ALMOST sixteen months had passed since the dewless September morning, when Mabel had gathered roses in the garden walks, and her brother's return had shaken the dew with the bloom from her young heart. It was the evening of Christmas-day, and the tide of wassail, the blaze of yule, were high at Ridgeley. Without, the fall of snow that had commenced at sundown, was waxing heavier and the wind fiercer. In-doors, fires roared and crackled upon every hearth; there was a stir of busy or merry life in every room. About the spacious fire-place in the “baronial” hall was a wide semicircle of young people, and before that in the parlor, a cluster of elders, whose graver talk was enlivened, from time to time, by the peals of laughter that tossed into jubilant surf the stream of the juniors' converse.
Nearest the mantel, on the left wing of the line, sat the three months' bride, Imogene Barksdale, placid, dove-eyed, and smiling as of yore, very comely with her expression of satisfied prettiness nobody called vanity, and bedecked in her “second day's dress” of azure silk and her bridal ornaments. Her husband hovered on the outside of the ring, now pulling the floating curls of a girl-cousin (every third girl in the country was his cousin, once, twice, or thrice-removed, and none resented the liberties he, as a married man, was pleased to take), anon whispering in the ear of a bashful maiden interrogatories as to her latest admirer or rumored engagement; oftenest leaning upon the back of his wife's chair, a listener to what was going on, his hand lightly touching her lace-veiled shoulders, until her head gradually inclined against his arm. They were a loving couple, and not shy of testifying their consent to the world.
“They remind me irresistibly of a pair of plump babies sucking at opposite ends of a stick of sugar candy!” Rosa Tazewell said aside to the hostess, as the latter paused beside her on her way through the hall to the parlor.
“The candy is very sweet!” replied Mrs. Aylett, charitably, but laughing at the conceit—the low, musical laugh that was at once girlish in its gleefulness, yet perfectly well-bred.
Mr. Aylett heard it from his stand on the parlor-rug, and sent a quick glance in that direction. It was slow in returning to the group surrounding him. He had married a beautiful woman—so said everybody—and a fascinating, as even everybody's wife did not dispute. In his sight, she was simply and entirely worthy of the distinction he had bestowed upon her; an adornment to Ridgeley and his name. From their wedding-day, his deportment toward her had been the same as it was to-night—attentive, but never officious; deferential, yet far removed from servility; a manner that, without approximating uxoriousness, yet impressed the spectator with the conviction that she was with him first and dearest among women; a partner of whom, if that were possible, he was more proud than fond—and of the depth and reality of his affection there could be no question.
She declined to seat herself in the circle, although warmly importuned by her guests thus to add brilliancy to their joyous party, yet remained standing near Rosa, interested and amused by the running fire of compliment and badinage that went to make up the hilarious confusion. If the family record had been consulted, the truth that she had counted her thirty-second summer would have astonished her husband, with her new neighbors. Apparently she was not over twenty-five. Her chestnut hair was a marvel for brightness and profusion, her broad brow smooth and white, her figure, as Winston had described it to his sister, rounded, even to voluptuousness, yet supple as it had been at fifteen. In her cheeks, too, the blushes fluctuated readily and softly, and when she smiled, her teeth showed like those of a little child in size and purity. Her voice matched her beauty well, never loud, always melodious, with a peculiar, gliding, legato movement of the graceful sentences, for the pleasing effect of which she was indebted partly to Nature, and much more to Art. She appeared on this evening in a green silk dress, matronly in shade and general style, but not devoid of coquettish arrangement in the square corsage, the opening of which was filled with foam-like puffs of thulle, threatening, when her bust heaved in mirth or animated speech, to overflow the sheeny boundaries. A chaplet of ivy-leaves encircled her head, and trailed upon one shoulder; her bracelets were heavy, chased gold without gems of any kind; a single diamond glittered—a point of prismatic light at her throat. Her wedding-ring was her only other ornament.
“Very sweet, I grant you, and very flavorless,” returned Rosa. “And alarmingly apt to turn sour upon the stomach. I had rather be fed upon pepper lozenges.”
“You should have been born in the Spice Islands,” said the hostess, tapping the dark cheek with her fore finger. “But we could not spare you from our wassail-cup to-night, my dear Lady Pimento!”
She bent slightly, that the flattery might reach no other ear. She may not have known that Rosa's Creole skin was at a wretched disadvantage, as seen against the green silk background; but others noticed it, and thought how few complexions were comparable to the wearer's. She had the faculty of converting into a foil nearly every woman who approached her.
“Thank you! So I am pimento, am I?” queried Rosa, pertly. “And each of us is to personate some condiment—sweet, ardent, or aromatic—in the exhilarating draught! Which shall Mr. Harrison here be?
“'Cinnamon or ginger, nutmeg or cloves?'”
“That is a line of a college drinking-song!”
The speaker was a young man of eight-and-twenty; who sat between Rosa and Mabel, and whose attentions to the latter were marked. Of medium height, with sandy hair and whiskers, high cheek-bones, that gave a Gaelic cast to his physiognomy; which was remarkable for nothing in particular when at rest, and followed somewhat tardily the operations of his mind when he talked, he would probably have been the least likely person present to rivet a stranger's notice but for the circumstance that he played shadow to the host's sister and was Mrs. Aylett's brother. With regard to the feeling entertained by the former of those ladies for him, there were many and diverse opinions, but his sister's partiality was unequivocally exhibited. Of her three brothers, this—the youngest, the least handsome, and the only bachelor—was her favorite. She took pains to apprise his fellow-guests of this interesting fact by petting him openly, and exerting her fullest artifices to bring him out in becoming colors.
“It is,” she answered him now, admiringly. “What a memory you have, my dear Herbert! Now I am never positive with whom to credit a quotation. I recollect, since you have spoken, that your famous quartette-club used to render that with much eclat, and how it was encored at the brilliant private concert you gave in behalf of some popular charity or other.”
Thus encouraged, Mr. Dorrance proceeded to enlarge the fragment:
“Nose, nose, jolly red nose!Where got you that jolly red nose?Nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cloves,These gave me this jolly red nose.'
“You did not quote the third line correctly, Miss Tazewell.”
“Never having been a college bacchanalian, I am excusable for the inaccuracy,” she retorted. “I did not even know where I picked up the foolish bit. Having ascertained the origin to be of doubtful respectability, I shall never use it again.”
