Genuine and genial were the words of sympathy that were expressed on every side for the young lady who had been transforming the dull day into one of exceptional jollity. A deputation of ladies called upon her, but from within her locked door she confirmed the impression that it was a nervous shock, and that a few hours of perfect quiet would restore her.
And it would seem that she was right, for she came down to supper apparently as genial and smiling as ever. Beyond a slight pallor and a little fulness about her eyes, Van Berg could detect no trace of her sudden indisposition.
The remainder of the day was passed more quietly by the guests of the Lake House, but the force of Miss Burton's example did not spend itself at once, and on the part of some there was developed quite a marked disposition to make kindly efforts to promote the enjoyment of others. The unwonted exhilaration with which she had inspired her fellow guests was something they could scarcely account for, and yet the means employed had been so simple and were so plainly within the reach of all, as to suggest that a genial manner and an unselfish regard for others were the only conditions required to enable each one to do something to brighten every cloudy day.
After Miss Burton's departure, the young people had the dance to themselves, their elders resuming the avocations and soberer pleasures from which they had been swept by an impulse evoked from their half-forgotten youth.
When Van Berg joined Miss Mayhew again, he found her mother andStanton trying to explain how it all came about.
"There is no use of multiplying words," concluded Stanton; "Miss Burton is gifted with a mind, and she uses it for the benefit of others instead of tasking it solely on her own account, which is the general rule."
At this moment a letter was handed to Mrs. Mayhew, which she read with a slight frown and passed to her daughter. It was from Mr. Mayhew, and contained but a brief sentence to the effect that his absence would probably be a relief, and therefore he would not spend the coming Sabbath with them.
Ida did not show the superficial vexation that her mother manifested, and which was more assumed than real. Her cheek paled a little, and she instinctively glanced at Van Berg as if her sudden sense of guilt were apparent to his keen eyes. He was looking at he searchingly, and she turned away with a quick flush, nor did she give him a chance to speak with her again that day; but his words—"what a millstone about a man's neck a woman can be!"—haunted her continually. Still oftener rose before her Miss Burton's flushed and kindled face, and the artist's emphatic assertion of the power of mind and character to add to native beauty. Had she not been a millstone about her father's neck? Was there not a fatal flaw in the beauty of which she was so proud, that spoiled it for eyes that were critical and unblinded?
Oppressed by these thoughts and being in no mood for her cousin's banter, or the artist's society which always seemed to render her more uncomfortable, she was glad to escape to the solitude of her own room.
Another "revelation" was slowly dawning upon her mind, namely—just what she, Ida Mayhew, was. A woman is an "inspiration" or a "millstone according to what she is," this stranger, this disturber of her peace, from whom it seemed she could not escape, had not only asserted but proved by showing her a lady she would have passed as plain and insignificant, but who nevertheless possessed some sweet potency that won and cheered all hearts, and who, she was compelled to admit, was positively beautiful as she sat at the piano, radiant with her purpose to cause gladness in others. Miss Burton had created sunshine enough to enliven the dismal day, and had quickened a hundred pulses with pleasure. She had been a burden even to herself.
Everything, from the artist's first disturbing frown to the present hour, had been preparing the way for the sharp and painful contrast that circumstances had forced upon her attention to-day.
But the thought that troubled her most, was that he saw this contrast more plainly than it was possible for her to see it.
Vaguely, and yet with some approach to the truth, her intuition began to reveal to her the attitude of his mind towards her. She believed that he was attracted, but also saw that he was not blinded by her beauty. She was already beginning to revise her first impression that he was shutting his eyes to every other consideration, as she had seen so many do in their brief infatuation. His manner was not that of one who is taking counsel of passion only. Those ominous words—"according to what she is"—indicated that he was looking into her mind, her character. With a sense of dismay, she was awakening to a knowledge of the dwarfed ugliness her beauty but partially concealed, and she felt that he, from the first, had been discovering those defects of which she had been scarcely conscious herself. She began to fear that her cousin's words would prove true, and that he would not fall helplessly in love with her. Therefore the opportunity to retaliate and to punish him for all the mortifications that he had occasioned her, would never come. On the contrary, he might inflict upon her, any day, the crowning humiliation of declaring, be indifference of manner, that he had found her out so thoroughly, as to entertain for her only feelings of disgust and repugnance.
"Well," she concluded, recklessly, "why should I care what he thinks? I have lived thus far without his good opinion, and I can live a little longer, I imagine. I have had a good time for eighteen years after my own fashion, and I will just ignore him and have a good time still. Indeed I'll shock him to-night and to-morrow so thoroughly, that he won't come near me again; for I'm sick of his superior airs. I'm sick of his learned talk about books, pictures, and politics, as if a young society girl were expected to know about these things; and as for his small talk, it reminded me of an elephant trying to dance a jig;" and she sprang up with a snatch of song from the "opera bouffe," and began her toilet for dinner.
In a few moments, however, she dropped her hairbrush absently, and forgot to look at her fair face in the mirror.
