write, to order his 
 coffee to be brought to him there. He was still in slippers, 
 which fell noiselessly on the carpeted floor ; the door of the 
 library was closed, but not latched he threw it open, and 
 stood for a moment bewildered by the sight before him. 
 There stood Harry Reardon, his face glowing as he bent it 
 above another face, all flushed and quivering the face of
 
 380 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Elise Cullen yet looking as Charles Moray had never seen 
 it look all coquetry and selfish scheming displaced for once 
 by a genuine, though it might be, a light and shortlived 
 emotion. 
 
 " How could I know you cared for me ? " in the tremu 
 lous tone through which we seem to hear the heart's throbs ; 
 and " You never would have known it, if I had remained 
 the poor devil I was some weeks ago," in the man's steadier 
 voice, was all that Charles Moray heard. Without even 
 waiting to close the door he had opened, he turned, and 
 went, as noiselessly as he had come, back to his room. 
 
 Once there, he threw himself into a chair amidst a whirl 
 of thought over which he had no mastery. His first word, 
 spoken after many minutes' silence, was the exclamation, 
 " Fool ! fool ! the sport of an artful woman. Well, at least 
 I am quit of that perplexity." 
 
 He started from his seat as if there was relief in the 
 thought. Then, as the scene he had glanced at flashed vivid 
 ly up before him, his color rose, his brows knit, and " Ras 
 cal ! " escaped through his shut teeth. " And yet I do be 
 lieve she loves him poor thing ! " 
 
 The pitying epithet proved that, however his self-esteem 
 had been wounded, his heart had not been touched ; we for 
 give not so readily the wounds struck there. Thought had 
 no softening influence on his feelings to Harry Reardon. 
 Rather did it bring out darker shades in his conduct, and he 
 began to suspect more than he saw. And St. Mary's, the 
 treasured inheritance of Mr. Moray, for whose transmission 
 to one of his own name he had so schemed, the inheritance 
 which Augusta had once believed her own, was to be this 
 man's and through him. The thought was maddening. 
 And it was a debt of honor not to be examined into not 
 to be postponed and his mother ! He started with a new 
 pang at thought of the disclosure to be made to her. There
 
 TWO PICTURES. 381 
 
 was a knock at his door. It was from a bright-faced young 
 negro lad, whom he had promoted to the post of his per 
 sonal attendant. lie came to ask if his master would have 
 his breakfast brought to him. 
 
 " Where are the ladies 2 " asked Charles Moray. 
 
 " The young un is a ridin', sir, wid Mister Reardon I 
 year de ole ladies a talkin' purty loud in de library." 
 
 " Purty loud," with a certain wink of Sambo's eyes, 
 meant quarrelling. , 
 
 " Can my mother suspect anything 1 " thought Charles 
 Moray, as the blood flushed to his brow. He felt it was 
 impossible in his present condition to bear her reproaches, 
 and before he had swallowed the coffee brought him by 
 Sambo, he had made his determination he would leave his 
 home his no longer that very day that very hour he 
 would write to his mother what he dared not say, and it 
 would depend on how she bore the intelligence whether he 
 ever saw her face again. The resolution was no sooner 
 formed than he prepared for its execution. 
 
 " Sambo, tell Carolina and Will and July and Scipio, 
 that I want them to get the boat ready as quickly as pos 
 sible : I shall be at the boat house in twenty minutes ; and, 
 sirrah, if you tell any one I am going, I'll cut your ears off; 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 " Yes, massa, I year," and with a grin, which seemed to 
 say that he had little faith in the execution of the threat, 
 Sambo darted away. 
 
 To throw into a carpet bag and portmanteau as much 
 of the contents of his bureau as they would hold, was 
 Charles Moray's first work when he was left alone. The 
 next was to write to his mother. Had he had time to think 
 about this, it would have seemed impossible ; but ten 
 minutes of the twenty were already gone, there was no time 
 for artful glosses, and he wrote :
 
 382 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER: 
 
 I am going away, because I cannot bear to see you after 
 telling you that St. Mary's is no longer mine it belongs 
 now to Mr. Reardon, who will, I dare say, purchase what 
 ever belongs to you in the house, and accommodate you in 
 any other way he can I am sure I have little reason to 
 regret its loss ; it was helping me to the devil as fast as 1 
 could go. I would give my right hand that it had been left 
 to Hugh or Augusta. 1 am going to Hugh now for advice. 
 Direct to his care, if you write ; but if you cannot write 
 without reproaches, better not write at all it would not 
 take much now to make me send a bullet through my brain. 
 
 Your worthless son, 
 
 CHARLES MORAY. 
 
 This was not all another note was yet to be written ; 
 it was to this effect : 
 
 To MR. REARDON. 
 
 SIR : I am compelled to leave St. Mary's in haste, and 
 consequently without seeing you. You shall hoar from 
 me in New York, and will find me ready to take the steps 
 necessary to give you legal control of the property of which 
 you may consider yourself now in actual possession. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 C. MORAY. 
 
 More than his twenty minutes were already gone. His 
 room was in a wing of life house and on the ground floor. 
 Beckoning to Sambo, whom he saw just returning from the 
 errand on which he had sent him, he handed out the port 
 manteau and bag, saying, " To the boat ; and half a dollar 
 if nobody sees you." 
 
 A grin and a nod were the only answer as Sambo caught 
 them and set off on his secret expedition, evidently consider-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 383 
 
 ing the reward as already his. Charles Moray lingered a 
 moment to look around him ; then, putting the notes in his 
 pocket, passed from the room arid the house which he was 
 never more to enter as his. Hurrying to the boat, he found 
 Sambo awaiting him there, expectant of his reward. He 
 was made perfectly happy for the rest of the day by the 
 reception of a bright, silver half dollar, with a charge that 
 he should go to the plantation and so be out of the way of 
 any questions respecting his master till the boat should 
 return in the evening. 
 
 The lingering summer's sun was nearing the horizon, 
 when Mr. Reardon, who could not but feel some anxiety 
 respecting Charles Moray's unexplained absence, found him 
 self at the landing place watching the slow approach of the 
 boat propelled against the wind by the wearied rowers. 
 
 "He is not there!" he exclaimed to Miss Cullen, who 
 stood beside him ; then, with a light laugh, " Surely, he 
 can't mean to repudiate." 
 
 " Never," cried Miss Cullen, with emphasis; "he has no 
 brain, poor fellow; but he would not do anything so dis 
 honorable." 
 
 Mr. Reardon shrugged his shoulders he had not much 
 faith in honor when opposed by interest. 
 
 The boat touched the wharf. 
 
 " Where did you leave your master ? " he asked, step 
 ping toward the men, who touched their hats to him, as he 
 approached. 
 
 They named the little town oh the mainland, at which 
 persons, going from St. Mary's to Savannah, were accus 
 tomed to land, and where they could procure conveyances. 
 
 " Has he gone to Savannah ? " asked Mr. Reardon, with 
 a darkening brow. 
 
 " I b'lieve so, sir ; I seed the carriage a drivin' that road ; 
 but may be, sir, he's tolled you," and the speaker, Carolina, 
 17
 
 384: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 a more than ordinarily intelligent negro, handed Mr. Rear- 
 don the two notes with -which Charles Moray had intrusted 
 him. Mr. Reardon opened his own, glanced over it, and 
 turned, with a quick step and a smiling fuce, to Miss Cullen. 
 
 " Read that," he said, as he drew near, holding the note 
 out to her. " Your mother must be satisfied with that, I 
 think." 
 
 " Perfectly," was the reply, as the note was returned. 
 " With that in your hand, you may make your own terms 
 with her." 
 
 " And with you ? " 
 
 " You did not need it with me," was the murmured 
 reply, as the brilliant, yet somewhat hard face, softened as 
 it did to no one else. 
 
 " Then you will be mine at once this very evening ; 
 why not ? " he asked, as she exclaimed quickly, " No, no ! " 
 
 " To-morrow, then stay, listen, before you decide ; 
 here, in this lovely spot, we may remain in peace for a few 
 weeks ' the world forgetting, by the world forgot ' but 
 only for a few weeks ; then I must plunge into business ; I 
 must obtain legal possession from Charles Moray, prepara 
 tory to selling the property- " 
 
 " Selling ! " cried the lady, faintly ; she did not like that 
 the eclat of a great landed property pleased her. 
 
 " Yes, you did not think of my keeping it and living here 
 out of the world, did you ? It will be, in some of its as 
 pects, an unpleasant business. I shall certainly have to 
 fight my way figuratively, and it may be really, to the end. 
 You see I am perfectly candid with you ; candid, because you 
 are mine are you not ? Stop, not a step further till you 
 answer ; " he glanced around they were alone, far from the 
 light or hearing of others. " Now lift your eyes to mine ;" he 
 had faced round upon her, holding both her hands ; the eyes, 
 on which his were fastened, were slowly lifted as by mag-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 385 
 
 netic force ; he gazed, for a moment, into them with a bold, 
 smiling face ; then, shaking his head, said, " No, it is no 
 use fur you to promise ; I should never trust those wicked 
 eyes I must seize my prize here, before there is a chance 
 of 'its being borne away by others." 
 
 " Impossible," said Miss Cullen, rousing herself to resist 
 what she felt was an unreasonable demand, " even if I could 
 consent, my mother " 
 
 " Will readily forgive you when the act is done ; though 
 she may not be willing beforehand to sin against her silly 
 conventionalisms ; but listen to me, Elise, if we are not 
 married before we leave this island, we never shall be ; even 
 should you remain true to me, your mother will not risk 
 unpopularity such as I shall probably encounter before this 
 business is concluded ; besides, she will fear for the end 
 she does not know that I never withdrew a step in my life 
 and never will ;" his face grew like iron in its hardness ; " she 
 will force you away ; I am not one to be played with thus 
 so be mine now, if it may not be to-morrow within this 
 week, or we both move from this spot free as we were> 
 yester eve speak, Elise ; but remember, your words can 
 never be recalled I am not Charles Moray." 
 
 The name of his victim was spoken with infinite con 
 tempt ; and, strange to tell, this girl, whom a gentler, a 
 tenderer, and a more delicate love would have failed to win, 
 was subdued by his audacity. He had dropped her hand at 
 the last words, and drawn a little apart from her. She 
 approached and said, softly, " I will do as you wish." 
 
 " That is right," he said, with a smile ; " I will trust your 
 lips," pressing his own to them, as he spoke, " though not 
 your eyes. Now listen ! With this note in my hand I 
 will seek your mother and ask her consent to our engage 
 ment ; that won, I may sound her on the question of im 
 mediate marriage; if she disapprove, I shall express a desire
 
 386 TWO 
 
 to be absent when Mrs. Moray becomes aware that St. 
 Mary's is no longer her son's, and propose that you shall 
 accompany me on a boating excursion. I know where I 
 can find both license and clergyman ; and once off' from 
 mamma, I promise you, she shall not see you again till you 
 are more mine than hers. What do you say ? Is it well 
 planned ? " 
 
 She looked up with an embarrassed smile, for she could 
 not but be conscious that there was little respect for her 
 dignity or delicacy either in the plan, or the bold manner 
 of its announcement. It was not thus that she had dreamed 
 of being loved ; yet here were the very qualities which had 
 excited her preference for Mr. Rcardon. lie was only 
 proving that she was right when she said months ago that 
 he was afraid of nothing. 
 
 " You do not answer," he said, as she turned away again 
 without speaking. 
 
 " Did you not have a note for Mrs. Moray ? May not 
 that tell her all ? " 
 
 " You are right it may," he answered, taking the note 
 from his pocket, and examining the hastily written address, 
 as if he had expected to find the contents there. " She shall 
 not have it till we are gone to-morrow morning," he added, 
 decidedly ; " she will sleep the better to-night, and I shall 
 avoid a scene, which, of all things, I hate." 
 
 Mrs. Moray was not very much surprised, though 
 greatly mortified and vexed, when told by Mr. Reardon 
 that he had a note from her son, who had been unexpectedly 
 called to Savannah. The " unexpected call " did not disturb 
 her ; it was the thought " A stranger knows more of his 
 movements than I do." Never had she been less in a 
 condition to bear any sudden shock. Her correspondence 
 with Mr. Saville had, of late, inspired her with such dread 
 of his encroachments, that she had almost decided to pass
 
 TWO PICTURES. 387 
 
 the summer at St. Mary's, solitary as it would be, after the 
 departure of her guests, rather than go North, where she 
 could scarcely hope to avoid meeting him. To this source 
 of nervous anxiety had been added of late the pain of 
 estrangement from her son, and the irritation against Mrs. 
 Cullen and Elise, excited by the belief that the latter was 
 making a decided and successful attack upon the heart of her 
 son. She would have been little pleased to yield her power 
 as mistress of the mansion to any one ; but Elise Cullen's 
 sharp tongue had made her and, for her sake, her mother, 
 peculiarly disagreeable to her. One of the terrible penal 
 ties of crime is, that it shuts up the soul of its victim in a 
 kind of solitary imprisonment, forbidding it to seek the 
 sympathy of others, secluding it from communion with all 
 who have not drunk of the same unblessed cup. From the 
 hour when Adam hid himself among the trees of the garden, 
 the guilty soul seeks concealment, and the annoyances, which 
 would shrink into scarce visible motes, if brought out to the 
 light of day and sunned in the smiles of a friend, grow to 
 portentous size in the twilight chambers of a heart which is 
 thus shut and barred. Mrs. Moray had lost much of the 
 graceful gayety which made her formerly a general favorite. 
 A forced levity alternated with sullen reserve in her coun 
 tenance and manner. For a few days past her depression 
 had been increased by languor, which she attributed to the 
 unusual heat, and which, when she forced herself to exertion, 
 was succeeded by feverish irritation. She looked ill this 
 evening, and no one felt surprised when, with a slight 
 apology to the ladies, she withdrew to her own apartment. 
 After her departure, Mr. Reardon became evidently distrait, 
 and after answering several times at random, and with what 
 seemed strange maladroitness, Mrs. Cullen's attempts at 
 conversation, he roused himself, crossed the room, and
 
 388 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 seated himself on the sofa beside her, as Elise, at a glance 
 from him, rose and left the room. 
 
 " Really, this place is getting to be very tiresome," said 
 Mrs. Cullen, with scarcely concealed ill humor, as her quick 
 eye detected the glance, " I shall certainly leave it the next 
 week." 
 
 " I hope not ; I hope to persuade you to remain till the 
 middle or last of June " 
 
 " Impossible ! " interrupted Mrs. Cullen, with Avarmth. 
 
 " Do not say so till you hear my reasons ; but, first, 
 will you oblige me by reading this note ? " 
 
 He placed the open note of Charles Moray before her. 
 Mrs. Cullen glanced hastily over it, then read it with more 
 deliberation. Harry Reardon, in the mean time, read her 
 face as clearly, and a sarcastic smile curled his lip as he 
 marked its gradual softening and the glow with which she 
 turned toward him. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Reardon ! you are indeed a fortunate man 
 the possessor of St. Mary's why, it is the finest planta 
 tion in Georgia, I hear, and three hundred negroes are 
 there not ? I congratulate you on being able to make such 
 a purchase." 
 
 Mr. Reardon smiled. lie believed that Mrs. Cullen 
 knew as well as he did, that the acquisition had not been a 
 purchase ; but of this it was not his place to speak. 
 
 " Thank you ! " ho said. " You can put the crown upon 
 my fortune, Mrs. Cullen. Give ine Elise she has prom 
 ised, with your sanction, to be mine to become the mis- 
 taea <.f St. Mary's." 
 
 "Dear child! Ah, Mr. Reardon ! I always knew she 
 preferred you to any other, though I did ail I could to dis 
 courage it because I thought you, with all your charming 
 qualities, a wicked creature, not in the least a marrying 
 man."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 389 
 
 " Now, then, that you see how mistaken you were, you 
 will give us your consent." 
 
 " Certainly ; nothing could please me better here is my 
 hand upon it." 
 
 He received her hand in his, and pressed his lips to it ; 
 then, still retaining it, he said, " Grant me one more favor, 
 and I am your debtor for life ; let us be married imme 
 diatelywe are neither'of us so young as to make it neces 
 sary for us to wait to grow older." 
 
 " But, immediately ? what would people say ? it would 
 seem so strange." 
 
 " Not at all ; we have been here, in the same house, the 
 whole winter ; the worst that will be said, will probably be, 
 that we were engaged all winter and kept it secret till we 
 were ready to marry." 
 
 He paused a moment ; but she did not answer. She 
 was considering whether there could be any mistake in that 
 note, whether it was genuine ; if she dared, she would have 
 asked to examine it again. 
 
 " A moment's thought will show you that my plan is 
 best for all. I suppose you would not think it proper for 
 Elise to remain after Mrs. Moray leaves us, except as " 
 
 There was a sudden change in the face into which Mr. 
 Keardon was looking, and in a less deliberate, less hesitat 
 ing manner, Mrs. Cullen exclaimed, " That is true ; Mrs. 
 Moray must go, I suppose. Does she know it ? " 
 
 " I think not I have a letter for her from her son, which, 
 I presume, will tell her of it. I kept it till the morning, 
 lest it should spoil her rest." 
 
 " I should like to see her when she receives it ; it will 
 cost her something to lay aside the dignities she has worn 
 so haughtily." 
 
 The lady little thought how much of the dignity of 
 womanhood she was laying aside in this betrayal of the
 
 390 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 petty malice that can rejoice over the mortification of a 
 rival. Even Mr. Reardon felt it, and shrugged his shoul 
 ders slightly, as he said, " Chacun a son gout. I should not 
 like it ; so I will leave you the note, and you shall have the 
 enjoyment of the scene all to yourself, if you will only 
 promise that when I come back with a license to-morrow 
 evening, I shall find everything prepared to make me ' Ben 
 edict, the married man.' Come, you had better consent ; 
 it is the only way in which you can enjoy the pleasure of 
 playing Lady of the Manor to Mrs. Moray." 
 
 " Well, I must see Elise first ; I do not know what she 
 will say." 
 
 " Send for her ; I am sure she will say just what I do 
 stay, there is your maid in the piazza, I will give her the 
 message." 
 
 " No, no ; I will go to her," said Mrs. Cullen, doubting 
 whether Elise would approve being thus brought down ; 
 but Mr. Reardon did not seem to hear her ; and before she 
 had ceased speaking, he was in the piazza, on the steps of 
 which Mrs. Moray's maid and Mrs. Cullen's were seated to 
 gether enjoying the evening breeze. 
 
 " Go to Miss Cullen's room," he said to the latter, "give 
 Mr. Reardon's compliments to her, and say he asks her to 
 step to the library her mother wishes to speak with her." 
 
 The woman looked surprised, but did not hesitate to 
 obey the order. She found Elise sitting in a window, 
 through which the moon shed a flood of golden light. She 
 had removed the combs from her hair, and it fell like a rich 
 veil around her, sweeping the floor as she sat. 
 
 " I cannot go," she said, laying her hand on the shining 
 tresses, as she heard the message, which was delivered word 
 for word. 
 
 " Mr. Reardon spoke so positive-like I am sure they 
 expect you, ma'am ; shall I put up your hair 1 "
 
 TWO PICTURES. ' 391 
 
 The woman was scarcely prepared for the promptitude 
 with which her usually self-willed young lady rose, and, 
 gathering the abundant hair into loose, heavy folds, confined 
 it with her comb and passed out from the room. When 
 she entered the library, her cheeks glowed like carnations, 
 and her eyes shone like twin stars. Mr. Reardon stepped 
 forward to meet her, and led her directly under the chan 
 delier. 
 
 " Did you ever see her so brilliant? " he asked, turning 
 with a smile to Mrs. Cullen, and then letting his eyes rest 
 on her again, with a bold admiration which could not have 
 been tolerated by any woman but a coquette, in whom the 
 pure and delicate instincts of her sex had lost their native 
 sensitiveness. 
 
 " Elise," he continued, " your mother wishes to know 
 whether you will consent to our marriage to-morrow. I 
 have told her you would feel it was better than to be sep 
 arated as we must otherwise be ; but she wished to hear it 
 from your own lips." 
 
 " Surely, my child, this is very hurried," said Mrs. Cul 
 len, whose motherly heart was wounded for her daughter, 
 she could scarcely tell why, 
 
 Elise hesitated ; she raised her eyes to her mother, and 
 her lips parted ; she turned to Reardon, and they closed 
 again. 
 
 " Speak, Elise," he said, as his brow darkened percepti 
 bly, and he loosened the clasp in which he had held her 
 hand ; " tell your mother if you are willing to be mine." 
 
