"Miss Mayhew, will you please step here?" said a very fashionably dressed lady.
Turning, Ida saw near her the mother of the child that had been rescued the previous day. She, with her husband, had been talking very earnestly to Mr. Burleigh, the proprietor of the house, who seemed in rather a dubious state of mind over some proposition of theirs.
"Miss Mayhew, we want your opinion in regard to a certain matter," began the lady volubly. "Of course I and my husband feel very grateful to the young woman who saved our child from your cousin's horses yesterday. Indeed, my husband feels so deeply indebted that he wishes to make some return and I have suggested that he present her with a check for five hundred dollars. I learn from Mr. Burleigh that she is a teacher, and therefore, of course, she must be poor. Now, in my view, if my husband or some other gentleman should present this check in the parlor, with an appropriate little speech, it would be a nice acknowledgment of her act. Don't you think so?"
"I do not think I am qualified to give an opinion," said Ida, "asI have no acquaintance with the lady whatever."
"I'm sure it will be just the thing to do," said the lady, becoming more infatuated with her project every moment. "Do you think your cousin would be willing to make the speech?"
At this suggestion Ida laughed outright. "The idea," she said, "of my cousin making a speech of any kind, or in any circumstances!"
"Now I think of it," persisted the lady, "Miss Burton and Mr. VanBerg sit at the same table, and he seems better acquainted with herthan any of the gentlemen. He's the one to make the speech, onlyI do not feel that I know him well enough to ask him. Do you, MissMayhew?"
"Indeed I do not," said the young lady, decisively; "I am the last one in the house to ask any favors of Mr. Van Berg."
"Well, then, Mr. Burleigh can explain everything and ask him."
"Really now, Mrs. Chints"—for such was the lady's name—"I don't quite believe that Mr. Van Berg would approve of giving Miss Burton money in public, and before anything further is done I would like to ask his judgement. It all may be eminently proper, as you say, and I would not like to stand in the way of the young lady's receiving so handsome a present, and would not for the world if I thought it would be agreeable to her; but there is something about her that—-"
"I have it," interrupted the positive-minded lady, unheeding and scarcely hearing Mr. Burleigh's dubious circumlocution, and she put her finger to her forehead for a moment in an affected stage-like manner, as if her ideas of the "eternal fitness of things" had been obtained from the sensational drama. "I have it: the child himself shall hand her the gift from his own little hand, and you, Mr. Chints, can say all that need be said. It will be a pretty scene, a 'tableau vivant.' Mr. Chints, come with me before the young woman leaves her present favorable position near the parlor door. Mr. Burleigh, your scruples are sentimental and groundless. Of course the young woman will be delighted to receive in one evening as much, and perhaps more, than her whole year's salary amounts to. Come, Mr. Chints, Mr. Burleigh, if you wish, you may group some of your friends near;" and away she rustled, sweeping the floor with her silken train.
Mr. Chints lumbered after her with a perplexed and martyr-like expression. He was a mighty man in Washington Market, but in a matter like this he was as helpless as a stranded whale. The gift of five hundred dollars did not trouble him in the least; he could soon make that up; but taking part in a "tableau vivant" under the auspices of his dramatic wife was like being impaled.
"Well," said Mr. Burleigh, shaking his head, "I wash my hands of the whole matter. Five hundred dollars is a snug sum, but I doubt if that little woman takes it. I'm more afraid she'll be offended and hurt. What do you think, Miss Mayhew?"
"I've no opinion to offer, Mr. Burleigh. These people are all comparative strangers to me. Mrs. Chints is determined to have her own way, and nothing that you or I can say would make any difference. My rule is to let people alone, and if they get into scrapes it sometimes does them good;" and she left him that she might witness the Chints' tableau.
"That's just the difference between you and Miss Burton," muttered Mr. Burleigh, nodding his head significantly after her. "She'd help a fellow out of a scrape and you'd help him into one. Well, if the old saying's true, 'Handsome is that handsome does,' the little school-teacher would be the girl for me were I looking for my mate."
On her way to the entrance of the main parlor, Ida stopped a moment at an open window near the corner where Stanton and Van Berg were smoking.
"Cousin Ik," she said, 'sotto voce.'
He rose and joined her.
"If you wish to see a rich scene, hover near the entrance of the main parlor."
"What do you mean?"
"I've learned that Mr. and Mrs. Chints, and possibly your favorite new performer, Miss Burton, are going to act a little comedy together: come and see;" and she vanished.
"Van," said Stanton in a vexed tone, "there's some mischief on foot;" and he mentioned what his cousin had said, adding: "Can Ida have been putting that brassy Mrs. Chints up to some absurd performance that will hurt Miss Burton's feelings?"
They rose and sauntered down the piazza, Van Berg trying to imagine what was about to take place and how he could shield the young lady from any annoyance.
She sat inside the entrance of the main parlor facing the open windows, and a little group had gathered around her, including the ladies who sat at her table, with whom she had already become a favorite. Ida had demurely entered by one of the open windows and was apparently reading a novel under one of the gas jets not far away. Groups of people were chatting near or were seated around card-tables; others were quietly promenading in the hall-ways and on the piazza. There was not an indication of any expected or unexpected "scene." Only Ida's conscious, observant expression and the absence of Mrs. Chints foreboded mischief.
"What enormity can that odious family be about to perpetrate?" whispered Stanton.
"I cannot surmise," answered Van Berg; "something in reference to the rescue of her child, I suppose. I wish I could thwart them, for Miss Burton's position will place her full in the public eye, and I do not wish her to be the victim of their vulgarity."
After a little further hesitation and thought he stepped in, and approaching Miss Burton, said:
"Pardon me for interrupting you, but I wish to show you something on the piazza that will interest you."
She rose to follow him, but before she could take a step Mrs. Chints swept in on the arm of her husband, followed by the nurse—who had been retained at Miss Burton's intercession—bearing in her arms the little boy, that stared at the lights and people with the round eyes of childish wonder.