"I wonder," she mused, "if he and Miss Burton ever met before they came here? It has been a strange coincidence that she should have felt such a sudden indisposition in each instance at the same moment that his name was casually mentioned. True, on both occasions, events occurred that might account for the sudden giving way of her nerves, but I cannot help thinking that she has some association with him that the rest of us know nothing about. She certainly seems more interested in him than in any one else in the house, for I have several times noticed peculiar and furtive glances towards him; besides, they are evidently growing to be very good friends. As for Ik, he seems quite inclined to enter upon a serious flirtation with her. But what do I care for either of them! Mr. Sibley will be here to-night, and I'll enable this artist to bring his investigations to a close at once. I am what I am, and that's the end of it, and I won't mope and have a stupid time for anybody, and certainly not for him. Let him marry the school-ma'am. She can talk books, art, and all the 'isms' going, to his heart's content. I, as well as Miss Burton, have my opinion of flirting, and know from some little experience that it is jolly good fun.
"He can go his way, I'll go mine;E'en though he frowns, the sun will shine."
And with a careless gesture she affected to dismiss him from her thoughts.
To judge from her manner that evening and the following day, one might suppose that she succeeded very fully. Sibley, with an unwonted venturesomeness, did risk his one immaculate possession, his clothes, and came from the city through the storm. Ida and himself, between them, brought about the nearest approach to a "ball" possible in the circumstances.
The dancing, under their auspices, differed from that of the morning, not merely in name and form, but in its subtle character. In the one instance it had been an innocent pastime, occasioned by childlike and joyous impulses. The people's manner might have reminded one of a bit of darkened landscape that had been rapidly filled with light, and almost ecstatic life by the advent of a May morning.
In the evening, however, everything was artificial and in keeping with the gaslight. The ladies were conscious of their toilets, conscious of themselves, looking for admiration rather than hearty enjoyment. Even the older boys and girls, who had been joyous children in the morning, were now small parodies of fashionable men and women! A band of hired performers twanged out the hackneyed dancing music then in vogue, going over their small "repertoire" with wearisome repetition. People danced at first because it was the thing to do, and not from any inspiration from the melody. As the evening wore on, Sibley, who had been drinking quite freely, tried to introduce, as far as possible, the excitement of a revel, calling chiefly for swift waltzes and gallops through which he and Ida whirled in a way that made people's heads dizzy.
Miss Burton, after going through a quadrille with Stanton early in the evening, had declined to dance any more. She did not feel very well, she explained to Van Berg as he sought her for the next form; but he imagined that she early foresaw that Sibley and others, and among them even Stanton, were inclined to give the evening a character that was not to her taste.
As Ida had made herself somewhat prominent in inaugurating the "ball," as Sibley took pains to term it on all occasions, Van Berg, as a part of his tactics to win the beauty's good-will, tried at first to make the affair successful. He danced with others, and twice sought her hand; but in each case she rather indifferently told him that she was engaged. He would not have sought her as a partner after his first rebuff had he not imagined, from occasional and furtive glances, that she was not as indifferent as she seemed.
Early in the evening it occurred to him that her slightly reckless manner was assumed, but he saw that she was abandoning herself to the growing excitement of the dance, as Sibley, her most frequent partner, and others, were to the stronger excitement of liquor. Observant mothers called away their daughters. Ladies, in whom the instincts of true refined womanhood were in the ascendancy, looked significantly at each other, and declined further invitations.
Van Berg had also withdrawn, but with his disposition to watch manifestations of character in general, and of one present in particular, he still stood at a parlor window looking on. The band had just struck up a livelier waltz than usual, and Ida and Sibley were whirling through the wide apartment as if treading on air; but when, a few moments later, they circled near where he stood, he saw upon the young man's face an expression of earthiness and grossness that was anything but ethereal. Indeed so unmistakably wanton was the look which Sibley bent upon his companion, whose heaving bosom he clasped against his won, that the artist frowned darkly at him, and felt his hand tingling to strike the fellow a blow.
She, looking up, caught his frown, and in her egotism and excitement, thought it meant only jealousy of the man she had so favored during the evening.
"Perhaps he is more deeply smitten than I imagined, and I can punish him yet," was the hope that entered her mind; and this prospect added to the elation and excitement which had mastered her.
"Can she know how that scoundrel is looking at her? If I believed it I'd leave her marvellous features to their fate," was the thought that passed through his mind.
In his perturbation he walked down the long piazza. Happening to glance into one of the small private parlors, he witnessed a scene that made a very sharp contrast with the one he had just left. An old white-haired, white-bearded man, a well-known guest of the house, reclined in an easy-chair with an expression of real enjoyment on his face. His aged wife sat near, knitting away as tranquilly as if at home, while under the gas-jet was Miss Burton, reading a newspaper, with two or three others upon her lap. She had evidently found the old gentleman trying to glean, with his feeble sight, the evening journals that had been brought from the city, and was lending him her young eyes and mellow voice for an hour. The picture struck him so pleasantly that he took out his notebook and indicated the fortunate grouping within, for a future sketch.