 " I am willing to be yours," she said, looking not at her 
 mother, but at him. 
 
 " And to-morrow, Elise ? " 
 
 " And to-morrow," she repeated. 
 
 " You will not now refuse us," he said to Mrs. Cullen,
 
 392 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 with something of triumph in his tone, throwing his arm 
 around Elise and drawing her close to him as he spoke. 
 
 " Oh, I never refuse Elise anything," was the answer. 
 
 " Then I will bid you good night, for I have something 
 still to do before I sleep. Make your arrangements as early 
 as you can to-morrow, Elise ; I shall be off while it is yet 
 night with you, and return as soon as possible with the 
 license ; suppose 1 leave a note for Mr. Mortimer, asking 
 him to be here at noon ? " 
 
 " Oh ! the note for Mrs. Moray," cried Mrs. Cullen ; 
 " you must not forget that." 
 
 " Certainly not, here it is," handing it to her ; " I think 
 it would be most effective if it were received when Elise had 
 the right to invite her to remain," he added, laughing lightly 
 at what he called the feminine malice of Mrs. Cullen, as he 
 withdrew from the room. 
 
 *' Elise, he is a bold man," said Mrs. Cullen, doubt- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I told you he was afraid of nothing," answered Elise, 
 with a proud smile. 
 
 And so each saw the black spot in the soul of the other, 
 yet shrank not from it. 
 
 One of the things that Mr. TJeardon did before he slept 
 that night, was to write the following letter, which he sent 
 off by the mail of the next day. We insert it here, both as 
 characteristic, and as giving the reader fuller insight into his 
 motives of action. 
 
 ST. MARY'S ISLE, May 12/A, IS. 
 
 MY DEAR PEYTON : 
 
 I wrote you, three weeks ago, begging you to sell the 
 horse I left in your stables, and settle my hotel bill in 
 Washington. I told you then that I had a special liking for 
 the horse, and would not part with him, except to get rid 
 of a teasing creditor, whom I must either satisfy or shoot.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 393 
 
 This is to countermand that order if it be not too late, and 
 
 to ask that you will see W , and tell him that, as soon 
 
 as I can go to Savannah, I will send him a draft for the 
 amount of the debt. You will conclude I must have had a 
 run of luck to talk of indulgence in such an unwonted 
 luxury as drafts. A run of luck [ Peyton, I am the luckiest 
 dog alive. You were all envious last winter of the good 
 fortune of Moray in stepping so unexpectedly into one of the 
 finest fortunes in the country. Peyton, that fortune is mine ! 
 Don't start I have not forged a will and poisoned him ; I 
 have departed from my principles, it is true, and played 
 with my host, but the temptation was irresistible no man 
 who had blood in his veins could blame me. lie is a good 
 enough fellow, too, Charles Moray ; I am really sorry for 
 him, or rather I would be, if I could be sorry for anything 
 to-night ; but he ought to have known that he could not play 
 with me ; I knew it, and \yould not have made a stroke 
 against him, if he had not made me half mad. 
 
 Do you remember that Elise Cullen, whose brilliant 
 coquetries and sharp tongue made you all wild in Washing 
 ton last winter ? Think of Charles Moray wanting to mar 
 ry her. She would have boxed his ears in a month. She 
 is like a spirited young horse, that wants a strong will and 
 a steady hand to guide him. I wish you could see how sub 
 missively she yields to my lightest touch for she is mine, 
 Peyton, mine, heart and soul and to-morrow I shall be 
 " Benedict, the married man," and even her mother cannot 
 snatch her from my arms. Peyton, I told you I was the 
 luckiest dog alive. But for the vantage ground of this fine 
 estate I knew Mrs. Cullen would never give me her daugh 
 ter ; and though Elise would have given herself at a word, 
 that would hardly have suited me without her mother's 
 sanction, as the old lady has all the fortune, and a very good 
 fortune, too. I have learned latvly. Charles Moray promises
 
 394 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 fair, and I believe will stick to his bargain, but he has gone 
 off to New York, and that lawyer cousin of his may put 
 some dishonorable notions in his head there is always risk 
 in such cases, since the law does not protect us ; so I have 
 obeyed both prudence and inclination in pushing on affairs 
 here in a manner perfectly Napoleonic. After to-morrow I 
 shall be sure of a tolerably comfortable living, if I should 
 even lose St. Mary's, and with that living, my pretty, 
 bright, spirited Elise, who, think what you will, is, just now, 
 worth both the fortunes in my eyes. Pray do not imagine 
 that any fortune would have made me marry her, if she had 
 not interested me piqued me. The passionate, self-willed 
 thing, I can see, has been accustomed to rule her mother and 
 every one around her ; she has found her master now, and 
 there is delight in mastery over such a will. 
 
 I am afraid I have said some foolish things here. I 
 wanted you to know that I was* safe as to the matter of for 
 tune, and my head is so full of Elise to-night that she would 
 mingle herself with all I had to say ; good night. I shall 
 stay here through June, perhaps through July ; it is quite 
 safe, they tell me, till August. Your friend, 
 
 II. IvEARDON.
 
 CIIAPTEE XIV. 
 
 " How would you be, 
 
 If lie which is the top of judgment, should 
 But judge you as you are ? Oh ! think on that, 
 And Mercy then will breathe within your lips, 
 Like man new made." SHA.KSPEAEE. 
 
 IT was a pretty picture to see Mr. Mortimer and Augus 
 ta Moray seated at their early breakfast in the piazza, draped 
 with flowering vines. The old man, with his flowing sil 
 very locks, and his face, clad in kindly smiles, was as beauti 
 ful in his way as the graceful girl, whose dark, glossy tresses 
 fell around a face wearing the rich hue of health and touched 
 with a gentleness that was not its predominant expression 
 in earlier life. Charity stood near, somewhat more full in 
 person, but scarcely older in face, than when we first knew 
 her, with large gold rings in her ears, and a white handker 
 chief, folded like a turban, round her head. Charity ha-d 
 concluded of late that " 'twasn't 'spectable for any but young 
 gals to wear them bright red an' yaller things," so her tur 
 bans were now all white. Mr. Mortimer, at the moment 
 we choose to look in at them, is reading a note which Char 
 ity has just delivered to him. 
 
 " Well, well ! " exclaimed the good old man, as he passed 
 the note across the table to Augusta, " that does surprise 
 me. I was quite sure when we saw them last that Miss
 
 396 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Cullen was engaged to your cousin Charles ; did you not 
 think so, my dear 2 " 
 
 " I am afraid you will think me very unkind if I givo 
 you the answer which was on my lip," said Augusta, after 
 a moment's smiling hesitation. 
 
 " Then don't make it, my dear," said good Mr. Morti 
 mer ; " but tell me, instead, whether I shall say that you 
 will comply with the lady's request and go with me to the 
 wedding." 
 
 " I am afraid I should hardly be an acceptable guest in 
 my deep mourning." 
 
 " But, Miss 'Gusty, aren't dare a white dress in de trunk 
 Miss Moray send here for you 1 " 
 
 " I don't know, Charity, I have not opened it ; she said 
 it was filled with things I had left in Washington ; I have 
 no idea what they were." 
 
 " But I bin gone an' looked at dem, an' I seed the beau- 
 tifullest dresses " 
 
 " But I could not wear those now, Charity," said Augus 
 ta, shrinking from even seeing what was associated with her 
 life of gay ety in Washington ; " if there were a simple, white 
 morning dress among them, I might perhaps " 
 
 " Well, jist give me the key, Miss 'Gusty, an' let me go 
 see." 
 
 Charity got the keys and went off with a little conse 
 quential toss of the head to an examination which she had 
 long desired to make, and Mr. Mortimer would have risen 
 to reply to his note, but Augusta begged that he would per 
 mit her to write for him, which she did, promising for her 
 self that she would come if possible. 
 
 In the mean time let us look in, at a somewhat later 
 hour, at the breakfast table over which Mrs. Moray pre 
 sides. Her duties are not very onerous this morning, for 
 Mrs. Cullen is her only visible guest.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 397 
 
 " Sambo, have you called Mr. Reardon to breakfast this 
 morning 1 " she asks. 
 
 " Mr. Reardon done gone before daylight dis morning 
 to the main," answered Sambo ; " the main " being the usual 
 mode of designation with the negroes for any place on the 
 main land, whether town or country. 
 
 " I thought he would find it very tiresome here with 
 none but ladies ; " the observation was addressed to Mrs. 
 Cullen, and Mrs. Moray added, as she handed her a cup of 
 coffee, " I hope Elise is not altogether desolee for the same 
 reason. It was cruel in Mr. Reardon to leave her." 
 
 " Not at all ; Elise begs that you will excuse her this 
 morning ; she has so much to do before Mr. Reardon's re 
 turn." 
 
 " Preparing, I suppose, to play off all her batteries upon 
 him ; tell her she must not be too overpowering ; she must 
 remember he is left here all alone to our mercy." 
 
 " it would be a waste of labor for her to get up any bat 
 teries for Mr. Reardon," said Mrs. Cullen, with a smile 
 which Mrs. Moray did not quite understand. 
 
 " What ? you despair of him 1 He does seem very in 
 sensible." 
 
 " Insensible ! ha ! ha ! ha ! You must excuse me, my 
 dear, if I laugh a little at your blindness. Sambo, won't 
 you bring me some hot water ? or, stay, a glass of cold wa 
 ter, if you please, fresh from the well ; " then, as Sambo 
 darted from the room, pitcher in hand, she continued, " I 
 only wanted to get rid of him, my dear, to tell you that 
 Elise and Mr. Reardon are engaged, and that they will be 
 married to-day, if he can get the license and return in time." 
 
 They looked at each other for a moment in silence, Mrs. 
 Cullen nodding her head and smiling up in Mrs. Moray's 
 face with a little air of triumph, and Mrs. Moray staring in 
 blank amazement, which she vainly strove to hide ; at length
 
 3D 8 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the words " Engaged to Mr. Reardon ! To be married to 
 day ! " fell from her lips ; then, as the color suddenly flushed 
 her face, seeming to recover herself, she added, " Excuse me, 
 my dear Mrs. Cullen, if I am taking too great a liberty, but 
 I do truly sympathize with you. Elise is still too young 
 to throw herself away on one who could only be regarded 
 as a pis-aller ; my dear friend, you should not consent to it, 
 even if she had been disappointed " 
 
 " Disappointed, indeed ! " cried Mrs. Cullen, with more 
 violence of manner, though perhaps scarcely more bitter 
 ness of feeling, than Mrs. Moray's. " Disappointed ! Mr. 
 Reardon was always the first choice of Elise." 
 
 " Oh ! indeed ! " ejaculated Mrs. Moray, with a look 
 and accent that made Mrs. Cullen long to box her ears. 
 
 " You may say oh ! and indeed ! as much as you like ; 
 I can tell you, I had to beg and entreat almost on my knees, 
 to make Elise civil to your son when Mr. Reardon was by." 
 
 "You don't say so? What a good child she must be, 
 that your wish should have made her so very, very civil to 
 him." 
 
 " Not so civil but that he found it was of no use to try 
 to cut Mr. Reardon out." 
 
 " My son try to cut Mr. Reardon out ! Pardon me, my 
 dear Mrs. Cullen, but the idea is so ridiculous that I cannot, 
 for my life, help laughing ; he ! he ! he ! " 
 
 Mrs. Moray lay back in her chair, and gave herself up 
 apparently to the mirth-provoking thought, though it must 
 be acknowledged that her laugh was a little hysterical. 
 
 Mrs. Cullen rose from her seat ; at that moment she 
 could hear nothing except the cry for revenge that sounded 
 within her. The melodramatic scene she had arranged in 
 her thoughts as the fitting conclusion to the marriage of her 
 daughter, in which Elise should assume the position of the 
 urbane and sympathizing hostess, and Mrs. Moray should
 
 TWO PICTURES. 309 
 
 be compelled to bow her haughty spirit in presence of those 
 before whom she had so ostentatiously paraded her honors 
 all this faded from her mind in the burning desire to crush 
 her there, even as she sat, with the mocking laugh upon her 
 lip, and she believed she held that which would stab with 
 deadlier result than sword or dagger. Her hand fumbled 
 nervously in her pocket, scarcely able to draw out quickly 
 enough the little instrument of her anger. 
 
 " There's a note that Mr. "Reardon gave me for you ; it 
 came to him yesterday, but he hated to give it to you. Jt 
 may convince you he is not such a very bad , Mrs. Mo 
 ray ! Mrs. Moray ! " in a loud, startled voice ; " mercy on 
 me ! is the woman going to die, and Elise to be married 
 and all ! here, take a swallow of this water." Sambo had 
 just returned from the well, and stood gazing with stupid 
 wonderment at the scene. 
 
 " What do you mean by standing there like an idiot? " 
 cried Mrs. Cullen, glad of some one on whom to vent her 
 dissatisfaction. " Go and call some one here, can't you ? 
 Cull Miss Cullen, quick." 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Moray lay back in her chair, pallid and 
 seemingly unconscious. One deep groan had been her only 
 sign of life since reading the terrible note. 
 
 " Elise, what shall we do 1 " cried Mrs. Cullen, in a ter 
 rified voice, as her daughter entered ; " I gave her the note, 
 and she has been so ever since; you don't think she's 
 dead ? " the last word spoken in an awed whisper, with the 
 feeling that if this were so, then was she a murderer before 
 the bar of conscience and of God, whatever human tribunals 
 might pronounce her. 
 
 " Oh no ! she has only fainted," cried Elise Cullen ; 
 " throw some water in her face," suiting the action to the 
 word, before Mrs. Cullen, who knew the danger of so vio 
 lent a remedy, could check her. Drawing her breath with
 
 400 TWO PICTUEES. 
 
 a quick, oud gasp, Mrs. Moray passed her hand in a bewil 
 dered way over her wet face, then sat up erect and looked 
 around her, as if waking from a dream. Her eyes fell on 
 the two ladies, then on the note, still held with a convulsive 
 clutch. 
 
 " Don't be so distressed, Mrs. Moray," said Mrs. Cullen, 
 in whose shallow soul the tempest of anger was already 
 subsiding. Her voice seemed to call back the past in all its 
 vividness to Mrs. Moray, the blood rushed to her pale face, 
 she rose, and though at first compelled to grasp her chair 
 for support, soon stood erect, and with the graceful courtesy 
 for which she had been celebrated in former days, thanked 
 them for their kindness, and regretted having given them so 
 much trouble, then added, " Elise, your mother says I am 
 to congratulate you on your approaching marriage ; you 
 have my best wishes, my dear, if, indeed, you are deter 
 mined to marry Mr. Reardon ; but, first, take my solemn 
 assurance that Mr. Reardon is not, and never can be, the 
 possessor of St. Mary's." 
 
 There was a depth in her voice and a gleam in her eye 
 which none had ever heard or seen before. Mrs. Cullen was 
 a little shaken ; she looked toward Elise, whose own eyes 
 fire.d, and whose voice trembled with suppressed passion, as 
 she said, " Gentlemen understand these things better than 
 we do, Mrs. Moray ; I am quite willing to trust your son 
 and Mr. Reardon." 
 
 " You shall not do it without warning ; they know noth 
 ing about it ; but I " with great emphasis on the pronoun, 
 which was twice repeated " I tell you that Mr. Reardon 
 can never make you mistress of .St. Mary's, and whoever 
 tells you he can, is deceiving you." 
 
 Elise saw that these repeated and emphatic assevera 
 tions were producing an influence on her mother's mind, and 
 she determined to end them. With a haughtily repellant
 
 TWO PICTURES. 401 
 
 gesture, and a vain attempt at calmness, while her whole 
 frame was quivering with intense irritation, she answered, 
 " You must excuse me, Mrs. Moray, I have really no time to 
 listen to such ravings ; it is natural enough that you should 
 be unwilling to admit the idea that this beautiful place is 
 no longer yours." 
 
 " And you you fancy it belongs to you ? " cried Mrs. 
 Moray, losing all her self-control, and speaking again in a 
 tone of great excitement. 
 
 As she became demonstrative, Miss Cullcn regained her 
 quietude of manner and tone, so that it was with a firmer 
 voice that she said, " Not mine yet, Mrs. Moray, but Mr. 
 Keardon's, and mine when I become his wife ; I know that 
 I speak his wish when I say that it will give us both pleas 
 ure to have you remain as our guest as long as it may suit 
 von." 
 
 " Your guest, insolent girl ? never ! " exclaimed Mrs. 
 Moray, almost wild with rage at this attempt to push her 
 from her seat of power ; " I will make sure of that before 
 another hour shall pass." 
 
 " Come, mamma, I really cannot stop here all day ; and 
 now that Mrs. Moray has got over her hysterics, I suppose 
 you can come and help me," and with an air of studied non 
 chalance she drew her mother off, pausing, as they drew 
 near a window, to make some trifling observation on a pass 
 ing object. 
 
 Had they paused to .mark the glance of concentrated 
 hate, to hear the low laugh that followed them, even the 
 daring spirit of Elise Cullen might have been quelled ; but 
 they hastened away, Mrs. Cullen glad to escape from the 
 unequal war, and Elise triumphant in her success, bursting, 
 ere she reached her room, into a gay, joyous carol, whose 
 trills reached Mrs. Moray, even in her own room, to which
 
 402 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 she had hastened, preserving the intensity of her feelings, and 
 giving stability to her purposes. 
 
 " She shall never stand in this house as its mistress, if I 
 have to put everything at jeopardy, if I have even to lay 
 my dead body across her path to bar her entrance ; but 
 there is no danger." 
 
 Even while this soliloquy was passing in her mind, Mrs. 
 Moray had drawn her desk toward her, and prepared to 
 write. More than once, when goaded almost to madness 
 by Saville, she had contemplated a letter to Hugh not a 
 letter of confession, for hers was not a penitent spirit, seek 
 ing to make atonement, and ready to accept humiliation and 
 grief as the just punishment of conscious crime. It was 
 only that what she was no longer able to enjoy herself, she 
 would fling back into the hands of those to whom it right 
 fully belonged, and this not from a sense of justice, but to 
 snatch it from more hated possessors, and to punish one 
 whom she had thought her tool, and found to be her tyrant. 
 The tact such was the name she gave it which she had 
 cultivated so carefully and invoked so often, did not desert 
 her even in this hour of passionate emotion ; there was a 
 whirlwind within her, but her pen moved steadily and rap 
 idly over the page and her expressions were clear and de 
 cided. 
 
 DEAR HUGH : 
 
 I have long known what I am going to communicate; mark, 
 1 say known, not suspected. How I learned it, it would be 
 futile to ask ; there are secrets in every life this is mine. 
 Why I have not revealed it before I will frankly tell you : 
 to have done so would have been to strip my own child, 
 the dearest thing to me on earth, of wealth which his luxu 
 rious habits made more needful to him than to you, or even 
 to Augusta. You will tell me this was no reason for hesi-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 403 
 
 tation ; perhaps not to your cold nature to me it was 
 enough. I should have been silent still, but the property 
 is passing from Charles to those I hate, and now I tell 
 you that it never belonged to Charles that Mr. Hugh Mo 
 ray's will the only will which he intended to take effect, is 
 in the possession of Savillc. He has not destroyed it 
 he will not destroy it for he thinks it an engine by which 
 he may still wring wealth from my unwilling hands. So 
 much does he value it that -he carries it always on his per 
 son, and is always armed for its defence. Courage and cau 
 tion you will need both to win the prize ; but the prize is 
 St. Mary's Isle and wealth for Augusta. I trust all that is 
 dear to me in your hands. ANNE MORAY. 
 
 " He will think I mean my honor, my reputation ; he 
 does not know that at this moment revenge on these harpies 
 is dearer than all else," said Mrs. Moray to herself, as she 
 glanced over her letter before folding and sealing it. 
 
 In less than an hour after leaving the breakfast room, 
 this letter had been written and sent by a negro in a canoe, 
 who promised that it should be at the post town on the main 
 land before the closing of the evening mail. 
 
 " And now I may. be at ease now I may rest," said 
 Mrs. Moray, throwing herself, as she spoke, upon her 
 couch ; but she found rest impossible there was a fever in 
 her blood, her pulses throbbed, her eyes flashed, she walked 
 rapidly about her room, exciting herself still farther by 
 going over and over again the scenes of the morning, and 
 painting the disappointment which the successful execution 
 of her project would inflict on those whom she called her 
 " enemies." 
 