Every one looked up in surprise at the sudden appearance of the little group, that suggested a christening more than anything else.
Planting themselves before Miss Burton, thus barring all egress, Mr. Chints fumbled a moment in his pocket and drew out an envelope, and with a loud, prefatory "Ahem!" began:
"My dear Miss Burton—that is the way Mrs. Chints says I should address you, thought it strikes me as a trifle familiar and affectionate; but I mean no harm—we're under pecul—very great obligations to YOU. We learn—my wife has—that you are engaged—engaged—in—I mean that you—teach. I'm sure that's a lawful calling—I mean a laudable one, and no one can deny that it's useful. In my view it's to your credit that you are engaged—in—that you teach. I work myself, and always mean to. In fact I enjoy it more than making speeches. But feeling that we were under wonderful obligations to YOU, and learning—my wife did—that you were dependent on—on your own labor, we thought that if this little fellow that you saved so handsomely should hand you this check for five hundred dollars it wouldn't be amiss." And here, according to rehearsal, the nurse with great parade handed the child to Mrs. Chints, who now, with much 'empressement,' advanced to a position immediately before Miss Burton; meanwhile the poor, perspiring Mr. Chints put the envelope into the child's chubby hand, saying:
"Give it to the lady, Augustus."
But the small Augustus, on the contrary, stared at the lady and put the envelope in his mouth, to the great mortification of Mrs. Chints, who had been so preoccupied with the Chints side of the affair, and the impression they were making on the extemporized audience, that she had no eyes for Miss Burton.
And that young lady's face was, in truth, a study. An expression of surprise was followed quickly by one of resentment. Even Stanton was obliged to admit that for a moment the little "school-ma'am" looked formidable. But as Mr. Chints floundered on in his speech, as some poor wretch who could not swim might struggle to get out of the deep water into which he had been thrown, the expression of her face softened, and one might imagine the thought passing through her mind—"They don't know any better;" and when, at last, the child, instead of carrying out the climax that Mrs. Chints had intended, began vigorously to munch the envelope containing the precious check, there was even a twinkle of humor in the young lady's eyes. But she responded gravely:
"Mr. Chints, I was at first inclined to resent this scene, but time has been given me to perceive that neither you nor your wife wish to hurt my feelings, and that you are in part, at least, actuated by feelings of gratitude for the service that I was so fortunate as to render you. But I fear you do not quite understand me. You are right in one respect, however. I do labor for my own livelihood, and it is a source of the deepest satisfaction to me that I can live from my own work and not from gifts. If your hearts prompt this large donation, there are hundreds of poor little waifs in the city to whom this money will bring a little of the care and comfort which blesses your child. As for myself, this is all the reward that I wish or can receive," and she stooped and kissed the child on both cheeks. Then taking Van Berg's arm, she gladly escaped to the cool and dusky piazza.
Mr. Chints looked at Mrs. Chints in dismay. Mrs. Chints handed the baby to the nurse, and beat an undramatic and hasty retreat, her husband following in a dazed sort of manner, treading on her train at every other step.
As Van Berg passed out of the parlor, he saw Ida Mayhew vanishing from its farther side, with Stanton in close pursuit. When Miss Burton ended the disagreeable affair by kissing the child, there had been a slight murmur of applause. Significant smiles and a rising him of voices descanting on the affair in a way not at all complimentary to the crestfallen Chints family, followed the disappearances of all the actors in the unexpected scene.
"Miss Burton," said Van Berg, as soon as they were alone, "I wishI could have saved you from this disagreeable experience. I triedto do so, but was not quick enough. I much blame my slow wits thatI was not more prompt."
"I wish it might have been prevented," she replied, "for their sakes as well as my own."
"I have no compunctions on their account whatever," said Van Berg, "and feel that you let them off much too kindly. I think, however, that they and all others here will understand you much better hereafter. I cannot express too strongly to you how thoroughly our brief acquaintance has taught me to respect you, and if you will permit me to give an earnest meaning to Mr. Burleigh's jesting offer to share with me the responsibility of your care, I will esteem it an honor."
"I sincerely thank you, Mr. Van Berg, and should I ever need the services of a gentleman,"—she laid a slight emphasis upon the term—"I shall, without any hesitancy, turn to you. But I have long since learned to be my own protectress, as, after all, one must be, situated as I am."
"You seem to have the ability, not only to take care of yourself, but of others, Miss Burton. Nevertheless I shall, with your permission, establish a sort of protectorate over you which shall be exceedingly unobtrusive and undemonstrative, and not in the least like that which some powers make the excuse for exactions, until the protected party is ready to cry out in desperation to be delivered from its friends. I hesitated too long this evening from the fear of being forward; and yet I did not know what was coming, and had learned only accidentally but a few moments before that anything was coming."
"Well," replied Miss Burton with a slight laugh, "it's a comfortable thought that there's a fort near, to which one can run should an enemy appear; and a pleasanter thought still, that the fort is strong and staunch. but, to change the figure, I have a great fancy for paddling my own light canoe, and such small craft will often float, you know, where a ship of the line would strike."
"I will admit, Miss Burton, that ships of the line are often unwieldy and clumsily deep in the water; but if you ever do need a gunboat with a howitzer or two on deck, may I hope to be summoned?"
"I could ask for no better champion. I fairly tremble at the broadside that would follow."
"Are you thinking of the discharge or the recoil?"
"Both might involve danger," said Miss Burton, laughing; "but I have concluded to keep on your side through such wars as may rage at the Lake House during my sojourn. I cannot help thinking of poor Mr. and Mrs. Chints. I feel almost as sorry for such people as I do for the blind and deaf. They seem to lack a certain sense which, if possessed, would teach them to avoid such scenes."