"It would make some difference in a man's future," he muttered, "whether this maiden or the one in yonder roue's embrace were installed as the mistress of his home."
Going back into the main hallway he met Stanton coming down the stairs with his face unusually flushed.
"Oh, Van," he cried, "where have you been keeping yourself? Come with me and have some of the best brandy you ever tasted."
"Where is it?"
"In Sibley's room. He brought up a couple of bottles of the prime old article, and has invited all his friends to make free with it."
"I'm not one of his friends."
"Oh well, you're my friend! What's the odds? A swig of such brandy will do you good, so come along."
"Come out on the piazza, Stanton. I want to show you something."
"Can't you wait a few moments? I want to have a whirl in this jolly waltz before it's over."
"No; then it will be too late. I won't keep you long," and Stanton reluctantly followed him.
Van Berg understood his friend sufficiently well to know that any ordinary remonstrance would have no influence in his present condition, and so sought to use a little strategy. Taking him to the window of the small private parlor, he showed and explained to him the pretty and quiet scene within.
Stanton's manner changed instantly, and he seemed in no haste to return to the waltz.
"I thought it would strike you as a pretty picture, as it did me," remarked Van Berg, quietly; "and I also thought that after seeing it you would not want any more of Sibley's brandy. It would choke me."
"You are right, Van. I fear I've taken too much of it already. I'm glad you showed me this quiet picture—it makes me wish I were a better man."
"I like that, Ik; I always knew you had plenty of good metal in you. Now I don't want to be officious, but I would not let a cousin of mine dance with Sibley any longer if I could prevent it without attracting attention. However generous he may have been with his brandy, he has had more than his share himself."
"Thank you, Van; I understand you. By Jove, I'll try the same tactics with her that you have with me. I'll bring her here and show her a scene that has been to me like a quieting and restraining hand."
A few moments later the waltz ceased, and Miss Mayhew came out on the cool, dusky piazza, leaning on Sibley's arm. Stanton joined her and said:
"Ida, come with me; I wish to speak with you a moment. Mr. Sibley, please excuse us."
"Indeed, Mr. Stanton," said Sibley in tones of maudlin sentiment, "you are cruel to deprive me of your cousin's society even for a moment. I'll forgive you this once, but never again." And then he availed himself of the opportunity to pay another visit to his brandy.
"Ida," said Stanton, "I want to show you a little picture that has done me good."
But the young lady was in no mood for pictures or moralizing. Her blood was coursing feverishly through her veins, her spirit had been made reckless by the wilful violence that she was doing her conscience, and also by her deep and growing dissatisfaction with herself, that was like an irritating wound. She was therefore prepared to resent any interruption to the whirl of excitement, which gave her a kind of pleasure in the place of the happiness that was impossible to one in her condition.
"You call that a pretty picture!" she said disdainfully; "Miss Burton reading a newspaper to two stupid old people who ought to be abed! A more humdrum scene I never saw. Truly, both your breath and your words show that you have been drinking too much. But you need not expect me to share in your tipsy sentiment over Miss Burton. Did Mr. Van Berg ask you to show me this matter-of-fact group which, in his artistic jargon, you call a picture?"
"If he had, he showed you a greater kindness than you deserved."
"Yes, and a greater one than I asked or wished from him."
"Then you are going back to dance with Sibley?"
"Yes, I am."
"The prospects are, that you and Mrs. Chints and a couple of half-tipsy men will soon have it all to yourselves. I suppose the old adage about 'birds of a feather' swill still hold good. I was in hopes, however, that even if you had no appreciation of what was beautiful, refined, and unselfish in another woman's action, you still had some self-respect, or at least some fear of ridicule, left. Since you won't listen to me, I shall warn your mother. If Sibley and two or three others drink much more, Burleigh will interfere for the credit of his house."
"You have been drinking as well as Mr. Sibley."
"Well, thanks to Van Berg, I stopped before I lost my head."
"From your maudlin sentiment over Miss Burton, I think you have lost your head and heart both."
"Go; dance with Sibley, then," he said in sudden irritation; "dance with him till you and Mrs. Chints between you have to hold him on his feet. Dance with him till Burleigh sends a couple of colored waiters to take him from your embrace and carry him off to bed."
She made a gesture of rage and disgust, and went straight to her room.
Sibley, in the mean time, paid a lengthened visit to his brandy, and having already passed the point of discretion, drank recklessly. When he descended the stairs again to look for his partner, his step was uncertain and his utterance thick.
Stanton gave Mr. Burleigh a hint that the young man needed looking after, and the adroit host, skilled in managing all kinds of people and in every condition, induced him to return to his room, under the pretence of wishing to taste his fine old brandy, and then kept him there until the lethargic stage set in as the result of his excess. And so an affair, which might have created much scandal, was smuggled out of sight and knowledge as far as possible. Mrs. Mayhew had been so occupied with whist that she had not observed that anything was amiss, and merely remarked that "Mr. Sibley's ball had ended earlier than usual."