“My sister has alluded to our quartette-club,” pursued Mr. Dorrance, turning from the caustic beauty to Mabel, without noticing the impertinent thrust. “It was the most successful thing of the kind I ever knew of, being composed of thoroughly-trained musicians—amateurs, of course—and practising nothing but classic music, the productions of the best masters. There is something both instructive and elevating in such an association.”
“Especially when the theme of their consideration is the 'Jolly Red Nose,'” interposed the wicked minx at his other elbow.
Two giddy girls tittered, unawed by Mrs. Aylett's proximity and her brother's owl-like stare at his critic.
“You may not be aware, Miss Tazewell, that the lyric to which you have reference is celebrated, both for its antiquity, and the pleasing harmonies that must ever commend it to the taste of the true lover of music; although I allow that to a disciple of the modern and more flimsy school of this glorious art, it may seem puerile and ridiculous,” he remarked, in grandiose patronage. Then, again to Mabel, “There were four of us—as I said—all students. What is it, Clara?”
“I have dropped my bracelet upon the floor, between you and Miss Tazewell,” stooping to shake out Rosa's full skirts from which the trinket fell with a clinking sound.
Three gentlemen darted forward to pick it up, but her husband noted approvingly that while she accepted it graciously from the lucky finder, and thanked the others for their kindly interest in the fate of her “bauble,” she held out her arm to her brother, that he might clasp it again in its place. Affable always, winning whomsoever she chose to admiration of her personal and mental endowments, she never departed from matronly decorum. The company agreed silently, or in guarded asides, that she was charming. No tongue—even the most reckless or venomous—ever lisped the dread word, levity, in connection with her name.
“Take care, my dear brother! you will pinch me!” those near heard her say, and she twisted the golden circlet that the clasp might be uppermost.
Rosa's alert ear caught the hurried murmur which succeeded, and was muffled, so to speak, by her affectionate smile of gratitude.
“What were you about to say? Will you never learn prudence?”
“The dove has talons, then?” mused the eavesdropper, “But what was he in danger of revealing?”
If the interdicted revelation had connection, close or remote, with the famous quartette club, he kept well away from it after this reminder, beginning, when he resumed his seat, to discourse upon the comparative excellence of wood and coal fires, of open chimney-places and stoves.
Mrs. Aylett smiled an engaging and regretful “au revoir” to the circle, and passed on to look after the comfort and pleasure of her elder visitors, and Rosa soon discovered that her awakened curiosity would be in no wise appeased by listening to the steady, pattering drone of Mr. Dorrance's oration. Oratorical he was to a degree that excited the secret amusement of the facile Southern youths about him. With them, the art of light conversation had been a study from boyhood, the topics suitable for and pleasing to ladies' ears carefully culled and adroitly handled. To amuse and entertain was their main object. Erudite dissertations upon science and literature; abstruse arguments—whatever resembled a moral thesis, a political, religious, or philosophical lecture met with the sure ban of ridicule from them, as from the fair whose devoted cavaliers they were. If they laughed, when it was safe and not impolitic to do so, at the ponderous elocution of the Northern barrister, they marvelled exceedingly more at Mabel's indulgence of his attentions. That a girl, who, in virtue of her snug fortune and attractive face, her blood and her breeding, might, as they put it, have the “pick of the county,” if she wanted a husband, should lend a willing ear to the pompous platitudes, the heavy rolling periods of this alien to her native State—a man without grace of manner or beauty—in their nomenclature, “a solemn prig,” defied all ingenuity of explanation, was an increasing wonder outlasting the prescribed nine days. He rode with the ill assurance of one who, accustomed to the sawdust floor, treadmill round, and enclosing walls of a city riding-school, was bewildered by the unequal roads and free air of the breezy country. He talked learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities upon this or that point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had never heard, much less read; equipped himself for the sport in a bewildering arsenal of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches, and powder-horns, with numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and horizontal, and in the field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by any happy accident, brought down his bird, but was continually outraging sporting rules by firing out of time, and flushing coveys prematurely by unseasonable talking and precipitate strides in advance of his disgusted companions.
Yet he was not a fool. In the discussion of graver matters—politics, law, and history—that arose in the smoking-room, he was not to be put down by more fluent tongues; demolished sophistry by solid reasoning, impregnable assertions, and an array of facts that might be prolix, but was always formidable—in short, sustained fully the character ascribed to him by his brother-in-law, of a “thoroughly sensible fellow.”
“No genius, I allow!” Mr. Aylett would add, in speaking of his wife's bantling among his compatriots, “but a man whose industry and sound practical knowledge of every branch of his profession will make for him the fortune and name genius rarely wins.”
With the younger ladies, his society was, it is superfluous to observe, at the lowest premium civility and native kindliness of disposition would permit them to declare by the nameless and innumerable methods in which the dear creatures are proficient. To Rosa Tazewell he could not be anything better than a target for the arrows of her satire, or the whetstone, upon the unyielding surface of which she sharpened them. But she showed her prudential foresight in never laughing at him when out of his sight, and in Mabel's. At long ago as the night of Mr. Aylett's wedding-party at Ridgeley, her sharp eyes had seen, or she fancied they did, that the hum-drum groomsman was mightily captivated by the daughter of the house, and she had divined that Mrs. Aylett's clever ruses for throwing the two together were the outworks of her design for uniting, by a double bond, the houses of Dorrance and Aylett. She knew, furthermore, that Herbert Dorrance had travelled with the Ridgeley family for three weeks in October, and that he had now been domesticated at the homestead for ten days. Mrs. Aylett's show of fondness for him was laughable, considering what an uninteresting specimen of masculinity he was; but the handsome dame was too worldly-wise, too sage a judge of quid pro quo, to entice him to waste so much of the time he was addicted to announcing was money to him, for the sake of a good so intangible as sisterly sentimentality.
Unless there were some substantial and remunerative ulterior object to be gained by his tarrying in the neighborhood, cunning Rosa believed that “dear Bertie” would have been packed off to Buffalo, or whatever outlandish place he lived in, so soon as the bridal festivities were over, and not showed his straw-colored whiskers again in Virginia in three years, at least, instead of running down to the plantation every three months.
“If such an ingredient as the compound, double-distilled essence of flatness is to be infused into the wassail-cup, it is he who will supply it!” thought the spicy damsel, with a bewitching shrug of the plump shoulder nearest him, while engaged in a lively play of words with a gentleman on her other hand. “What can possess Mabel to encourage him systematically in her decorous style, passes my powers of divination. Maybe she means to use him as a poultice for her bruised heart. In that case, insipidity would be no objection.”