"I detest such people and like to snub them unmercifully," saidVan Berg, heartily.
"That may be in accordance with a gunboat character; but is it knightly?"
"Why not? What does snobbishness and rich vulgarity deserve at any man's hands?"
"Nothing but sturdy blows. But what do weak, imperfect, half-educated men and women, who have never had a tithe of your advantages, NEED at your hands? Can we not condemn faults, and at the same time pity and help the faulty? The gunboat sends its shot crashing too much at random. It seems to me that true knighthood would spare weakness of any kind."
"I'm glad you have not spared mine. You have demolished me as a gunboat, but I would fain be your knight."
"It is Mrs. Chints who needs a knight at present, and not I. It troubles me to think of her worriment over this foolish little episode, and with your permission I will go and try to banish the cloud."
As she turned she was intercepted by Stanton, who said:
"Miss Burton, let my present to you my cousin, Miss Mayhew."
A ray from a parlor lamp fell upon Ida's face, and Van Berg saw at once that it was clouded and unamiable in its expression. Stanton had evidently been reproaching her severely.
Miss Burton held out her hand cordially and said; "I wish to thank you for maintaining the credit of our sex this morning. These superior men are so fond of portraying us as hysterical, clinging creatures whose only instinct in peril is to throw themselves on man's protection, that I always feel a little exultation when one of the 'weaker and gentler sex,' as we are termed, show the courage and presence of mind which they coolly appropriate as masculine qualities."
"Are you an advocate of woman's rights, Miss Burton?" asked Miss Mayhew, stung by the unconscious sarcasm of the lady's words, to reply in almost as resentful a manner as if a wound had been intended.
"Not of woman's, particularly," was the quiet answer; "I would be glad if every one had their rights."
"You philanthropy is very wide, certainly."
"And therefore very thin, perhaps you think, since it covers so much ground. I agree with you, Miss Mayhew, that general good-will is as cold and thin as moonshine. One ray of sunlight that warms some particular thing into life is worth it all."
"Indeed! I think I prefer moonlight."
"There are certain absorbing avocations in life to which moonshine is better adapted then sunlight, is probably the thought in my cousin's mind," said Stanton, satirically.
"And what are they?" asked Miss Burton.
"Flirtation, for instance."
"My cousin is speaking for himself," said Ida, acidly; "and knows better what is in his own mind than in mine."
"If some ladies themselves never know their own minds, how can another know?" Stanton retorted.
"Well," said Miss Burton, with a laugh, "if we accept a practical philosophy much in vogue—that of taking the world as we find it—flirting is one of the commonest pursuits of mankind."
"I'm quite sure, Miss Burton," said Van Berg, "that your philosophy of life is the reverse of taking the world as we find it."
"Indeed, you are mistaken, sir; I am exceedingly prosaic in my views, and cherish no Utopian dreams and theories. I do indeed take the old matter-of-fact world as I find it, and try to make the best of it."
"Ah, your last is a very saving clause. Too many are seemingly trying to make the worst of it, and unfortunately they succeed."
Ida here shot a quick and vengeful glance at the speaker.
"Please do not present me as a general reformer, Mr. Van Berg," protested Miss Burton, with a light laugh; "I have my hands full in mending my own ways."
"And so might we all, no doubt," said Stanton; "only most of us leave our ways unmended. but I am curious to know, Miss Burton, how you would make the best of a flirtation; since this is emphatically a part of the world as we find it, especially at a summer hotel."
"The best that we can do with many things that exist," she replied, "is to leave them alone. Italy is pre-eminently the land of garlic and art; but fortunately we shall not find it necessary to indulge in both and in equal proportions when we are so happy as to go abroad."
"A great many people prefer the garlic," said Stanton.
"Oh, certainly," she answered; "it's a matter of taste."
"So then garlic and flirtation are corresponding terms in your vocabulary?"
"I cannot say which term outranks the other, but it seems to me that if a woman regards her love as a sacred thing, she cannot permit an indefinite number of commonplace people even to attempt to stain it with their soiling touch."
"I think gentlemen show just as much of a disposition to flirt as ladies," said Ida, with resentment in her tone.
"I will not dispute that statement," replied Miss Burton, with a laugh; "indeed, I'm inclined to think they are very human."
"Humane, you mean," interposed Stanton. "Yes, I often wonder at our patient endurance."
"Which shall be taxed no longer to-night by me. Good-evening, MissMayhew. Good-evening, patient martyrs."
"Humane, indeed!" said Stanton. "Are you that way inclined, Van?"
"I have no occasion to be otherwise."
"Well, I feel savage enough to scalp some one."
"So I should judge," remarked Ida.
"Perhaps then, as my mood contrasts somewhat favorably with your cousin's, you will venture to walk with me for awhile?" said Van Berg.
"Indeed, sir," she replied, taking his arm, "there are times when any change is a relief."
"I cannot be very greatly elated over that view of the case, certainly," remarked Van Berg, with a laugh.
She did not reply at once, but after a moment said: "I suppose you regard me as a hopeless case at best."
"what suggests that thought to you, Miss Mayhew?"
"You are not so dull as to need to ask that question, and you only ask it to draw me out. For one thing, you probably think that I instigated Mr. and Mrs. Chints to act as they did. This is not true."
"I'm very glad to hear it."
"I'm no more to blame than Mr. Burleigh was. He knew about it as well as I did, but Mrs. Chints was bound to carry out her project."
"Will you permit a suggestion?"
"I suppose you wish to insinuate that I acted like a heathen, instead of saying that I am one plainly, as does Cousin Ik?"
"I think you acted a little thoughtlessly. If Miss Burton had been in your place, she would have tried to prevent the disagreeable scene."
"Oh, certainly! she is perfect."
"No; she is kind."
"Would it be possible to speak upon some agreeable subject, Mr.Van Berg? I have had enough mortifications for one day."