The expression of Ida Mayhew's face was cold and defiant on the following day. She did not attend church with her mother, but remained all the morning in her room. She not only avoided opportunities of speaking to Van Berg when coming down to dinner and during the afternoon, but she would not even look towards him; and her manner towards her cousin also was decidedly icy.
"I don't know what is the matter with Ida," her mother remarked toStanton; "she has acted so strangely of late."
"It's the old complaint, I imagine," he replied with a shrug.
"What's that?"
"Caprice."
"Oh, well! she's no worse than other pretty, fashionable girls," said Miss Mayhew, carelessly.
Stanton, in his anger on the previous evening, had not spoken of his cousin to Van Berg in a very complimentary way; but the artist remembered that the young man himself was not in a condition to form either a correct or charitable judgment; while the fact that Ida, as a result of his remonstrance, had gone directly to her room, was in her favor. He still resolved to suspend his final opinion and not to give over his project until satisfied that her nature contained too much alloy to permit of its success. He paid no heed therefore to her coldness of manner; and when at last meeting her face to face on the piazza Sunday evening, he lifted his hat as politely as possible.
Sibley did not appear until the arrival of the dinner hour. He was under the impression that he had gone a little too far the night before, and tried to make amends by an immaculate toilet and an urbane yet dignified courtesy towards all whom he knew. Society very readily winks at the indiscretions of wealthy young men. Moreover, he had been inveigled back to his room before his condition had been observed to any extent. There fore he found himself so well received in the main, that he soon fully recovered his wonted self-assurance.
Mrs. Mayhew was particularly gracious; and Ida, who at first had been somewhat distant towards him as well as all others, concluded that she had not sufficient cause to be ashamed of him, and so it came about that they spent much of the afternoon and evening together. She did not fail to note, however, that when he approached Van Berg he received a cold and curt reception. Was jealousy the cause of this? In her elation and excitement on the previous evening, she had been inclined to think so, but now she feared that it was because the artist despised the man; and in her secret soul she was compelled to admit that he had reason to despise him—yes, to despise them both. She felt, with bitter humiliation, that his superiority was not assumed but real.
More than once before the day closed, she found herself contrasting the two men. The one had not had a shred of true worth about him. Stanton, to teaze her and to justify his interference, had told her that Mr. Burleigh had been compelled to take charge of her companion in order to prevent him from disgracing himself and the house. Although too proud to acknowledge it, she still saw plainly that it was her cousin's interference, and indirectly the intervention of the artist that had kept her from being involved in that disgrace.
Even her perverted mind recognized that one was a gentleman, and the other—well, "a fashionable young man," as she would phrase it. The one, as a friend, would shield her from every detracting breath; the other, if given a chance, would inevitably tumble into some slough of infamy himself, and drag her after him with reckless selfishness.
Still, with something like self-loathing, she saw that Sibley was her natural ally and companion, and that she had far more in common with him than with the artist. She could easily maintain with him the inane chatter of their frivolous life, but she could not talk with the artist, nor he with her, without an effort that was as humiliating as it was apparent.
What was more, she saw that all others classed her with Sibley, and that the people in the house who were akin to the artist in character and high breeding, stood courteously but coolly aloof from both herself and her mother. She also felt that she could not lay all the blame of this upon her poor father. Indeed, since the previous miserable Sunday on which Van Berg had tried to win Mr. Mayhew from his evil habit for one day at least, and she had thwarted his kindly intention, she had begun to feel that she and her mother were the chief causes of his increasing degradation. Others, she feared, and especially Van Berg, took the same view.
With such thoughts surging up in her mind and clouding her brow, Sibley did not find her altogether the same girl that she had been the evening before. Still, as has been said, he was her natural ally, and she tried to second his efforts to re-establish a good character and to keep up the appearance of fashionable respect.
Stanton was in something of a dilemma. He did not like Sibley, and was ashamed of his recent excess; but having drank with him, and so, in a sense, having accepted his hospitality, felt himself obliged to be rather affable. He managed the matter by keeping out of the way as far as possible, and was glad to remember that the young man would depart in the morning. While scarcely acknowledging the fact to himself, he was on the alert most of the day to find an opportunity of enjoying a conversation with Miss Burton; but she kept herself very much secluded. After attending church at a neighboring village in the morning, she spent most of the afternoon with Mrs. Burleigh, assisting her in the care of the cross baby.
Van Berg, much to Stanton's envy, found her as genial and cheery as ever when they met at the table. He learned, from her manner more than from anything she said, that the day and its associations were sacred to her. She affected no solemnity and seemed under no constraint, only her thought and bearing had a somewhat soberer coloring, like the shading of a picture. To his mind it was but another example of her entire reticence in regard to herself, while her smiling face seemed as open as the light.
But as she came out from supper the children pounced upon her, clamorous for a story. She assented on condition that Mr. Burleigh would give them the use of one of the private parlors—a stipulation speedily complied with; and soon she had nearly all the small folk in the hotel gathered round her.
"I shall stand without, like the 'Peri at the gate,'" Stanton found a chance to say.