Mabel had not the air of one whose heart is bruised or torn. That she had gained in queenliness within the past year was not evidence of austerity or the callousness that ensues upon the healing of a wound. The Ayletts were a stately race, and the few who, while she was in her teens, had carped at her lack of pride because of her disposition to choose friends from the walks of life lower than her own, and criticised as unbecoming the playful familiarity that caused underlings and plebeians—the publicans and sinners of the aristocrat's creed—to worship the ground on which she trod—the censors in the court of etiquette conferred upon her altered demeanor the patent of their approbation, averring, for the thousandth time, that good blood would assert itself in the long run and bring forth the respectable fruits of refinement, self-appreciation, and condescension. The change had come over her by perceptible, but not violent, stages of progression, dating—Mrs. Sutton saw with pain; Rosa, with enforced respect—from the sunset hour in which she had read her brother's sentence of condemnation upon her then betrothed, now estranged, lover. After that one evening, she had not striven to conceal herself and her hurt in solitude. Neither had she borrowed from desperation a brazen helmet to hide the forehead the cruel letter had, for a brief space, laid low in the dust of anguished humiliation.
If a whisper of her disappointment and the attendant incidents crept through the ranks of her associates, it died away for want of confirmation in her clear level-lidded eyes, elastic footfall and the willingness and frequency with which she appeared and played her part in the various scenes of gayety that made the winter succeeding her brother's marriage one long to be remembered by the pleasure-seekers of the vicinity. She had not disdained the assistance of her sister-in-law's judgment and experience in the choice of the dresses that were to grace these merry-makings, and, thanks to her own naturally excellent taste, now tacitly disputed the palm of elegant attire with that lady. Her Christmas costume, which, in many others of her age, would have been objected to by critical fashionists, as old-maidish and grave, yet set off her pale complexion—none of the Ayletts were rosy after they reached man's or woman's estate—and heightened her distingue bearing into regal grace. Yet it was only a heavy black silk, rich and glossy as satin, cut, as was then the universal rule of evening dress, tolerably low in the neck, with short sleeves; bunches of pomegranate-blossoms and buds for breast and shoulder-knots, and among the classic braids of her dark hair a half-wreath of the same.
She had the valuable gift of sitting still without stiffness, and not fidgetting with fan, bouquet, or hand-kerchief, as she listened or talked. Rosa's mercurial temperament betrayed itself, every instant, in the bird-like turn of her small head, the fluttering or chafing of her brown fingers, and not unfrequently by an impatient stamp, or other movement of her foot that exposed fairy toe and instep. Contemplation of the one rested and refreshed the observer; of the other, amused and excited him. Mr. Dorrance's phlegmatic nature found supreme content in dwelling upon the incarnation of patrician tranquillity at his right hand, and he regarded the actions of his frisky would-be tormentor very much as a placid, well-gorged salmon would survey, from his bed of ease upon the bottom of a stream, the gyrations of a painted dragon fly overhead.
A lull in the general conversation—the reaction after a hearty laugh at a happy repartee—gave others besides Mabel the opportunity of profiting by his learned remarks.
“But does not that seem to you a short-sighted policy,” he was urging upon his auditor, with the assistance of a thumb and forefinger of one hand, joined as upon a pinch of snuff, and tapping the centre of the other palm; “does not that appear inexcusable profligacy of extravagance, which fells and consumes whole surface forests of magnificent trees—virgin growth—(I use the term as it is usually applied, although, philosophically considered, it is inaccurate) giants, which centuries will not replace, instead of seeking beneath the superficial covering of mould, nourishing these, for the exhaustless riches, carboniferous remains of antediluvian woods, hidden in the bowels of your mountains, and underlying your worn-out fields?”
Rosa was shaking with internal laughter—she would give no escape except through her dancing eyes.
Indeed, Mr. Dorrance's was the only staid countenance there, as Mabel said, pleasantly, moving her chair beyond the bounds of the ring, “I, for one, find the combustion of the upper forest growth too powerful, just at this instant. This is a genuine Christmas-storm—is it not? Listen to the wind?”
In the stillness enjoined by her gesture, the growl of the blast in the chimney and in the grove; the groaning, tapping, and creaking of the tree branches; the pelting sleet and the rattle of casements all over the house brought to the least imaginative a picture of out-door desolation and fireside comfort that prolonged the hush of attention. Tom Barksdale's pretty wife slipped her hand covertly into his tight grasp, and their smile was of mutual congratulation that they were brightly and warmly housed and together. Rosa, preternaturally grave and quiet, lapsed into a profound study of the mountain of red-hot embers. Several young ladies shuddered audibly, as well as visibly, and were reassured by a whispered word, or the slightest conceivable movement of their gallants' chairs nearer their own.
“I think we have the grandest storms at Ridgeley that visit our continent,” resumed Mabel thoughtfully. “I suppose because the house stands so high. The wind never sounds to me anywhere else as it does here on winter nights.”
Yielding to the weird attraction of the scene invoked by her fancy, she arose and walked to the window at the eastern extremity of the hall, pulling aside the curtain that she might peer into the wild darkness. The crimson light of the burning logs and the lamp rays threw a strongly defined shadow of her figure upon the piazza floor, distinct as that projected by a solar microscope upon a sheeted wall; sent long, searching rays into the misty fall of the snow, past the spot from which she had her last glimpse of Frederic Chilton, so many, many months agone, showing the black outline of the gate where he had looked back to lift his hat to her.
What was there in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she drew? What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving clasp that had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest depth of the eyes that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet moment of parting—eyes that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul, and demanded hers then and forever? His conscience might have been sullied by crimes more heinous than those charged upon him by her brother and his friends; he might—he HAD—let her go easily, as one resigns his careless hold upon a paltry, unprized toy; but when her hand had rested thus in his, and his passionate regards penetrated her soul, he loved her, alone and entirely! She would fold this conviction to her torpid heart for a little while before she turned herself away finally from the memories of that love-summer and battle-autumn of her existence. If it aroused in the chilled thing some slight pangs of sentiency, it would do her no hurt to realize through these that it had once been alive.
She saw a shadow approaching to join itself to hers upon the whitened floor without, before Mr. Dorrance interrupted her reverie by words.
“The fury of the tempest you admire proves its paternity,” he said, with a manifest effort at lightness. “It emanates from the vast magazines of frost, snow, and wintry wind that lie far to the north-east even of my home, and THAT is in a region you would think drear and inhospitable after the more clement airs of of your native State.”
