"Preparing her! you great goose, what does she want with your preparation? You'll only prejudice her against him, and spoil any chances he might have. Let her alone, do.Haven't you made mischief enough between them already?"
That is all they know about it. Churchgoing sometimes fails to bring the female mind into a proper frame. But you see they are ready to scratch out even my eyes at the thought that I have been rubbing her down the wrong way. No matter: I know what I know, and they need not try to make me believe that these things will go right without proper management.
Weusually go to Newport for the summer. As Mrs. Fishhawk says, the bathing is so fine, and the cliffs are such a safe place for children to play. Not that we care so much for the society: the Princess has seen the vanity of that and been bored with it, and the rest of us are very domestic people. After much persuasion through the mail, Hartman agreed to join us there: I was to pick him up in New York and take him down. A night or two before this, Clarice took me out on the aforesaid cliffs, which afford a fine walk in the moonlight with the right kind of company, but somewhat dangerous if you get spoony and forget to look where you are going. The Princess, it is needless to say, never commits this folly: she always has her wits about her, and wits of a high order they are, as not a few men have found to their cost, myself included,—many and many a time. She opened the ball.
"Robert, do you remember our compact?"
"I'm not likely to forget it. Your words are my law, more sacred and peremptory than the Ten Commandments, or those of the oldcodger who wrote 'em in blood because his ink had given out. As a servant looks to the hand of his mistress, so am I to watch your dark blue eye for direction and approval. Deign to cast a sweet smile, however faint, in this direction occasionally: it won't cost you much, and will encourage me. If the devotion of a lifetime—"
"Yes, I know all that: at least you've said it often enough. Now you will have an opportunity to put it in practice. Drop generalities, and come to business."
"My heart's queen, I am all attention. Speak, and thy slave obeys. Bid me leap from yon beetling crag into the billows' angry roar—"
"Will you stop that, or shall I go into the house? We are not rehearsing private theatricals now."
"Ah, indeed? I thought we might be. I expect to see some next week."
"You will see my place at table vacant if you don't keep quiet, and listen to what I have to say. I can join Constance yet. You talk about your affection for me and anxiety to serve me, and when I want something definite of you, you go off into the Byronic, or the Platonic, or what you would perhaps call the humorous: it is not easy to discriminate them. Once for all, will you do as I bid you, or not?"
When the Princess wants to bring a man to book, he has to come there, and stay there till he sees a favorable opening for a break: there was none such just now. So I called in the white-winged coursers of my too exuberant fancy, locked them up in the barn, begged the lady's pardon as usual, and composed myself into an attitude of respectful and devout attention, as if I were in church. It was not long after dinner: I wanted to have some more fun, but that did not seem to be just the time and place for it. My preceptress eyed me sternly, and waxed anew the thread of her discourse.
"I told you that my actions might appear strange to your ignorance. I will tell you now what my plan is, so far as is necessary for your guidance: then perhaps you will have sense enough not to go gaping about, but to fall into line and do what is required of you. I have determined to see very little of this Mr. Hartman—"
"O now, Clarice! After you promised! I relied on you—"
"Be still, stupid, and hear me out. I shall see but little of him at first. You have made such an ado about the man, I am disposed to be interested in him, for your sake. There, that will do; let my hand be."—I was merely pressing it a little, I assure you, to testify my gratitude for this unusual consideration: I don't know when she ever owned to doing a thing for my sake before. "For your sake first, you great baby, and then, if he is worth it, for his own. But at the start, as I told you, I must look him over; and that I can do best at a little distance."
"And then you mean to take him in and do for him? You can, of course; but, Princess dear, be merciful—for my sake first, and then, if he is worth it, for his own. Don't grind him up too fine: leave pieces of him big enough to be recognized and collected by his weeping friends."
"Robert, you really ought to try to restrain your native coarseness. What can a man like you know of the motives and intentions of a woman like me? Poor child, if I were to put them before you in the plainest terms the facts and the dictionary allow, you could not understand them."
As a quartz-crusher the Princess could have won fame and fortune. I hope she may not pulverize Hartman as effectually as she does me: he might not take it so kindly. To eliminate the metaphor, she is a master at the wholesome process of taking a man down: notthat I don't often deserve it, or that it is not good for me. In fact, I've given her occasion, from her youth up, to get her hand in; and admiration of her skill binds up the wounds, so to speak, with which my whole moral nature is scarred at least sixteen deep. In case you should not follow my imaginative style, let me say in simpler language that I am used to it; but another man might not understand it. I consumed some more humble pie—these desserts occur frequently in the symposia of our conversations—and she resumed.
"So I will leave him to Jane at first. She will be very sisterly and gracious, and will make the first stages of his return to the world easy and pleasant. This may last two days, or two weeks."
"O, don't overdo it. He talked of staying but a week or ten days."
"Dear Robert, you are so innocent. He will stay as long as I want him to."
"What, whether you notice him or not?"
"Of course. Are you six years old? Have you never seen me in action before?"
"Body of Venus and soul of Sappho, I give it up. Of course you can do anything you like, but I never realized that you could do it without seeming to take a hand in the game. I strew ashes on my head like what's-his-name, and sit down in the dust at your feet. Forgive a penitent devotee for forming such lame and inadequate conceptions of your power. But what part do you want me to dress for in this improving moral drama?"
"Your part is very simple. Of course I must be occupied. I should hardly shine as a wall-flower."
"You would shine anywhere. If you were a violet by an old stone, you couldn't be half or a quarter hidden from the eye. But the supposition is impossible. If you were free, no other girl in the room would have a chance."
"That is very passable, though not wholly new. You are improving, Bob. If you would give your mind to it, I could mould you into tolerable manners yet.—Well, I might get plenty of men from the houses around. But they are tiresome—staler than you, my Robert, though I see less of them—and I can't take the same liberties with them I do with you. You are to belong to me as long as I may want you."
"That is not new at all, Princess. It has been so for years. Everybody about the house knows that, even the servants—and all our friends."
"Yes, of course. But I am to make special use of my property for the next few days. You will have to be in constant attendance. You ought to enjoy the prospect, and the reality when it comes."
"I do; I shall: bet your boots on that. O confound it, I've got my lines mixed already."
"Rather. If you startle the audience with such a speech as that, what will Mr. Hartman think? You must put on your prettiest behavior, Bob. Make a desperate effort, and try to keep it up—for my sake, now."
"For your sake I can be Bayard and Crichton and Brummell and all those dudes rolled into one. I'll order some new clothes when I go down. And you will have to be very gracious to me, you know."
"Am I not gracious enough now, pet? How is this for a rehearsal?"
"Beyond my wildest dreams, Empress. When you treat me thus for an hour, I can bear your ill usage for a year."