"The resemblance is very striking," was her smiling reply; but for some reason he winced under it and wished he had not spoken.
When she dismissed her little audience there were traces of tears on some of the children's faces, proving that she could tell a pathetic, as well as a jolly story; and Van Berg observed with interest how the power of her magnetism kept them lingering near her even after she entered the parlor and sought a quiet nook near the old gentleman and lady to whom she had been reading the previous evening.
Mrs. Chints, who liked to be prominent on all occasions, very proudly felt that sacred music would be the right thing on Sabbath evening, and, with a few of hew own ilk, was giving a florid and imperfect rendering of that peculiar style of composition that suggests a poor opera while making a rather shocking and irreverent use of words taken from Scriptures.
Van Berg and Stanton, who were out on the piazza, were ready to grate their teeth in anguish, finding the narcotic influence of the strongest cigar no match for Mrs. Chints's voice.
Suddenly that irrepressible lady spied Miss Burton, and she swooped down upon her in a characteristic manner, exclaiming:
"You can't decline; you needn't say you don't; I've heard you. If you sing half as well for us as you did to Mrs. Burleigh's baby this afternoon, we'll be more than satisfied. Now come; one sweet solo—just one."
Stanton craned his neck from where he sat to see the result of this onslaught, but Miss Burton shook her head.
"Well, then, won't you join in with us?" persisted Mrs. Chints."Sacred music is so lovely and appropriate on Sunday night."
"You are right in that respect, Mrs. Chints. If it is the wish of those present I think some simple hymns in which we can all join might be generally enjoyed."
"Now, my dear, you have just hit it," said the old lady at her side. "I, for one, would very much like to hear some simple music like that we had when I was young."
The old lady's preference was taken up and echoed on every side. Indeed the majority were ready for any change from Mrs. Chints's strident tones.
"Well, my dear," said the lady, "it shall be as you say." Then she added, "sotto voce," with a complacent nod, "I suppose the music we were giving is beyond the masses, but if you could once hear Madame Skaronni render it in our choir at the Church of the (something that sounded like 'pica-ninny,' as by Mrs. Chints pronounced) you would wish for no other. Will you play, my dear?"
"Ah, yes, please do," exclaimed some of the children who had gathered around her.
"In mercy to us poor mortals for whom there is no escape save going to bed, please comply," whispered the old lady in her ear.
The light in Miss Burton's eyes was mirthful rather than sacred as she rose and went to the piano, and at once an air of breezy and interested expectancy took the place of the previous bored expression.
"Come, Van," said Stanton, throwing away his cigar, "we'll need your tenor voice. We must stand by that little woman. The Chints tribe have incited to profanity long enough, and shall make the night hideous no more. If we could only drown them instead of their voices, what a mercy it would be!" and the young men went around and stood in the open door near the piano.
"You are to sing," said Miss Burton, with a decided little nod at them.
"We intend to," replied Stanton, "since you are to accompany us."
She started "Coronation," that spirited and always inspiriting battle song of the church—jubilant and militant—a melody that is also admirably adapted for blending rough and inharmonious voices.
For a moment her own voice was like that of a singing lark, mounting from its daisy covert; or rather, like the flow of a silver rill whose music was soon lost, however, in the tumultuous rush of other tributary streams of sound; still, the general effect was good, and the people enjoyed it. By the time the second stanza was reached the majority were singing with hearty good-will, the children gathering near and joining in with delight.
Other familiar and old-fashioned hymns followed, and then one and another began to ask for their favorites. Fortunately Mrs. Chints's knowledge of sacred music was limited, and so she retired on the laurels of having called Miss Burton out, informing half the company of the fact with an important nod; and in remembrance of this fact they were inclined to forgive her the anguish she had personally caused them.
Mrs. Burleigh, who had stolen into the parlor for a little while that she might enjoy the singing, remembered that she had a pile of note-books that had grown dusty on a shelf since the baby had furnished the music of the household. These were brought, and higher and fuller musical themes were attempted, until the singers dwindled to a quartet composed of a lady who had a fair soprano voice, Miss Burton, Stanton and Van Berg. Their selections, however, continued truly sacred in character, thus differing radically from the florid style that Mrs. Chints had introduced.
The sweet and penetrating power of Miss Burton's voice could now be distinguished. For some reason it thrilled and touched its hearers in a way that they could not account for. The majority present at once realized that she was not, and never could become, a great singer. But within the compass of her voice, she could pronounce sacred words in a manner that send them home to the hears of the listeners like rays that could both cheer and melt.
At last she rose from the piano, remarking that there were other musicians present; and no amount of persuasion could induce her to remain there any longer.
"Perhaps you gentlemen play," she said, turning to the young men who were about to depart. "A man's touch and leadership is so much more decisive and vigorous than a lady's!"
"Mr. Van Berg plays very well indeed, considering his youth and diffidence!" remarked Stanton.
"And he has been taking advantage of a defenceless woman all this time! Mr. Van Berg, if you do not wish to lose your character utterly, you must take my place at the piano."