“We have very cold weather in Virginia sometimes,” returned Mabel, still scanning the sentinel gate-posts, and the pyramidal arbor-vitae trees flanking them.
Her gaze was a mournful farewell, but she neglected none of the amenities of hospitality. She was used to talking commonplaces.
“We feel it all the more, too, on account of the mildness of the greater part of the winter,” she subjoined.
“Allow me!” said the other, looping back the curtain she had until now held in her hand. “Whereas our systems are braced by a more uniform temperature to endure the severity of our frosts, and high, keen blasts.”
“I suppose so,” assented Mabel, mechanically, and unconscious as himself that meaning glances were stolen at them from the fireside circle, while the hum and conversation was continuous and louder, for the good-natured intent on the speakers' part to afford the supposed lovers the chance of carrying on their dialogue unheard.
“But our houses are very comfortable—often very beautiful,” Mr. Dorrance persevered, keeping to the scent of his game, as a trained pointer scours a stubble-field, narrowing his beat at every circuit; “and the hearts of those who live in them are warm and constant. It is not always true that
“'The cold in clime are cold in blood;Their love can scarce deserve the name.
“I have thought sometimes that that feeling is strongest and most enduring, the demonstration of which is guarded and infrequent, as the deepest portion of the channel is the most quiet.”
If his philosophical and scientific talk were heavy and solid, his poetry and metaphors were ponderous and labored. Yet Mabel listened to him now, neither facing nor avoiding him, looking down at her hands, laid, one above the other, upon the window-sill, the image of maidenly and courteous attention.
Why should she affect diffidence, or seek to escape what she had foreseen for weeks, and made no effort to ward off? She had come to the conclusion in October that Herbert Dorrance would, when the forms he considered indispensable to regular courtship had been gone through with, ask her to marry him, and coolly taken her resolution to accept him. This morning, on the reception of a handsome Christmas gift from him, and discovering in his actions something more pointed than his customary punctilious devoirs, and in his didacticism the outermost of the closing circle of pursuit she had furthermore concluded that his happy thought was to celebrate the festal season by his betrothment. She was quite ready for the declaration, which, she anticipated, would be pompous and formal. She would have excused him from “doing” the poetical part of it; but, since it was on the programme, it was not her province to interfere.
“I am no enthusiast,” he next averred,—Rosa would have said, very unnecessarily—“the tricks of sighing lovers are beyond—or beneath—my imitation. I could not 'write a sonnet to my mistress' eyebrow,' or move her to tearful pity by sounding declarations of my adoration of her peerless charms, and my anguish at the bare imagination of the possibility that these would ever be another's. But, so far as the earnest affection and sincere esteem of an honest man can satisfy the requirements of a good woman's heart, yours shall be filled, Mabel, if you will be my wife. I have admired you from the first day of our meeting. For six months I have been truly attached to you, and seriously meditated this declaration. Your brother is satisfied with the exhibit I have made of my affairs and my prospects, and sanctions my addresses. I can maintain you more than comfortably, and it shall be one of the principal aims of my life to consult your welfare in all my plans for my own advancement. I have been settled in the large and flourishing city of Albany about seven years, and—ignoring the trammels of mock humility, let me say to you—have, within that period, gained to a flattering extent the confidence of the most respectable portion of the community; have built up an excellent and growing business connection, and secured the entree of the best society there. These are the pecuniary and social aspects of the alliance I propose for your consideration. Through my sister, and by means of the intimate association into which her marriage with your brother has drawn you and myself, you have been enabled, within the twelvemonth that has elapsed since our introduction, one to the other, to learn whatever you wished to know with respect to my personal character, my tastes, temper, and habits. It has given me heartfelt pleasure to discover that these are, in the main, analogous to your own. I have built upon this similarity—or harmony would be the better word—sanguine hopes of our future happiness, should you see your way clear to accept my proffered hand, consent to link your future with mine.”
“I beg to lay the 'ouse in Walcot Square, the business and myself, before Miss Summerson, for her acceptance,” said magnanimous Mr. Guppy, thus clinching his declaration that “the image he had supposed was eradicated from his 'art was NOT eradicated.”
It was more in keeping with Rosa's character than Mabel's to recollect the comic scene in the book they had read together lately, but the latter did remember it at this instant, and despite the momentous issues involved in her immediate action, was strongly tempted to laugh in her wooer's solemn face.
Then—so abrupt and fearful are the transitions from the extremes of one emotion to another—arose before her another picture. As in a dissolving view, she beheld herself walking with Frederic Chilton in the moonlighted alleys of the garden; midsummer flowers blooming to the right and left, her head drooping, in shy happiness, as the lily-bell bows to shed its freight of dew; his face glowing with the ardor of verbal confession of that he had already sought to express by letter—heard his fervent, pleading murmur, “Mabel! look up, my darling! and tell me again that you will not send me away beggared and starving. I cannot yet believe in the reality of my bliss!”
These were the love-words of an “enthusiast”—these—-
The vision vanished at the short, hard breath, she drew in unclasping her locked hands, and lifting her grave, tranquil eyes to the level of her suitor's.
“I will follow your example in repudiating spurious sentiment, Mr. Dorrance. I believe you to be a good, true man and that the attachment you profess for me is sincere. I believe, moreover, that my chances of securing real peace of mind will be fairer, should I commit myself to your guardianship, than if I were to surrender my affections to the keeping of one whose vows were more impassioned, who, professing to adore me as a divinity, should yet be destitute of your high moral principle and stainless honor. When I was younger and more rash in judgment and feeling, I was led into a sad mistake by the evidence of eye, ear, and a girl's imagination. I ought to tell you this, if you have not already heard the story. I will not deceive you into the persuasion that I can ever feel for you, or any other man, the love, or what I thought was love, I knew in the few brief weeks of my early betrothal. But you must know how that ended, and I have no desire to repeat the mad experiment of risking my earthly all upon one throw of fate. If friendship—if esteem, and the resolve to show myself a worthy recipient of your generous confidence—will content you, all else shall be as you wish.”
In her determination to be candid, to leave him in no uncertainty as to her actual sentiments, she had concerted a response but a degree less stilted than his proposal. She would have been ashamed of it had he appeared less gratified.
His dull eyes brightened; his face flushed and beamed with unfeigned delight, and in his transport he said the most natural and graceful thing that ever escaped him during his wooing.
“I am content! The second love of Mabel Aylett must ever be more to me than the first of any other woman!”