"There will be no ill usage at present, if you behave. Now don't forget, and spoil the play. Understand, you are to pair off with me, as Mr. Hartman with Jane. Mabel is mostly occupied with the children; we will all look after her, of course. And there will be mixing and change of partners, but not much.You must watch, and obey my slightest hint—the turn of an eyelid, the flutter of a fan. I'll teach you all that."
"I know a lot of it already: when it comes to watching you, I am a dabster. I'll behave as if I was at school to Plato and Confucius, and in training to succeed them both. Do you know, Princess, if you were to treat a stranger for half a day as you are treating me now, he would want to die for you?"
"He might die for want of me before the day was over, if he grew lackadaisical over his wants. All men are not so chivalrous as you, my poor Robert. You may have to do that sort of dying before long. You must be ready to be dropped when the time comes to change the figures. No growling or moping, mind: you must submit sweetly, and take your place in the background with Jane, while the rest of the play goes on."
"I know: I've been there before. I can find consolation in seeing you carry the leading part. One set of men passes away, and another set comes on; but the Princess goes on conquering, regardless of the moans of her victims as they writhe on the bloody battlefield. O, I'm used to being shoved aside, and feeding on my woes in silent patience. The flowret fades when day is done, and so does every mother's son Who thinks his course is just begun, And knows not that his race is run—How does it go on, Clarice? I forget the rest of it."
"It is a pity you didn't forget the whole of it. I would if I were you, and quickly, lest you horrify some one else with it. You are too big to pose as a flowret, Bob."
"Polestar of my faith, see here. I'll have to be around with Hartman, smoking and so on, nights, after you and the rest have turned in, and often in the daylight. You and Jane can't attend to his case in person all the time, you know, and I'm his host. What shall I say about you?"
"Anything you like. Praise me to the skies, of course. That will be in keeping with your part as my cavalier; and he will see how things are between us—on your side, I mean. Tell him about my few faults, if you can bring yourself to mention them. Yes, you must; they will set off my many virtues. Be perfectly natural about it: you have known and cherished me from infancy, and so forth. Not a word, of course, about our compact, and these rehearsals, and my coaching you—O you great booby, were you capable of blurting that out? If you do, you'll spoil all, and I'll never forgive you. Remember now: you profess to dread my anger, and you have reason; you've felt it before. If you want me ever to trust you again, keep to yourself what is between us; regard it as sacred. O, I know you profess to look at all that belongs to me in that light; but show your faith by your works. Swear it to me now."
I swore. That is a ceremony which has to be gone through rather frequently with the Princess, and somehow I don't mind it. But how the deuce is one to remember all these rules and regulations? I'll have to get Clarice to write them out for me, by chapter and verse, with big headings; then I'll get the thing printed, and carry it about with me, and study it nights and mornings. But Mabel might find it in my clothes: she is welcome to my secrets, but this is not mine. I might have it printed in cipher; but then I should be sure to lose the key. O, confound it all, I'll have to chance it: I'll be sure to slip up somewhere, and then there'll be a row. Well, why borrow trouble? Let's gather the flowers while we may: only there are none just here, and it is too dark to find them. Then a thought suddenly struck me: why not head off the difficulty by improving my position beforehand? "Princess dearest, do you like me better than you used to, or is this onlypart of the play, the excitement of practicing for a newcomer? Tell me, please—there's a dear."
We were near the house now, and she darted away from me. "If you tells me no questions, I asks you no lies," she sang gaily as she ran in. O shades of Juliet and Cleopatra, what a woman that is—or what an idiot I am: I can't be sure which till I get an outside opinion. I'd give odds that within a fortnight Hartman will be far gone. It will be life or death for him, poor old man. But he's nigh dead now, inwardly speaking, and so has not much to lose. Anyway, he'll see that a world with Clarice in it is not as blank and chilly as he thinks it now—not by several thousand degrees. I fancy his thermometer will begin to go up pretty soon. He needs shaking up and turning inside out and upside down—a general ventilating, in fact, and I rather think Miss Elliston will administer it to him.
I was mighty glad that Clarice felt this way about Hartman's coming; she has not waked up so, or come down from her Olympian clouds of indifference, in a long time. But still I thought it best to go around and make some more preparations. When I have a secret to carry, it oppresses my frank and open nature more than you would think; and I find that I can conceal it best by inquiring concerning the matter of it of persons who know nothing about it. Naturally I began with the head of the house. That is myself, I suppose, nominally; but every decent man allows his wife to fill the position, and get what comfort she can out of it.
"Mabel," I said, "I hope that Hartman will enjoy himself here."
"You told us he was not given to enjoying himself; on the contrary, quite the reverse. No doubt he will take us as he finds us. He will hardly want to go out to dinner every day, and meet the Vanderdeck's and the foreign princess."
"But, Mabel, I trust you are all prepared to meet him in the right spirit."
"What absurd questions you ask, Robert. You talk as if he were a bishop, come to convert us: I thought we were to convert him. I hope I do not need to be instructed how to receive my husband's friends. And Jane is ready to take an interest in him: she can be very nice, you know."
"And Clarice: will she do her part?"
"Nobody knows what Clarice will do on any occasion. She would be more apt to do what you wish if you would not trouble her about Mr. Hartman. We are not three little maids from school, to be taught our manners. Why can you not learn that matters would move just as well, yes, and better, without your continual interference, dear? Your blunders only complicate them, and disturb the harmony."
Now that is a nice way for the wife of one's bosom to talk, isn't it? How often, O how often, would I remove the clouds of care from her placid brow, and smooth her path through life by graceful persiflage and appropriate witticisms: but she does not seem to appreciate them. I fear she must have had some Scottish ancestors. Sometimes I think she does not appreciateme. It is a cold world; a cold, heartless, unfeeling, unresponsive world, in which the sensitive spirit may fly around promiscuously like Noah's dove, and have to stay out in a low temperature. Wisely andbeneficentlyis it arranged that Virtue should be her own reward, since she gets no other. I will try Jane next.
"My dear sister, you know I go to town to-night, and expect to bring Hartman back. You will receive him kindly, for my sake, will you not?"
Jane is a little prim at times, and I have to arrange my sentences carefully, when I am with her.
"I will do that, of course: why so many words about it? Have you not been preparing me, and all of us, for this visit, for the last month? We know what is right, Robert:yourbehavior is the only doubtful part."
"But Clarice, sister? She is always so doubtful, as Mabel says; so capricious, so haughty, so unapproachable. You have great influence with her. Dear Jane, can you not persuade her to treat my poor friend kindly?"