"I admit," he replied, "that I have taken more pleasure than you will believe in your in your contribution to our evening's enjoyment, but rather than lose your good opinion I will attempt to play or sing anything you dictate, even though I put every one in the parlor to flight, with their fingers in their ears."
"And you fear my taste will impose on you some such blood-curdling combination of sounds? Thank you."
"Now, Van, you have taught us what unconditional surrender means.Miss Burton, ask him to play and sing some selections from theOratorio of the Messiah."
"Are you familiar with that?" she asked, with a sudden lighting up of her face.
"Somewhat so, only as an amateur can be; but I see, from your expression, that you are."
"I've contributed my share this evening," she said, decisively."Please give us some selections from the Oratorio."
"Lay your command, then, on Stanton also. There's a part that we have sung together as a duet occasionally, although it is not 'so nominated in the bond,' or score, rather."
"If Mr. Stanton does not stand by his friend, then he should be left to stand by himself."
"In the corner, I suppose you mean. But do not leave, Miss Burton. If you do not stand by Mr. Van Berg and sing with him the duet that begins with the words—
'O death! where is thy sting?'
you will deprive us all of the chief pleasure of the evening, and it's not in your nature to do that."
"Please, please do, Miss Burton," cried a score of voices.
"You know nothing about my nature, sir. I assure you that I can be a veritable dragon. But out of regard for Mr. Van Berg's 'youth and diffidence' I will sustain him."
Van Berg's voice was not strong, but he sang with taste and good expression. It suggested refinement and culture rather than deep, repressed feeling, as had been the case in Miss Burton's singing. His style would be admired, and would not give much occasion for criticism, but, as a general thing, it would not stir and move the heart. Still, the audience gave close and pleased attention.
Ida Mayhew, who all this time had been out on the piazza and but half listening to Mr. Sibley's compliments in her attention to the scenes at the piano, now rose and came to one of the open windows, where, while hidden from the singer, she could hear more distinctly. Her features did not indicate that she shared in the pleasure expressed on the other faces within, and her gathering frown was deepened by the shadow of the window frame.
"You do not enjoy it!" said Mr. Sibley, complacently.
"No," she answered, laconically; but for reasons he little understood.
"Now you show your taste, Miss Mayhew."
"I fear I do. Hush!" But when Van Berg's solo ended, she breathed a deep sigh.
Then Stanton's rich, but uncultivated bass voice joined in the melody. Still the effect was better tahn would have been expected from amateurs. After a few moments, Stanton stood back and Miss Burton and Van Berg sang together; then every one leaned forward and listened with a breathless hush. Her voice seemed to pervade his with sould and feeling that had been lacking hitherto.
As the last rich chords died away, the strongest expression of pleasure were heard on every side; but Ida Mayhew stepped abruptly out into the dusk of the piazza with clenched hands and compressed lips.
"'Peste!'" she exclaimed under her breath. "What a contrast between Sibley and myself last evening and these two people to-night! What a worse contrast there might have been if Ik had not interfered in time! I have a good voice, but the guests of the house have not even thought of me in connection with this evening's entertainment. I am associated only with the Sibley style of amusements."
After Mr. Van Berg and Miss Burton finished the selection from the Oratorio mentioned in the previous chapter, the old white-haired gentleman at whose side the latter had been sitting in the earlier part of the evening rose and said:
"I want to thank all the singers, and especially the young lady and gentleman now at the piano, not only for the pleasure they have given us all, but also for the comforting and sustaining thoughts that the sacred words have suggested. My enjoyments in this world are but few, and are fast diminishing; and I know that they will not refuse an old man's request that they close this service of song by each singing along some hymn that will strengthen our faith in the unseen Friend who watches over us all."
Van Berg looked at Miss Burton.
"We cannot refuse such an appeal," she said.
"I fear that I shall seem a hypocrite in complying," Van Berg answered, in a low tone. "How can I make a distinctly recognized effort to strengthen faith in others when lacking faith myself."
Her eyes flashed up to his, in sudden and strong approval. "I like that," she said. "It always gives me a sense of security and safety when I meet downright honesty. In no way can you better strengthen our faith than by being perfectly true. You give me a good example of sincerity," she added slowly, "and perhaps my hymn will teach submission more than faith. While I am singing it you may find something that will not express more than you feel."
In her sweet, low, yet penetrating voice, that now had a pathos which melted every heart, she sang the following words, which, like the perfume of crushed violets, have risen in prayer from many bruised and broken sprits:
"My God, my father, while I strayFar from my home on life's rough way,Oh teach me from my heart to say,Thy will be done.
What though in lonely grief I sighFor friends beloved no longer nigh;Submissive still would I reply,Thy will be done.
Renew my will from day to day;Blend it with Thine, and take awayWhate'er now makes it hard to say,Thy will be done.
Then when on earth I breathe no more,The prayer oft mixed with tears before,I'll sing upon a happier shore,Thy will be done."
Stanton, warm-hearted and genuine with all his faults, retired well into the shadow of the hallway and looked at the singer through the lenses of sympathetic tears.