True, he nearly spoiled all the next minute, by producing from his pocket a wee velvet case, from which he extracted a valuable diamond ring, and proceeded, then and there, in the shadow of the accommodating curtain, to fit it upon her finger. He had foreseen that she would not be hardly won, and with characteristic providence had prepared himself for the event.
The blood leaped to Mabel's temples and the fire to her eye, at the prompt seal set by the practical non-enthusiast upon the contract, but she bit her lip, and submitted after a second of thought. He owed his exemption from rebuke to her memory of his latest utterance. She could not mistake the tone of genuine feeling, and she overlooked the breach of taste that followed; treasured up the heart-saying as one of the few souvenirs she cared to preserve of his courtship.
“If he is content, I need not be miserable,” was the consolatory reflection with which she took upon herself her new and binding obligations.
MRS. AYLETT was in her best feather that night; the suave chatelaine, the dutiful consort; the tactful warder of the interesting pair whose movements she had not ceased to watch from the moment they took their places with the party about the fire-place in the hall until she, alone of all the company, saw Herbert Dorrance draw the diamond signet from its receptacle, and the sparkle of the jewel as it slipped to its abiding-place upon Mabel's finger.
Lest something unusual in their look or behavior should excite the suspicions of their companions, make them the focus of inquisitive observation and whispered remark, the diplomate passed again into the hall, sweeping along in advance of them when they deserted their curtained recess, and would have joined the rest of the company.
“Are we to have no dancing this evening?” she said, in hospitable solicitude. “It wants an hour yet of supper-time. The exercise will do you all good, particularly the young ladies, who have not stirred beyond the piazzas to-day. I have been waiting for an invitation to play for you, but my desire for your welfare has overcome native humility. Will you accept my services as your musician?”
The suggestion was acceded to by acclamation, and while one gentleman led her to the grand piano which stood between the front windows of the drawing-room, and another opened a music-book which she named, a set was quickly formed in the long apartment, the soberer portion of the crowd ranging themselves along the walls as lookers-on.
Mrs. Aylett was a proficient in dance-music. She never volunteered to perform that which she was not conscious of doing well. She had occasionally taken the floor for a single quadrille, to oblige a favored guest—always a middle-aged or elderly gentleman—or moved through a cotillion with ease and spirit as partner to her husband, but she declined dancing, as a rule; was altogether indifferent to the amusement, while she delighted to oblige her friends by playing for them whenever and as long as they required her aid. Without saying, in so many words, that she disapproved of the waltz for unmarried ladies, and frowned upon promiscuous dancing for matrons, she yet managed to regulate the social code of the neighborhood in both these respects, was imitated and quoted by the most discreet of chaperones and belles.
Mr. Dorrance was Mabel's partner; Rosa stood up with Randolph Harrison, a gay youth, who was her latest attache; Tom Barksdale led out a blushing, yet sprightly school-girl, and Imogene was his vis-a-vis supported by an ancient admirer, who had comforted himself for her preference for another man by falling in love with a prettier woman. The room was decorated with garlands of running cedar—a vine known in higher latitudes as “ground-pine,” and which carpeted acres of the Ridgeley woods. The vases on the mantel were filled with holly, and other gayly colored berry boughs, while roses, lemon and orange blossoms, mignonette and violets from the conservatory were set about on tables and brackets, blending fresher and more wholesome odors with those of the Parisian extracts wafted from the ladies' dresses and handkerchiefs.
Mr. Aylett had—accidentally, it would seem—his wife understood that the action was premeditated—stationed himself at an angle to the piano that allowed him a fair view of her, and did not grudge the merriest bachelor there his share of enjoyment, while he could keep furtive watch upon the changeful countenance, the Sappho-like head, and the delicate hands which one could have thought made the music, rather than did the obedient keys they touched. The wedded lovers had taste and pride in equal proportions, and a parade of their satisfaction in one another for the edification or amusement of indifferent spectators would have been revolting to both, but the ray that sped from half-averted eyes, from time to time, and was returned by a kindling glance, also shot sidelong beneath dropped lashes, said more to each other than would a quarto volume of stereotyped protestations and caresses, such as Tom Barksdale dealt out profusely to his beauteous Imogene. Clearly, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Winston Aylett was fond of sugar-candy.
Mabel's faith in the sincerity of her sister-in-law's agreeable sayings and ways was not invariable nor absolute. She liked her after a certain fashion; got along swimmingly with her, the amazed public decided “SO much better than could have been expected, and than was customary with relations by marriage, and not by descent;” yet her more upright nature and different training helped her to detect the petty artifices with which Clara cajoled the unwary, moulded the plastic at her will. But she had never questioned the reality of her love for Winston. As a wife, her deportment was exemplary, her devotion too freely and consistently rendered to have its spring in policy or affectation. She gloried in her handsome, courtly lord, and in his attachment for herself. Whether she would have espied the same causes for loving exultation in him, had he been a poor clergyman or merchant's clerk, was an irrelevant consideration. The master of Ridgeley was not to be contemplated apart from the possessions and dignities that were his inalienable pedestal. Clara Dorrance was a clever woman, and she had given these due weight in accepting his hand; and they may have had their influence in moving her to unceasing, yet unobtrusive endeavor to make herself still more necessary to his happiness, to strengthen her hold upon him by every means an affectionate and beloved wife has at her command. She had done well for herself—she was thinking while he concluded as silently within himself that the slight pensiveness tempering the expressive face was its loveliest dress.
She—beautiful and penniless, ambitious, and a devotee of pleasure—yet dependent for food and clothing upon her mother's life-interest in an estate, not one penny of which would revert to her children at her decease; without kindred and without society in the elegant suburb they had inhabited for four or five years, might have been elated at a less brilliant match than that she had made. The “best people” of the aforesaid suburb were exclusive; slow to form intimacies with their unaccredited neighbors, and very hasty in breaking them at the faintest whiff of a doubtful or tainted reputation. And of the second best the Dorrances had kept themselves clear. Having met and captivated her wealthy lover on a rarely fortunate summer jaunt, made in company with her eldest brother, his wife, and two relatives of the last-named, Clara did not repel him or disgust the best people of Roxbury by indiscreet raptures over, or exhibition of, her prize.
“I feel with you an invincible repugnance to throwing open our hearts to the inspection of the unsympathizing world, at the most sacred moment of our lives,” she said, in stating her preference for a quiet morning-wedding, a family breakfast, and instant departure upon their bridal-trip. “If I begin to invite my friends and neighbors, our cottage—lawn and garden included—would not contain them, and after all were asked whom I could remember, as many more would be mortally offended at being forgotten.”