He was puzzled. What topic could he introduce that would interest this spoiled and petulant beauty.
He touched on art, but she was only artful in her small way, and could not follow him. He tried literature, and here they had even less in common. He would not and indeed could not read the thin society novels which reflected modes of life as trivial as her own, and his books might have been written in another language, so slight was her acquaintance with them. The various political, social, or scientific questions of the day had never puzzled her brain. Van Berg cautiously felt his way towards his companion's knowledge of two or three of the most popular of them. Her answers, however, were so superficial and irrelevant, and also so evidently embarrassed, that he saw his only resources to be society chit-chat, gossip about mutual acquaintances, the latest modes, the attractions of pleasure resorts in the city, and of summer resorts in the country. But he gave his mind to these unwonted themes, and labored hard to be entertaining; for now that he had gained the vantage-ground he sought, he was determined to discover whether there was a sleeping mind or a vacuum behind Miss Mayhew's shapely forehead. Granting that there was a womanly intelligence there, as yet unquickened, he was not so irrational as to imagine he could jostle it into illumining activity in one short hour, or day, or week. But it seemed to him that if any mind existed worth the name, it would give such encouraging signs of life before many days passed as would promise success of his experiment. He felt that his first aim must be to establish an intimacy that would permit as full and frank an exchange of thought as was possible between people so dissimilar.
While he tried to bring himself down to the littleness of her daily life, he determined to show his disapproval of every phrase of its meanness as far as he could without offending her. He had made her feel that he condemned her course towards Miss Burton that evening, and he had meant to do so.
She resented this disapproval, and at the same time respected him for it. Indeed he puzzled her. He evidently sought and wished for her society; and yet as they walked back and forth, even though she did not look at him when the light gave her the opportunity to do so, she felt intuitively that he did not enjoy her company. She saw that he was laboring hard to make himself agreeable; but his small talk had not the familiar flippancy and fluency of one speaking in his native tongue; nor was his manner that of one who, infatuated with her beauty, had thrown aside all other considerations.
She felt that the man at her side measured her, and understood her littleness thoroughly.
And she herself had a growing consciousness of insignificance that was as painful as it was novel. Adding to all the humiliations of this day here was a man, not so very much older than herself, trying to come down to her level, as he would accommodate his language to a child. No labored argument could have revealed her ignorance to her so clearly, as her conscious inability to follow him into his ordinary range of thought. Unwittingly he had demonstrated his superiority in a way that she could not deny, however much she might be inclined to resent it. And yet he treated her with a sort of respect, and occasionally she saw that he bent his eyes upon her face as if in search of something.
After a transient effort to ignore everything and talk in her usual superficial manner, she became more and more silent and oppressed, and, at last said, somewhat abruptly:
"Mr. Van Berg, I am weary, and I imagine you are too. I think I will say good-night."
"I scarcely wonder that you are fatigued. You have had a trying day."
"It has been a horrid day," she said, emphatically.
"It might have ended much worse, nevertheless."
"Possibly," she admitted with a shrug.
"You have more reason to congratulate yourself than you imagine, Miss Mayhew. Even that disagreeable souvenir of our morning peril, your lameness, has disappeared, and you might have been maimed for life."
"My lameness, like my courage, was chiefly a fraud to begin with, and soon disappeared; but I have other souvenirs of that occasion that I cannot get rid of so easily."
"If I am one of them, you are right, Miss Mayhew; I shall hold you to our agreement this morning. You put me on my good behavior—have I not behaved well?"
"Yes, better than I have. I was not referring to you personally, but to certain memories."
"We agreed to let by-gones be by-gones."
"But others are not parties to this agreement, and every reference to the affair is odious to me."
"I shall make no further reference to it, and you must be fair enough not to punish me for the acts of others."
"You also despise me in your heart of my course towards Miss Burton this evening."
"If I despised you would I have sought your society this evening?"
"I do not know. I don't understand you, if you will permit my bluntness."
"Possibly you don't understand yourself, Miss Mayhew."
"I understand that I have had a miserable day, and I hope I may never see another like it. Good-night, sir."
Van Berg had been left to himself but a little time before Stanton and Mr. Burleigh came out upon the piazza, and the three gentlemen sat down for a quiet chat.
"Well," remarked mine host, with a sigh of relief such as a pilot might heave after taking his ship round a perilous point; "well, thanks to Miss Burton's good sense, the affair has ended without any trouble. In a house like this, 'Satan is finding mischief still' whenever my back is turned, and sometimes he threatens to get up a row right under my nose, as in this instance. I was a 'blarsted fool,' as our English friends have it, not to know that Mrs. Chint's drama, although beginning in comedy, might end in tragedy of my losing some good paying boarders. Still further did I demonstrate the length of my ears by even imagining it possible that Miss Burton would take five hundred, or five hundred thousand dollars in any such circumstances. But the whole thing was done in a jiffy, and Mrs. Chints was possessed to have her 'tableau vivant.' Lively picture wasn't it? Still, if Miss Mayhew, when appealed to by Mrs. Chints, had confirmed my doubts, I would have tried to stop the nonsense at any cost."
"Did Miss Mayhew advise the step?" asked Stanton.
"Oh, no! She was non-committal. She acted as if it were none of her affair, save as it might afford her a little amusement. But these rows are no light matters to us poor publicans, who must please every one and keep the whole menagerie in order. Mr. Chints was swearing up and down his room that he had been made a fool of. Mrs. Chints was for leaving to-morrow morning, declaring that she would not endure such airs from a school-teacher. They are rich and have a number of friends who are coming soon, and so my mind was full of 'strange oaths' also, at my prospective loss, when this blessed little woman appears, taps at their door, enters like the angel into the lion's den, and shuts their mouths by some magic all her own. And now they're going to stay; Mr. Chints will give the five hundred to the Children's Aid Society, all is serene and I'm happy, so much so that I'll smoke another of your good cigars, Mr. Stanton."