"Poor orphan girl," he muttered. "What a villain a man would be who could purpose harm to you!"
Van Berg, in accordance with his cooler and less demonstrative nature, kept his position at her side, but he regarded her with an expression of respect and interest that caused Ida Mayhew, who was watching from her covert near, a sense of pain and envy that surprised her by its keenness.
With a sudden longing which indicated that the wish came direct from from her heart, she sighed:
"What would I not give to see him look at me with that expression on his face!"
Then, startled by her own thought, so vivid had it been, she looked around as if in fear it was apparent to her companion.
His eyes were in truth bent upon her, and in the dusk they seemed like livid coals. A moment later, as with a shrinking sense of fear she furtively looked at him again, his eyes suggested those of some animal of prey that is possessed only with the wolfish desire to devour, caring for the victim only as it may gratify the ravenous appetite.
He leaned forward and whispered in her ear:
"Miss Ida, you do not know how strangely, how temptingly beautiful you are to-night. One might well peril his soul for such beauty as yours."
"Hush," she said imperiously, and with a repelling gesture, she stepped further into the light towards the singers.
"Then, when on earth I breathe no more," sang Miss Burton.
The thought was to the heart of the unhappy listener like the touch of ice to the hand. There was a kindling light of hope in Miss Burton's face, and something in her tone that indicated the courage of an unfaltering trust as she sang the closing lines:
"I'll sing upon a happier shore,Thy will be done."
But the words brought a deeper despondency to Ida Mayhew. In bitterness she asked herself, "What chance is there for me to reach 'that happier shore,' with the tempter at my side and everything in the present and past combining to drag me down?"
"There, thank heaven 'meetin's over,'" whispered Sibley, as Miss Burton rose from the piano. "I'm sick of all this pious twaddle, and would a thousand-fold rather listen to the music of your voice out under the trees."
"You 'thank heaven'!" she repeated with a reckless laugh. "I'm inclined to think, Mr. Sibley, from the nature of your words, you named the wrong locality."
The answering look he gave her indicated that she puzzled him. She had not seemed to-day like the shallow girl who had hitherto accepted of his more innocent compliments as if they were sugar-plums, and merely raised her finger in mock warning at such as contained a spice of wickedness and boldness. There seemed a current of thought in her mind which he could not fathom, and whether it were carrying her away or toward him he was not sure. He understood and welcomed the element of recklessness, but did not like the way in which she looked at Van Berg, nor did it suit his purposes that she should hear so much of what he characterized as "pious twaddle." He whispered again bolder words than he had ever spoken to her before.
"I wish no better heaven than the touch of your hand and the light of your eyes. See, the moon is rising; come with me, for this is the very witching hour for a ramble."
She turned upon him a startled look, for he seemed the very embodiment of temptation. But she only said coldly:
"Hush! Mr. Van Berg is about to sing," and she stepped so far into the lighted room that the artist saw her.
When Miss Burton rose from the piano she did not return to her seat in the parlor, but stood in the shadow of the door-way leading into the hall. The thought of her hymn had come so directly from her heart, that her eyes were slightly moist with an emotion that was more plainly manifest on many other faces. The old gentleman who had asked her to sing had taken off his spectacles and was openly wiping his eyes.
Stanton, ashamed to have her see the feeling she had evoked, turned his back upon her and slowly walked down the corridor. She misunderstood his act and thought it caused by indifference or dislike for the sentiment she had expressed. He had seemed to her thus far only a superficial man of the world, and this act struck her as characteristic. But beyond this passing impression she did not give him a thought, and turned, with genuine interest, to listen to Van Berg who had said to her:
"I remember a few simple verses which have no merit save that they express what I wish rather than what I am."
With much more feeling, and therefore power, than was his custom, he sang as follows:
"I would I knew Thee better—That trust could banish doubt;I wish that from 'the letter'Thy Spirit might shine out.
I wish that heaven were nearer—That earth were more akinTo the home that should be dearerThan the one so marred by sin.
I wish that deserts drearyMight blossom as the rose,That souls, despairing, weary,Might smile and find repose."
Before singing the next stanza he could not forbear looking to see if Miss Mayhew were listening, and thus it happened that his glance gave peculiar emphasis to the thought expressed. She was looking at him with an intensity of expression that he did not understand. Nothing that he did escaped her, and the quick flash of his eyes in her direction unintentionally gave the following words the force and pointedness of an open rebuke;
"I wish that outward beautyWere the mirror of the heart,That purity and dutySupplanted wily art."
He did not see that with a sudden flame of scarlet in her face she stepped back on the dusky piazza as abruptly as if she had received a blow. Had he done so, he might not have sung as effectively the remaining verses. After the first confused moment of shame and resentment passed, she paused only long enough to note with a sense of relief that others had not seen or made any such application of his words as she believed he had intended, and then she took Mr. Sibley's arm and walked away, leaving the remaning two verses unheard—
"I wish that all were betterAnd nearer to their God—That evil's broken fetterWere buried with His rod;
That love might last forever,And we, in future, findThere is no power to severThe strong and true in mind."