 " I am glad they are to be married," she exclaimed, sud 
 denly. " How silly I was to say anything that might throw . 
 an obstacle in their way ! Let mo see ten days, a fortnight,
 
 401 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 perhaps, Hugh will bo prompt, I know ; their honey 
 moon will not be long. That old fool will just be queening 
 it to the height, when down she will go, and find her Elise, 
 who has been flung at the head of every single man of for 
 tune they have met for the last two years, the wife of a dis 
 honored gamester, whom ' she preferred to Charles Moray,' " 
 mimicking the tones of Mrs. Cullen in the last words. As 
 she did so, a sudden flash of pain made her press her hand 
 to her head and sink back again upon her couch ; but only 
 for a minute, when she was again upon her feet, saying, hur 
 riedly, " I must go to them ; I would not have the marriage 
 delayed on any account, and what I said may have fright 
 ened the mother. I'll tell her I'll tell her, oh ! what 
 shall I tell her 1 " pressing her hand again upon her head, 
 with a bewildered look; then suddenly brightening again, 
 she walked with a quick and somewhat unsteady step to the 
 door of the room occupied by the mother and daughter. 
 Her knock was answered by Elise opening the door herself. 
 Her surprise at seeing Mrs. Moray was speechless ; but it 
 was merged in satisfaction as her visitor, entering, said, 
 " My dear Elise, I begin to suspect that I must have treated 
 you very badly this morning. Charlie's note shocked me so 
 much, that I really do not know wlmt I said ; and, after all, 
 I begin to think I may not have understood it ; at any rate, 
 I will not think of anything unpleasant to-day your wed 
 ding day let St. Mary's belong to whom it will, it shall 
 look gayly to-day. Shall I arrange the library for your 
 chapel, and give you Charles's rooms in the west wing 1 " 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Moray ! thank you ! that will do 
 nicely, I think," said Elise Cullen, shamed into a return to 
 at least the conventional forms of politeness, by this elab 
 orate show of kindness, which had the further effect of at 
 once hushing all her mother's doubts. 
 
 Mrs. Moray next despatched a message to Augusta, so
 
 TWO PICTURES. 405 
 
 urgently demanding her help, that she came to her at once, 
 and aided her with both head and hands, in giving some 
 thing of a festal air to the library and the rooms she had 
 devoted to Elise. More than once in their work, Augusta 
 advised Mrs. Moray to rest, as she accidentally touched her 
 fevered hand, or saw her burning cheeks ; but every such 
 suggestion was answered impatiently, almost angrily ; and 
 at length she forbore, though saying to Mr. Mortimer, 
 when he arrived, that she feared Mrs. Moray was ill, or 
 would be soon. 
 
 " I do not understand her at all," she added ; " she says 
 she is glad of this marriage ; and yet 1 think she is very 
 unhappy about something." 
 
 " Her son's absence, perhaps," suggested Mr. Mortimer. 
 
 " It may be ; though she assures me she would not have 
 him here for the world." 
 
 They were interrupted by Mrs. Moray herself. 
 
 " My dear Augusta, not dressed yet ! Charity has your 
 pretty morning dress ready for you in my dressing room ; 
 pray, be quick. Mr. Reardon has come, you know, we 
 must not keep them waiting." 
 
 At two o'clock the little company were assembled in the 
 library ; Mr. Reardon looking triumphant and joyous 
 Elise Cullen a little frightened, yet not the less attractive for 
 that in the flowing silk with its lace draperies and the white 
 orange wreath, which the taste and skill of her maid had 
 arranged for her, and Mrs. Cullen dignified and a little sul 
 len, for she had not quite forgotten the scene of the morn 
 ing. Old memories and tender thoughts were giving a 
 quicker movement to Augusta's pulses as she stood there in 
 her simple white dress, seeming, as Mr. Mortimer fondly 
 fancied, like something sacred with her face always so beau 
 tiful, and now so serene and gentle. We have said that Mr. 
 Reardon looked triumphant scarcely less marked was the
 
 4:06 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 triumph in Mr,s. Moray's smile as she watched them with 
 unwavering eyes during the ceremony, which bound them 
 together through all the good and ill of their earthly course. 
 As the prayer by which Mr. Mortimer sought to consecrate 
 their union closed, she Stepped forward with the hurried 
 manner of one who had restrained herself to the last pos 
 sible moment ; " I wish you joy," she said, with a courtesy, 
 to Mr. Reardon, seeming entirely to ignore Elise, " I wish 
 you joy of your good fortune, Lord of the Isle " 
 
 " Not so," said Mr. Reardon, reddening, yet bowing 
 politely, " while Mrs. Moray is still here to play the part of 
 its Lady." 
 
 " To play the part ! How witty you arc ! ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 play the part ! that is just it. We are all players, Mr. 
 Mortimer ; and so you have been at a theatre ; fie ! fie on 
 you, Mr. Mortimer." 
 
 She stood addressing Mr. Mortimer and Augusta, who 
 had drawn near her, while Mrs. Cullen and the new married 
 pair had moved a little aside, and were watching her move 
 ments with puzzled looks. There was an unnatural excite 
 ment in her looks and tones, /or which they could not ac 
 count ; but, to Mr. Mortimer's more practised eyes, the 
 cause was plain she was in the height of an access of fever. 
 
 And so life and death were brought near together, and 
 looked, as it were, into each other's eyes. Over in the west 
 wing life revelled in young veins, and throbbed in young 
 hearts, saying, with each throb, " To-day is ours we live 
 and love ; " in the east wing restless tossings, burning heat 
 and parching thirst, with the incoherent mutterings of a 
 delirious fancy, seemed to mark the approach of life's great 
 enemy. For many days, for weeks, indeed, physicians 
 from the mainland came and went, and Mr. Mortimer 
 hovered around that east wing, less in sympathy with the 
 stricken and deserted mother than with her who never left
 
 TWO PICTURES. 407 
 
 the fevered couch, except to speak to him. All the color 
 had faded again from Augusta's face, and much of the bright- 
 ness from her eyes ; her movements were languid, her tones 
 spiritless ; yet she would not listen for a moment to Mr. 
 Mortimer's entreaties that she should leave Mrs. Moray to 
 the care of Charity and her own maid, long enough at least 
 for rest. 
 
 The forgiveness which had seemed so difficult, so impos 
 sible to Augusta, was easy now. That helpless form, that 
 face so death-like in its pallor, preached peace more per 
 suasively than even Mr. Mortimer could do. It was herself 
 that Augusta now found it hard to forgive. The keener 
 pangs of contrition were felt through the gentle stirrings of 
 pity, as she remembered how repellant had been her man 
 ner, how hard and unrelenting her heart, to that scarce 
 breathing clay. For forty-eight hours, the muttered ravings 
 of delirium had sunk into feebleness, which seemed the pre 
 cursor of death. The physicians spoke of no hope, but that 
 which leaves us only with the heart's last throb. The night 
 was waning toward those chill, dreary hours, the most try 
 ing to the watcher, though they are the immediate precur 
 sors of dawn. Charity, who shared the vigils of Augusta on 
 this night, had fallen asleep in a large rocking chair. Au 
 gusta bent over the sick-couch to moisten the parched lips, 
 and almost suffered the cup to fall from her hands, as they 
 unclosed, and in a voice which was scarcely more than a 
 sigh, breathed forth, " Who is it 1 " 
 
 '' Augusta Moray," she said, almost as softly, feeling in 
 her self-condemnation that the name could give no pleasure. 
 It seemed indeed that her apprehension was correct, for 
 with a sigh the sufferer's lips closed, and her .heavy lids 
 drooped over her dim eyes. Half an hour passed away 
 with no sound breaking the death-like stillness save the tick 
 ing of a watch, which was painfully audible to Augusta's 
 18
 
 408 TWO PIG1TEES. 
 
 excited nerves ; and again, in pursuance of the physician's 
 directions, Augusta held the cooling draught to the lips of 
 her charge. Again the eyes unclosed and fastened them 
 selves upon her with a strange intensity. 
 
 " Can I do anything for you ? " she asked, in reply to the 
 wistful look. 
 
 " Forgive me," was faintly whispered in return. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Moray, forgive me my pride, my cold 
 ness, my ingratitude," and Augusta clasped the thin hand 
 that lay on the coverlet with a caressing touch, such as she 
 never had given it, from the hour that her new-found rela 
 tives first trod the soil of St. Mary's to the present ; then 
 added, " But we must not talk of what would agitate you." 
 
 " I must talk you do not know all Hugh's letter, 
 you remember, A. M. was Anna Melville he loved you 
 then always the draft he sent there was a note I took 
 it " and from the failing eyes there came an intenser gaze, 
 which seemed to say, " Can you forgive me now I " And 
 Augusta was surprised to feel how easy it was at this 
 solemn hour to forgive even these wrongs the deepest she 
 had known or could know. 
 
 " Do not distress yourself needlessly," she said. " All is 
 forgiven, and shall be, from this hour, forgotten." 
 
 " You do not know all yet St. Mary's " she closed 
 her eyes and groaned. 
 
 " Pray, do not distress yourself, you cannot bear it," 
 said Augusta, soothingly. 
 
 " I must you must know I wrote to Hugh, I believe 
 Saville has the will St. Mary's belongs to " 
 
 " Say nothing more about it, I entreat you ; you will 
 exhaust yourself." 
 
 " And you forgive me 1 " 
 
 " Fully, freely, as I hope that God will forgive me."
 
 
 
 TWO PICTURES. 409 
 
 " God ! " what an expression of awe there was in the 
 whispered name, " will He forgive me ? " 
 
 " He never refuses those who ask to be forgiven." 
 
 " Ask I cannot will you pray pray," and the fee 
 ble hand closed with all its little strength upon that which 
 held it, and the eyes hung as if for life upon the face that 
 bent above them. 
 
 Augusta thought herself in the presence of death a 
 presence so intensely real, that all which is factitious falls 
 before it and leaves our naked spirits in contact with the 
 truth. It was nothing to her at that moment that the lan 
 guage of prayer was unfamiliar to her lips,, that she had 
 only lately learned to pray for herself. She thought only 
 of the passing spirit, the dread eternity it was approaching, 
 the mercy which it craved, and sinking on her knees, in 
 broken sentences, whose low but earnest utterance sounded 
 like the importunate crying of one who pleaded for more 
 than life, she asked pardon and peace for both ; and with a 
 tenderness, which seemed new-born in her spirit, she com 
 mended the feeble, helpless sufferer to the compassionate 
 love of the Divine Redeemer. When her voice had sunk 
 into silence, she still knelt, and her thoughts still rose in 
 those short ejaculations which are the most frequent lan 
 guage of strong emotion. 
 
 " She sleeps," a voice at length whispered in her ear, 
 and she started to see Mr. Mortimer beside her. " You had 
 better sit there," pointing to an easy lounging chair and 
 assisting her to rise, " I will watch your patient." 
 
 " When did you come ? " said Augusta, softly, as she 
 obeyed him, and resting her weary head upon the chair, 
 suffered him to wrap her in a large shawl. 
 
 " 1 have been here half an hour," then, as if overpowered 
 by all he had heard and seen, with a half sob in his voice, he
 
 410 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 added, " God bless you, my child, and grant you all your 
 desires ! " 
 
 All her desires ! Had she not already received them 1 
 What could she ask more ? As she lay there, too weary 
 even for connected, voluntary thought, there floated before 
 her passive mind an image of manly truth and unblemished 
 honor, of " high thought seated in a heart of courtesy," in 
 whose reflected beauty the world grew beautiful, in whose 
 clear light every shade of misanthropy, of distrust, of scorn 
 faded from her own soul, which, 
 
 " Like the stained web i' the sun 
 Grew pure by being purely shone upon." 
 
 If she did not fall down in worship before this image, it 
 was because she had become conscious of a higher beauty, 
 a more perfect purity, and we worship only that which is 
 our highest and our best. After a while she slept the 
 light sleep which care permits a watcher, but the same 
 thoughts so inwove themselves with her dreams, that she 
 did not seem to herself to have been asleep when Mr. Mor 
 timer bent over, and whispered her name. Starting, she 
 opened her eyes, and found the sunlight entering the room 
 through the -half-closed shutters. Her looks turned instantly 
 toward the bed. 
 
 " She sleeps still," said Mr. Mortimer ; " I have taken 
 good care of her ; and now Charity will watch by her till 
 you can get some better rest than you have taken here." 
 
 " Oh ! I have rested well. I will change my dress and 
 come and breakfast with you in the library, if you think I 
 may venture." 
 
 " I am sure you may her sleep seems to me more 
 natural than it was she may recover yet." 
 
 A silent pressure of Mr. Mortimer's hand showed Au 
 gusta's heart touched by the hope thus given.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 411 
 
 A cold bath gave her greater refreshment probably than 
 such sleep as she could have obtained in her present excitement 
 would have done it quickened her languid circulation, and 
 wishing to show Mr. Mortimer that she had not suffered from 
 her vigils, she arranged her hair with even more than her 
 usual care, fastening in its glossy braids a white rose with 
 its rich green leaves, from which the dew was not yet dried, 
 and put on, instead of the wrapper she had worn for several 
 days, her close-fitting black dress somewhat open at the 
 throat, to show the folds of soft illusion lying beneath it, 
 which were caught together just above the bosom by a 
 bunch of fragrant violets. So attired, she went tripping 
 down the stairs, with a lighter step, because a lighter heart, 
 than she had had for many, many months. As yet no 
 thought of the difficulty, perhaps we should say the impossi 
 bility, of making those explanations to Hugh, which would 
 be necessary to break down the barrier raised by her 
 wounded pride, had mingled itself with the joy of knowing 
 that he was all she had believed him. So her feet moved 
 lightly to the music in her heart as she went on toward the 
 library where she expected to meet Mr. Mortimer. Why 
 was it that, as she laid her hand upon the lock, the sudden 
 memory of that morning long ago, when, entering her 
 uncle's library unconscious of his presence, she found Hugh 
 awaiting her why, we say, did this rise before her in such 
 truth of form and vividness of coloring that it called a rich 
 glow to her cheek 1 She threw open the door, and did she 
 dream, or was she under the influence of some weird en 
 chantment ? there, before her, standing near a window, was 
 Hugh himself. At her first glance, his face was turned 
 away, but there was no mistaking that tall form, whose pro 
 portions promised both power and grace there was no 
 mistaking that noble head with its attitude of command. It 
 was but one breathless instant. She had no time to with-
 
 412 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 draw, no time to think, when he turned and they were to 
 gether, she knew not how and scarcely where she only 
 knew that her head swam, that her limbs trembled, and that 
 she must have sunk to the ground, had not his strong arm 
 supported her. He placed her in a chair, and turned, with 
 out a word, to the window again. Her head was bowed, 
 her cheeks burned, her heart throbbed, as if it would have 
 burst its prison bounds. 
 
 Overcome by a shyness, whose source it would have 
 been hard for her to tell, it was long before she could lift 
 her eyes to his face. When she did, his were fastened on 
 her with an expression in which an angry cloud contended 
 with gleams of passionate fondness. Her startled look 
 roused him from his silent mood. 
 
 " Augusta ! " he exclaimed, the tone was low and deep, 
 and again she gave him a quick, anxious glance, from which 
 he turned away and walked twice across the room, ere he 
 approached her again, saying in the same low, passionate 
 tones, " You are feeble, ill, and ought to be spared all agita 
 tion ; but I can no longer restrain myself I am but man, 
 not ice, as you have probably thought me ; but pardon me, 
 that I am compelled to speak of myself it shall be but a 
 few words. You have wounded me where alone the wound 
 could have aroused anger, or awakened remonstrance that 
 you had thrown back with scorn the passionate love which 
 had become a part of my life that you had rejected even 
 my friendship as a presumption or an impertinence, I have 
 borne in silence." 
 
 " Oh Hugh ! " burst from her ; but he seemed not to 
 hear, and proceeded, passionately, " But there is one thing 
 I cannot I will not bear, once before, you suspected me 
 of an indelicacy, inconsistent with the instincts of a gentle 
 man, and I forgave you ; and now I find that you actually 
 believed me capable of conduct that would have proved me
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 413 
 
 not only dead to honor, but to common honesty ; I stood 
 beside you last night, and heard that broken confession 
 which God forgive me ! I have found it less easy to par 
 don than you did ; and yet I can pardon her sooner than I 
 can pardon you she knew not the looks, the words which 
 had said to you a thousand times ' I love you,' she knew 
 not, as you did, the depth of the falsehood she was fasten 
 ing upon me, and which you accepted no wonder you fled 
 from all association with one you believed thus recreant to 
 truth and honor." 
 
 She had covered her face with her hands, and seemed lit 
 erally to cower before his passionate outburst, which was 
 all the more terrible from its contrast with his usual calm 
 ness and self-possession. When he paused she uncovered 
 a face from which every vestige of color had vanished, and 
 lifted to him eyes which seemed glassy with despair. Her 
 lips opened, but in vain no sound issued from them. He 
 turned away, for his heart was melting within him ; yet he 
 was too thoroughly angry to be willing to show himself so 
 quickly appeased. lie was moving to the door. Was he 
 leaving her ? leaving her forever ? and thus ? 
 
 Pride dies hard, but hers sank down and died at that 
 thought. 
 
 " Hugh ! Hugh ! " Never had human voice shaped itself 
 to a more passionate appeal, than was heard in that simple 
 cry. It sank into his soul. He turned. She had risen 
 from her chair, and stood, with white face and clasped hands 
 and gasping breath, " Hugh, can you not forgive me 1 " 
 
 He came toward her with an eager step and looks of 
 passionate emotion, saying, " No, Augusta ! I cannot for 
 give you I can only love you with the whole force of my 
 being. Will you trust that love now, and let me prove its 
 truth by the devotion of my life ? " 
 
 He opened his arms, and with scarcely a conscious voli-
 
 41-i TWO PICTURES. 
 
 tion she passed within their circle pale, tottering ; but, as 
 they closed around her, and she fi-lt herself drawn to that 
 broad bosom and pressed against that beating heart, new 
 life seemed to flow through her veins life, pure and joyous 
 as that of her early childhood, yet a thousandfold more 
 intense. 
 
 Such moments can be but moments in human life; and 
 it was, perhaps, well for both that Mr. Mortimer's step and 
 " ahem " both purposely loud, recalled them so soon to 
 the existence of a world outside of themselves. What Mr. 
 Mortimer had seen and heard on the preceding night, if not 
 wholly understood, had been sufficiently so, to induce him 
 to plan this surprise and tete-a-ttife, which had begun so 
 stormily, and ended by effecting all he desired for the twp 
 most dear to him of all the world. 
 
 We will leave the trio to take " with what appetite they 
 may," the breakfast which seemed, we suspect, but a grand 
 impertinence to two of the party, while we turn back the 
 wheel of time a fortnight or thereabouts, and recount the 
 circumstances that brought Hugh Moray so unexpectedly to 
 St. Mary's.
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 " What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ? 
 Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just ; 
 And he but naked though locked up in steel, 
 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." Henry VI- 
 
 CHARLES MORAY had hastened at once to Hugh, in his 
 distress ; yet, when he found himself near him, the confes 
 sion he had come to make, seemed impossible. The tempta 
 tions, under which he had fallen, Hugh would have brushed 
 like cobwebs from his path. He had lavished in one year 
 on the momentary gratifications of sense, even before these 
 debts of honor, what would have seemed to Hugh a fortune. 
 How could he ask for his sympathy ? And yet from whom, 
 if not from Hugh, could he hope for sympathy and advice ? 
 Two days in succession, after his late breakfast at the Astor 
 House, he walked to the house in Beckman street, on whose 
 dingy stairs and wall stood conspicuously the names of Hoi- 
 ton and Moray, Counsellors at Law, and walked away again 
 without ascending to the little office, where he was almost 
 sure of finding the person he had come to seek. The third 
 day he might have done the same, but that, as he was turn 
 ing away, he found himself face to face with the very man 
 whom he sought, yet dared not meet. 
 
 " Why, Charlie ! old fellow ! so you've come at last ? 
 I began to think you were anchored at St. Mary's for life.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 Come up with me we'll find a few minutes for talk between 
 the comers and goers." 
 