"Now, brother, why will you be such an unconscionable humbug? We all know that you are in her confidence, when any one is. What were you two talking about all last evening? Hatching some plot, no doubt. But it was not intended to be practiced on me—not on her part; that is your unauthorized addition to her text." And the maiden assumed the part of Pallas, and gazed at me with severity, as if she would read my inmost soul. But she can't beat Clarice at that. See here, young lady, you are too sharp; you are getting dangerously near the truth. I came near saying this out, but did not. Instead I took an injured tone.
"You are a pretty sister, Jane, to go about suspecting me this way, and accusing me of intrigue and hypocrisy, and all kinds of black-hearted wickedness. What would I want to deceive you for? You know we all have to consider Clarice, and humor her: she is an orphan, and we are her nearest friends. She amuses herself with me sometimes, for want of another man at hand, and then throws me aside when the fit is over."
"O yes, we all know that, of course. Well,brother, you can go to town with an easy mind. Leave Mr. Hartman to Clarice and me; when she is not in the humor to attend to him, I will."
Now how does Jane come to know so much? Has the Princess been taking her into the plan too, as well as me? That I don't believe. Clarice would expect Jane to take her cue by intuition, and not bother to coach her as she has me: perhaps she can trust Jane farther. That must be it: one woman can see into another's mind where a man couldn't. I must put a mark on that for future reference. They do beat us at some minor points. Well, I didn't exactly get the best of that encounter: it seems to me I owe Jane one, which I must try and remember to pay.
Hartmanarrived on schedule time, and was duly taken home with me. "Old man," I said, "welcome back to the amenities of life; to the tender charities of man and woman; to the ties, too long neglected, which bind your being to the world's glad heart. You are the prodigal returning from sowing his wild oats in the backwoods: the fatted calf shall be killed for you, in moderation, as per contract, and the home brewed ale drawn mild. We are quiet people, and live mostly by ourselves: that will suit your book. The giddy crowd, in its frivolous pursuit of amusement and fashion, surges by in the immediate vicinity, and old Ocean, in his storm-tost fury, dashes his restless waves upon our good back door, or adjacent thereto. But we give small heed to either one of them. The sea views and feminine costumes are supposed to be of thehighest order, and there is polo at stated intervals, if you care for such; but these vanities have little to do with the calm current of our daily life. You will shortly have in front of you a christian family, united in bonds of long-tried affection and confidence. The earthly paradise, James, must be sought in the peaceful bosom of one's Home. After tossing on the angry billows of Water Street, how sweet to return to this haven of rest! And you too, world-worn and weary man of woes, shall receive attention. The furrows of care shall be smoothed out of your manly brow: gentle hands will bind up your wounds—even the one you got from that girl a dozen years ago, if it isn't healed yet. The shadows of gloomy and soul-debasing Theory will flit away from your bewildered brain, and in this healthful atmosphere your spirit will regain its long-lost tone, and embrace once more the ethereal images of Hope and Joy and Faith. Probably you will yet find some one to love in this wide world of sorrow; anyway, we hope to send you forth clothed and in your right mind."
"I hope I'm properly clothed now, or will be with what I've got in my trunk; and I need to be in my right mind to take in all this eloquence. I was mistaken about you, Bob; you should have been a preacher. The only drawback is, you don't stick to one key long enough: these sudden changes in your woodnotes wild might confuse a congregation."
"The church lacks vivacity and sense of humor, Jim: she's all for a dull monotone. Old Fuller is dead: his mantle descended on me, but they don't appreciate that style nowadays. To return to our topic, and deal with the duty that lies nearest. In an humble and pottering way, we are a happy family, James. We envy not the rich and great: seek elsewhere their gilded saloons, and tinsel trappings of pride; but you will find things prettycomfortable. I regret to say we'll have to do our smoking out of doors; but it is generally warm enough for that. If we are noted for anything, it is for modest contentment, unassuming virtue, and cheerful candor—just as you see them in me. Each face reflects the genuine emotions and guileless innocence of the heart connected therewith; more than that, they reflect one another, as in a glass. You can look at Mabel, and see all that is passing in my capacious bosom. We share each other's woes, each other's burdens bear, and if we don't drop the sympathizing tear frequently, it is because there is very seldom any call for it. We have no secrets from one another: limpid and pure flows the confidential stream—but it flows no further than the fence. You can say what you like to any of us, and it will not go out of the house—unless the servants overhear it; you'll have to look out for that, of course."
"See here, Bob; judging by you, I had no idea I was coming among such apostolic manners, or I'd have taken a course of À Kempis. Are there any prayer-meetings near by, where I can go to freshen up?"
"Within a mile or two, no doubt. Jane can tell you about them; she can lend you a prayer-book, anyway. But I was not meaning to discourage you: they will make allowances. My wife is an exemplary woman; if you want to get on with her, you'll have to take an interest in Herbert's bruises when he falls over the banisters. He is the only one of the children who will trouble you much; the others are small yet, happily. My sister is a pattern of propriety, but of rather an inquiring mind, and sympathetic if you take her the right way: she can talk with you about philosophy and science and your dried-up old doxies. Not that she knows anything about Schopenhauer, and Darwin, and Diogenes, of course; but she's heard their names, and she'llpretend to be posted—you know how women are. And when you need a mental tonic—the companionship of a robust intellect, the stimulus of wide acquaintance with the great world of men and things, a manly comprehension of any difficulties that you may meet, or sound and wise advice how to steer your way through the pitfalls and intricacies of the female character—in such cases, which will no doubt often arise, you have only to come to me. I know all about these matters, of which you have had no experience. I'll be at home as much as possible while you are there, and I'll stand by you, Jim."
"Thanks, awfully—as I believe they say where we are going. Yes, you will be an invaluable mentor, Bob. Well, I'll try not to disgrace you. It is late: let us turn in."
This important conversation took place on the boat. You see, when I was with Hartman in May, he took the lead; but in my own house, or on the way to it, I like to be cock of the walk. Besides, as I had prepared the women for his coming, so now it was necessary to prepare his mind to meet them. In my picture of our domestic felicity, I may have laid on some tints too heavily, as about our mutual confidence. But he will soon see how that is. You may notice that I said nothing about the Princess. There was a deep design in that omission. When the orb of day in all his glory bursts from his liquid bed upon the astonished gaze of some lonely wanderer on the Andes, or the Alps,—or our own Rockies, say,—the spectacle is all the more effective if the wanderer was not expecting anything of the kind; didn't suppose it was time yet, or, still better, didn't know there was any sun. That is the way Jim will feel when he sees Clarice. If he has forgotten about her wanting to go up there in the woods inMay,O. K.; that will meet her views, and he'll be reminded of her existence soon enough.