As he sang the last verse there was also a rapid change in the expression of Miss Burton's face. There was something of her old pallor that has been mentioned before. She looked at him questioningly a moment as if to see if he were consciously making an allusion that touched her very nearly, and then, seemingly overcome by some sudden emotion that she would gladly hide, she quickly vanished down the dimly lighted hallway, and was seen no more until she came down to breakfast the following morning, as smiling and cheery as ever.
"Confound you, Van," said Stanton, as the artist escaped from the thanks of the audience into the hall, "What did you put in that last verse for? You made her think of seeing her dead friends again, and so she was in no mood to speak to us poor mortals who are still plodding on in this 'vale of tears.' I'd give my ears for a quiet chat with her to-night. By Jove, I never was so stirred up before, and could turn Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, or anything else, if she asked me to."
"In either case, Ik," said Van Berg, "your worship would be the same, I imagine, and would never rise higher than the priestess."
"Curse it all," exclaimed Stanton impetuously, "I feel to-night as if that were higher than I can ever rise. I never was afraid of a woman before; but no 'divinity' ever 'hedged a king' like that which fills me with an indescribable awe when I approach this unassuming little woman who usually seems no more formidable than a flickering sunbeam. I agree with you now. She has evidently had some deep experience in the past that gives to her character a power and depth that we only half understand. I wish I knew her better."
"Good-night," said Van Berg, a little abruptly; "I think that after this evening's experience, neither of us is in the mood for further talk."
Stanton looked after him with a lowering brow and muttered: "Is he so sensitive on this subject? By Jove. I'm sorry! I fear we must become rivals, Van. And yet," he added with a despairing gesture, "what chance would I have with him against me?"
"I could not hear distinctly," Sibley had remarked as Ida took his arm and walked away from her post of observation. "Were you disgusted with his pious wail on general principles, or did something in his theology offend you?"
"It's enough that I was not pleased," she replied briefly.
"Little wonder. I'm surprised you stood it so long. Van Berg and Stanton are nice fellows to lead a conventicle. I think I'll take a hand at it myself next Sunday evening, and certainly would with your support. I'll say nothing of the singer, but if you will go with me to the rustic seat in yonder shady walk, I'll sing you a song that I know will be more to your taste than any you have heard this evening."
"Please excuse me, Mr. Sibley; I'm afraid of the night air."
"You are unusually prudent," he said, a little tauntingly.
"Which proves that I possess at least one good quality," she replied.
"Perhaps if Mr. Van Berg asked you to go you would take the risk."
"Perhaps I might," she admitted, half unconsciously and from the mere force of habit, giving the natural answer of a coquette.
"He had better not cross my path," said Sibley, with sudden vindictiveness.
"Come, come!" replied Miss Mayhew, with a careless laugh, "let's have no high tragedy. I'm in no mood for it to-night, and you have no occasion for alarm. If he crosses your path he will step daintily over it at right angles."
At that moment Van Berg came out on the piazza. Although he could not hear her words, her laugh and tones jarred unpleasantly on his ear.
"Yonder is a genuine affinity," he muttered, "which I was a fool to think I could break up;" and with a slight contemptuous gesture he turned on his heel and went to his room.
"I cannot altogether understand you this evening, Miss Mayhew," said Sibley, with some resentment in his tone.
"You are not to blame for that, Mr. Sibley, for I do not understand myself. I have not felt well to-day, and so had better say good-night."
But before she could leave him he seized her hand and exclaimed, in his soft, insinuating tones:
"That then is the only trouble between us. Next Saturday eveningI shall find you your old charming self?"
"Perhaps," was her unsatisfactory answer.
With a step that grew slower and heavier every moment, she went to her room, turned up the light, and looked fixedly at herself in the glass,
"I wish that outward beautyWere the mirror of the heart,"
she repeated inaudibly, and the her exquisite lip curled in self-contempt.
"Ida, what IS the matter with you?" drawled her mother, looking through the open door-way of her adjacent room. "You act as if you were demented."
"Why did you make me what I am?" she exclaimed, turning upon her mother in a sudden passion.
"Good gracious! what are you?" ejaculated that matter-of-fact lady.
"I'm as good as you are—as good as our set averages, I suppose," she answered in a weary, careless tone. "Good night;" and she closed and locked her door.
"Oh, pshaw!" said Mrs. Mayhew, petulantly; "those hymns have made her out of sorts with herself and everything. They used to stir me up in the same way. Why can't people learn to perform their religious duties properly and then let the matter rest;" and with a yawn she retired at peace with herself and all the world.
Ida threw herself on a lounge and looked straight before her with that fixed, vacant stare which indicates that nothing is seen save by the eye of the mind.
"Father's drunk to-night," she moaned; "I know it as surely as if I saw him. I also know that I'm in part to blame for it. Could outward beauty mask a blacker heart than mine? It does not mask it from him who sang those words," and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed, until, exhausted and disheartened, she sough such poor rest and respite as a few hours of troubled sleep could bring.