 Hugh seemed to Charles Moray to have grown younger 
 in manner less careworn, more expansive. It strengthened 
 him to look into the calm, determined face, and the serene 
 eyes ; and he followed him up stairs with the weight already 
 a little lifted from his heart. Still he was not prepared to tell 
 all yet. Perhaps he would go to Elizabethtown to spend 
 the night and then, when Hugh and he were together in the 
 old den, he would talk. In the mean time, having passed 
 through a large room where several young men were seated, 
 some reading, some copying, they entered the smaller pri 
 vate office of Hugh. Charles Moray was not altogether dis 
 pleased to find it occupied. lie dreaded, while he desired 
 this tete-a-tete. The occupant was one who was waiting to 
 consult Hugh, and as Charles saw the respect with which 
 his cousin was approached, and the confidence evinced in his 
 judgment, his heart was stung by a new and poignant sense 
 of shame and self-condemnation. It was impossible not to 
 draw a contrast, little to his own advantage, between the 
 positions they at present occupied. Hugh 5 with little aid 
 from others, was fast winning all which, having received as a 
 free gift, he had flung to the winds. Hugh had won far more 
 indeed. Better than fortune, better even than the esteem 
 and friendship of others, was the self-reliance, the calm 
 strength, the disciplined powers which he had gained in the 
 contest through which he had passed so successfully. They 
 had left on him the stamp of a completed manhood, which 
 the maturcst age would fail to give to him who had not 
 lo.-irned to conquer himself, and to postpone life's pleasures 
 to its duties. 
 
 When his client was gone, Hugh took his letters from 
 his desk and throwing himself into a large armed chair, 
 began to question Charles of St. Mary's and of Mr. Morti-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 417 
 
 mcr. If another name was in his heart, it did not escape 
 his lips. As he talked, he opened, one by one, the letters he 
 held, looked at the name subscribed, threw aside some un 
 read and glanced carelessly over the contents of others. 
 At length, one letter seemed to startle him into more earnest 
 attention. As he looked at the address, a deeper color 
 tinged his brow. He tore the letter open hastily, looked at 
 the name of the writer, glanced at Charles, seemed about 
 to speak, then turned again to the letter, ran his eye 
 quickly over the contents, then read them more carefully, 
 too deeply absorbed in them, apparently, to hear a question 
 which Charles addressed to him. After this second peru 
 sal, his eyes remained for some time riveted on the paper, 
 then, looking up, he said, with an abruptness that made 
 Charles start, " You say y<5u left your mother at St. Mary's 
 was she well ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Charles, not without some slight uneasiness 
 at the tone of the inquiry, " quite well." 
 
 " There was no apprehension of her having fever ? " 
 
 " None whatever ; but why do you ask I Is my 
 mother ill ? " and Charles Moray grew pale with vague 
 apprehension, as the last words fell from his lips in an 
 accent that seemed to belong to a more terrible word, a 
 word he dared not use. 
 
 "No at least not that I know of; but I have here a 
 letter from her, a very strange letter, so strange that I 
 doubted if it were not written in the delirium of fever." 
 
 Charles Moray would have given much to see that letter, 
 yet he dared not ask for it, for he felt sure it contained the 
 history of his own folly. 
 
 " Will you look at it?" asked Hugh, holding it toward 
 him. 
 
 He received it mechanically and in silence ; but the first 
 few lines *ait the blood back to his face, from which, in his
 
 418 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 agitation at the impending disclosure, it had retreated ; and 
 before he had finished the short letter, he sprang from his 
 chair, exclaiming, " I would give my right hand, Hugh, to 
 be sure that this was true I mean that you could prove it." 
 
 " That is very generous in you, Charlie." 
 
 " Not so generous as it seems, Hugh ; I am afraid you 
 will think me, as I begin to think myself, a fool ; but, 
 Hugh, I have thrown away St. Mary's all that fine prop 
 erty is now Harry Reardon's, unless you can prove that it 
 never was mine, and so, having no title myself, I could 
 give none." 
 
 " Are you jesting with me, Charles ? " 
 
 The lightness had passed from Hugh's face ; it looked 
 grave even to sternness, as he added, " I cannot believe you 
 would feel at liberty to part with a property, which you 
 know Mr. Moray left to you, to the prejudice of his own 
 niece, only that he might insure the perpetuation of his name 
 in connection with it I will not believe it of you." 
 
 " You may believe it or not ; it is no less certain that 
 Harry Reardon holds that property, and will continue to 
 hold it, unless you can prove that I had no right to it. As 
 to my being willing to part with it there was no will in 
 the case ; though I suppose one ought to take nothing which 
 he is not willing to part with, to a billiard table, with Rear 
 don for his antagonist." 
 
 Charles Moray was now walking about the room ; his 
 restlessness betraying somewhat of the bitterness which he 
 would not express in words. Hugh sat for some minutes 
 vith folded arms, compressed lips, and eyes determinately 
 lowncast. He did not look up even when he asked, in a 
 Voice which he forced to be calm, " Did the negroes go with 
 the estate?" 
 
 " All it was a clean sweep ; but, Hugh, it's no use to 
 look glum about it," Charlie drew near, and stood leaning
 
 TWO PICTURES 419 
 
 on the mantelpiece opposite to Hugh. " If it's gone, that 
 will not bring it back and I really begin to hope that 
 Reardon may be disappointed after all. By George ! that 
 will be grand ! But now, what are you going to do ? How 
 are you going to get at this will ? that, I suppose, is the 
 first thing." 
 
 " If I could only be sure " 
 
 Hugh ceased abruptly, looking down upon the open 
 letter in his hand. 
 
 " That it was as my mother said," suggested Charlie ; 
 " I think you may depend on her. She would not be so 
 foolish as to make such a charge without being sure of her 
 ground. And now I think of it ; doesn't she say something 
 of Saville's wringing money from her ? " 
 
 " Yes, there it is," and Hugh pointed to the passage, as 
 lie handed the letter to Charlie. 
 
 " The villain ! " exclaimed Charlie, when he had read the 
 passage again. " That accounts for the disappearance of the 
 bank stock. He must have found this will among the 
 papers I left for him to examine for me, and has kept it as 
 a threat over my mother and she " 
 
 Charles paused suddenly. At that moment the thought 
 that his mother had, by her silence, become an accomplice 
 in Saville's villainy, had first suggested itself to him, occa 
 sioning a sharp spasm of pain, which sent the blood in a 
 quick torrent to his brow."" 
 
 " Hugh ! " he exclaimed, in an altered voice, " you do 
 not suspect me of having known anything of this ? " 
 
 " Not for a moment, Charlie, not for a moment ; and as 
 to your mother, we must not press too hardly on a mother's 
 feelings it was doubtless a great temptation." 
 
 " You will spare her then, Hugh." 
 
 There was shame and grief in the tone, such as neither 
 the loss of fortune, nor the consciousness of his own folly
 
 420 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 had caused in Charles Moray. Hugh hastened to reassure 
 him. 
 
 " Be assured," he said, quickly and warmly, " that I will 
 make any personal sacrifice rather than compromise her 
 name. Were my own interest involved instead of Augus 
 ta's, I would not stir in the question ; as it is " 
 
 " You must, of course ; but how will you begin ? If 
 you should write " 
 
 " Oh, whatever is done must be done in person, and 
 without warning ; I shall go to Washington this evening." 
 
 The tone of the last words marked that whatever doubt 
 or struggle had been in Hugh Moray's mind had passed 
 away the decision had been made. And yet, in making 
 that decision, his mind had moved over an area covered by a 
 network of delicate threads, the careless handling of any one 
 of which might precipitate into ruin his own most impor 
 tant interests or those of others. Let it be understood here, 
 as a reference to Mrs. Moray's letter will render clear, that 
 Hugh did not suppose himself personally interested in the 
 question of fortune. His action was for the sake of Augus 
 ta, to whom he supposed " St. Mary's and wealth " alike 
 to belong. The object to be attained was the possession of 
 the will held by Saville, and of proof that it was the true 
 will of Mr. Hugh Moray, and to do this without compro 
 mising Mrs. Moray, of whose complicity with Saville he 
 had little doubt ; and last and least of all, in his estimation, 
 though certainly not least in difficulty he was to deal 
 with a felony, as he was firmly convinced, in such a manner 
 as to prevent the exposure of the felon, yet not to subject 
 himself to the charge of compounding it. It was to have 
 time to think over these seemingly irreconcilable objects, 
 and arrange a plan of action that would embrace them all, 
 that Hugh advised that Charles should rather follow him 
 than accompany him in his hurried night journey to Wash-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 421 
 
 ington. Yet, before he reached that city, he had resolved 
 to see Judge Mellen, and, if possible, induce him to accom 
 pany him to Washington. It is true this would lose him at 
 least one day of time, which he could ill spare ; but, after 
 careful consideration, he judged that it was worth the sacri 
 fice, and accordingly, having travelled all night from New 
 York, and reached Washington in the early morning, he 
 pressed forward and found himself, with six hours' further 
 railroad travelling, about noon, at the plantation on the 
 James river, where Judge Mellen was enjoying a life of 
 calm repose and domestic peace. To return to Washing 
 ton was, perhaps, the least agreeable proposition that could 
 have been made to the Judge, but he was too kind and gen 
 erous to hesitate in his compliance when, without communi 
 cating to him all his suspicions, or even all the facts on which 
 he acted, Hugh told him that his business in Washington 
 was to obtain, it might be to compel an act of justice to the 
 niece of his old friend, Mr. Moray, and that his presence 
 would make the task more possible, if not easy. 
 
 They arrived in Washington late in the evening, or, 
 rather, night. 
 
 " Too late for business to-night, I suppose," said Judge 
 Mellen, as Hugh seated himself beside him in the carriage 
 which was to convey them to Willard's. 
 
 " Yes ; I must rest to-night ; I want a clear head and a 
 strong arm to-morrow," answered Hugh. 
 
 " A strong arm ! that sounds warlike. Am I to take 
 part in the combat ? " 
 
 " No ; or, at least, only as a corps de reserve, in case I 
 should fail ; I fear it may seem hardly respectful in me, 
 Judge, to ask the sanction of your presence without giving 
 you my confidence more entirely ; but, if you can trust 
 me" 
 
 " Fully; I put myself under your banner no light thing,
 
 422 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 let me say, for an opinionated old fellow like me, to a 
 youngster with not half his years on his head." 
 
 " It is no light thing, my dear sir ; I shall remember 
 it ever with the deepest gratitude." 
 
 " What time will you breakfast, gentlemen ? " asked the 
 waiter at Willard's, as he preceded them up the dimly-light 
 ed staircase to their sleeping rooms. 
 
 "Ask Mr. Moray, he's captain," said Judge Mellon, 
 good-naturedly. 
 
 " At nine o'clock," answered Hugh, with a smile, naming 
 the hour at which he knew the Judge was accustomed to 
 breakfast at home. 
 
 " Whither now ? " asked Judge Mellen, the next morn 
 ing, as they rose from the breakfast table. 
 
 " To the Navy Department, if you please," Hugh re 
 plied. 
 
 " Hem to Saville ; well, I am ready." 
 
 " So I perceive, sir, with thought as well as action," said 
 Hugh, laughingly. 
 
 " Excuse me. Not another word thought, I mean 
 will I be guilty of, unless, indeed, you will permit me to 
 suggest a carriage to take us to the department. A Wash 
 ington sun is no trifle ; a walk under it may cause our cour 
 age, or our strength, to exude, through more than the ends 
 of our fingers." 
 
 The carriage caused some delay, and it was near eleven 
 o'clock when they were set down at the department. The 
 str.'inge lightness which they had shown in the morning, and 
 which so often comes to men on the eve of a great effort, 
 had passed away, and the latter part of their drive had been 
 performed in silence. Hugh sprang from the carriage, and 
 waited quietly for his companion, who descended more 
 slowly. Judge Mellen was startled by the paleness of his 
 face as he glanced at him, but the iron firmness of the com-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 423 
 
 pressed lips, the sternness of the brow, the light which 
 seemed literally to glow in the eyes, showed that it was the 
 paleness rather of concentrated determination than of weak 
 ness or of fear. They entered the department in silence, 
 and proceeded at once to the office of the chief clerk. Two 
 or three officers in undress uniform stood chatting near the 
 open door of this office, within which Saville sat at his desk, 
 and beside him stood an officer, seemingly about to leave him, 
 yet pausing to say some last words in a tone of eager re 
 monstrance, as he pointed to a chart outspread before them. 
 Judge Mellen paused to speak to one of the officers at the 
 door. Hugh entered the office, and as the commander en 
 gaged with Saville turned away, took his place at his side, 
 and in a voice low, but deep, said, " I must speak with you, 
 sir ; shall it be here ? " glancing at the open door and the 
 officers, who stood near enough to hear a raised tone from 
 within. 
 
 " Must ! you are imperative, sir," Savillo said, sneering- 
 ly, glancing upward. 
 
 Their eyes met, and what else he meant to say, fal 
 tered and died on his lips, as he bent his eyes again upon 
 the chart. Hugh stooped till his words were spoken in Sa- 
 ville's ear. 
 
 " It is of Mr. Moray's will I would speak ; my informa 
 tion is so certain, I have no objection to make our interview 
 public, unless you prefer it should be private." 
 
 Saville visibly shrank at the first words, and ere Hugh 
 had concluded, turned to him, with white, gasping lips, and 
 eyes like the tiger's when prepared to make his spring. 
 Again Hugh's met the gaze steadily, and Saville's sank be 
 fore them, while with a voice which strove in vain for firm 
 ness, he faltered out, " What do you mean, sir ? " 
 
 " Again I ask you, shall I close the door before I tell 
 you ? " said Hugh.
 
 424: TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " If you please." The tone was steadier, and the hand 
 which had rested on the chart, moved a little nearer to the 
 left side-pocket of the light summer coat changes which 
 Hugh's quick eye perceived. 
 
 " 1 have a word to say to Judge Mellon first," he said ; 
 " but do not be afraid, he knows nothing ; " then, raising 
 his voice, he called, " Judge Mellen, will you do me the 
 favor to step here for a moment ? " 
 
 Saville glared upon the Judge as he approached, and the 
 hand moved nervously again toward the left side, while he 
 forgot to acknowledge the bow which Judge Mellen, never 
 unmindful of the claims of courtesy, made him on his en 
 trance. 
 
 " Will you be so kind, Judge Mellen," said Hugh, still 
 speaking low, " as to tell Mr. Saville whether I have com 
 municated to you the object of my interview with him ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, Mr. Saville ; I have followed him here 
 witVout knowing whether it was a chase after a wild goose 
 or a fox." 
 
 " What you know, sir, is of no consequence to me," said 
 Saville, snappishly. 
 
 Hugh did not seem to hear him, but drawing a scaled 
 packet from his bosom, held it to Judge Mellen, saying, " In 
 this packet is a full account of the business which has brought 
 me to Washington ; I intrust it to your safe keeping ; you 
 will oblige me by handing it unopened to Mr. Saville when 
 I leave this room ; but should Mr. Saville attempt to leave 
 the room without me, stop him, and in that packet you will 
 find your warrant for doing so. Now, may I ask you, my 
 kind friend, to leave us, and to close the door as you pass 
 out ? " 
 
 " Is that written in the bond ? " asked Judge Mellen, 
 with an almost playful reference to his promise of obedience, 
 while yet there was an expression of uneasiness in his eyes
 
 TWO PICTURES. 4:25 
 
 as he glanced from Hugh to the pale and sullen face of Sa- 
 ville. A grave bow was Hugh's only answer, and Judge 
 Mellen turned and left the room, closing the door after him. 
 
 " Now we may speak without reserve," said Hugh. 
 
 " Have a care, sir ; I am not unarmed, and you may try 
 my patience too far," and Saville's hand entered the pocket 
 it had been approaching. 
 
 " I will trust Mr. Saville's knowledge of his own inter 
 ests, if not his patience," said Hugh, with a contemptuous 
 smile. " Any violence would bring this whole affair neces 
 sarily before the public ; besides, you will find in me a more 
 lenient prosecutor than in Judge Mellen, who would imme 
 diately take my place. This is irrelevant, however. My 
 business is to receive from you Mr. Moray's will, which you 
 found, we will say and have retained, from friendship, it 
 may be, for those in possession of his fortune. The moment 
 you deliver it, I will relieve you from my presence." 
 
 " And suppose I should acknowledge that I have it, yet 
 refuse to deliver it ; you know, if you know anything about 
 it, that you cannot bring a charge against me without risk 
 ing the disgrace of your own name," hissed forth Saville. 
 
 " There is no question of bringing a charge ; this matter 
 is to be finished between us, man to man ; the will is on 
 your person, I know." 
 
 " Touch me," said Saville, after a glance at the stalwart 
 frame that stood in passive strength beside him ; " touch 
 me, and I will call for help and shoot you like a dog ; it 
 will be self-defence." 
 
 " Judge Mellen has a packet which will show you had 
 good reason to desire my death ; and he knows I came here 
 unarmed." 
 
 " D n you ! " muttered Saville. 
 
 Hugh only smiled, and remained watchful, but motion, 
 less.
 
 426 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " What will you give for tMs will ? " cried Saville, sud 
 denly looking up. 
 
 " My promise that you shall be safe from any investiga 
 tion into the circumstances by which it came into your 
 hands, nothing more." 
 
 "1 think your testimony would hardly go for much, 
 since, if it be true th <t I have committed a felony, you are 
 guilty of compounding it." 
 
 " Felony ! that is an ugly word. There is no felony in 
 finding a will among papers which you were authorized to 
 examine. I do not know when you found it ; you may not 
 have been able to restore it before ; now I am ready to re 
 ceive it." 
 
 " Very well, I will send it to you at least, I will send 
 the packet which I think may be a will." 
 
 " You will give it to me here, and now, Mr. Saville, or 
 I call in those gentlemen, and in their presence force it from 
 you, and so prove your infamy." Hugh's words were low, 
 but every one was uttered with a force which sent it straight 
 into the coward heart before him. " Here, and now, sir," 
 he repeated, stre'tching out his hand to receive it. 
 
 With a muttered imprecation, Saville dashed on the 
 table a packet drawn from the breast pocket, in which his 
 hand had been placed, adding, as Hugh lifted it, " Now 
 leave my office, sir, and never dare to set foot within it 
 again." 
 
 " I shall obey with pleasure when I am assured that I 
 have what I came to seek," said Hugh ; then, after reading 
 the superscription of the packet and examining the seal, he 
 stepped to the door and asked Judge Mellen to enter. The 
 Judge having complied, and the door being again closed, 
 Hugh said, " I will be obliged to you to witness Mr. Sa- 
 ville's acknowledgment that this packet contains the latest 
 will and testament of Mr. Hugh Moray, which he witnessed,
 
 TWO ricTUKES. 427 
 
 and which he has now delivered to me for the benefit of the 
 heirs. You acknowledge this, Mr. Saville ? " 
 
 The steady eyes were upon him the inflexible tone in 
 his ears and after a moment's pause, he assented. 
 
 " I will now thank you, in fulfilment of my conditions, 
 to hand Mr. Saville the packet I gave you." 
 
 Judge Mellen laid it on the table, and without another 
 Word, Hugh withdrew with him from the room. 
 
 " Whither now ? " asked Judge Mellen, as he took his 
 seat again in the carriage. 
 
 Hugh hesitated ; it was only for a moment. 
 
 " To Willard's," he said to the coachman, adding, as he 
 placed himself by Judge Mellen, " I think Charles must 
 have arrived lazy fellow. I have no doubt he stopped to 
 sleep in Baltimore last night. If he is here, 1 think, as this 
 is directed to you, we may, with your permission, open it." 
 
 " Had you not better wait till Miss Moray can be pres 
 ent ? " 
 
 " Under ' ordinary circumstances I should say yes ; but 
 Miss Moray is in Georgia ; it may be weeks before she can 
 come here, and that document is too precious to be subjected 
 to the hazards of those weeks ; it must be recorded, and we 
 must have certified copies of it." 
 
 " And am I still to ask no questions ? " 
 
 " Ask, my dear Judge, and, as far as I can, I will answer 
 though, the truth is, I knoiu very little." 
 
 " But suspect very much." 
 
 Hugh's face grew fixed. 
 
 " Which you don't mean to tell," added the Judge, with 
 a slight laugh, as he glanced at that determined face. 
 
 " Well, I will try my powers at cross-examining. What 
 put this business into your head ? How did you know of 
 this will ? for, of course, you would not have ventured to 
 attack Saville on suspicion."
 
 428 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Attack Mr. Saville ! My dear sir, you labor under a 
 mistake. I heard from Mrs. Charles Moray that she knew 
 the last will and testament of Mr. Hugh Moray was still iu 
 the hands of Mr. Saville. My visit here was only to receive 
 it from him. It was possible that Mr. Saville might dis 
 pute my right to receive the document, and I therefore re 
 quested your company, believing that he could not hesitate 
 to deliver it to you." 
 
 " And you heard of this will first from Mrs. Charles 
 Moray ? That puzzles me." 
 