This is one of those delicate ideas which might not occur to the male mind unassisted: in fact, left to my native nothingness, I should probably have enlarged on her charms most of the evening. But she laid special stress on this point, that I was to say as little as possible about her beforehand, and fortunately I remembered it. Hartman thinks he is going to have a safe and easy time with me and two highly respectable ladies of sedate minds and settled habits. Sleep on, deluded James, while I finish my cigar here on deck: dream of the forest and the trout brooks, and your neighbor Hodge and your old tomcat. By to-morrow night your mental horizon will be enlarged, and when you return to your castle in the wilderness there will be some new sensations tugging at your vitals. It will be a change for you, old man, and you needed one. Well, I've given you enough to think of for now, and you'll get more before you are a week older. I hope he will come through it right: it is like taking one's friend to the surgeon to undergo an operation, when he doesn't know that anything ails him or is going to be done. Poor old Jim, I wouldn't have put up such a job on you if I didn't believe it was for your good. I am not a pessimist like you: I believe in God and the Princess.
Thedrive from the wharf is too long: I often think that the older part of the town ought to be submerged, or removed to one of the adjacent islands. We met the family at breakfast, and I said, "Ladies, you see before you a wild man of the woods, brought hither to be subdued and civilized by your gentle ministrations. By the way, Mabel, there was a corner in oil yesterday. I made fourteen thousand, and Simpkins went under; so you can have that new gown now." They paid no attention whatever to these pleasantries. Clarice was not there, or the sparkling fount of humor would have flowed less freely.
Hartman has very good manners when he chooses, and in my house he would naturally choose; so he got on well enough. The children took to him at once, and he seemed to take to them. After breakfast I led him out for a walk, to show him the points of interest. Several very creditable cottages have been put up since he was here last: in fact, this is quite a growing place, for the country. As we went back he suddenly said, "Bob, who is this Clarice that your sister mentioned at the table? Fancy name, isn't it?"
"O no," I said as indifferently as I could. He ought not to go springing her on me in that way: it makes a man nervous. "She's an orphan; a sort of cousin of Mrs. T. Got no brothers or sisters, and all that sort of thing; so we look after her a good deal. Sometimes she's with us, sometimes she's not. Was south all winter: got back while I was up there with you."
Now what the deuce did I say that for? It'll brush up his rusty mental machinery, andhelp him to recall what she wants forgotten. Just so; of course.
"Yes, I remember. She thought of joining you with Miss Jane. I wish you had let them come."
"Well, you see, you don't know what these girls are used to; I do. There were no fit quarters for them at Hodge's. I had gone and written my wife a lot of rot, pretending his place was much better than it is."
"With your usual unassuming virtue and cheerful candor; yes. We have no secrets from one another: the limpid stream of confidence flows unchecked and unpolluted. Just so. But see here, you old hypocrite, if there is another young woman in the family, you ought to have told me about her last night, when you were preparing my mind, you know, and pretending to explain the whole domestic situation.—Great heavens, who's that?"
We had turned a corner, and come plump on the house; and there on the piazza, two rods away, sat a rare and radiant maiden, playing cat's cradle with my eldest son and heir. I can't tell you how she was dressed; but she was a phantom of delight when thus she broke upon our sight; a lovely apparition, sent to be Jim Hartman's blandishment. At least so it seemed, for he stood there and stared like a noble savage. As when the lightning descends on the giant oak in its primeval solitude—but I must stop this; she is too near, though she pretends not to see us yet. So I whispered in low and warningtones:
"Brace up, Jim. She's not the one you met here twelve years ago, who jilted you at Naples: this one wasn't out of her Fourth Reader then. Don't get them mixed, or bedeceivedby a chance resemblance." I thought it was better to lay his embarrassment on that old affair, you see. But that was all nonsense: he never saw anybody like Clarice before—how should he?
"Confound you, Bob," he muttered between his teeth, "so you've been practising your openhearted innocence on me. Get on with it now, and finish it up."
He pulled himself together, and I went through the introduction with due decorum; then I got away as soon as I could. You see, I was unmanned by the spectacle of so much young emotion, and somewhat exhausted by my own recent exertions. I found a cool corner in the library; and presently Jane had to come in. "What is the matter with you, Robert? Why do you sit there grinning like an idiot?" Perhaps a smile of benevolence had overspread my striking countenance; and that's the way she distorts it. I could not tell her what pleased me, so I said I had been reading a comic paper. "You write your own comic papers, I suspect; and bad enough they are. If you go on at this rate, you will end by editing theTexas Siftings. Do try to be decent, brother, while you have a guest in the house." I suppose she thinks that is a crushing rebuke, now. I said I would try, and told her she had better join Clarice and Hartman, who would probably be tired of each other by this time. Here again I have played into the Princess' hands. She doesn't want Jim to see too much of her at first, but to get used to the blinding glare by degrees, and take his physic in small doses, until he can bear it in larger. At least I hope so: if I've made a mistake and spoiled the procession, I'll learn it soon enough. But Jane wouldn't go unless it was right: that's the good of being a woman. You don't catch me interrupting them, or going near the Princess when she has any of her procedures on foot, unless I am called.