The bridegroom gladly acquiescing, with a compliment to her womanly delicacy, the ceremony was performed in the presence of the bride's nearest relatives; an elegant repast was served, at which the Dorrance plate made an imposing show, and Clara turned her back upon the scenes and reminiscences of her past life to commence the world anew.
Yes, she had done very well for herself—how wonderfully well she knew better than did any one else, and at this date she had fresh cause for self-gratulation. Through her, Herbert, her favorite brother, was likely to form an alliance which would be a timely and substantial stepping-stone to his aggrandizement and wealth. There were more reasons why she should hold her head higher—why the blood should clothe her cheek with a richer carmine, and a smile encircle the mouth, as one swift glance took in the spacious, luxurious room, thronged with well-dressed aristocrats, her husband the stateliest, most honored of them all, yet her fond thrall; the splendid apparel in which his wealth had bedecked her, the queen of the scene—more reasons, I say, for the ineffable thrill of pleasure that coursed, a rapid, intoxicating stream, through her veins, than grateful affection for the author of all these goods. With a Sybarite's dread of pain and loneliness, she seldom trusted herself to look at the dark curtain in the background, against which her latter-day glories shone the more dazzlingly. But to-night she felt safe upon her throne—sat, the lady of kingdoms, sultana in the realm of her spouse's heart and in his domain, and could stare full upon the past—could measure, without shuddering, the height of her actual and assumed estate above—
Mr. Aylett stepped forward in haste and concern at the deadly pallor that overspread her face—the look of horror, fear, loathing, before which smile and brightness fled, blasted into wretchedness. The revellers stopped in their giddy measure at the discordant jangle, preluding a dead silence.
Mabel, chancing in the evolutions of the set to be nearest the window, and noting the direction of the fainting woman's eyes, was quick enough to see a shadow flit across the yellow square of light upon the snowy floor of the portico—a man's shape, as it appeared to her, crouching and slinking out of view into the darkness.
“She saw something, or somebody, through the window, and was frightened,” she said, in a low voice, checking Tom Barksdale and another gentleman, who would have pressed with the inconsiderate crowd toward the senseless figure Mr. Aylett had laid upon the sofa. “Will you see what it was?”
The request cleared the room directly of all the men of the assembly, with the exception of Winston and Dr. Ritchie, a young physician, who was superintending the administration of restoratives to Mrs. Aylett.
She was reviving rapidly when the search party gave in their report. There were fresh tracks upon the piazza, and these they had traced to the back of the house, losing them there in the drifting snow, the wind blowing like a hurricane, and ploughing what had fallen and what was descending into constantly changing heaps. But the watch-dogs had been unchained, and four of the negro men detailed as sentinels, the gentlemen engaging to make the round of the premises again before bed-time.
The effect of this communication was the reverse of tranquillizing upon the patient. The wild, terrified look in her eye resembled the unreasoning fear of lunacy as she seized her husband's arm.
“Indeed, indeed they must not. It is not right or safe to make such a serious matter of my foolish nervousness. I am not sure there was any one there! It was probably an optical delusion. I was plunged in a reverie, thinking of happy, peaceful, lovely things”—with the sickly feint of a meaning smile into his face—“and, happening to look at the window, I fancied that I saw”—with all her self-command her voice failed here, and she put her hand before her eyes for a moment before she could go on—“I thought I saw—SOMETHING! It may have been a human face—it may have been the shadow of the curtains, or the reflection of the lights upon the glass; but it startled me, appearing so abruptly. Please say no more about it. If it was a living creature, it must have been one of the servants, tempted by curiosity to peep at the dancers.”
“It will prove to be a costly indulgence to him, if I can discover who the rascal was,” said Mr. Aylett, decisively. “I would not have had you so startled for the worth of all the lazy hounds on the premises.”
His wife laid her hand upon his.
“It is Christmas night, my love, and the poor fellow is excusable. He showed excellent taste. It was a very pretty scene. I shall not soon forgive myself for throwing it into such 'admired disorder.' Miss Scott”—[to a musical spinster]—“may I tax your politeness so far as to ask you to take my seat at the piano? I must go to my room for a few minutes,” raising her finger smilingly to her displaced ivy wreath. “If you would testify your tolerance of my folly, please go on with your amusement. I shall be encouraged to return when I hear the music.”
Her collected, urbane self once more, she took her husband's arm, and passed through the opening ranks of her friends, bowing to this side and that, with apologetic banter and graceful words of regret—still very pale, but changed in no other respect.
“A singular episode in an evening's entertainment,” said Mr. Dorrance, leading Mabel to her stand in the re-forming set. “I never knew Clara to succumb before to any type of syncope or asphyxia. She is a woman of remarkable nerve and courage. And, by the way, how preposterous is the common use of the word 'nervous.' The ablest lexicographers define it as 'strong, well-strung, full of nerve,' whereas, in ordinary parlance, it has come to signify the very opposite of these. When I speak of a nervous speaker or writer, for example, what do I mean?”
“One who imbibes unwholesomely large quantities of strong green tea, and sees hobgoblins peering at her through the window-panes!” said Rosa, sarcastically artless, tripping by in season to overhear this clause of his small-talk.
Mabel's imperturbable good-breeding prevented embarrassment or resentment at the interruption. At heart, she was vexed that Rosa should omit no opportunity of shooting privily and audaciously at her practical admirer, but to betray her appreciation of the impertinence would be to subject herself to imputations of sensitiveness on his account.
“I saw the hobgoblin without the aid of green tea,” she rejoined. “There was really some one upon the porch, but why the apparition should scare Clara out of her wits, I cannot divine. The negro is an incurable Paul Pry, and, next to dancing a Christmas jig himself, is the pleasure of seeing others do it.”
Mrs. Aylett verified her brother's encomium upon her nerve by reappearing in the saloon by the time another set was over, and just before the announcement of supper, radiant and self-possessed, prepared to do double social duty to atone for the fright she had caused, and the temporary damp her swoon had cast over the festivities.
The revel went joyously forward—Christmas-games and incantations, the dexterous introduction, by a jocose old gentleman, of a mistletoe-bough into the festoons draping the chandelier, and divers other tricks, all of which were taken in excellent part by the victims thereof, and vociferously applauded by the spectators. The great hall-clock had rung out twelve strokes, and two or three methodical seniors were beginning to whisper to one another their intention to take French leave of the indefatigable juniors and seek their couches, when a continued tumult arose from the yard—barking and shouts, and voices in angry or eager dispute.