 " Here is Charles, and our puzzles will soon be at an 
 end," cried Hugh, as he stopped the carriage, and putting 
 his head out of the window, called to Charles Moray, who 
 was sauntering along one of the avenues in a spiritless, dis 
 contented way. His countenance brightened as he saw 
 Hugh, and he approached the carriage with a brisk stop, 
 shook hands cordially with Judge Mellon, and took a seat 
 with them at Hugh's invitation. Hugh drew the packet 
 from his bosom and showed it to him. 
 
 " You've got it then ! By George, I could hug Saville 
 for having found it," exclaimed Charles. 
 
 " You're a generous, noble-hearted fellow," said Judge 
 Mellon, warmly ; " such a heart is better than a fortune." 
 
 " Oh, don't give me too much credit, sir," cried Charlie, 
 with that frankness which was his redeeming trait, adding, 
 with a slightly embarrassed laugh, " Harry Reardon has 
 more interest in that document than I." 
 
 " Harry Reardon ! hem there is no puzzle now," cried 
 Judge Mellen, with a glance at Hugh. 
 
 When the will was read, Judge Mellen declared that he 
 recollected it perfectly as the will which Mr. Moray had 
 read to him. Hugh was silent and grave. 
 
 " I am truly glad, old fellow, since I could not keep it, 
 that it is to be yours," exclaimed Charles Moray, trying to
 
 TWO PICTURES. 429 
 
 speak more brightly than, if the truth must be told, he felt 
 just at that moment. 
 
 Hugh shook the hand extended to him without a word ; 
 then, suddenly- turning to Judge Mellen, said, " Do you not 
 think, sir, that there is some reason to doubt whether Mr. 
 Moray's mind was to be trusted when this will was made? " 
 
 " Not the least. When he read that will to me, his judg 
 ment was perfectly clear." 
 
 " It is scarcely a proof of it that he should have left any 
 other than his niece as his heir." 
 
 " Poor Moray ! To leave St. Mary's to one who would 
 perpetuate his family name, seemed almost a point of his 
 religion ; but his niece is well provided for by this will ; 
 the other was inhuman." 
 
 Charles Moray reddened ; then, turning quickly to 
 Hugh, said, " There is something I do not understand in 
 this business. How did my mother know of this will ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell ; you saw your mother's letter," Hugh 
 answered. 
 
 " Where did Saville find it ? " 
 
 " I do not know ; I did not ask him." 
 
 " Well, I shall," and Charles took his hat from the table, 
 and walked to the door, then coming back, he said, warmly, 
 " You understand, Hugh I have no doubt of you ; but it is 
 necessary for my mother's sake that this affair should be 
 better understood, especially that it should be known why 
 this will was not introduced until I had lost the property. 
 I shall wring the whole secret, if secret there be, from Sa- 
 ville's cowardly heart." 
 
 He spoke with passion, and was turning away again, but 
 Hugh caught his arm and drew him forcibly back, while he 
 said, " Charlie, you are no match for Saville ; nay, do not be 
 angry I mean in cunning, the only strength of mean minds 
 like his. Choose a good lawyer and place your case in his
 
 430 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 hands ; he will unravel all the mystery and establish your 
 rights." 
 
 " I have no rights I want none. I tell you again, I am 
 truly glad the property is yours ; but I will know all about 
 this will, which could not be found at Mr. Moray's death, 
 and which conies so opportunely to light now, just in time 
 to prevent his fortune being made ducks and drakes of." 
 
 " Your cousin gives you good advice, Mr. Charles ; put 
 yourself in the hands of a good lawyer take Choate, who 
 is here, attending to some business in the Federal Court 
 as joint executor with your cousin of this will, and guardian 
 to Miss Moray, I will defend their side. If it be necessary, 
 we will go into court " 
 
 " Not for me," interrupted Charlie. 
 
 " Not for you, but for the right, and in order that who 
 ever enjoys the property may do it without a doubt. I think 
 I can throw some light upon the subject when I am again 
 at home. I have been accustomed for twenty years to keep 
 memoranda of each day's engagements, and I do not doubt 
 I shall find notes and dates which will substantiate this," and 
 he laid his hand upon the will. 
 
 " And we will go to New York and await the result," 
 said Hugh ; and. but half satisfied, Charles Moray assented. 
 
 The law, which under ordinary circumstances " drags its 
 slow length along," moves swiftly enough when friendly 
 parties meet with the one object of discovering truth. 
 Judge Mellen sent home for his papers, found all the data 
 he had anticipated, and established the fact that on tho 
 day on which this will was dated, Mr. Moray had made an 
 arrangement with him to call and witness his signature to a 
 will, the rough draft of which he had seen and corrected, and 
 the several items of which he had noted and recorded. These 
 items differed in no respect from those of the will now so 
 strangely brought forward. Mr. Saville, too, did not with-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 431 
 
 hold his testimony when asked for by one of the dignitaries 
 of the law. Indeed, he gave it in such a manner as to be 
 complimented for his clearness and conciseness, after he had 
 been told that if any doubt was left on the minds of the par 
 ties interested, the case would be brought into court and 
 thoroughly sifted. He established, on oath, the fact of hav 
 ing drawn up and witnessed two wills, of which this was the 
 later. When, the other will was produced after Mr. Mo 
 ray's death, he had supposed that this had been destroyed, 
 and finding it afterward among the papers left with him by 
 Mr. Charles Moray, he had retained it only till he could de 
 liver it into the hands of some one of those concerned in 
 deed, he had immediately informed Mrs. Charles Moray of 
 the fact. Nothing could be clearer, and so Mr. Choate wrote 
 to his client, telling him at the same time that the actual 
 possession of the estate gave him a position from which his 
 opponents might find it difficult to dislodge him, should he 
 suffer the case to go into court, as the whole burden of 
 proof would be left on them. " Nevertheless," he added, 
 " there are circumstances in this affair which make me hesi 
 tate to advise your submitting it to the decision of a legal 
 tribunal." 
 
 The truth was, clear and concise as Mr. Saville had been, 
 there was not one acquainted with the circumstances, who 
 did not feel that the next step from this clearness would be 
 into the deep profound of sinful human hearts into the 
 very mystery of iniquity. All shrank from that step ex 
 cept strange to say Charles Moray, who, now that suspi 
 cion had been aroused, felt its grasp more strongly than 
 any, dreaded more than any to exchange it for conviction, 
 yet experienced something of that fascination which tempts a 
 man to throw himself headlong down the gulf whose very 
 sight has made his brain reel. It was the belief expressed 
 by Mr. Choate that he might succeed in retaining the prop- 
 19
 
 432 TWO PICTUKE8. 
 
 rty, through some want oflegal evidence, from the heirs by 
 the present will, which at length decided him. His success 
 would be the success of Harry Reardon, the alienation of 
 the property from the name of Moray, the defrauding of 
 Hugh and Augusta, the triumph of injustice. Better go to 
 his grave with this unsatisfied doubt standing as a wall of 
 ice between him and his mother. 
 
 Hugh had awaited his decision in pitying silence. When 
 it was announced, he received it with such a clasp of the 
 hand as a man gives to one who announces to him a great 
 sorrow, and with the few earnest words, " We are brothers 
 now, Charlie." 
 
 " You will go immediately to St. Mary's? " said Charles 
 Moray, when they had sat a few minutes in silent musing. 
 " I have written this morning to Harry Reardon and en- 
 closed a few lines from Mr. Choate, to whom 1 had submit 
 ted the question whether he could give you any trouble in 
 the matter. The opinion was so decided that I think you 
 will scarcely find him at St. Mary's, if you give my letter 
 twenty-four hours the start of you." 
 
 When Charles ceased, Hugh looked up and spoke, yet 
 his words bore little reference to what had been said to 
 him. 
 
 " How strange it is," he said, in the tone of one but half 
 roused from a deep reverie, " how strange it is that this es 
 tate, the bestowal of which cost Mr. Moray so much anxious 
 thought, should fall to those who value it so little ; first to 
 you, who could throw it away on a game of chance, and then 
 to me, who am not at all sure I shall accept it. So God 
 pours contempt on human pride ! " 
 
 " But, Hugh, what do you mean by not being sure you 
 shall accept it ? " 
 
 " I mean more than I can say in a few words, Charlie ;
 
 TWO PICTURES. 433 
 
 but I will play the Yankee and answer your question by 
 another : What should I gain by accepting it ? " 
 
 " What should you gain ? Why, if well managed, I 
 have no doubt it would yield a clear fifteen thousand a 
 year." 
 
 " I do doubt it very much ; but suppose it did ; it would 
 hardly be more than I may one day hope to realize from 
 my practice here." 
 
 " Then you may have twice fifteen thousand." 
 
 " You mean that I may own the Southern property and 
 draw its income without living upon it ? but that is just 
 what I could not do. No, no, Charlie ; that might do if we 
 could ' jump the life to come.' Conscience is terribly in the 
 way sometimes, Charlie is it not ? " and Hugh looked up 
 with a smile from the sketch he was drawing. 
 
 " I do not understand you ; surely you are not one of 
 those hypocritical abolitionists." 
 
 "Neither hypocritical nor abolitionist terms which I 
 do not like to hear you thus couple together ; I have known 
 few abolitionists, but among those few there were several 
 who were certainly not hypocrites, though I thought them 
 enthusiasts, it may even be, fanatics." 
 
 " That they certainly are ; but let them pass, and tell 
 me plainly where your difficulties lie in the acceptance of 
 this property ; I do not understand you any more than if 
 you spoke in an unknown tongue." 
 
 " That would make a pretty object in a landscape, and a 
 neat, convenient cottage for a poor man's family would it 
 not 1 " and Hugh pushed over to his cousin the sketch he 
 had been making. 
 
 Charles Moray reddened. " You must think me a child 
 indeed to be put off from a serious subject by pictures. If 
 you have any secret motives, I do not wish to pry into 
 them," and he rose and took up his hat from the floor.
 
 434 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Sit down again, old fellow," said Hugh, catching him 
 by the arm ; " 1 will try to make you understand what is 
 hardly yet plain to myself. I am the farthest man on earth 
 from being an abolitionist. There are wrongs and evils in 
 connection with American slavery which I would gladly see 
 abolished which, if I come in contact with it at all, I shall 
 fighl against with head, and heart, and hands, so help me 
 God ! but so there are in all human institutions. In the 
 essential features, the dependence of the slave, the rule and 
 authority of the master, I believe it to be divinely appointed 
 for the noblest ends. Woe be to him who makes it minis 
 ter to his selfishness to his degrading sensualities ! Woe 
 to him who is indifferent to its grand responsibilities ! Ham 
 was to be a servant of servants ; but it was to be ' to his 
 BRETHREN,' through whom he would still be united to their 
 common Lord. Now you see that if I undertake this charge, 
 with these views, I assume no light responsibility. Is it 
 wonderful if I hesitate between competency here, won by 
 the exercise of a profession I like, and say double or treble 
 the income there, with such a burden on my life? I shall be 
 a king on my own land, it is true ; but, with my views, I 
 must be priest as well as king. Instead of these people 
 living for me, I must live for them. I hope I am no coward, 
 Charlie, and yet I shrink from it, and if I only dared, I 
 would cast it off; but am I at liberty to do this when, with 
 out my own seeking, these people are given to me 1 This 
 is the question to be decided. I must decide it at St. Mary's, 
 and there I shall go immediately. And now, how do you 
 like my plan for the houses of those negroes who may merit 
 advancement and reward ? " and Hugh touched the sketch 
 which Charlie had pushed away so indignantly. 
 
 " Hugh, you make me ashamed of myself," cried Char 
 lie, clasping and pressing the hand thus outstretched. 
 
 " If I did, it would only be what you have often made
 
 TWO PICTURES. 435 
 
 me feel while contrasting your cheerfulness lately with what 
 I fear I should have felt under such a change ; and now, 
 Charlie, you will let me ask you, what are your plans ? " 
 
 " I must first know on what terms you will let me off 
 for my debts to you." 
 
 " Debts to me ! For what ? " 
 
 " For the sum received from St. Mary's." 
 
 " We will offset them with what you expended on it 
 no bad bargain for me either, according to Mr. Mortimer's 
 account of your improvements and now, what else?" 
 
 " I have tried everything except study ; I have a great 
 mind to ask Mr. Ilolton to take me as one of his students," 
 said Charlie, \vith a laugh, " or shall I write a book ? " 
 
 " Do both ; the book will be capital amusement for idle 
 hours ; if it succeed, come and I will build you a cottage at 
 St. Mary's, which shall be the beau ideal of a literary re 
 treat." 
 
 " Well ! I'll think of it." 
 
 " In the mean time, till your mother comes, will you 
 make your home with us, and let me be your banker, Char 
 lie ? " 
 
 And so they parted, the one to choose between two posi 
 tions of honor and affluence, both gained by the honest dis 
 charge of duty the other to seek some means of opening 
 that yet closed oyster the world. Truly, as we sow we 
 shall reap.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "And so, from hour to hour we lipe and ripa, 
 And then, from hour to hour we rot and rot, 
 And thereby hangs a tale." SUAKSI'EAKE. 
 
 THERE are hours in which the interests, the joys, the 
 cares of long years seem to be compressed. Such were the 
 early hours of the day after Hugh's arrival at St. Mary's. 
 The great gulf which treachery had dug between him and 
 Augusta had been passed, and once more they stood with 
 hearts unveiled and hand linked in hand, as they had done 
 long years before, under the same soft skies. Except in the 
 house itself there was little change around them. Old 
 Ocean tossed as restlessly on his sandy bed, and moaned as 
 loudly as ever, when the wild winds were abroad ; and when 
 they were still, the wavelets danced as gayly and flashed back 
 the sunlight from their diamond spray as merrily as they 
 had done of old. The flowers still bloomed from which Au 
 gusta had woven wreaths to deck her childish beauty, and 
 the old oaks still stretched out their giant arms, and waved 
 abroad their gray drapery. But how different was all within 
 them. That wondering look into the future which hopes all 
 and fears nothing, that carelessness of the present which drops 
 its brightest possession to grasp the unknown these, the
 
 TWO PICTURES. 437 
 
 characteristics of opening life, were gone, and in their place 
 were memories sweet and bitter, not one of which, even the 
 bitterest, would have been willingly surrendered, and a 
 solemn sense of the responsibilities of the present as the 
 seedtime of the future. In him experience had wrought 
 calm self-reliance, not incompatible with the humblest sense 
 of his dependence upon a Heavenly guide ; to her it had 
 given a deeper insight into the requirements of her nature ; 
 she knew that life would lose not only much of its grace 
 and sweetness, but much also of its worth and dignity, if 
 she could not draw from his stronger soul, stability for her 
 purposes, confidence in her aims, and a quiet assurance of 
 the ultimate triumph of truth and justice. He, the type to 
 her of a guardian Providence, a union of strength, wisdom, 
 and benevolence ; she, to him, the brightest emanation of 
 love, that principle which pervades and attracts all, which 
 conquers even in yielding. Poet and novelist have striven 
 in vain to paint that light tenderer than the moon, warmer 
 than the sun, which kindles all nature, all life, into a 
 diviner glow when two hearts thus answer to each other. 
 It matters little to them whether their path be overarched 
 by the laurel and the rose, or shadowed by cypress boughs, 
 they carry within them light music and ever-springing 
 flowers. 
 
 " Have you written to Charles of his mother's illness ? " 
 asked Hugh, as Mr. Mortimer still lingered over the cup of 
 coffee, which was his nearest approach to a sensual indul 
 gence, and Augusta waited to supply him with another. 
 
 " I wrote a week ago, which was as soon as she would 
 permit me ; she seemed before tthat to dread his return by 
 the by, she told me something about a will, Hugh ; could 
 she have been delirious ? It was something about Saville " 
 
 " She told you probably that Saville had your uncle's
 
 438 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 will she wrote me on the same subject her letter was 
 written on the 13th of May, nearly a month ago." 
 
 " The very day she was taken ill the day of Mr. Rear- 
 don's marriage." 
 
 " I have not been idle since," said Hugh ; " it has been 
 little more than three weeks since I received the letter, and 
 here," taking out a pocketbook, and producing a folded 
 paper as he spoke, " here is a copy of your uncle's will the 
 original is in Judge Mellcn's hands, and the will has been 
 recorded." 
 
 Augusta grew pale as she received the paper and held it 
 still unfolded. 
 
 " Read it," said Hugh, with a smile, meant to inspire 
 her with courage, " or shall I read it for you 1 " 
 
 " No ! tell me ; but first, how did Mr. Saville get it ? 
 how did Mrs. Moray know ? " 
 
 " 1 know not I do not wish to know ; he says he found 
 it we will try to believe him." 
 
 "That is right, Hugh," said Mr. Mortimer; "chanty 
 believeth all things." 
 
 " For the sake of your uncle's memory, dear Augusta, 
 you will be glad to know that he did not forget your claims 
 upon him ; keep this copy and read it by and by it will 
 please you to read the tender words in which you are named 
 as his ' dearly loved and dutiful niece his nurse and com 
 forter.' " 
 
 Tears rushed to Augusta's eyes her lips quivered, and 
 covering her face with her clasped hands, she wept, soothed, 
 but not restrained, by the silent sympathy of Hugh, who 
 rose and stood near her with his hand resting on her chair. 
 As her sobs grew fainter, he spoke again, in a tone which 
 conveyed all of tenderness that the fondest epithets could 
 have done. 
 
 "You were left with railroad and bank stocks, which it
 
 TWO PICTURES. 439 
 
 was supposed would produce an income of two thousand 
 dollars per annum if it failed to do this, the property here 
 was to be taxed to make up the deficiency ; but your home, 
 this dear St. Mary's, can only be yours, dear. Augusta, by 
 taking an incumbrance with it it was left to me." 
 
 " Oh ! I am so glad ! " and a face full of emotion, smiles 
 dancing on the lips and dimpling the cheek, while the long 
 lashes were yet wet with tears, was lifted to him. 
 
 It was irresistible, and Hugh had kissed the glowing 
 cheek before he remembered that Mr. Mortimer was pres 
 ent. Mr. Mortimer thought of some old poet's " love ever 
 young," as he met a brighter smile than he remembered to 
 have ever seen before on Hugh's face and heard his almost 
 boyish, " Indeed, I could not help it, sir," in excuse. Then, 
 ere Augusta had made up her mind whether to frown or 
 smile, he continued, " I was not glad at first, dearest ; in 
 deed I came here doubtful whether I should accept it, 
 anxious to find some way of avoiding that which involves 
 the entire sacrifice of all my plans of life " 
 
 " Hugh ! " and " Oh Hugh ! " in different tones, yet both 
 expressive of painful surprise, burst from his auditors. 
 
 " Do not be frightened, dear love, if I should drop the 
 burden it would only fall on you, and so I must take it up 
 again. Mr. Mortimer must help us to bear it ; he must 
 teach us what to do for these poor people, for whom we 
 must henceforth live far more than for ourselves." 
 
 " God bless you, my children ! " said Mr. Mortimer, in 
 a voice husky with emotion, for he felt that the realization 
 of his brightest dreams was near. 
 
 Augusta said nothing ; indeed, her heart was too full for 
 speech, full of reverent love for him, whom she felt to be 
 nobler than even her ideal full of generous sympathy by 
 which she felt herself refined and lifted into a higher and 
 more glorious life.
 
 44:0 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 It was hard to turn from such converse to the still, 
 darkened room, where one, who had done them deep wrong, 
 lay,. counting with feeble pulses what seemed her last wan 
 ing minutes. Mr. Mortimer and Hugh had gone to the 
 plantation, and the house seemed preternaturally quiet to 
 Augusta as, having sent Charity away, she sat alone in the 
 darkened chamber, moving only to moisten the parched lips 
 or cool the throbbing temples of the sleeping patient, who, 
 but for the slowly heaving chest, might have. seemed dead, 
 so motionless had she lain for hours. Yet, amid all this 
 stillness, never had Augusta felt less lonely, for sweet mem 
 ories nestled warm at her heart, and bright images of her 
 future life flitted before and around her, while, with some of 
 her childish superstition still lingering in her mind, she felt 
 that angel visitants were near her, or rather in her heart, 
 enfolding her with their white wings, and rejoicing in her 
 consecration to a life so full of heavenly beauty. Let her 
 dream out her sweet dreams, and call them not vain and 
 idle ; they shall soften for her many a stern reality, lift her 
 feet over many a stone of stumbling, and so make her a 
 more cheering helpmeet to the strong, yet sometimes, it 
 may be, wearied laborer at her side. 
 