I couldnot tell you all that occurred that week; but it went exactly as Clarice intended and had foretold. She was gracious and equable and gentle, a model young lady of the social-domestic type; but Hartman did not see much of her. I on my part was kept steadily occupied, what with boats, and horses, and parasols, and fans, and wools, and wide hats, and more things than you could think of. It was, "Robert, come out on the cliffs," or "Robert, get my garden gloves, please; they are in the sitting-room, or somewhere else;" or "Robert, take me to town; I must telegraph to Constance;" or "Bob dear, would you mind running over to Miss Bliffson's, and telling her that I can't go to the Society this afternoon; and on your way back, stop at the milliner's and see if my hat is done." I usually attended to these commissions promptly; when you have women about, your generous heart will rejoice to protect and indulge their helplessness. They are the clinging vine, you are the sturdy oak; and then, as I said, Clarice is an orphan. Hartman at first showed an inclination to relieve me of the lighter part of these useful avocations, such as taking her about over the rocks and in the bay; but she very quietly, and without the least discourtesy, made him understand that no foreigners need apply for that situation. Other men were coming after her every day, but she avoided them or sent them to the right about: she can do that in a way to make you feel that you have received a favor. She kept reminding me that it was my business to wait on her: if these things were paid for in cash, I should want high wages,for the duties are far from light. But I can stand it: within the bosom of Robert T. glows a spark of warm and pure philanthropy. When I see my fellow-creatures in need, and this good right arm refuses to extend its friendly aid, may my hand cleave to the roof of my mouth—O well, you know what I mean. I used to retire to my meagre and philosophic cot-bedstead with aching limbs and an approving conscience: I never was worked so hard before. Some of these errands were perfectly needless, I knew. She can't want to get me out of the way for an hour or two, for I am neverinthe way; nor simply to show what she can do, for that is an old story, familiar to all concerned. Doubtless she has some high moral end in view; perhaps to teach Hartman what are the true relations of man and woman, and how the nobler animal can be trained to be a helpmeet and boy-of-all-work to the weaker. Whether this will suit his views I doubt; but she knows what she is about. It is mine not to question why, mine not to make reply, mine simply to go on doing what my hand finds to do—of which there is quite enough at present. Meanwhile, everybody else is having a nice easy time, while I am laboring like six dray-horses for the general good. Hartman sits about with Jane, and they seem to be getting on finely. Mabel also appears to enjoy his society. Sometimes she looks at me and at Clarice, and then at Jim, in a way which might indicate a notion that things are too much mixed, and that the Princess ought to be giving her attention to Hartman's case. I think so too, but it is not for me to suggest it. I feel like asking Mrs. T. what all these complications mean, and why she does not straighten them out: she is Clarice's relative and hostess, and head of the house when I am away. But it will straighten itself pretty soon now, and a new tangle will begin for the predestinedvictim. Wild man of the woods, your hour will soon strike, and the grim executioner in the black mask will prepare to take your head off. You will see a hand not clearly visible to the outside world—a very beautiful hand it is too, as I ought to know—that will beckon you to your doom: you will hear a voice whose silvery music will drown all fears, all scruples, all world-sick longings for your woman-hating moods, all memories of your lost Lenore of long ago, and tell you that resistance and delay are vain. What the details of the process may be, and whether joy or woe will tip the scales for one who takes things as seriously as you do, I cannot tell; but it is coming, and it is coming presently. You may not like it: you are not used to it as I am; but you cannot help yourself. Farewell to the old life, the old delusions, the old fancied knowledge: you will find yourself a small boy in primary school, beginning the world anew. You think you are locked up in steel, defended by your indifference, your disgust, your unbelief in Life. These glittering generalities will fall into dust before the wand of a magician who has some eminently particular business with you. You have sounded the depths, and found them shallow; you have tested values, and they are less than nothing, and vanity; you have emptied the pincushion, and only bran is there. My skeptical friend, a sharp needle is there yet, and it will prick your finger: there are depths that you know nothing about, and heights too, it may be: there are thrills of life that will go through all your veins, and show you that you are not as near dead as you supposed. You were but a boy when that girl gave you your quietus, as you imagined; you are a man now, with more in you than you fancy, and another girl may bring you to life. Still in your ashes live their ancient fires, and I'm mistaken if theydon't start a superior blaze before long. Well, well, I hope it will make a man of you.
I wasbetrayed into the above apostrophe by the violence of my sympathies; but the lucid and graphic sentences which precede this moralizing ably sum up the situation during the first week of Hartman's visit. A good deal of wisdom was in circulation: I said some things myself which deserve to be remembered, and the others occasionally dropt a remark which showed how the ball was moving. You will want the chief of these outpourings in order of time, as landmarks in this history.
Clarice took me apart the first day and began to cross-examine me: that is, she told me to go outside and wait for her, and by the time she came it was dusk. Why is it that the garish day seems to freeze our finer emotions, and reduce us to the monotonous level of a dull cold practicality? It is under the calm light of moon and stars that soul speaks to soul, and we gain those subtler experiences, those deeper views of our own nature and that of our nearest and dearest, which so far transcend the plodding sciences of the laboratory, the useless learning of the pedant, and the empty wisdom of the children of this world.
"Come, Robert, wake up; don't sit mooning there like a calf. Make your report."
"Report?" said I, thus rudely startled from a train of thought which might have borne rich fruit for coming generations. "What about?"
"What about? You forget yourself. Whose employ are you in?"
"Well, on Water Street I am supposed to be carrying on business for myself, and at home I am the envied husband and father of a happy and admiring family. Clarice, I was meditating on subjects of much moment; and the duties of hospitality claim my valuable time. Did you wish to speak to me particularly?"
"None of your nonsense, now. What did you talk about last night on the boat?"
"All sorts of things. My conversation is always improving. I explained to Jim that his reëntrance on society could not be made under fairer auspices; that models of deportment and of all the virtues would be about him on every hand; that a pure atmosphere of love and peace pervaded this modest mansion; that joy was unconfined; that we could lay our weary heads on each other's bosoms in the repose of perfect trust, knowing that not a thought entered any one of them which the angels above might not look into with satisfaction, and—"
"You talk too much about bosoms, Robert: it is not in good taste. What did you say about me?"
"Divil a word, bedad. Wasn't that right? Didn't you tell me to keep dark, and not mention you?"
"Not unnecessarily. But didn't he ask?"
"He'd forgotten all about you. Now, Princess, don't be offended; there was next to nothing to forget, you know. It's not as if he had ever seen you, or really heard anything about you. O, I'll talk you up to him whenever you say so; to-night, if you like. But I thought his forgetting was what you wanted. Didn't I manage it well? Do own that now, please. Let those cerulean orbs shed one ray of gentle light upon the path of a weary wayfarer—yes, that's better. Have I merited your approval, Serene Highness?"
"You've done very well—for you. But was it necessary to tell so many lies, Bob?"
"Nowthatis not in good taste, if I am a judge—to put such ugly names upon the graceful fancies with which I decorate the plain, rude facts of everyday life. What are we without Imagination, that glorious gift which causes the desert to rejoice and blossom like your little flower-bed in the back yard at home? You know, Clarice, that my mind is a deep clear well of Truth, and my lips merely the bucket that draws it up. Where will you get candor and veracity, those priceless pearls, if not from me?"
"Robert, you have fallen into this way of practising your little tricks and deceptions on everybody. O, I know you mean no harm; it is merely for your own amusement. But Mabel and Jane don't quite understand it."
"Couldn't you explain it to them, Clarice? Some people have no sense of humor. I can't well go around saying, This is a joke; please take it in the spirit in which it is offered."
"O, it does no great harm: they are very seldom deceived, and perhaps they will learn to make allowances for you by and by. But you may be tempted to try your games on me: if I ever catch you at that—Remember, I am not to be trifled with."
"Perish the thought, and perish the caitiff base who would harbor it. Princess, you are sharper than I. Do you think I would be fool enough to try any tricks on you, when I should be found out at once?"
"People generally find you out at once, but that doesn't seem to stop you. How can I tell whether I can trust you? I don't believe you know yourself when you are serious—if you ever are."
"There is one subject on which I am serious—deeply so, and always. Clarice, when I die, if you will see that the autopsy is properly performed, you will find your initials, as the poet says, neatly engraven on my blighted heart."
"Robert, sometimes I fear you have incipient softening of the brain."