"Certainly, half-a-dozen if you wish. How do you imagine she quieted the unruly beasts?"
"Oh, I suppose she got around them through the child—somewhat as she won over my wife this afternoon by means of our cross baby. It's teething, you know—and yet how should you young chaps know anything about babies! No matter, your time will come. This promenading the piazza with lovely creatures who have been half the afternoon at their toilets is all very nice; but wait till you have weathered innumerable squalls in the dead of night—then you'll learn that teething-time in a household is like going around Cape Horn. Well, to return from your future to my present. When so good-natured a man as I am gets into a sympathetic mood with old King Herod, you can imagine what a state the mother's nerves must be in who has to stand it night and day. But as Miss Burton had been commended to my care, I felt that I was in duty bound to introduce her to my wife and show her some attention. So I said to my wife, this afternoon, 'I'm going to bring a young lady in to see you.' 'Do you think I'm in a condition to entertain company?' she asked, with a faint suggestion of hard cider in her tone. 'Well, my dear,' I expostulated, 'it was just the same yesterday, and will be a little more so to-morrow, and I feel that I shall be remiss if I delay any longer.' 'Oh, very well,' she said, as if it were a tooth that must come out sooner or later, 'since the matter must be attended to, let us have it over at once.' But bless you, it wasn't over till supper-time. As I brought the young lady in, the baby waked out of a five-minutes' nap that had cost about an hour's rocking, and I thought the roof would come off. My wife looked cross and worried—well, it was prose, gentlemen, prose—not the poetry of life; and I said to myself, 'I suppose I have about made it certain that this young woman will live and die an old maid by giving her this glimpse behind the scenes. I thought the ladies could get on better without me than with me, so I bowed myself out, glad to escape the din; and I supposed Miss Burton would say a few pleasant things in the direction of Mrs. Burleigh, which she, poor woman, might not be able to hear, and then she would bow herself out, also glad to escape. An hour and a half later I went back to see if I could not coax my wife away for a drive, and what do you suppose I saw?"
"The baby in convulsions," said Stanton.
"Give it up," added Van Berg.
"Sweet transformation scene; deep hush; my wife asleep in her rocking-chair, the baby asleep in the arms of Miss Burton, who held up a warning finger at me to be quiet. But the mischief was done; my wife started up and was mortified beyond measure that she had treated her guest so rudely. The good fairy, however, was so genuinely delighted that she had quieted the baby and given the tired mother a little rest, that we had to come to the conclusion that she found pleasure in ways that are a trifle uncommon. By some miracle or other she kept the baby asleep, and then my wife and I tried to entertain her a little, but we were the ones that were entertained. Before we knew it, the supper-bell rang, and then I'm blessed if the little chap didn't wake up and grin at us all. To think then that I should reward her by letting Mr. Chints slap her face with a five-hundred-dollar check! I guess we'll all know better next time."
"Did she tell you anything further about her history or her connections?" asked Stanton.
Mr. Burleigh stroked his beard and looked rather blank for a moment.
"Now I think of it," he ejaculated, "I be hanged if she said a word about herself. And now I think further of it, she somehow or other got Mrs. Burleigh and myself a-talking, and seemed so interested in us and what we said, that I be hanged again if we didn't tell her all we know about ourselves."
"She impresses every one as being remarkably frank, and yet I think it will be found that she is peculiarly reticent in regard to herself," remarked Van Berg musingly. "Well, it's not often I take people on trust, but I have given this lady my entire respect and confidence."
"I assure you that there is no trust in this business," said Mr. Burleigh, emphatically. "I can't afford to indulge in sentiment, gentlemen; besides, it couldn't be any more becoming in me than in Tom Chints. I wouldn't take an unprotected, unknown female into my house if she came with a pair of wings. But Miss Burton brings letters that establish her character as a lady as truly as that of any other woman in the house. I ought to have prevented this Chints business, but then five hundred is a nice little plum, and before I pulled my slow wits together the thing was done."
"By the way, Mr. Burleigh," remarked Stanton, "I hear that the parties who are now at my friend Van Berg's table are soon to leave for the sea-shore. Can you give me three seats there after their departure?"
"Certainly; put you down right alongside of Miss Burton."
"Perhaps Van Berg feels that he has the first claim to so good a position?"
"No, Stanton, I shall not place a straw in your way."
"You never were a man of straw, Van. If I were seeking more than to enjoy the society of this young lady, who seems to be embodied sunshine, I would be sorry to have you place yourself in the way."
"Sunshine brought to a focus kindles even green wood," remarkedVan Berg, with a significant nod at his friend.
"Well," said Mr. Burleigh, rising, "if I had not found my mate, I'd be a burr that that little woman wouldn't get rid of very easily. Good-night, gentlemen. I'll give either one of you my blessing."
"Good-night, Van," said Stanton, also. "I'm not going to stay and listen to your absurd predictions. Neither shall I permit you to enjoy all by yourself the delicate wine of that woman's wit. When good things are passing round, I propose to have my share. My presence can't hurt your prospects."
"And if it did, Ik, do you think me such a churl as to try to crowd you away?"
"That's magnanimous. I suppose you and my cousin can manage to keep the peace between you."
"I think the change will be far more disagreeable to Miss Mayhew than to me."
"You are very polite to say so. Good-night."
"Well," mused Van Berg, when left to himself; "I've made progress to-day after a fashion. We have been quite thoroughly introduced—in fact 'thrown together,' as fate and all her friends will have it. I might have been weeks in gaining as much insight into her character as circumstances have given me in a few brief hours. But what a miserable revelation she has made of herself—cowardice this morning—fraud this afternoon, and cold selfishness, that can amuse itself with the mortification and misfortunes of others, this evening. This is the moral side of the picture. But when I came to 'speer' around to see whether she had any mind or real culture, the exhibition was still more pitiable. Ye gods! that a girl can live to her age and know so little that is worth knowing! She knows how to dress—that is, how to enhance her physical beauty; and that, I admit, is a great deal. As far as it goes it is well. But of the taste of a beautiful and, at the same time, intellectual and highly cultivated woman, she has no conception; with her it is a question of flesh and blood only."