 Her dreams were interrupted by a whisper from Char 
 ity, who had entered and approached her noiselessly. 
 
 " Dey's all a going, Miss 'Gusty, de ole lady an' all 
 dere dey is now, you can just see 'em," and Charity peered 
 through the half-closed shutter with a countenance by no 
 means indicative of sorrow. 
 
 Augusta needed no explanation of the persons meant by 
 " they all." She had seen Mrs. Cullen every day for a 
 week past ; that lady having expressed great anxiety respect 
 ing Mrs. Moray, and having suffered no day during that time 
 to pass without sending for her to the library, to inquire, 
 with much apparent interest, how her " poor old friend "
 
 TWO PICTURES 441 
 
 was. To-day she had not seen her, but she knew that Hugh 
 and M/. Reardon had had an interview, and she doubted not 
 that this departure was the result of it. 
 
 To us, who are seers by virtue of our office, a fuller 
 revelation has been made, which we communicate unre 
 servedly to our readers. 
 
 The letter of Charles Moray had been received by Mr. 
 Reardon with anger and distrust. 
 
 " I do not believe a word of it it is a pitiful evasion to 
 save the property which he had no right to hazard, if ft 
 were not his it is all the fabrication of that lawyer cousin." 
 
 This, varied by every form of expression possible to the 
 English language, and adorned with every expletive common 
 to dashing young gentlemen under the influence of disap 
 pointment and of that emotion which Horace assures us ia 
 a " brevis furor" was the staple of Mr. Reardon's conversa 
 tion for that day ; and when, the next morning, he heard of 
 Hugh's arrival, he sent a note to him requesting an inter' 
 view, which took place by Hugh's appointment at 11 A. M. 
 
 " Pray, Harry, command yourself; a man who would 
 do anything so desperate as attempt to palm off a false will 
 upon you, must be dangerous," said the young wife, as sh6 
 saw her husband look at his watch and take his hat from 
 the table to cross the sunny piazza to the library, which had 
 been appointed for the place of meeting. 
 
 " Little danger of anything but being cheated," replied 
 Harry Reardon in a tone of contempt. " I suppose," he 
 added, " I must make some compromise and surrender part 
 of w"hat is justly mine ; but he will see he has no child to 
 deal with ; good-by ; " he touched lightly with his lips the 
 fyir cheek of his bride and went to his appointment. 
 
 Scarcely half an hour had passed when he returned. 
 Elise was watching for him.
 
 412 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Well ! " she exclaimed, as he entered, rising to meet 
 him. 
 
 The reader is doubtless aware that there are many 
 " wells." There is the " well " congratulatory, the u well " 
 triumphant, the " well " surprised, the " well " despondent, 
 and the " well " interrogatory. This last " well " was that of 
 Elise Reardon, who could not discover from her husband's 
 face, whether the occasion would admit of congratulation, 
 triumph, or despondency. 
 
 " It is not well at all ; this is quite another sort of 
 Moray, I can tell you, and neither to be coaxed nor driven 
 from his purpose." 
 
 " Why, I met him in Washington once, and I thought he 
 seemed the most harmless, quiet sort of person imaginable ; 
 I should have thought you could do anything with him." 
 
 " Quiet enough ; if there had been any bluster about 
 him I should have hoped to gain my point ; but it is no use 
 to waste time in trying to intimidate or to blind one of your 
 thoroughly quiet men, whose eye tells you that he reads 
 your cards as plainly as you do yourself, and that he both 
 can and will trump your trick." 
 
 " And do you believe this story of another will 1 " 
 
 He hesitated a moment ; then, flinging his hat on the 
 table and himself into the lounge from which Elise had 
 just risen, he said, " Yes, it's a cursed stroke of fortune ; 
 but I am compelled to believe it at least I am sure Hugh 
 Moray believes it himself." 
 
 " And what are you going to do, Harry ? " 
 
 " The first thing is to get away from here. I have only 
 about fifty dollars left, so you must see what you can do 
 with mamma." 
 
 " But, Harry, she will feel dreadfully." 
 
 " You must spare her feelings, my beauty," and he 
 drew her to his knee and lavished caresses on her as he
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 4:4:3 
 
 spoke ; " tell her there will be some delay in getting pos 
 session here ; nothing can be truer than that, mia bella, and 
 that we must hurry away. Stay, don't you think this fever 
 it has put on a typhoid form, they say may make her 
 anxious to get away 1 You can tell her that I am very de 
 sirous on your account to be gone that is true, too, my 
 heart's darling ; and that, though I am short of funds now, 
 I will repay her, if she will advance what we need, as soon 
 as we get to Saratoga, and I have time to communicate with 
 my banker. Do you not think this will do ? " 
 
 How could the lips that were burning with his kisses 
 say him nay ! or the heart which throbbed in his close em 
 brace distrust him ? To degrade the man to whom she has 
 given herself by a doubt, is the last thing a woman will do ; 
 for is not his degradation her own ? Elise Cullen did as her 
 husband had directed, and performed her task so skilfully that 
 her mother, terrified at the very name of typhus, would 
 scarcely wait to have their trunks packed, and declared she 
 was quite ready to pay the expenses of the whole party, if 
 Harry would only consent to go at once. And they went, 
 without even an inquiry after her whose prosperity they 
 had come to share. Mr. Reardon, indeed, proposed that his 
 wife should make a farewell visit to Miss Moray, and ex 
 press their regrets at leaving their former hostess so ill ; 
 but Mrs. Cullen entreated that they would spare her nerves 
 such a terrible trial. 
 
 " Why, that girl is in her room day and night. Elise 
 might as w r ell stand by Mrs. Moray herself as by her. In 
 deed, Harry, I am surprised at your proposing it. Think, 
 if anything should happen to Elise." 
 
 Mrs. Cullen must be kept in good humor at present, and 
 so Mr. Reardon withdrew his proposal as inconsiderate, and 
 they passed in silence and in haste from the home they had 
 coveted.
 
 44:4 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 That word typhus, spoken by one of Mrs. Moray's phy 
 sicians, that evening, when he joined the little family at tea, 
 threw a shadow over the stronger soul of Hugh Moray, and 
 sent his eyes to rest with a troubled glance on Augusta, be 
 side whom he was seated. 
 
 " You are pale, dearest," he said, bending toward her, 
 and speaking in a tone so low as to be unheard by any 
 other. 
 
 She raised her eyes to his for a moment, and a soft yet 
 rich color rose to her cheek. She felt the glow, and as her 
 eyes fell, answered, " It was only for a moment." 
 
 " But the fear that caused it may return when I am no 
 longer here, and I oh ! how can I leave you? " 
 
 Augusta tried in vain to stead v her voice as she asked, 
 " When must you go ? " 
 
 " I ought to go to-morrow." 
 
 " Is that necessary now ? " she asked, with a somewhat 
 timid accent upon the " now." 
 
 " Oh yes ! " was the quick answer. " Mr. Holton has 
 been very indulgent to my frequent absences of late ; but I 
 must not leave him with a press of business and no help : 
 yes, I must go ; I had hoped that you, and perhaps Mr. 
 Mortimer, would return with me, but now " he paused. 
 
 " Now it would be impossible ; 1 could not leave her as 
 she is." 
 
 " And yet stay, I must speak to the doctor." 
 
 He rose, but Augusta's hand, laid lightly on his arm, 
 checked him for a moment. 
 
 " It can make no difference what he says, Hugh ; I can 
 not leave her to strangers." 
 
 He looked down on her tenderly, admiringly, for a mo 
 ment, then, with the tone of one who felt that the question 
 must at last rest on his own decision, said, " We shall see 
 we shall see," and turning to the doctor, asked for a few 
 minutes' private conversation with him.
 
 TWO PICTURES. 44:5 
 
 The result of this conversation was to convince Hugh 
 that whatever danger there was for Augusta had been already 
 incurred. That there had been some danger in her constant 
 attendance, by day and by night, on his patient, the doctor 
 admitted. " He had told Miss Moray so, some days ago," 
 he said, " but it had made no difference. She ought to have 
 some one near her who would make her rest a part of every 
 night and go in the open air every day." 
 
 " Mr. Mortimer will do that, if you tell him its import 
 ance," said Hugh. 
 
 " He may advise, but I doubt his being able to make her," 
 said the old doctor, a shrewd observer ; then added, with 
 a laugh, " not that she does not do all he wishes, but only 
 that she has the power of making him wish just what she 
 pleases." 
 
 Hugh smiled, and the smile still lingered in his eyes, if 
 it had left his lips, when he reentered the room in which 
 were Mr. Mortimer and Augusta. She had risen from her 
 chair before Hugh came in, and he heard her say to Mr. 
 Mortimer, as if in answer to some remonstrance from him, 
 " Indeed, dear sir, I do not need sleep ; I slept so much last 
 night." 
 
 " Hugh, what shall we do with this dear child, she will 
 kill herself; I wish we could send her away." 
 
 " That I fear we cannot do now ; but I will stay to help 
 you take care of her." 
 
 " Will you, Hugh ? Can you stay ? " she exclaimed, 
 turning to him a face which said as plainly as any words 
 could have done, " I am glad." 
 
 We know not exactly how Hugh accomplished it ; but 
 that night, and ever after during Mrs. Moray's illness, Au 
 gusta went to her own room at midnight, and Hugh and 
 Charity took her place as watchers, and each day she was 
 lured out and spent some hours wandering about under the
 
 446 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 shadow of the great oak, or by the sea shore, living over the 
 sweet hours of the past, or anticipating the future, and learn 
 ing, both in the retrospection and anticipation, better to un 
 derstand herself and him who won from her, every hour, a 
 more perfect esteem. 
 
 It was not long. Little more than a week had passed 
 after Hugh's arrival, when Charles Moray entered again the 
 house he could no longer call his own. His letters Jiad all 
 been addressed to Elizabethtown, whither he had promised 
 Hugh to go, but, shrinking from the pain of explanations 
 to his aunt and cousins, he had accepted an invitation to join 
 a party of young men going on a fishing excursion. They 
 were gone for ten days. Charles Moray had shaken off 
 much of his dejection when he returned. With his old 
 Epicurean philosophy, he had resolved to think no more of 
 what was disagreeable in the past. " There is nothing to be 
 done but to enjoy what is left," he said to himself, and in 
 this spirit went to Elizabethtown, and found four or five let 
 ters awaiting him, each bearing tidings of his mother's ill 
 ness more discouraging than the last. He was even then 
 obliged to delay till he could see the person who acted for 
 Mrs. Moray in the management of her property, that he 
 might procure money from him for his travelling expenses. 
 Impatient of these delays, thinking of his mother's danger 
 with the more bitter regret, perchance, because of the cold 
 ness with which he had parted from her, and the suspicions 
 which had lately darkened his thoughts of her, he allowed 
 himself no rest, by day or night, till he was once more at 
 St. Mary's. 
 
 It was ten o'clock at night. Augusta was in the sick 
 room, and Hugh had retired, to obtain, if possible, a few 
 hours' sleep before he should take her place. Mr. Mortimer 
 sat alone in the library, reading. A step approached the 
 door ; a tall form crossed the threshold. Mr. Mortimer
 
 TWO ricTUKEs. 447 
 
 rose, but his dim eyes had not yet told him who it was, 
 when a cold and tremulous hand clasped his, and an agitated 
 voice exclaimed, " My mother ! " 
 
 " Mr. Charles Moray ! My dear boy, sit down ; you 
 are trembling." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Mortimer, tell me that she is not dead that 
 I may see her once more." 
 
 " You may you may ; though she is very low, she still 
 lives." 
 
 " And may recover 1 Oh, Mr. Mortimer ! do you think 
 she may recover ? " 
 
 He was answered only by a warm clasp of the old man's 
 trembling hands ; he knew well what that silence meant, 
 and dropping on the chair beside him, he covered his face 
 with his hands, and deep sobs heaved his bosom. Mr. Mor 
 timer wiped the tears from his own eyes, as he stood look 
 ing down upon him. At length the sobs ceased, and laying 
 his hand on his bowed head, Mr. Mortimer said, " Come, 
 my son, I will show you to her room." 
 
 Their sudden entrance into the darkened room, hushed 
 as it was, startled Augusta, who, having brought a light 
 stronger than the shadowy night lamp that usually burned 
 there, to the side of the sickbed, was bending over it, en 
 deavoring to rouse Mrs. Moray sufficiently to swallow the 
 strong stimulant, which was now administered every half 
 hour by the physician's order. Rising suddenly and turn 
 ing as she heard movements behind her, the. light flashed 
 upon the ghastly face and sunken eyes of the dying woman 
 just as Charles Moray took his place beside her. The long- 
 closed eyes opened suddenly, the long-silent lips stirred, and 
 a feeble voice uttered, " My son ! Charles ! " 
 
 It was the last word, the last thought ; the one pure 
 affection of her life had outlived all her petty ambitions all 
 her selfish aims. The voice of prayer ascended from beside
 
 448 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 her, but it bore no conscious appeal from her faintly throb 
 bing heart. The agonized cry of Charles, " Mother ! speak 
 to me ! forgive me ! " fell on ears seemingly as insensible as 
 if death had already sealed them. A few hours of such un 
 conscious sleep, a few slow, deep-drawn sighs, and then, that 
 stillness which we need no voice to tell us is death. 
 
 Charles Moray's nature, amid all its levity, did not want 
 tenderness, and he stood with all the abandonment of a first 
 great bereavement beside his mother's grave remorseful 
 for every unloving thought mindful only of her cherishing 
 affection. She was laid to rest with the reverence due to 
 that which had been the habitation of an immortal soul, 
 while those whom she had striven most to injure, if they 
 could not wholly forget the past, remembered it only to 
 pity, and, where it was possible, to excuse. We say " had 
 striven to injure them," for, in truth, they had received no 
 injury, though they had suffered some sorrow. Sorrow had 
 but given greater consistency, a mellower ripeness, to the 
 noble qualities of Hugh Moray. Augusta had, indeed, 
 grown, or seemed for a time to grow, colder and haughtier 
 under its influence ; but this evil was from within not sor 
 row, but pride was its source pride, the demon of her life. 
 Sorrow had not withdrawn its shadow from her path, when 
 Christian love first nestled in her heart, yet the coldness and 
 misanthropy had vanished. She did not, perhaps, quite 
 clearly perceive this yet, but she saw enough to make her 
 more forgiving to others than to herself enough to make 
 her recognize the great principle that our true well-being 
 can be permanently affected only through our own action ; 
 that it is being, not having, which makes our life. Perhaps 
 just conclusions were scarcely to be expected from her in 
 the days which immediately succeeded Mrs. Moray's death. 
 
 While there had been anything to do for Mrs. Moray, 
 she had shown she had felt no fatigue ; but this excite-
 
 TWO PICTURES. 449 
 
 ment to action removed, she sank down in inexpressible 
 weariness, and her languid movements and pale face excited 
 the keenest solicitude in Hugh and Mr. Mortimer. For 
 herself, she was conscious only of a quietude which made 
 the thought of change the most dreaded of all things. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! I am resting so here ! " was her answer to 
 his first suggestion that it would be well that she should go 
 immediately to Elizabethtown, where his mother and sisters 
 were expecting her, and whither he hoped to induce Mr. 
 Mortimer to go with her. 
 
 Resting, indeed, she was, as she had never rested before ; 
 the wandering bird had found its nest. Where was her 
 pride, her independence now ? All exchanged for the sweet 
 ness of entire trust in the large heart, the clear judgment, 
 the firm will of him whom she had chosen as her earthly 
 guide. She had exercised wisely her woman's right of 
 choice, and the result was this ineffable peace. What could 
 the poor, vain ranters about woman's independence have 
 given her in exchange for it ? Ah ! they know not how 
 sweet it is to " obey," when obedience has been preceded by 
 " love and honor." Only see that he whose rule you accept 
 bear the lineaments of the Divine Master, and be assured 
 your highest happiness and truest dignity in this, as in every 
 relation, will be found in obedience to God's arrangements. 
 So felt Augusta Moray, and though she would gladly have 
 lingered in that sweet quietude, even as the thirsty traveller 
 in the desert pauses beside the green oasis with its gushing 
 wells she yielded to Hugh's wishes, and began, or rather 
 suffered Charity to begin, the preparations for their depart 
 ure. She did not know then how much Hugh shared her 
 desire to remain undisturbed in that sweet home, which was 
 so dear to them both, associated, as it was, with their mem 
 ories of the past and their hopes of the future. But the 
 voice of duty, ever powerful with him, called him away, and
 
 450 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the assurance of the physician, whom he consulted, that 
 change of scene and air would be Augusta's best restoratives, 
 left him no wish to disobey, and in one week after the last 
 duties had been performed for Mrs. Moray which human 
 kindness could perform, the house at St. Mary's was again 
 silent and deserted. The parsonage, too, was closed, for 
 Mr. Mortimer could not resist Augusta's entreaties that he 
 would go with her. 
 
 " You must come with us and grow strong this summer, 
 dear sir, or you will never be able to do half that Hugh is 
 planning for you to do the next winter ; besides, how can I 
 leave you t " 
 
 And Mr. Mortimer's heart grew warm with the thought 
 that there was yet work for him to do for his Master in 
 heaven, and that there was one on earth who could not leave 
 him. It was an evening glow, bright and beautiful. 
 
 . As for Charity, she rose in her own estimation, and that 
 of her acquaintances, many degrees above her ordinary 
 height, when she was known to be about to go to that dis 
 tant " North," of which they had heard so much, with " Miss 
 'Gusty and Mr. Hugh and their own young master," as they 
 continued to call Charles Moray, notwithstanding the myste 
 rious innuendoes with which Charity had sought to enlighten 
 their ignorance. Her own information was not sufficiently 
 exact to enable her " to tell a plain, unvarnished tale," but 
 she had, almost of necessity, heard some things, and she had 
 guessed a great deal more ; so that, through her, the idea 
 became very prevalent on the plantation that some change 
 was awaiting them, which Charity considered as greatly for 
 their benefit. This idea was strengthened by Mr. Morti 
 mer's farewell words to them, in which he told them that he 
 was parting from them only for a little while, and that he 
 hoped, when he came back, to be able, through the kindness 
 of their good master, to do a great deal more for them than
 
 TWO PICTURES. 451 
 
 he had ever yet done. For Charles Moray's sake, each one 
 felt indisposed to speak of the new state of affairs at present. 
 To the manager of the estate, however, who came to him for 
 orders, Charles Moray said, " You must go to Mr. Hugh 
 Moray ; he is master here now." 
 
 " Why, you don't tell me so," exclaimed the man in his 
 surprise ; " you've sold out to Mr. Hugh ? " 
 
 Hugh was present at this interview, and the glance which 
 Charles Moray cast upon him, seemed to ask help in the ex 
 planation which he was called upon to give. 
 
 " Before we answer your question, Mr. Carter, I must 
 claim your congratulations on my approaching marriage 
 with Miss Augusta Moray ; it was her uncle's wish that on 
 our marriage we should reside here." 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed Mr. Carter with a puzzled look, 
 feeling that his question had not been answered ; yet at the 
 next moment subsiding into satisfaction with an arrange 
 ment which he accepted as natural and just, he added, " I'm 
 very glad to hear it, sir, I'm sure ; but I hope we sha'n't 
 lose Mr. Charles we all like Mr. Charles, sir." 
 
 " To be sure you do," said Hugh, laying his hand affec, 
 tionately on the shoulder of his cousin, " everybody likes 
 Mr. Charles ; I wish you may like me half so well." 
 
 Charles clasped, with grateful warmth, the hand that 
 rested on his shoulder. 
 
 " And now, Mr. Carter," continued Hugh, " as to these 
 orders, I think I had better ride over and see you in the 
 morning." 
 
 And Mr. Carter departed with vague impressions which 
 grew into certainties as he thought, and were, according to 
 a very common process, reported as information received 
 from the young gentlemen themselves, that Mr. Moray had 
 divided his property between his young relatives with the 
 request that his niece should marry one of them, and that
 
 452 TWO PICTUEES. 
 
 the one she married should have St. Mary's. It was an 
 understanding which shielded the reputation of the dead and 
 the feelings of the living, and as Hugh Moray was not one 
 of whom many men would be disposed to ask impertinent 
 questions, it was an understanding not likely to be dis 
 turbed. Once more Augusta Moray saw her home fade into 
 dim distance, but with feelings far different from the pas 
 sionate sorrow of her childhood. It was dear to her as ever ; 
 ay, dearer, for not only was it connected with all she valued 
 in the past, but it was to be the theatre of her life-work. 
 