"And if I have, is not that a reason why I should be watched and guarded tenderly—why loving arms should enfold my tottering frame, and sweet smiles cheer my declining path, and a strong firm brain like yours support my failing intellect? Clarice, be gentle with me. I am an orphan like yourself; soon, if you read the future aright, to be laid beneath the cold clods of the valley. When I am sleeping under the daisies in the lonely churchyard, you will say to yourself, He was my friend, my more than brother: he loved me with a loyal and self-oblivious devotion. And then, in those sad hours of vain remembrance, every unkind word that you have spoken, all the coldness and cruelty which have pierced my patient breast, will return to torture yours. Be warned in time, Clarice, and make it easy for me while you have the chance."
"Robert, if you have a talent, it is for shirking a subject you are afraid of. When you go off like this, I know you are hiding something from me. What is it this time?"
I saw things were getting serious. She was bound to get it out of me, and I might as well give in. "Princess, I will confess, and throw myself on your mercy. Strike, but hear me. It won't pay you to be cross now, for you've got to be with me till you conclude to take Hartman up; we can't be quarrelling all the time, you know. He asked me about you this morning; Jane had spoken of you at breakfast. I put him off with general remarks about your being down south last winter, and the like of that; then suddenly my brain slipped—itissoftening, you see—and I said you had come back when I was in the woods with him. That started him, and he recalled your notion of going up there."
"You are sure you didn't mention it yourself? What did he say?"
"Merely that he wished I had let you and Jane come. He likes Jane. Upon my honor now, he had no suspicion of anything."
"You goose, how often have I told you there was nothing to suspect? But men are so coarse. Well, is that all? What else are you trying to conceal?"
"On my soul, Princess, that's all. I explained it all right, and he was commencing to berate me for not preparing him to meet you as well as the others, when we suddenly came on you, and you struck him deaf and dumb and blind. He swore at me under his breath just before I introduced him." Here my feelings overcame me again.
"Well, there's no harm done. But you really must be more careful, Bob. Try and make your poor mind work better while it lasts; don't forget my instructions again, and when you have made a blunder, tell me at once. You are so light, so devoted to your frivolous amusements; you seem to be drifting into second childhood, thirty years too soon. If you had an object, now, a serious purpose in life: if you really cared for anything—even for me!"
She cuts me when she talks like that. "Clarice, my regard for you is so undemonstrative that you fail to appreciate its depth. If I were to make a fuss over it, now, and use a lot of endearing epithets and big professions, perhaps you would believe me. Some time you will know whether I care for you or not; whether I've got anything in me, and am capable of acting like a man. You wait and see. But I wish I knew what you are going to do with poor Jim."
"Some time you will know: you wait and see. You can go and comfort him now. Good night, poor Bob."
I wentand comforted him. "Well, old man," I said with a cheerful air, "how do you get on?"
"Robert," said he, "do you suppose I would have come here if I had known what anatrocioushumbug you are? Do you imagine for a moment that my relatives, if I had any, would have subjected my innocence to such insidious guardianship? Have you brought me here to destroy my faith, and pollute my morals, and poison my young life with the spectacle of your turpitude?"
"You're improving already, Jim. When I saw you last you hadn't any faith, nor much morals; your youth was away back in the past, and your strength was dried up like railroad doughnuts; you were ready to fall with the first leaves of autumn. Well, since you are here, you can stay till you see how you like us. What do you think of Clarice?"
"She has given me no basis on which to think of her, beyond her looks; they rather take one's breath away. You beast, what do you mean by springing a face like that on me without warning, after all your humbugging talk last night, pretending to post me on every one I was to meet? And I say, do you always stand guard over her when anybody comes near?"
"Well, you see, you were so overcome by the first sight of her this morning, that it seemed no more than fair to let you recover your breath, as you say, and get used to her by degrees. But, James, this is unseemly levity on your part. What have we to do with girls? Let us leave them to the baser spirits who have use for them. The world'sa bubble, and the life of man of no account at all. We have tried it, and it is empty; hark, it sounds. Vain pomp and glory of it all, we hate ye. Ye tinselgauds, ye base embroideries, ye female fripperies, have but our scorn. What are flashing eyes, and tossing ringlets, and rosy lips, and jewelled fingers, to minds like ours? Let us go off to the Nitrian desert, Jim, away from this eternal simper, this harrowing routine."
"You must have been reading up lately, my boy. I left all that in the woods, Bob, and came down here in good faith for a change of air, prepared to learn anything you might have to teach me. If you've got any more traps and masked batteries, let them loose on me; practice on me to your heart's content. You've undertaken to convert me, and I'm here to give you a chance: a fine old apostle you are. But I don't quite understand Miss Elliston's position here, Bob."
"Her position here, or anywhere else, is that she does about as she pleases, and makes everybody else do it too, as you will see before your hair is gray, my learned friend. As I may have told you, we are her nearest relatives: she is an orphan."
"Parents been dead long?"
"About seventeen years. What's that got to do with it?"
"O, not much; don't be so suspicious. Do you think I'm trying to play some trick on you, after your model? How should I, a helpless stranger in a strange land, betrayed by the friend in whom I trusted? I'm an orphan myself too. So that Miss Elliston is in a measure dependent on your kindness?"
"O, don't fancy that she's a poor relation, or anything of that sort. She's got more cash than she wants, and loads of friends: had twenty invitations for the summer. If you don't behave to suit her, she's liable to go off any day to Bar Harbor, or Saratoga, or the Yosemite, or Kamtchatka."
"Very good of her, to stay here with you, then."
"Well, Mabel is deeply attached to her; so is Jane, and the children of course. Her parents and mine were close friends in the country—where I came from, you know. She and I were brought up together; that is, she was—I was mostly brought up before her appearance on this mundane sphere. We used to play in the haymow, and fall from the apple trees together, and all that. O, Clarice is quite a sister to me—a pretty good sister too, all things considered."
"And you are quite a brother to her, as I see. Strange, that it neveroccurredto mention her, when you were describing the various members of your family. Does her mind match her personal attractions?"
"She's got as good a head as you have, old man, or any other male specimen I've struck. I myself meet her on almost equal terms. O, hang that; I don't either. This is no subject for profane jesting. Talk about the inferiority of women! If the moralists and stump-speakers had one like her at home, they'd change their tune. But there are no more like her."
"You speak warmly, Bob. To Clarice every virtue under heaven. Beautiful, brilliant, accomplished, amiable; you are a happy man to have such an annex to your household—even if she wasn't worth naming at the start."
"Amiable—who said she was amiable? Leave that to commonplace women and plain everyday fellows like me. You can't expect that of her sort, Jim. She can be very nice when she pleases. I suppose she has a heart; it has never waked up yet. When it does, it will be a big one. We don't expect the plebeian virtues of her."
"She has a conscience, I hope? If not, it might be better to go away, and stay away. You ought not to keep dangerous compounds about the house, Bob."