"I wonder if it will ever be otherwise? I wonder if her marvellous beauty, which is now like a budding rose, that partly conceals the worm in its heart, will soon, like the overblown flower, reveal so clearly what mars its life that scarcely anything else will be noticed. What a fate for a man—to be tied for life to a woman who will, with sure gradation, pass from at least outward beauty to utter hideousness! Beauty, in a case like this, is but a mask which time or the loathsome fingers of disease would surely strip off; and then what an object would confront the disenchanted lover! It would be like marrying a disguised death's-head. Never before did I realize how essential is mental and moral culture to give value to mere external beauty.
"And yet she seems to have a kind of quickness and aptness. She is not wanting in womanly intuition. I still am inclined to believe she has been dwarfed by circumstances and her wretched associations. Her mind has been given no better means of development than the knowledge of her beauty, the general and superficial homage that it always receives, the little round of thought that centres about self, and the daily question of dress. That's narrowing the world down to a cage large enough only for a poll-parrot. If the bird within has a parrot's nature, what is the use of opening the door and showing it larks singing in the sky? I fear that's what I'm trying to do, and that I shall go back to my fall work with a meagre portfolio and a grudge against nature, for mocking me with the fairest broken promise ever made."
The next day threatened to be a dreary one, for the rain fell so steadily as to make all sunny, out-of-door pleasures impossible. Many looked abroad with faces as dismal and cloudy as the sky; for the number of those who rise above their circumstances with a cheery courage are but few. Human faces can shine, although the sun be clouded; but, as a rule, the shadow falls on the face also, and the regal spirit succumbs like a clod of earth.
The people came straggling down late to breakfast in the dark morning, and, with a childish egotism that considers only self and immediate desires, the lowering weather which meant renewed beauty and wealth to all the land, was berated as if it were a small spite against the handful of people at the Lake House. Van Berg heard Ida Mayhew exclaiming against the clouds as if this spite were aimed at herself only.
"Some of her friends might not venture from the city," she said.
"They youths are not venturesome, then," remarked Stanton, who never lost an opportunity to tease.
"Of course they don't wish to get wet," she pouted.
"And yet I'll wager any amount that they are not of the 'salt of the earth' in any scriptural sense. Well, they had better stay in town, for this would be an instance of 'much ventured, nothing gained.'"
"You remind me of a certain fox who could not say enough hard things about the grapes that were out of reach. But mark my words, Mr. Sibley will come, if it pours."
"He wouldn't risk the spoiling of his clothes for any woman living."
"You judge him by yourself. Oh, dear, how shall I get through this long, horrible day! You men can smoke like bad chimneys through a storm, but for me there is no resource to-day, but a dull novel that I've read once before. Let me see, I'll read an hour and sleep three, and then it will be time to dress for dinner. Oh, good-morning, Mr. Van Berg," she says to the artist who had been listening to her while apparently giving close attention to Mrs. Mayhew's interminable tirade against rainy days; "I have just been envying you gentlemen who can kill stupid hours by smoking."
"I admit that it is almost as bad as sleeping."
"I see that you have a homily prepared on improving the time, soI shall escape at once."
On the stairs she met Miss Burton, who was descending with a breezy swiftness as if she were making a charge on the general gloom and sullenness of the day.
"Good-morning, Miss Mayhew," she said; "I'm glad to see you looking so well after the severe shaking up you had yesterday. You would almost tempt one to believe that rough usage is sometimes good for us."
"I have no such belief, I assure you. Yesterday was bad enough, but to-day promises to be worse. I was going to make up a boating party, but what can one do when the water is overhead instead of under the keel?"
"Scores of things," was the cheery reply. "I'm going to have a good time."
"I'm going to sleep," said Ida, passing on.
"Miss Burton," said Stanton, joining her at the foot of the stairs,"I perceive, even from your manner of descending to our lower world,that you are destined to vanquish the dullness of this rainy day.Don't you wish an ally?"
"Would you be an ally, Mr. Stanton, if you saw I was destined to be vanquished?"
"Of course I would."
"Look in the parlor then. There are at least a dozen ladies already vanquished. They are oppressed by the foul-fiend, 'ennui.' Transfer your chivalric offer to them and deliver them."
"Stanton," laughed Van Berg, "you are in honor bound to devote yourself to those oppressed ladies."
"The prospect is so dark and depressing that I shall at least cheer myself first with the light of a cigar."
"And so your chivalry will end in smoke," she said.
"Yes, Miss Burton, the smoke of battle, where you are concerned."
"I fear your wit is readier than your sword. The soldier that boasts how he would overwhelm some other foe than the one before him loses credit to the degree that he protests."
"You are more exacting, Miss Burton, than the lady who threw her glove down among the lions. What chance would Hercules himself have of lifting those twelve heavy females out of the dumps?"
"It's not what we do, but what we attempt, that shows our spirit."
"Then I shall expect to see you attempt great things."
"I'm only a woman."
"And I'm only a man."
"Only a man! what greater vantage-ground could one have than to be a man?"
"The advantage is not so uncommon that one need be unduly elated," state Stanton with a shrug. "I forget how many hundred millions of us there are. But I'm curious to see how you will set about rendering the hues of this leaden day prismatic."
"Only by being the innocent cause of your highly colored language,I imagine."
"Oh, dear," exclaimed a little boy petulantly, as he strolled through the hall and looked out at the steady downfall of rain. "Oh dear! Why can't it stop raining?"
"There's the philosophy of our time for you in a nutshell," said Van Berg. "When a human atom wants anything, what business has the universe to stand in its way?"