 " Our home," Hugh bent down and murmured as he 
 watched her last lingering looks. And how much was com 
 pressed in that little " our." How her heart swelled be 
 neath the sound ! The gladness of the present the hopes 
 of the future were all there. 
 
 To one of the party, there was relief in leaving that lone 
 island. The heavy gloom, which had rested of late on 
 Charles Moray's brow, grew perceptibly lighter as the dis 
 tance between him and St. Mary's increased. There he 
 could not forget the wrong and the sorrow which it was use 
 less torture to his light spirit to retain. 
 
 " I think I shall go abroad for two or three years," he 
 said to Hugh. 
 
 " Better go to work," was Hugh's answer. " Believe 
 me, Charlie, any happiness worth having, must come from 
 what we are and what we do." 
 
 " Go to work ! " and Charles Moray laughed the light 
 laugh of his boyish days, " a strange receipt for happiness ! 
 I fear you will be very unhappy the rest of your life a 
 Southern planter with nothing to do; poor II ugh! "and 
 again came the ready laugh. 
 
 " Nothing to do ! " repeated Hugh. 
 
 " Why, what will you do ? Carter will do all the busi 
 ness."
 
 TWO PICTURES. 453 
 
 " Come and see what I shall do." 
 
 " Perhaps I will, ten years hence." 
 
 Words spoken in thoughtlessness, to be strangely ful 
 filled. 
 
 The motherly and sisterly love, which awaited Augusta 
 at Elizabethtown, seemed to give a new sanction to her joy. 
 It was a joy which lay too deep in her heart for smiles or 
 words a joy which made her humble toward God and 
 tender toward her fellow creatures, by its contrast with 
 what she felt she had deserved by her pride and her distrust. 
 She had been in Elizabethtown about a fortnight when Lily 
 came one morning early to Esther's room, and closing the 
 door carefully behind her, said, " Esther, I am going to ask 
 you a question ; if you think it wrong, you will not answer it." 
 
 " Certainly not, Lily." 
 
 " I want to know if you think that Augusta really loves 
 Hugh, as she ought to do ; I mean, if you think she is so 
 very happy ? " 
 
 " If Augusta loves Hugh ? if she is happy ? " repeated 
 Esther in surprise. 
 
 " Yes, she is so serious ; I think she laughs less at the 
 little pleasantries that pass before her than she did when she 
 was here before ; and it seems to me any one that Hugh 
 loves, ought to be so very, very glad." 
 
 " And do you think, dear Lily, that the gladdest heart 
 makes the merriest face ? Can you not conceive of a happi 
 ness that shall so fill the heart that the little pleasantries 
 which excite the merriment of others, shall .be unobserved 
 altogether, or observed only as intrusive impertinencies ? " 
 J ust here, there was a knock at the door ; and on its being 
 opened, Augusta presented herself. Lily looked conscious, 
 and would have stolen away, but Esther caught her as she 
 passed, and said, " Stay, Lily ! Augusta, Lily is afraid you 
 cannot be happy ; she says you are so grave."
 
 454 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 " Grave ! Not happy ! " exclaimed Augusta, while the 
 flush of a surprise, which was almost indignant, rose to her 
 brow. " Hugh's promised wife, and not happy ! Oh, 
 Lily ! " 
 
 " Pray, forgive me ! " pleaded Lily, as she rested her 
 head on Augusta's shoulder, ready to laugh or to cry at 
 the next word, " I am such a little ignoramus I don't know 
 about such things ; I shall learn better by and by, I hope." 
 
 " I hope you will," said Augusta, as she kissed her 
 cheek. 
 
 Her tone seemed to Lily to express that such ignorance 
 was scarcely pardonable, and she stole away like a culprit ; 
 and again and again, through the day, her thoughts reverted 
 to the subject, and each time with a little protest on the judg 
 ment of herself. In all doubtful cases Hugh was her ulti 
 mate appeal ; and, on his return from the city that evening, 
 she found or made an opportunity of speaking to him alone, 
 and, detailing the whole scene, words and looks, she wished to 
 know if he thought she " was so very wrong." Hugh an 
 swered only with laughter and kisses, till Lily grew quite 
 indignant, and declared he treated her " like a child." 
 
 " Like just what you are then, Lily, my dear child- 
 sister," said Hugh, holding her fast, " I wish I could keep 
 you so ; but it cannot be : you must pass the portal of 
 womanhood, and then you will understand. In the mean 
 time you need not tell Augusta that I have heard this," he 
 added, as he released her. 
 
 " 1 dare say you will tell her yourself," said Lily, with a 
 little pout in her voice, and that conjecture was so true as to 
 show that she was not entirely ignorant of human nature. 
 
 Hugh found his kind friend, Mr. Holton, laboring under 
 a pressure of business, arid he devoted all his energies to him 
 and his cases, till another was found to take the place which 
 he could no longer fill.
 
 TWO ricTUKES. 455 
 
 " I am sorry to bid you farewell, Mr. Moray," said Mr. 
 Ilolton, at parting, " sorry for my own sake, and, if you 
 will pardon me for saying so, for yours. The life of a 
 Southern planter seems to me to offer no sphere for talents 
 such as you possess, and with your education and past asso 
 ciations, I should think there must be much in it which you 
 would find distasteful." 
 
 " You are so far right, Mr. Hoi ton, that it is certainly 
 not the life of my own choice ; but I accept it without re 
 luctance, convinced that if its responsibilities be fulfilled, it 
 will accomplish life's highest ends, the glory of God and the 
 good of man." 
 
 " I have not looked upon it so but, perhaps, you are 
 right," said his friend, after a pause, " the world does not 
 see this, however ; you will have the best spirits in every 
 land against you." 
 
 " The best ! " exclaimed Hugh, " I think not ; many 
 good men, certainly but, some, I will hope, will rise above 
 even amiable prejudices, and see the true position of those 
 to whom this hard service has been appointed." 
 
 Mr. Ilolton shook his head. Hugh lifted his higher, 
 and a loftier expression glowed in his face, as he said, 
 earnestly, " Be it so ; human sympathy is dear, but it is not 
 necessary." 
 
 It was in the last week of September that Hugh and 
 Augusta were married. The ceremony was performed by 
 Mr. Mortimer in that simple home in Elizabethtown, which 
 she had herself described in the memorial of her early life. 
 No gay company disturbed with sounds of revelry the echoes 
 on which the tones of the loved and honored dead seemed 
 still to linger. None, except Augusta herself, and Lily, 
 who was her bridesmaid, laid aside, even for that evening, 
 the dress which was their last visible link with that tenderly 
 cherished memory. So there have been many gayer, but,
 
 456 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 we will venture to say, never a happier bridal. Even 
 Charles Moray, the only groomsman, was touched by the 
 solemn tenderness of Mr. Mortimer's tremulous tones as he 
 uttered the words which bound their lives together, to be 
 parted only by death ; and, as Mrs. Moray, having first 
 folded her new daughter to her heart, turned to Hugh's em 
 brace, and he heard the murmured words, " The blessing of 
 the mother whose life you have crowned with joy, be upon 
 you, Hugh ! " the white gravestone at St. Mary's rose 
 before him, around which his own life seemed to stretch like 
 a desert waste. Sweet might have been the uses of such 
 wholesome pain, but his Epicurean nature quickly banished 
 the vision. 
 
 The only guests on this occasion were Judge Mellen, his 
 daughter, and Miss Drayton. The bridal present Annie 
 Mellen made to Augusta, was the set of pearls which Miss 
 Drayton had purchased from her in her hour of need, and 
 which the tender-hearted Annie could never be induced to 
 wear. 
 
 The next week, Charles Moray fulfilled his design of 
 going abroad. His property in Elizabeth town had lately 
 risen in value, so that it yielded him about fifteen hundred 
 dollars per annum. Mrs. Moray, distrustful, as it seemed, 
 of her son's prudence, had made such arrangements that 
 Charles could only command the income. To the questions 
 of his friends respecting the time of his return, he answered, 
 " Probably, never. What is there to bring me back 1 I 
 have no home and no occupation." 
 
 " You can have both whenever you please," said Hugh, 
 with a smile, " and as for occupation, come and help us at 
 St. Mary's." 
 
 " Help you do nothing ! " was the mocking reply. 
 
 And here we might leave those whom we have accom 
 panied so far on their life-journey, having fulfilled, as we
 
 TWO PICTURES. 457 
 
 believe, our pledge to the reader, and proved that to every 
 picture on which we look, whether bright or dark, there is 
 another side ; that outward prosperity often carries storm 
 and gloom in its bosom, while the clouds of sorrow as often 
 show the " silver lining " of a peace which passeth under 
 standing. Between the probable destinies of the two young 
 Morays when they were first introduced to the reader, few, 
 perhaps, would have chosen his who seemed doomed to work 
 his toilsome way up the hill of life, unaided even by those 
 natural gifts which are as a letter of credit, insuring us a 
 friendly reception everywhere. But let us look upon the 
 pictures of those two lives from the point of view at which 
 we now stand, and we do not ask you, intelligent reader, 
 whose present or whose future would you choose, but whose 
 past ? Shall it be Charles Moray's with its frivolous gaie 
 ties and luxurious self-indulgence, enervating and satiating 
 without satisfying the soul ; or, shall it be Hugh's with its 
 privations and its toils a sombre picture, but with a glory 
 around it the glory of a soul which has risen to the height 
 of its being and treads down resolutely all which is only 
 earthly and sensual ? 
 
 Here, we say, we might leave them ; but there is one 
 picture to a new aspect of which we would especially ask 
 your attention. We have shown you wealth held for ambi 
 tious purposes, to build up a name and family influence, and 
 wealth held for purposes of self-indulgence ; we have yet to 
 show it held for the glory of God and the good of man. 
 
 This, we think, will be done most pleasantly by culling 
 a few leaves from the journal of Augusta Moray, from which 
 earlier passages of this family history were extracted. The 
 first extract is dated a few days after her arrival at 
 St. Mary's.
 
 "A settled virtue 
 
 Makes itself a judge, and, satisfied within, 
 Smiles at that common enemy, the world." DKYDEW. 
 
 October 23(7. This little book has not been unclasped 
 for many a day. It was my solace, my friend, when my 
 heart was sinking under a weight of woe, which I was too 
 proud and too distrustful to confide to any being, human or 
 divine. Oh ! that terrible loneliness of soul. I stand 
 appalled before its very memory it chills me. 
 
 I am chill no longer Hugh has just come in with Mr. 
 Mortimer. I hear his voice as he is passing to the library. 
 He will soon seek me, if I go not to them ; but I must say 
 to my little book how his very voice fills my heart with the 
 sweet, warm consciousness of human love, and how, through 
 this, I feel and adore the glory of the Divine goodness. He 
 is coming. 
 
 October 24M. I had no time to write yesterday after 
 Hugh left me. To-day I have been with him to the planta 
 tion for the first time since my return. Both the delay and 
 the visit were of his planning, and had their reason. He 
 drove me in a little low pony- carriage, which he purchased 
 for me in New York. Our first halt was beneath the old
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 459 
 
 oaks, whose boughs form an arch above my uncle's grave. 
 There, at the head of the grave, had been reared, on a broad 
 pedestal, a massive granite column, on which is inscribed : 
 
 HERE REST THE MORTAL REMAINS 
 OF 
 
 HUGH MORAY: 
 
 A just man, a generous friend, a kind master; his life was cheered 
 by the grateful affection of those who owed all worldly good to his lib 
 erality, and his last hours were made bright by the hope of a glorious 
 immortality. 
 
 A Senator from Georgia to the Congress of the United States of 
 America, he died in Washington, April 10th, 18 , aged 61. 
 
 In silent sadness we stood beside this place of rest and 
 yet not all sadness ; it was consoling to feel that in consum 
 mating our own happiness, we had fulfilled his last and 
 strongest earthly wish. It seemed, as we stood together 
 there, that a new blessing had been breathed upon our 
 union. Tears, not altogether of sorrow, were on my 
 cheeks, as Hugh drew me away. " I promised to love you 
 for him and for myself too," he said, as he kissed them 
 away. 
 
 We went on toward the plantation, passed beyond it, 
 and stopped at a little cove or bay, where the water lay as 
 calm as if it had been a mountain lake instead of a part of 
 that great sea which roared and dashed on the beach not 
 much more than a mile away. From the water the land 
 stretched away for nearly half a mile in a flowery savanna, 
 broken only here and there by clumps of oaks. There was 
 no road in this direction, but over the level surface of the 
 savanna, the ponies drew the little carriage without a jolt. 
 A new feature had been added to the scene since I looked 
 upon it last. Two small, inexpensive, yet neat cottages had
 
 460 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 been built. They were only one story in height, and con 
 tained four small rooms, so arranged as to be well aired. 
 Each cottage had a piazza, around which ran a bench, fastened 
 to the floor. In an enclosed space, in the rear of each, vege 
 tables and a few common flowers were already growing, 
 while two or three hens and a pair of turkeys, clucking in 
 two little poultry-yards, gave the animation of life to the 
 scene. Within, the cottages were furnished very plainly, 
 but with neatness. A table with folding leaves, a few chairs, 
 and a cupboard with glazed doors, made of the red wood of the 
 wild cherry, formed the furniture of the sitting room. The 
 sleeping rooms had each a bedstead and bureau of the same 
 wood. On the bedsteads, which were corded, lay, first, a 
 thoroughly cured skin, with the glossy hair unshorn, and 
 above that, a mattress made of coarse osnaburg, and stuffed 
 with moss from our own trees. 
 
 Dear Hugh ! I do not believe he ever enjoyed winning 
 a case as he did showing me there, in those pretty white 
 cottages, so neat and comfortable within and without, the 
 embodiment of one of our earliest plans for the improve 
 ment of those committed to our care. Something was yet 
 to be done before the fulfilment of our dream was complete. 
 We had not to wait long for the cart, which was following 
 us with two large boxes, into which Sambo's inquisitive eyes 
 longed to peep ; but we well knew that if they had done so 
 the little surprise we had planned for our good Cato and 
 Gib would have been no surprise at all, so Master Sambo, 
 notwithstanding all his offers of service, was forced to drive 
 away before we opened them. What a pleasure it was to 
 us to draw out the few plates and dishes and cups and sau 
 cers, and the bright tin coffee-pot, which we know will be 
 the most valued of all, and arrange them on the shelves of 
 the cupboard to lay the cotton sheets and tablecloths, and 
 the osnaburg towels, in one of the drawers of each bureau,
 
 TWO PICTURES. 4C1 
 
 and to spread a warm blanket and quilt upon each bed. I 
 looked with a warm, glad heart upon all ; but there came 
 suddenly a little cloud over the brightness of my thoughts. 
 
 " Hugh ! if they should disappoint us after all, and be 
 lazy and slovenly, as that cross Mrs. Williams predicted the 
 other day." 
 
 " Then we must try to be patient with them, remember- 
 ing how often we have disappointed our Master in heaven, 
 and thwarted His plans for us." 
 
 " Hugh, do you know, sometimes I think but you know 
 better, so I will not say it." 
 
 " Yes, you will," said Hugh, as he drew me to him and 
 held me fast ; " do you not know your very thoughts belong 
 to me noAV, and that it is a robbery to keep one back ? so 
 now for the thought." 
 
 " It was only that sometimes it had occurred to me that 
 at last it might have been easier just to give these people 
 their freedom, send them to Africa, and live upon your law 
 business." 
 
 u Easier ! yes, a thousand times easier, and ten thou 
 sand times more noble in the world's eyes; but we are 
 living, I hope, not for ease, not for the world's praise. I told 
 you, my wife," how sweet that name is on Hugh's lips ! 
 " I told you that this would be a heavy burden ; but be not 
 afraid, darling ; He who lays on us the burden will give the 
 strength." 
 
 And so to-morrow Cato, who was my father's playfellow 
 in his boyhood, and Gib, my uncle's faithful attendant, both 
 religiously conscientious men, are to take possession of these 
 houses, the first of our colony of " Good Behavior." To 
 become a member of this colony will, we hope, prove an in 
 centive to all our people, not only to be honest and good, 
 but to acquire habits of neatness and carefulness. The 
 members of this colony will have land given them for culti-
 
 4G2 TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 ration, where they will work at their own free will, without 
 any surveillance. They are to have their seed given them, 
 and to draw their provisions as the others do, for the first 
 year. They will afterward be expected to provide these for 
 themselves, as well as to pay a portion of what they make 
 for ground rent. Should unforeseen disasters occur, they 
 will be taken care of; but should they fail entirely through 
 indolence or carelessness, the punishment will be the forfei 
 ture of their position, and a return to their old work and 
 their old homes. I hope this will never be it will grieve 
 Hugh so much. It has been Hugh's desire to make his 
 plans so rational and unromantic as to insure their prac 
 ticability. The first step may not raise them very high, he 
 says, but if it be planted surely, it will give us vantage 
 ground for the next. We hope to build another cottage be 
 fore the end of the year, perhaps two, by giving up the or 
 gan which Hugh contemplated purchasing for the library. 
 
 This was not the only pleasure of yesterday that 1 have, to 
 record. We stopped at the church, where dear Mr. Morti 
 mer met us and rejoiced with us over its improved appear 
 ance. It has been thoroughly cleaned and painted inside 
 and out, and the old pulpit has been taken out and a more 
 comfortable one arranged for our dear pastor and friend. A 
 little way from the church, under a clump of oaks, is another 
 building, which we call the school, and our people call the 
 prayers-house. It will serve for both. There they will 
 assemble for evening prayer, sometimes with Mr. Morti 
 mer, sometimes with Hugh himself; and there I hope to 
 teach them to read God's holy word, and to awaken their 
 minds to observation of much in His works which is yet 
 hidden from them. What a new value does my life seem 
 every day to acquire ! Grant, Heavenly Father, that I may 
 never forget the Giver in His gifts ! 
 
 Five years later we have the following entry :
 
 TWO PICTURES. 463 
 
 " November Wtk, 18 . How pleasant it is to come 
 home ! I think, if it had not been to show my treasures 
 my little Hugh and baby James to their grandmamma, 
 who loves them so tenderly, I should have tried to let Hugh 
 go without me arid yet, to speak truth, I fear the trial 
 would have been vain. They have not been idle here since 
 we left them. Two more cottages have been built, and 
 twenty families now compose our colony. Their crops have 
 been injured by the heavy rains, and they will need help 
 the next year, but everything around them looks neat and 
 comfortable, and well cared for ; and Mr. Mortimer has 
 been quite satisfied with the attendance on the school, to 
 which, he says, Sarah Carter was very attentive while I was 
 absent. Hugh thinks my little gentlemen require so much 
 of my time that I had better leave it in her hands, and give 
 her a small salary, but I cannot consent to this yet ; a year 
 or two hence, perhaps, it may be necessary. Poor Joe ! I 
 was very sorry when we were obliged to send him back 
 from the colony to the plantation, but Hugh was right. 
 When was he otherwise? With the encouragement of good 
 Mr. Mortimer, Joe has regained his lost ground, and to 
 morrow he will come back to the colony, while the example, 
 I am sure, has done good to the others." 
 
 Two years after this date, we find this : 
 
 " November 2Qth. Once more at home with our three 
 children, all well, thanks to our Heavenly Father ! Our lit 
 tle girl was so ill in the summer that I feared she would 
 have been ere now with the angels. Perhaps it was wrong 
 to write feared, but He who made a mother's heart, and 
 
 Who knows each chord, its various tone, 
 Each spring, its various bias, 
 
 will forgive me. She is a lovely flower our May, Hugh's 
 pet lamb. She grew so strong as the cold weather came on
 
 464 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 that we delayed our return on her account, and should hard 
 ly have been here now, except that we became a little 
 alarmed for Mr. Mortimer's health, not so much from what 
 he said of himself in his letters,-as from what he did not say. 
 We find him looking feeble and worn. What shall we do 
 without him ? He asked to see Hugh this morning, and he 
 has gone to the parsonage." 
 
 " November 22d. ' Commit thy way unto the Lord, and 
 He will direct thy steps.' Mr. Mortimer has been in cor 
 respondence this summer with a young clergyman who, he 
 thinks, will be glad to come here, if Hugh will invite him. 
 He is highly recommended as a devout, Christian man, and 
 is, besides, a gentleman and scholar. His first letter to Mr. 
 Mortimer was to inquire about Hugh's plans for his people, 
 which, it seems, have begun to be noised abroad. lie made 
 these inquiries on his own account, having himself a small 
 property mostly in slaves, for whose good, here and here 
 after, he is anxious to do all in his power. His present 
 home is in South Carolina, where he owns a plantation, 
 which, he says, is not very productive. Mr. Mortimer has 
 written, at Hugh's request, to ask him to make us a Christ 
 mas visit, and to bring with him his young wife." 
 