"She won't explode—though others may. A conscience? I think so. She couldn't do a mean thing. She keeps a promise: she has more sense of justice than most women. But you can't apply ordinary rules to her. She is of the blood royal: the Princess, we call her. Can't you see, Jim? You are man enough to take her measure, so far as any one can."
"I see her outside; it is worth coming here to see, if I were an artist or an æsthete. She has deigned to show me no more as yet."
"It is all of a piece: the rest matches that, as you will see in time. There is but one Clarice."
"Bob, you are different from last night. I believe you are telling the truth now."
"She sobers you. When you have been with her, when you think of her, it is as if you were in church—only a good deal more so."
"Very convenient and edifying, to have such a private chapel in one's house. Bob, in this mood I can trust you. Tell me one thing: why did you never mention her to me?"
"She doesn't wish me to talk of her to strangers."
"And now the prohibition is removed?"
"You are not a stranger now. She knows you, and you have seen her."
"Well, you are loyal. Does she appreciate such fidelity?"
"We are very good friends. From childhood we have been more together than most brothers and sisters. More or less, I have always been to her as I am now. She is used to me. I do not ask too much of her. Don't fancy that I am in her confidence, or any one: she has a royal reserve. See here, Jim; I am making you one of the family."
"I understand. I must ask you one thing: why did you bring me here, to expose me to all this?"
"You needed a change, Jim, as you half owned just now; almost any change would befor the better. I wanted you to see the world again: there is in it nothing fairer or richer than Clarice."
"You go on as if she were a saint; and yet you say she's not."
"You can answer that yourself, Jim. She's far from it: you and I are not saint-worshippers. But she has it in her to be a saint, if her attention and her latent force were turned that way. She can be anything, or do anything. She hasn't found her life yet. She bides her time, and I wait with her. Her wings will sprout some day. I like her well enough as she is."
"Evidently. Do you know, old man, that you are talking very freely?"
"Am I the first? or do you suppose I would say all this to any chance comer? You opened your soul to me in May, as far as you knew it: you are welcome to see into mine now."
"There is a difference. I cared for nothing, and believed in nothing; so my soul was worth little. Yours is that of a prosperous and happy man."
"Externals are not the measure of the soul, Jim, nor yet creeds. I know a gentleman when I see him, and so do you. Your soul will get its food yet, and assume its full stature; you've been trying to starve it partly, that's all."
"Do you talk this way to your Princess, Bob?"
"No. She is younger than we: why should I bore her? You and I are on equal terms: she and I are not."
"Thishumilityis very chivalric, but I don't quite understand it in you, Bob."
"You can't: you've been so long unused to women, and you never knew one like her. If you had, it would have been too early; what does a boy of twenty know of himself, or of the girls he thinks he is in love with, or of the true relations that should exist between himand them? Call it quixotic if you like; I don't mind. Any gentleman, that is, any spiritual man, has it in him to be a Quixote. When you come to know Clarice, you will understand."
"Do you call yourself and me spiritual men, Bob?"
"Yes; why not? Spirituality does not depend on the opinions one chances to hold, but on the view he takes of his own part in Life, and on the inherent nature of his soul. We are not worshippers of mammon, or fashion, or any of the idols of the tribe. I live in the world, and you out of it; but that makes little difference. You were in danger of becoming a dogmatist, but you are too much of a man for that. We both live to learn, and we can spend ourselves on an adequate object when we find it."
"Bob, if you don't talk to her like this, she doesn't know you as I do."
"No human being knows another exactly as a third does. We strike fire at different points—when we do at all, which is seldom—and show different sides of ourselves to such few as can see at all. She does not care especially for me: why should she? But she has great penetration—more than you have, far more than I. She sees my follies and faults as you don't; she is a sort of a confessor. At present she is a Sunday-school teacher, and I am her class."
"Whatdoyou talk of, all the time?"
"It's not all the time, by any means. That is as she pleases; just now it may be a good deal. By and by it may be your turn: then you'll know some things you don't now. There is nothing I say to her which the world might not overhear, if the world could understand it; and nothing that I can repeat. Jim, I am done: we are up very late."
"Two things I must say yet, or ask, old man. You would stand by this girl againstthe world; and yet you have charged yourself with me. It may be idle to formulate remote and improbable contingencies, but it is in our line. Would you take her part against me, and be my enemy—you who are my only friend?"
"I would stand by her against the world, assuredly. I would stand by you against all the world but her, I think. You two might quarrel, but neither of you would be wrong: I know you both, and you don't know each other. So I take the risk; it is none. When that time comes, neither of you will find me wanting."
"I believe it. The other thing is this—forgive me if I go too far. Do you know what even intelligent and charitable people would say of all this? That it was very queer, very mixed, very dubious."
"They are not our judges, nor we theirs. What would they say of your theories, and your way of life? To be sure, these concern yourself alone. So is this inwardly my affair; it binds, it holds no other. Must a man live in the woods, to form his own ethical code? Here too one may keep clean hands and a pure heart, and do his own thinking. Life is very queer, very mixed, very dubious; I take it as it comes. O, I see truth here and there in your notions of it, though it has done well by me. If I find in it something unique and precious, shall I thrust that aside, because the statutes have not provided for such a case? But one thing I can reject, so that for me it isnot: the baser element. Gross selfishness and vulgar passions are no more in my scheme than in yours: if their suggestions were to rise, it would be easy to disown them. The human beasts who let their lower nature rule, the animals who care for themselves and call it caring for another, are not of our society. O yes, in common things one must get and keep his own—the body must have its food;but one's private temple is kept for worship, and owns a different law. It is not always, nor often, that one can build his shrine on earth, and enter it every day: when a man has that exceptional privilege, he must and may keep his standards high enough to fit. You understand?"
"I do: I am learning. I knew all this in theory, but supposed it ended there. And your Princess, you think is of our society?"
"No root of nobleness is lacking in her; when the season comes, the plants will spring and the garden bloom. But we cannot expect to understand her fully; she is of finer clay than we."
"One thing more, and then I will let you go. There is more of you than I thought, my boy. In May I knew you had a heart; but one who heard you in the woods would have set you down just for a kindly, practical man of the world. Last night, and most of the time to-day, you were the trifler, the incorrigible jester. Why do you belie yourself so and hide your inmost self from all but me?"
"Because I've got to convert you, old man. It is a poor instrument that has but a single string; and David's harp of solemn sound would bore me as much as it would other folks, if I tried to play on it all the time. How many people would sit out this talk of ours, or read it if we put it in print? Taken all in all, the light fantastic measure suits me much better. To see all sides, we must take all tones. The varying moods within fit the varying facts without; to get at truth we must give each its turn. But in the main it is best to take Life lightly. Your error was that you were too serious about it: it's not worth that. Most things are chiefly fit to laugh at. The highgrand style will do once in a way: we've worked it too hard now. Let's come down to earth. I wanted to show you that I could do the legitimate drama as well as you,and yet wear a tall hat and dress for dinner. See?"