"But you have no better philosophy to offer the disconsolate little fellow, Mr. Ban Berg?" Miss Burton asked.
"Now, Van, it's your turn. Remember, Miss Burton, he has the same vantage-ground that I have. Indeed he's half an inch taller."
"The world long ago learned better than to measure men by inches,Mr. Stanton."
"Alas, Miss Burton," said Van Berg; "the best philosophy I have is this: when it rains, let it rain."
"And thus I'm privileged to meet representatives of those two ancient and honorable schools, the Stoic and Epicurean, and you both think, I fear, that if Xanthippe had founded a school, my philosophy would also be defined. But perhaps you will think better of me if I tell that little fellow a story to pass the time for him. What's the matter, little folk?" she asked, for two or three more small clouded faces had gathered at the door.
"Matter enough," said the boy. "This horrid old rain keeps us in the house, where we can't do anything or stay anywhere. We mustn't play in the parlor, we mustn't make a noise in the halls, we mustn't run on the piazzas. I'd like to live in a world where there was some place for boys."
"Poor child," said Miss Burton; "this rain is as bad for you as the deluge to Noah's dove, it has left you no refuge for the sole of your foot. Will you come with me? No one has said you must not hear a jolly story."
"You won't tell me about any good little boys who died when they were as big as I am?"
"I'll keep my word—it shall be a jolly story."
"May we hear it too?" asked the other children.
"Yes, all of you."
"Where shall we go?"
"We won't disturb any one in the far corner of the parlor by the piano. If you know of any other little people, you can bring them there, too," and they each darted off in search of especial cronies.
"May we not hear the story also?" asked Stanton.
"No, indeed, I may be able to interest children, but not philosophers."
"Then we will go and meditate," said Van Berg.
"Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers."
"I fear you think that the worshipful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men, whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only."
"Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise."
"Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower over the world, while you are trying to banish them."
"And if, after helping the children towards the close of this dismal day, your heart should relent towards us," added Stanton, "you will find two worthy objects of your charity."
"Oh what a falling off is here!" she exclaimed, following the impatient children. "Knights at first, then philosophers, and now objects of charity."
Miss Burton evidently kept her word, and told a "jolly story," for the friends saw through the parlor windows that the circle around her grew larger and more hilarious continually. Then would follow moments of rapt and eager attention, showing that the tale gained in excitement and interest what it lost in humor. Young people, who did not like to be classed with children, one by one yielded to the temptation. There was life and enjoyment in that corner and dulness elsewhere, and nothing is so attractive in the world as genuine and joyous life.
Even elderly ladies looked wistfully up at the occasional bursts of contagious merriment, and then sighed that they had lost the power of laughing so easily.
At last the marvelous legend came to an end amid a round of prolonged applause.
"Another, another!" was the general outcry.
But Miss Burton had observed that the ladies and gentlemen present seemed inclined to be friendly towards the young people's fun, and therefore she broached another scheme of pleasure that would vary the entertainment.
"Perhaps," she said, "your papas and mammas and the other good people will not object to an old-fashioned Virginia reel."
A shout of welcome greeted this proposition.
Miss Burton raised her finger so impressively that there was an instant hush. Indeed she seemed to have gained entire control of the large and miscellaneous group which surrounded her.
"We will draw up a petition," she said; "for we best enjoy our own rights and pleasures when respecting those of others. This little boy and girl shall take the petition around to all the ladies and gentlemen in the room, and this shall be the petition:
"'Dear lady and kind sir: Please don't object to our dancing aVirginia reel in the parlor.'"
"All who wish to dance can sign it. Now we will go to the office and draw up the petition." And away they all started, the younger children, wild with glee, capering in advance.
Stanton threw away his cigar and met her at the office register.
"Gentle shepherdess," he asked, "whither are you leading your flock?"
"How behind the age you are!" she replied. "Can you not see that the flock is leading me?"
"If I were a wolf I would not trouble the flock but would carry off the shepherdess—to a game of billiards."
"What, then, would become of the flock?"
"that's a question that never troubles a wolf."
"A wolfish answer truly. I think, however, you have reversed the parable, and are but a well-meaning sheep that has donned a wolf's skin, and so we will put you to the test. We young people will give you a chance to draw up our petition, which, if you would save your character, you must do at once with sheep-like docility, asking no questions and causing no delay. There, that will answer; very sheepishly done, but no sheep's eyes, if you please," she added, as Stanton pretended to look up to her for inspiration, while writing. "Now, all sign. I think I can trust you, sir, on the outskirts of the flock. Here, my little man and woman, go to each of the ladies and gentlemen, make a bow and a courtesy, and present the petition."
"May I not gambol with the shepherdess in the coming pastoral?" asked Stanton.
"No, indeed! You are much too old; besides, I am going to play.You may look gravely on."
Every one in the parlor smiling assented to the odd little couple that bobbed up and down before them, and moved out of the way for the dancers. The petitioners therefore soon returned and were welcomed with applause.
"Now go to the inner office and present the petition to Mr. Burleigh," said Miss Burton.
"Hollo!" cried that gentleman, looking around with a great show of savagery, as the little girl pulled the skirt of his coat to attract his attention; "where's King Herod?"
"We wish to try another method with the children," answered Miss Burton. "Will it please you therefore graciously to read the petition. All in the parlor have assented."
"My goodness gracious—-"
"No swearing, sir, if you please."
"Woman has been too many for man ever since she got him into trouble by eating green apples," ejaculated Mr. Burleigh with a despairing gesture. "Why do you mock me with petitions? THERE is the power behind the throne," pointing to Miss Burton.
"Take your places, small ladies and gentlemen," she cried. "That's Mr. Burleigh's way of saying yes. While you are forming, I'll play a few bars to give you the time."