Unmindful of the nipping air, the ladies flew to the windows and raised them, while the gentlemen, in a body, rushed out upon the porch, many to the lawn—the scene of the disturbance.
“They have caught him!”
“There are several of them—a gang of thieves, no doubt!”
“No! I see but one! They are bringing him to the house!” were morsels of information passed over the shoulders of the foremost rank of inquisitive fair ones to the rear, but none were able to answer the returning inquiries.
“Who is it?”
“What does he look like like?”
“Does he offer any resistance?”
“Do you suppose he is a burglar, or only a common vagrant?”
“I thought the Ridgeley grounds were never infested by prowling beggars, or other vagabonds,” said a lady to Mrs. Aylett, who prudently remained near the fire, even then shivering with the cold, and casting uneasy looks at the windows.
“Mr. Aylett is a model to his brother magistrates in his treatment of such nuisances,” remarked another “His name is a terror to strollers, whether they be organ-grinders, peddlers, or incendiaries.”
Mrs. Aylett, excessively pale, applied her vinaigrette to her nose, and trembled yet more violently.
“I believe he is very strict,” she assented. “But I am really afraid those ladies will take cold! The snow-air is piercing. And they are—most of them—heated with dancing. Cannot we prevail upon them to close the windows, now that the mysterious prowler is secured? We shall hear all about him when the gentlemen return, and they will not stay out of doors longer than is necessary.”
They began to pour back into the room, while she was speaking, laughing, and talking, all together shaking the snow-powder from their hair and hands, and anathematizing the cold and their thin boots. The particulars of the midnight disturbance were quickly disseminated. The ebon sentinels had, directed by the barking of their canine associates, discovered, under a holly hedge on one side of the yard, a man lying upon the earth, and almost buried in the snow he seemed not to have strength to throw off. He was either drunk or so nearly frozen as to be incapable of answering coherently their demands as to what was his name and what his business upon the premises. The interrogations of the gentlemen and the ungentle shakings administered by his captors elicited nothing but groans and muttered oaths. He could not, or would not, walk without support, and to leave him where he was, or to turn him adrift into the public road, would be certain death. Therefore Mr. Aylett had ordered him to be confined for the night in a garret room. In the morning he might be examined to more purpose.
“But he ought to have a fire, and something hot and nourishing to drink!” exclaimed Mrs. Button, upon hearing the story. “He will freeze in that barn of a place—poor wretch!”
“I imagine he has no need of additional stimulants,” said Mrs. Aylett, dryly, again resorting to her smelling-bottle. “From what the gentlemen say, I judge that he had laid in a supply of caloric sufficient to last through the night. And the first use he would make of fire would be to burn the house over our heads. His lodgings are certainly more comfortable than those selected by himself. There is little danger of his finding fault with them. What manner of looking creature is he?”
“An unkempt vagabond!” rejoined Randolph Harrison, rubbing his blue fingers before the fire. “His clothes are ragged, and frozen stiff. I suppose he has been out in the storm ever since it set in. There were icicles upon his beard and hair, his hat having fallen off. It is a miracle he did not freeze to death long ago. It is a bitter night.”
“Did you say he was an old man?” inquired the hostess languidly, from the depths of her easy chair.
“He is not a young one, for his hair is grizzled. But we will form ourselves into a court of inquiry in the morning, with Mr. Aylett as presiding officer—have in the nocturnal wanderer, and hear what account he can give of himself. Who knows what romantic history we may hear—one that may become a Christmas legend in after years?”
“You will get nothing more sensational than the confessions of a hen-roost robber, I suspect,” said Mrs. Aylett, more wearily than was consistent with her role of attentive hostess.
Her husband noticed the tokens of exhaustion, and interposed to spare her further exertion.
“Our friends will excuse you if you retire without delay, Clara. You still feel the effects of your agitation and faintness.”
This was the signal for a general dispersion of the ladies—the gentlemen, or most of them, adjourning to the smoking-room.
Since the late extraordinary influx of visitors, Mabel had shared her aunt's chamber, but, instead of seeking this now, she went straight from the parlor to the supper-room, where she found, as she had expected, Mrs. Sutton in the height of business, directing the setting of the breakfast-table, clearing away the debris of the evening feast, and counting the silver with unusual care, lest a stray fork or spoon had, by some hocus-pocus known to the class, been slipped into the pocket of the supposititious burglar.
“Aunt,” began Mabel, drawing her aside, “that poor wretch up-stairs must be cared for. It is the height of cruelty to lock him up in a fireless room, without provisions or dry clothing. If he should die, would we be guiltless?”
Mrs. Sutton's benevolent physiognomy was perplexed.
“Didn't I say as much in the other room, before everybody, my dear? And didn't SHE put me down with one of her magisterial sentences? She is mistress here—not you or I. Besides, Winston has the key of that east garret in his pocket, and I would not be the one to ask him for it, since he has had his wife's opinion upon the subject of humanity to prisoners.”
“I shall not trouble him with my petition. I discovered by accident, when I was a child, that the key of the north room would open that door. If I order, upon my own responsibility, that a cup of hot coffee, and some bread and meat be taken up to him, you will not deny them to me, I suppose?”
“Certainly not, my child! but I dare not send a servant with them. Winston's orders were positive—they all tell me—that not a soul should attempt to hold communication with him. And what he says he means.”
“Then,” replied Winston's sister, with a spark of his spirit, “I will take the waiter up myself. I cannot sleep with this horror hanging over me—the fear lest, through my neglect or cowardice, a fellow-being—whose only offence against society, so far as we knows is his dropping down in a faint or stupor under a hedge on the Ridgeley plantation—should lose his life.”
“Your feelings are only what I should expect from you, my love; but think twice before you go up-stairs yourself! It would be considered an outrageous impropriety, were it found out.”
“Less outrageous than to let a stranger perish for want of such attention as one would vouchsafe to a stray dog?” questioned Mabel, with a queer smile. “Roger! pour me out a bowl of coffee at once. Put it on a waiter with a plate of bread and butter—or stay! oysters will be more warming and nourishing. I am very sure that Daphne is keeping a saucepanful hot for her supper and yours. Hurry!”
The waiter, whose wife was the cook, ducked his head with a grin confirmatory of his young mistress' shrewd suspicion, and vanished to obey her orders, never dreaming but she wanted the edibles for her private consumption. He enjoyed late and hot suppers, and why not she? Thanks to this persuasion, the coffee was strong, clear, and boiling, the oysters done to a turn, and smoking from the saucepan.