"That's all very well, Bob, but I can discriminate between your seriousness and your farce. Perhaps it is well to mix them, or to take them as they are mixed for us. You may be right in that; I'll think it over. Yes, I can see now that Heraclitus overdoes it, and that I used to. Well, my lad, you are a queer professor of ethics; but I'm not sure you've brought me to the wrong school."
Thenext day Clarice took me off as usual. "Well, have you made any more blunders?"
"Not one. You have nothing to reproach me with this time, Czarina."
"You kept Mr. Hartman up dreadfully late. What were you talking about so long?"
"O, he is prepared to find you wonderful, and to come to time whenever you want him. I told him your wings weren't grown yet: you were the Sleeping Beauty in the Enchanted Palace; the hour and the man hadn't arrived. You dwelt in maiden meditation, and the rest of it."
"You did not cheapen me, surely, Robert?"
"God forbid: do I hold you cheap, that I should rate you so to others? He may tell you every word I said, when you begin to turn him inside out; there was none of it that you or I need be ashamed of. He knows, both by his own observation and from my clear and impressive narrative, that you are remote and inaccessible—the edelweiss growing high up in its solitude, where only the daring and the elect can find its haunt."
"That is very neat. Did it take you threehours to tell him that? I heard you come in as it struck two."
"Too bad to disturb your slumbers, Princess: we will take our boots off outside, next time. Naturally you were the most important topic we could discuss; but I also explained his advantages in being thrown so much into my own society. O, he is getting on. He said—"
"I don't want to know what he said. The man is here, and I can see—and hear, when I choose—for myself. Do you think I would tempt you to violate what might be a confidence, Robert?"
"But if I repeat to you what I said, why not what he said?—except that his observations would not be so powerful and suggestive as mine, of course. Otherwise I don't see the difference."
"Now that is stupid, Bob. The difference is that you belong to me, and he doesn't—as yet."
I can't tell you how she says these things. If I could put on paper the tone, the toss of that lovely head, the smile, the sparkle of eyes and lips, that go with what you might call these little audacities, then you would know how they not only accent and punctuate the text, but supply whole commentaries on it. If you get a notion that the Princess is capable of boldness, or vulgar coquetry, or any of the faults of her sex or of ours, you are away off the track, and my engineering must have gone wrong. But I must stop this and get back to my report.
"One thing I must repeat, Princess. I got off a lot of wisdom for Jim's benefit. You wouldn't think how wise it was; deep principles of human nature, and rules for the conduct of life, and such. It did him no end of good: and then he said that if I didn't talk to you that way, you couldn't know me as well as he does."
"He must know you remarkably well then.Just like a man's conceit. Poor Bob, who should know you through and through if I don't?—Why don't you talk to me that way then, and improve me too?"
"As the Scotchwoman said when they asked her if she understood the sermon, Wad I hae the presumption? When you catch me taking on airs and trying to improve you, make a note of it. No, no, Princess dear; the lecturing and improving between us had better remain where they are."
"But, Robert, perhaps I would like to have you vary this continual incense-burning with snatches of something else."
"I dare say. Do you know, Clarice, sometimes I think I am an awful fool about you."
"That is what the doctors call a congenital infirmity, my dear. No use lamenting over what you can't help. Worship me as much as you like; it keeps you out of mischief. But you might change the tune now and then, and give me some of your alleged wisdom."
"Shall I becloud that pure and youthful brow with metaphysic fumes? Should I soil your dainty muslins with the antique dust of folios, and oil from the midnight lamp? You wait till you take up Hartman; perhaps you can stand it from him. But if I were to hold forth to you in the style he prefers, you would get sick of me in twenty minutes. Let it suffice that my lonely vigils are spent in severe studies and profound meditations, the fruit whereof, in a somewhat indirect and roundabout way, may make smooth and safe the path that is traversed by your fairy feet. In the expressive language of the poet, Be happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by my blessing."
"I know about your lonely vigils, Bob; they are spent on cigars, and making up jokes to use next morning. But you are not as bad as usualto-day. Do you know, I like you better when you are comparatively serious."
"Then let me be ever thus, my Queen! Itis the solemnizing influence of being so much with you. If you keep it up for another week, you'll have to send me off to New York to get secularized. I say, Clarice, how long do you mean to go on in this way? It's all very nice for me, but how about Hartman?He'snot frivolous; he takes Life in awful earnest. What do you propose to do with him after you've got him—I should say, after the fatal dart has transfixed his manly form, and he falls pierced and bleeding at your feet?"
"My dear child, let me tell you a pretty little tale. Once upon a time there was a friend of mine, who thought a good deal of me, and of whom I thought more than he knew, poor man—enough to make you jealous, Bob."—Now who the devil was that, confound him? I never heard of him before. It must have been that winter she spent in Boston, just after she came out. That's over five years ago; he's probably dead or married before this. Well, get on with your pretty little tale: not that I see much prettiness about it.—"And when I would tease him to tell me some secret, he would answer, in his own well-chosen language. Some day you will know: you wait and see. By-by, baby!"—and away she dashed.
My tongue went too fast last night. Her heartiswaking; her wings are sprouting. She must be getting interested in Jim. The hour is at hand, and the man: the horn at the castle-gate will soon be sounded, and presto! the transformation scene. That will be a spectacle for gods and men, now; but no tickets will be sold at the doors—admittance only by private card, and that to a very select few. I don't want any change in you, Princess; but I suppose the angels would like to see the depths in you that you haven't sounded, the fairer and wider chambers of your soul opened to the light. God grant that light may need no darkness to come beforeit, no storm-tossed, doubtful daybreak. If the change is for your happiness, no matter about us. You are moving toward a land where I cannot follow you; a land of mystery and wonder and awakening, of new beauties and glories and perils, and possibilities unknown and infinite—a journey wherein you can have no guide but your own pure instincts, no adviser but your own untried heart. God be with you, for Jane and Mabel can do no more than I. We shall hear no word from you till all be over, and then the Clarice of old will return to us no more. Transfigured she may be and beatified, but not the one we knew and loved so long. Little sister, all these years I have been at your side or ready at your call, and now you will not call and I cannot come to help you; for in these matters the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy. May it be joy and not the other! God be with them both, for it is a dangerous country where they are going; a region of mists and pitfalls and morasses, where closest friends may be rudely severed, and those whom Heaven hath joined be put asunder by their own most innocent errors—and the finest spirits run the heaviest risk. Ah well, if I were the Grand Duke of Gerolstein, maybe things would be better managed in my dominions.