Did she bewitch the piano that it responded so wonderfully to her touch? Where had she found such quaint, dainty music, simple as the old-fashioned dance itself, so that the little ones could keep time to it, and yet pleasing Van Berg's fastidious ear with its unhackneyed and refined melody. But the marked and marvellous feature in her playing was an airy rolicksomeness that was as irresistible as a panic. Old ladies' heads began to bob over their fancy work most absurdly. Two quartets of elderly gentlemen at whist were evidently beginning to play badly, their feet meantime tapping the floor in a most unwonted manner.
"Were I as dead as Julius Caesar I could not resist that quickstep," cried Stanton; and he rushed over to his aunt, Mrs. Mayhew, and dragged her into line.
"What in the name of all the witches of Salem has got into that piano!" cried Mr. Burleigh, bursting into the parlor from the office, with his pen stuck behind his ear, and his hair brushed up perpendicularly. "There's sorcery in the air. I'm practised upon—Keep still? No, not if I was nailed up in one of the soldier's 'wooden overcoats.' The world is transformed, transfigured, transmogrified, and 'things are not what they seem!' Here's a blooming girl who'll dance with me," and he seized the hand of a white-haired old lady who yielded to the contagion so far as to take a place in the line beside her granddaughter.
Indeed, in a few moments, all who had been familiar with the pastime in their youth, caught the joyous infection, and lengthened out the lines, each new accession being greeted with shouts and laughter.
The scene approached in character that described by Hawthorne as occurring in the grounds of the Villa Borghese when Donatello, with a simple "tambourine," produced music of such "indescribably potency" that sallow, haggard, half-starved peasants, French soldiers, scarlet-costumed contadinas, Swiss guards, German artists, English lords, and herdsmen from the Campagna, all "joined hands in the dance" which the musician himself led with the frisky, frolicsome step of the mythical faun.
In the latter instance it was a contagious, mad excitement easily possible among hot-blooded people and wandering pleasure-seekers, the primal laws of whose being are impulse and passion. That the joyous exhilaration which filled Mr. Burleigh's parlor was akin to the wild, half pagan frenzy that the great master of fiction imagined as seizing upon the loiterers near the Villa Borghese cannot be denied. Both phases of excitement would spring naturally from the universal craving for pleasurable life and activity. The one, however, was a rank growth from a rank soil—the passionate ebullition of passion-swayed natures; the other was inspired by the magnetic spirit of a New England maiden, who, by some law of her nature or consecration of her life, devoted every power of her being to the vivifying of others, and the frolic she had instigated was as free from the grosser elements as the tossing wild flowers of her native hills. With the exception perhaps of Van Berg, she had impressed every one as possessing a peculiarly sunny temperament. Be this as it may, it certainly appeared true that she found her happiness in enlivening others; and it is difficult even to imagine how much a gifted mind can accomplish in this respect when every faculty is devoted to the ministry of kindness.
This view of Miss Burton's character would account in part, but not wholly, for the power she exercised over others. Van Berg thought he at times detected a suppressed excitement in her manner. A light sometimes flickered in her deep blue eyes that might have been caused by a consuming and hidden fire, rather than by genial and joyous thoughts.
As he watched her now through the parlor window, her eyes were burning, her face reminded him of a delicate flame, and her whole being appeared concentrated into the present moment. In its vivid life it seemed one of the most remarkable faces he ever saw; but the thought occurred again and again—"If the features of Ida Mayhew could be lighted up like that I'd give years of my lifetime to be able to paint the beauty that would result."
Just at this moment he saw that young lady approach the parlor entrance with an expression of wonder on her face. He immediately joined her, and she said:
"Mr. Van Berg, what miracle has caused this scene?"
"Come with me and I'll show you," he answered and he led her to the window opposite to Miss Burton, where she sat at the piano. "There," he said, "is the miracle,—a gifted, magnetic, unselfish woman devoting herself wholly to the enjoyment of others. She has created more sunshine this dismal day than we have had in the house since I've been here. Is not that face there a revelation?"
"A revelation of what?" she asked with rising color.
"Of the possibilities of the human face to grow in beauty and power, if kindled by a noble and animating mind. Ye gods!" cried the artist, expressing the excitement which he felt in common with others in accordance with the law of his own ruling passion, "but I would give much to reproduce that face on canvas;" and then he added with a despairing gesture, "but who can paint flame and spirit?"
After a moment he exclaimed, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes: "It appears to me that if kindled by such a mind as that which is burning in yonder face, I could attempt anything and accomplish everything. Limitations melt away before a growing sense of power. What an inspiration a woman can be to a man, or what a mill-stone about his neck, according to what she is! Ah!—-"
The cause of this exclamation cannot be explained in the brief time that it occurred. Stanton had happened at that moment to catch a glimpse of Van Berg and his cousin, and he called quite loudly:
"Harold, bring Miss Mayhew in and join us."
At the same instant Mr. Burleigh's heavy step passing near the piano, jarred down a picture that was hung insecurely, and it fell with a crash at Miss Burton's side. Was it the shock of the falling picture upon unprepared and overstrained nerves, or what was it that produced the instantaneous change in the joyous-appearing maiden? Her hands dropped nerveless from the keys. So great was the pallor that swept over her face that it suggested to he artist the sudden extinguishment of a lamp. She bowed her head and trembled a moment and then escaped by a side door.
Van Berg walked hastily to the main entrance, thinking she was ill, but only saw her vanishing up the stairway with hasty steps. Many of the dancers, in their kindly solicitude, had tried to intercept her, but had been too late. It would seem that all ascribed her indisposition to a nervous shock.
"It is evident," said the lady who had been conversing with her when she had acted in a like manner on the first day of her arrival, "that she possesses a highly sensitive organism, which suddenly gives way when subjected to a strain too severe;" and she remained Van Berg of her former manifestation of weakness.
He accepted this view as the most natural explanation that could be given.