 Later we read : " January 15th. Mr. Law and his wife 
 left us to-day. Their visit has been a great enjoyment, and 
 has brought us bright hopes for the future. They are com 
 ing to make their home with us on St. Mary's. They will 
 sell their place in Carolina and remove their people here. 
 Hugh does not feel at liberty to sell any part of this island, 
 but he will make as long a lease as Mr. Law pleases of the 
 land he needs, the payment of it being Mr. Law's services 
 now as pastor to us and our people, and by and by as 
 teacher to our boys. Mrs. Law is a cultivated, agreeable 
 woman, and is quite an artist with the pencil. Little May, 
 will you ever paint ? Dear Mr. Mortimer looks better
 
 TWO PICTURES. 465 
 
 already for the prospect of a helper in his work. The car 
 penters are very busy building an addition to the parson 
 age, for Mr. and Mrs. Law are, by Air. Mortimer's own re 
 quest, to reside there." 
 
 In the ensuing autumn, under date of October 12th, we 
 read : " We have returned earlier this year, that we might 
 accompany Lily, whom her husband was impatient to show 
 to his friends at home ; and that we might be ready for our 
 dear mother and Esther, who are coming to spend this win 
 ter, and, we hope, many other winters, with us. What a 
 lovely bride our Lily made ! And Hugh says, if he had had 
 the world to choose from, he would have selected Mr. For 
 ester for her husband he is so thoroughly good. Such a 
 son as he has been to his widowed stepmother, and such a 
 brother to his little half-brothers, must make a good hus 
 band to our Lily. Hugh has been for years his confidential 
 adviser in the management of his people, in whom he feels 
 the interest of a Christian master, who does not forget that 
 he, too, has a Master in heaven. I rejoice to say that this 
 is not a rare instance of Christian faithfulness. Our hearts 
 have been encouraged and our hands strengthened by unex 
 pected sympathy. While there are many who, like my 
 dear uncle, kind to their slaves and careful of their health 
 and comfort, still reject all innovation on established usages, 
 believing it impossible to raise them to a higher status, there 
 are more who are anxiously striving to lift them up, to make 
 them new creatures, freedmen in Christ Jesus. We know 
 instances of self-denying devotedness in this class which can 
 scarcely be paralleled in the annals even of missionary life. 
 Hugh has lately been urged to become a candidate for the 
 United States Senate. At first I wished him to consent, de 
 siring to see him occupy a position which would give full 
 scope to his abilities, and ambitious, I acknowledge with 
 shame, that the world should honor him as he deserves.
 
 40 G TWO PICTUKES. 
 
 He knew what was in my heart, though I did not speak it 
 out so boldly to him as I am doing to you, my little book, 
 and he answered it by opening the Bible on my table and 
 pointing with a smile to the passage in which the Apostle 
 remonstrates with those who ' seek honor one from another, 
 rather than that honor which cometh from God only.' To 
 my plea that I wanted to see him where his abilities would 
 be more fully exercised, he replied : ' You know, dear 
 wife, that the position in which they are now exercised was 
 not of my own seeking ; I did not accept its responsibilities 
 without counting the cost ; part of this cost was the relin- 
 quishment of worldly honor and all choice in the exercise 
 of such mental power as God has given me; all is pledged 
 to this work, and all is needed to prevent honest but narrow- 
 minded, one-idead men, from spreading through the land 
 and through the world, a spurious philanthropy, the coun, 
 tcrfeit presentment of Christian love, which must do incal 
 culable injury to this unfortunate race. I have hitherto 
 found my best way of opposing this to be through the press 
 and by my work here ; should I ever see reason to believe 
 that it can be better done in Congress, I will go there.' " 
 
 Nearly a month later, we read : " November IQth. The 
 Storm King has been abroad has it been in wrath or in 
 mercy ? In mercy, we will hope, for he has brought home 
 our wanderer. My heart is still too full for words. 
 
 " November \5th. The last five days I have been the 
 constant witness of a strife to which that of wind and water, 
 in their wildest rage, is tame the strife of Life and Death 
 in a human soul. Life, I trust, has won. Dear Charlie! 
 How memory springs back to those early days when, 
 through all our wilfulness, we yet loved each other. Will 
 it be false to that love, if I leave here a record of the sad 
 goal to which you have been led in your chase after pleas 
 ure 1 I have already left your impress here in your gay,
 
 TWO PICTUKES. 4G7 
 
 innocent youth, and in your manhood, when drunk with the 
 world's exciting flatteries : shall my hand tremble to trace 
 those ' strange defeatures ' which time has written on your 
 once fair and open brow ? If I conquer my reluctance to do 
 this, it is because I, too, have a Charlie a boy whose bright 
 blue eyes and merry laugh have often brought you before 
 me and one day, when you and I, my cousin Charlie, have 
 gone from earth, he may need some loving voice to warn 
 him from ill, to cheer him on to good ; and I would have this 
 little book, begun in selfish abandonment, and continued as 
 a thankful acknowledgment for life's choicest blessings this 
 little book, which may yet bring back some tone of the 
 mother's voice, that now wins its way so easily to his heart 
 to contain lessons which may teach him when he is tempt 
 ed as you have been, not to fall, as you have done. 
 
 " Even my little May, now five years old, will prob 
 ably carry with her through life, some memory of the storm 
 which, a week ago, gathered us all in the library, to look 
 out upon the picture that had so often awed me in my child 
 hood. The air was thick with spray, through which we 
 could yet dimly discern the sheets of foam, driven far up 
 upon the land by the hurricane, which snapped the branches 
 of the stout oaks, and snatching their leaves and twigs, 
 dashed them against the windows through which we gazed. 
 I have never lost my childish awe of a storm, and as our 
 good mother, ever thoughtful of others, cried, ' God pity 
 the poor sailors ! ' a selfish joy arose in my heart that none 
 of my circle of blessings was exposed to its fury. The howl 
 of the tempest, and the dash of its dripping wings against 
 my chamber windows, kept me awake till long after mid 
 night, and I slept the next morning till the sun stood 
 high in a clear sky. Hugh had risen earlier, and when I 
 was dressed, and with my little Hugh and Charlie sought 
 him in the breakfast room, I found that he had taken a cup
 
 468 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 of coffee an hour before and mounted his horse to ride to 
 the colony, -where, he feared, there might have been some 
 suffering. 
 
 " 'NufT tree blow down las' night," said Harry, as he 
 gave me this information. " I 'spec' Massa fin' he hab to 
 walk." 
 
 The suspicion was correct ; and fastening his horse to 
 the branch of a fallen oak, Hugh tried to find, through the 
 changed scene, the footpath leading by the graveyard to 
 the colony. There were many obstructions in the way, 
 rendering it no easy task, so that the sun was shining very 
 warmly and brightly before he had arrived in sight of the 
 graveyard. A little beyond this toward the sea, there is an 
 open glade ; and Hugh made his way thither to see how high 
 the sea had flowed in at this point, directly toward which 
 the wind had set. The line of sedge that marked the far 
 thest limit of the flood was higher even than he had expected 
 to find it. As he stood looking at it, and beyond it, to the 
 glittering sea still tossing itself in but half-subdued agitation, 
 his dog, which had followed him from home, dashed forward, 
 and reaching the line of sedge, began to race with wild, frolic 
 glee to and fro. Suddenly he stopped, as if about to make 
 a point ; then running round in a circle several times with 
 his nose low to the ground, stopped again, and throwing up 
 his head, uttered a long howl. Hugh whistled to him to 
 come in, and too well trained to disobey, he came ; but 
 when Hugh would have gone on, he could not be induced to 
 follow. Turning again, he ran toward the shore ; but halt 
 ing about halfway, looked back wistfully at Hugh and gave 
 again that melancholy cry. Human speech could scarcely 
 have expressed more intelligibly the desire that Hugh should 
 follow. He so understood it and went, the dog bounding 
 before him till, halfway between the uppermost line of sedge 
 and the shore, he stood still beside what seemed a heap of
 
 TWO ricTuiiES. 4G9 
 
 sedge, a little beyond which, were the broken fragments of a 
 boat. Quickening his steps, Hugh soon stood beside that 
 heap, and found the seemingly lifoless body of a man. A 
 little examination gave him hope that life was not quite ex 
 tinct. He even thought there was a slight movement in the 
 muscles of the face, as, with a faint hope that the sufferer 
 might hear and understand, he said, " I am going for help to 
 carry you to my house ; my dog will guard you while I am 
 gone." An order to Don, the setter dog, and he seated 
 himself, with his eyes fixed on the motionless body, while 
 Hugh hurried back to his horse, and rode rapidly home. 
 
 " There is a man fainting, dying ; give me brandy a 
 spoon, he cannot drink from the bottle ; have a warm 
 room and bed ready for him, and send all the men after me 
 to the graveyard the coachman, gardener, Gib and Harry." 
 He was already on his horse, and scarcely checked him to 
 shout back to me, " Let them bring blankets and a hand- 
 barrow, if there is such a thing about ; but no delay." 
 
 All was done as Hugh directed ; and two hours after, a 
 seemingly dying man was borne into our home, Hugh walk 
 ing beside him, and occasionally moistening his lips from 
 the flask, which he carried in his hand. He was taken to 
 the room prepared for him, undressed, laid in a warm bed, 
 and restoratives administered by Hugh himself, who never 
 left him till our friend, Mr. Law, who is a physician for the 
 body as well as for the soul, arrived. Trusting his patient 
 with him, Hugh came to me. 
 
 " Augusta, do you know whom we have with us 1 " he 
 asked. 
 
 My looks answered him ; for there was something in 
 his tones which almost took my breath away, and made it 
 difficult for me to speak. He drew me close to him, and 
 whispered " Charlie ! " 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " a moment's awed silence, and then came
 
 470 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 the heart's protest, " Oh, Hugh ! it cannot be ; that furrowed 
 brow those sunken cheeks, of which I caught a glance it 
 is impossible ! " 
 
 " It is he, love ; somewhat of his ill looks you must 
 ascribe to his present condition." 
 
 It was indeed he ; and when he seemed almost restored 
 to us, life was again imperilled by his excitement at discov 
 ering whither the storm-spirit had borno him. For two 
 days past, however, our good Dr. B., for whom Hugh sent 
 immediately, has pronounced his life out of danger, and has 
 removed all restrictions from our intercourse with him. 
 
 " Augusta," he said to me, yesterday, " I told you I 
 would come back to you in ten years ; it is just ten years 
 since. Is it not strange ? " 
 
 " Is not what strange, Charlie ? that you should keep 
 your promise ? " 
 
 " That it should be kept without, nay, against my will. 
 St. Mary's is the last place on earth pardon me for saying 
 it to which I should have come by my own desire. Do 
 not look hurt it was neither you nor Hugh ; it was my 
 own past self I could not bear to meet." 
 
 " Is the present self so much better and happier, Char 
 lie ? But it is your turn to pardon now I had no right to 
 ask that." 
 
 " Ask what you will," he replied, " and I will answer 
 you, if I can. Better, you ask ? no happier ? yes well, 
 pci-haps not happier I believe not but " he paused, and 
 a deeper shadow fell on his pale, thin face, and his voice 
 sank lower, as he added, " there are some things we would 
 gladly forget forever. For that matter, I should have no 
 objection to forget my whole life ; a dreamless sleep is not 
 an unpleasant thing in prospect for one whose life has disap 
 pointed all his wishes and destroyed all his faith in himself." 
 
 " Faith in ourselves, dear Charlie," I said, in a voice
 
 TWO riCTUKES. 4:71 
 
 which, if it was not tender, belied my heart, " faith in our 
 selves, we all find to be a very fragile thing, I fear ; but 
 
 there is a faith which never fails us " 
 
 I had laid my hand on his, while speaking ; he drew his 
 away with a quick and impatient movement, and turning from 
 me, closed his eyes as if to sleep. God help us to do him good ! 
 
 So far w r e have quoted from the journal ; but, that we 
 may have time and space for details more interesting to the 
 reader, we must touch the changes that followed in Charles 
 Moray's life, more hastily than Augusta Moray's tenderness 
 permitted her to do. 
 
 Though restored to life, Charles Moray continued to 
 suffer from his exposure during that terrible night, in such a 
 manner as to make it necessary that he should spend the 
 winter in a warm, climate. Resisting all persuasions to 
 remain at St. Mary's receiving them, indeed, with almost 
 childish petulance, he went off to Savannah ; but a return 
 of illness sent him back to Hugh and Augusta more con 
 scious of his dependence on their care. It was a care exer 
 cised with such unobtrusiveness, that it rarely jarred even 
 the morbid sensitiveness of an invalid. Most anxious for 
 his soul's health, Augusta might, by imprudent urgency, 
 have excited his resistance to the truth she desired to com 
 mend, had not Hugh restrained her. 
 
 " Let us live our principles not talk them," he said. 
 " Charlie may shut his e.ars against our voices, but he can 
 not close his heart against the influence of a consistent, Chris 
 tian life." 
 
 Respect for his old friend, Mr. Mortimer, led Charles 
 Moray to the church ; and the truths he heard there, cer 
 tainly acquired new force from the lives of those around 
 him. When he had heard Hugh profess his desire to hold 
 the property which God had given him only as His steward,
 
 472 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 and to make his position of master but a vantage ground, 
 from which he could better teach and guide the slaves, 
 whose guidance he accepted as his life-work, Charles Moray 
 had listened to it as to the dream of an enthusiast, noble, 
 beautiful, but impossible. Here he saw the dream fulfilled ; 
 and before the majesty of such a life he strove in vain to 
 maintain his careless levity. The continued delicacy of his 
 health made a mild winter climate necessary to him ; and 
 after the experience of the home life of St. Mary's, the life 
 of foreign travel, with its loneliness of heart in the midst of 
 gay and busy crowds, offered nothing tempting to the sated, 
 weary invalid. He therefore returned winter after winter 
 to Hugh and Augusta ; and each year their hearts were 
 gladdened by seeing his increasing interest in the success of 
 their plans and the growing power of Christian truth as a 
 restraining principle in his life. And so, with these good 
 omens brightening the termination of a career, which has 
 long ago left pleasure behind, and which had little hap 
 piness to leave, we part with him and return to Hugh and 
 his plans. 
 
 Hugh Moray was cheered by seeing the influence of 
 his example extend first to his neighbors, and then to 
 others more remote. Men, who had satisfied themselves 
 with making the bodies of their slaves comfortable, began 
 to recognize the needs of their spirits. Men, who had been 
 accustomed to talk in an apologetic tone of their relation to 
 slavery ; who had pleaded, in extenuation of that relation, 
 that it was not their deed ; that it was England which had 
 forced it upon them ; that it was the trading communities 
 of the Northern United States which had brought these people 
 from their homes in Africa, and landed them at their doors ; 
 that immediate emancipation was clearly impossible, and 
 they must do the best possible with them since the best 
 absolute was not in their power these men, rising to a
 
 TWO PICTURES. 473 
 
 higher stand-point, began to see more truly, to see that not 
 England, not their Northern neighbors, but God, who rules 
 on earth as in heaven, according to the counsel of His own 
 righteous will, had brought to their doors these .beings, so 
 ignorant and degraded, yet none the less His children arid 
 their brethren, that they might lead them to that truth 
 which should form them anew in the image of God. They 
 began to repent, not of slaveholding, for in this they could 
 not recognize a sin ; it was but a condition in which they 
 had been placed by the providential circumstances of their 
 birth : their repentance was that they had failed to estimate 
 the greatness of the trust committed to them, and that they 
 had, therefore, failed to meet its high responsibilities. Con 
 sulting with Hugh, they brought to him many difficulties, 
 some speculative, some practical. 
 
 " Do not your views," said one, " authorize a contin 
 uance of the slave-trade with Africa or, indeed, with any 
 heathen nation "? " 
 
 " By no me'ans," was the decided answer. " In the dark 
 ness of the past, good men might engage in such a business, 
 and ' the times of that ignorance God winked at,' overruling 
 the mistakes as well as the wrath of man for the good of 
 His creatures and the glory of His name. What was com 
 mitted to us for such purposes, we may have used meanly 
 and selfishly. If so, let us set ourselves vigorously to work 
 to undo the evil we have done ; but feeling already that our 
 responsibilities are so heavy, we shall be the last to desire 
 their increase." 
 
 Hugh Moray had chosen his life-work ; and, as we have 
 seen from the journal of his wife, he had refused to leave it 
 at the call of ambition. There came a time, however, when 
 he felt that at the centre of our national life, the senate 
 chamber at Washington, he must meet and grapple with 
 influences, fraught with deadly peril to his hopes. He ac->
 
 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 cordingly consented to his nomination, was elected, and 
 served out his term of six years. But he declined a reelec 
 tion, convinced that the calm voice of Truth could not be 
 heard amid the discordant clamors of the selfish interests 
 represented there. His last letter to his wife, from Wash 
 ington, closed with the words, " Be brave and hopeful for 
 me, my darling, for I have become a coward before the 
 phantoms of the future." 
 
 And Augusta was strong, and brave, and hopeful, when 
 Hugh returned to his home, relaxed and spiritless. There he 
 soon grew strong again in the exercise of the Christian char 
 ities, to which he had devoted himself: " Work and wait," 
 was his motto. 
 
 And now we will look once more upon St. Mary's, smil 
 ing in all the dewy freshness of the early spring. The Cher 
 okee roses are again whitening the hedges, which a few 
 weeks ago showed only the glossy green of their leaves ; 
 the jessamine is sending its flaunting tendrils into the win 
 dow of that library which was once the scene of reunion 
 between two hearts severed by treachery. There they sit 
 she in matronly beauty, undimmed as yet by advancing 
 years, no thread of silver in the glossy black of her hair, no 
 line of care upon her brow. Her lips have lost the haughty 
 curve that sometimes marked them in earlier life. At this 
 moment, however, the face is not quite serene. 
 
 Augusta is reading a newspaper which bears a foreign 
 postmark. From this, and from the letters scattered on 
 the table on which Hugh Moray writes, we augur that the 
 semi-weekly mail has just come in. Suddenly Augusta lifts 
 her eyes. They are sad, and some irrepressible emotion 
 causes her lip to quiver and her voice to falter slightly as 
 she exclaims, " Oh, Hugh ! how unjust ! " 
 
 " You are reading that review of ' Uncle Tom,' with its
 
 TWO PICTURES. 475 
 
 unflattering portraiture of Southern planters," said Hugh, 
 looking up with a smile. 
 
 " That they should think thus of you ! " added Augusta, 
 while her cheeks flushed and her eyes kindled as she con 
 trasted the picture of the vulgar and beastly tyrant just 
 presented to her, with the image enshrined so reverently in 
 her heart. 
 
 " You know, love, there are two sides to every picture," 
 said IIu"-h, still smiling, but with tender seriousness in his 
 
 O ' O' 
 
 voice, as if he read her thoughts. 
 
 " True ; and I thank God there are that we are not 
 obliged to see ourselves or each other as the false world sees 
 
 O 
 
 us," answered Augusta, warmly. 
 
 " You are right, dear wife. The world's picture of us is 
 seldom just ; to look at it would either inflate us with van 
 ity, or irritate us by a sense of wrong ; we will turn from 
 it, and try to see ourselves as God sees us j this will make 
 us at once humble and hopeful." 
 
 In the quiet strength derived from this thought of a 
 Divine Rectifier of all human judgments, we take leave of 
 those whom we have followed thus far on the journey of life. 
 There is little to fear for them while they thus draw their 
 life from a heavenly source. 
 
 One parting word to the Reader. We have looked to 
 gether on many pictures here, and have seen to each of them 
 two aspects : the world's favorites have looked darkly to us 
 when we viewed them on the reversed side, and some whom 
 tho world contemned have shown themselves to us as glori 
 fied by the light of truth, courage, and loyalty to their Mas 
 ter in heaven. What may be the world's portraiture of 
 you, then, you may esteem as of little moment. It may be 
 all fair and lovely, it may be all dark and hideous ; it 
 scarcely can bo just. Look rather at that picture which
 
 476 TWO PICTURES. 
 
 conscience is making of you by successive touches, each day, 
 each hour of your life. Let not self-love tone down its dark 
 shadows, or delude you, by throwing her false and daz 
 zling lights into the picture. Look on yourself truly, and it 
 will help you to look on others charitably, 'ind on God 
 reverently. 
 
 THE END.
 
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