Taking the tray from him, with a gracious “Thank you! This is just as it should be,” Mabel negatived his offer to carry it to her room, and started up-stairs.
Mrs. Sutton followed with a lighted candle.
“Winston or no Winston, you shall not face that desperado alone,” she said, obstinately. “There is no telling what he may do—murder you, perhaps, or at least knock you down in order to escape. Winston talks as if he were the captain of the forty thieves.”'
“He is pretty well hors de combat now, at any rate,” smiled Mabel, but allowing her aunt to precede her with the light to the upper floor. “And should he offer violence—scalding coffee may defend me as effectually as Morgiana's boiling oil routed the gang. MY captain had to be carried up-stairs by four servants, who left him upon a pile of old mattresses in one corner of the room. Here we are!”
They were in a wide hall at the top of the house, the unceiled rafters above their heads, carpetless boards beneath their feet. Mabel set her waiter upon a worm-eaten, iron-bound chest, and went further down the passage to get the key of the north room. Her light footstep stirred dismal echoes in the dark corners; the wind screamed through every crack and keyhole, like a legion of piping devils; rumbled lugubriously over the steep roof. The one candle flickering in the draught showed Mabel's white bust and arms, like those of a phantom, beaming through a cloud of blackness, when she stooped to try the key in the lock of the prison-chamber.
After fitting it, she knocked before she turned it in the rusty wards—again, and more loudly—then spoke, putting her lips close to the key-hole:
“We are friends, and have brought you supper. Can we come in?”
There was no answer, and with a beating heart she unlocked the door, pushed it ajar, and motioned to Aunt Rachel to hold her candle up, that she might gain a view of the interior.
The wan, uncertain rays revealed the heap of mattresses, and upon them what looked like a mass of rough, wet clothing, without sound or motion.
“He is pretending to be asleep! Take care!” whispered Mrs. Sutton, trying to restrain Mabel as she pressed by her into the room.
“He is dead, I fear!” was the low answer.
Forgetful of her nephew's prohibition and her recent fears, the good widow entered, and leaned anxiously over the stranger's form. A tall, gaunt man, clad in threadbare garments, which hung loosely upon the shrunken breast and arms, black hair and beard, mottled with white, ragged, and unshorn, and dank from exposure to the snow and sleet; a chalky-white face, with closed and sunken eyes, sharpened nose, and prominent cheek-bones—this was what they beheld as the candle flamed up steadily in the comparatively still air of the ceiled apartment. The miserable coat was buttoned up to his chin, and the shreds of a coarse woollen comforter, torn from his throat at his capture, still hung about his shoulders. His clothes were sodden with wet, as Harrison had said, and the solitary pretence at rendering him comfortable for the night, had been the act of a negro, who contemptuously flung an old blanket across his nether limbs before leaving him to his lethargic slumbers. He had not moved since they tossed him, like a worthless sack, upon this sorry resting-place, but lay an unsightly huddle of arms, legs, and head, such as was never achieved, much less continued, by any one save a drunken man or a corpse. Mabel ended the awed silence.
“This is torpor—not sleep, nor yet death,” she said, without recoiling from the pitiful wreck.
Indeed, as she spoke, she bent to feel his pulse; held the emaciated wrist in her warm fingers until she could determine whether the feeble stroke were a reality, or a trick of the imagination.
“Dr. Ritchie should see him immediately. He is in the smoking-room. If you call him out, it will excite less remark than if I were to do it. Don't let Winston guess why you want him,” were her directions to her aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly.
“You will not stay here! At least, go into the hall! What will the doctor think?”
“I shall remain where I am. The poor creature is too far gone to presume upon my condescension,” with a faint sarcastic emphasis.
At Mrs. Sutton's return with the physician, she perceived that her niece had not awaited her coming in sentimental idleness. A thick woollen coverlet was wrapped about the prostrate figure, and Mabel, upon her knees on the dusty hearth, was applying the candle to a heap of waste paper and bits of board she had ferreted out in closets and cuddy-holes. It caught and blazed up hurriedly in season to facilitate the doctor's examination of the patient, thrown so oddly upon his care. Mrs. Sutton had not neglected, in her haste, to procure a warm shawl from her room, and she folded it about the girl's shoulders, whispering an entreaty that she would go to bed, and leave the man to her management and Dr. Ritchie.
Mabel waved her off impatiently.
“Presently! when I hear how he is!” moving toward the comfortless couch.
The physician looked around at the rustle of her dress, his pleasant face perturbed, and perhaps remorseful.
“This is a bad business! I wish I had examined him when he was brought in. There would have been more hope of doing something for him then. But, to tell the truth, I was one of the five or six prudent fellows who stayed upon the piazza, and witnessed the capture from a distance. I had no idea of the man's real situation. Mrs. Sutton! can I have brandy, hot water, and mustard at once! Miss Mabel! may I trouble you to call your brother? He ought to be advised of this unforeseen turn of affairs.”
His emissaries were prompt. In less than ten minutes, all the appliances the household could furnish for the restoration of the failing life were at his command. An immense fire roared in the long-disused chimney; warm blankets, bottles of hot water and mustard-poultices were prepared by a corps of officious servants; the master of the mansion, with three or four friends at his heels, and a half-smoked cigar in his hand, had looked in for a moment, to hope that Dr. Ritchie would not hesitate to order whatever was needed, and to predict a favorable result as the meed of his skill.
Half an hour after her brother's visit, Mabel tapped at the door to inquire how the patient was, and whether she could be of use in any way. She still wore her evening dress, and the fire of excitement had not gone out in her eyes and complexion.
“Don't sit up longer,” said the doctor, with the authority of an old friend. “It will not benefit your protege for you to have a headache, pale cheeks, and heavy eyes to-morrow, while it will render others, whose claims upon you are stronger, very miserable.”
She thanked him laconically for his thoughtfulness, and bade him “good-night,” without a responsive gleam of playfulness. Her heart was weighed down with sick horror. The almost certainty of which he spoke with professional coolness, was to her, who had never within her recollection stood beside a death-bed, a thing too frightful to be anticipated without dread, however its terrors might be alleviated by affection and wealth. As the finale of their Christmas frolic—perhaps the consequence of wilful neglect in those who should have known better than to abandon the wanderer to the ravages of hunger, cold, and intoxication—the idea was ghastly beyond description.
She was about to diverge from the main hall on the second floor into the lateral passage leading to Mrs. Sutton's room in the wing, when her name was called in a gentle, guarded key by her sister-in-law.