She rose, but he quickly laid his hand on her shoulder, and pressed her back into the chair.
"You will be so good as to sit still, and hear me out. I have a right to all my charming, rose-colored views of this world. I have gone to and fro on the earth, and life has proved a Barmecide's banquet of just thirty-eight years' duration."
"But, sir, you lacked the patience and resolution of Shacabac, or, like him, you would have finally grasped the splendid realities. The world must be conquered, held in bondage to God's law and man's reason, before we can hope to levy tribute that will support our moral and mental natures; and it is only when humanity finds itself in the inverted order of serfdom to the world, that it dwarfs its capacities, and even then dies of famine."
The scornful gleam died out of his eyes, and mournful compassion stole in.
"Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battlefield of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slow-stepping experience, pallid, blood-stained, spent with toil, lays her icy hand on the rosy veil that floats before bright, brave, young eyes, and lo' the hideous wreck, the bleaching bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming banners, neither spoils of victory nor paeans of triumph, only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—and a voiceless desolation! Oh, child! if you would find a suitable type of that torn and trampled battlefield—the human heart—when vice and virtue, love and hate, revenge and remorse, have wrestled fiercely for the mastery—go back to your Tacitus, and study there the dismal picture of that lonely Teutoburgium, where Varus and his legions went down in the red burial of battle! You talk of 'conquering the world—holding it in bondage!' What do you know of its perils and subtle temptations—of the glistening quicksands whose smooth lips already gape to engulf you? The very vilest fiend in hell might afford to pause and pity your delusion ere turning to machinations destined to rouse you rudely from your silly dreams. Ah! you remind me of a little innocent, happy child, playing on some shining beach, when the sky is quiet, the winds are hushed, and all things wrapped in rest, save
'The water lapping on the crag,And the long ripple washing in the reeds'—
a fair, fearless child, gathering polished pearly shells with which to build fairy palaces, and suddenly, as she catches the mournful murmur of the immemorial sea, that echoes in the flushed and folded chambers of the stranded shells, her face pales with awe and wonder—the childish lips part, the childish eyes are strained to discover the mystery; and while the whispering monotone admonishes of howling storms and sinking argosies, she smiles and listens, sees only the glowing carmine of the fluted reels, hears only the magic music of the sea sirens—and the sky blackens, the winds leap to their track of ruin, the great deep rises wrathful and murderous, bellowing for victims, and Cyclone reigns? Thundering waves sweep over and bear away the frail palaces that decked the strand, and even while the shell symphony still charms the ear, the child's rosy feet are washed from their sandy resting-place; she is borne on howling billows far out to a lashed and maddened main, strewn with human drift; and numb with horror she sinks swiftly to a long and final rest among purple algae! Even so, Edna, you stop your ears with shells, and my warning falls like snow-flakes that melt and vanish on the bosom of a stream.
"No, sirs I am willing to be advised. Against what would you warn me?"
"The hollowness of life, the fatuity of your hopes, the treachery of that human nature of which you speak so tenderly and reverently. So surely as you put faith in the truth and nobility of humanity, you will find it as soft-lipped and vicious as Paolo Orsini, who folded his wife, Isabella de Medici, most lovingly in his arms, and while he tenderly pressed her to his heart, slipped a cord around her neck and strangled her."
"I know, sir, that human nature is weak, selfish, sinful—that such treacherous monsters as Ezzolino and the Visconti have stained the annals of our race with blood-blotches, which the stream of time will never efface; but the law of compensation operates here as well as in other departments, and brings to light a 'fidus Achates' and Antoninus. I believe that human nature is a curious amalgam of meanness, malice and magnanimity, and that an earnest, loving Christian charity is the only safe touchstone, and furnishes (if you will tolerate the simile) the only elective affinity in moral chemistry. Because ingots are not dug out of the earth, is it not equally unwise and ungrateful to ridicule and denounce the hopeful, patient, tireless laborers who handle the alloy and ultimately disintegrate the precious metal? Even if the world were bankrupt in morality and religion—which, thank God, it is not—one grand shining example, like Mr. Hammond, whose unswerving consistency, noble charity, and sublime unselfishness all concede and revere, ought to leaven the mass of sneering cynics, and win them to a belief in their capacity for rising to pure, holy, almost perfect lives."
"Spare me a repetition of the rhapsodies of Madame Guyon! I am not surprised that such a novice as you prove yourself should, in the stereotyped style of orthodoxy, swear by the hoary Tartuffe, that hypocritical wolf, Allan Hammond—"
"Stop, Mr. Murray! You must not, shall not use such language in my presence concerning one whom I love and revere above all other human beings! How dare you malign that noble Christian, whose lips daily lift your name to God, praying for pardon and for peace? Oh! how ungrateful, how unworthy you are of his affection and his prayers!"
She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and stood regarding him with an expression of indignation and detestation.
"I neither possess nor desire his affection or his prayers."
"Sir, you know that you do not deserve, but you most certainly have both."
"How did you obtain your information?"
"Accidentally, when he was so surprised and grieved to hear that you had started on your long voyage to Oceanica."
"He availed himself of that occasion to acquaint you with all my heinous sins, my youthful crimes and follies, my—"
"No, sir! he told me nothing, except that you no longer loved him as in your boyhood; that you had become estranged from him; and then he wept, and added, 'I love him still; I shall pray for him as long as I live.'"
"Impossible! You can not deceive me! In the depths of his heart he hates and curses me. Even a brooding dove—pshaw! Allan Hammond is but a man, and it would be unnatural—utterly impossible that he could still think kindly of his old pupil. Impossible!"
Mr. Murray rose and stood before the grate with his face averted, and his companion seized the opportunity to say in a low, determined tone:
"Of the causes that induced your estrangement I am absolutely ignorant. Nothing has been told me, and it is a matter about which I have conjectured little. But, sir, I have seen Mr. Hammond every day for four years, and I know what I say when I tell you that he loves you as well as if you were his own son. Moreover, he—"
"Hush! you talk of what you do not understand. Believe in him if you will, but be careful not to chant his praises in my presence; not to parade your credulity before my eyes, if you do not desire that I shall disenchant you. Just now you are duped—so was I at your age. Your judgment slumbers, experience is in its swaddling-clothes; but I shall bide my time, and the day will come ere long when these hymns of hero-worship shall be hushed, and you stand clearer-eyed, darker-hearted, before the mouldering altar of your god of clay."
"From such an awakening may God preserve me! Even if our religion were not divine, I should clasp to my heart the system and the faith that make Mr. Hammond's life serene and sublime. Oh! that I may be 'duped' into that perfection of character which makes his example beckon me ever onward and upward. If you have no gratitude, no reverence left, at least remember the veneration with which I regard him, and do not in my hearing couple his name with sneers and insults."
"'Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone!'" muttered the master of the house, with one of those graceful, mocking bows that always disconcerted the orphan.
She was nervously twisting Mr. Leigh's ring around her finger, and as it was too large, it slipped off, rang on the hearth, and rolled to Mr. Murray's feet.
Picking it up he examined the emerald, and repeating the inscription, asked:
"Do you understand these words?"
"I only know that they have been translated, 'Peace be with thee, or upon thee.'"
"How came Gordon Leigh's ring on your hand? Has Tartuffe's Hebrew scheme succeeded so soon and so thoroughly?"
"I do not understand you, Mr. Murray."
"Madame ma mere proves an admirable ally in this clerical matchmaker's deft hands, and Gordon's pathway is widened and weeded. Happy Gordon! blessed with such able coadjutors!"
The cold, sarcastic glitter of his eyes wounded and humiliated the girl, and her tone was haughty and defiant—
"You deal in innuendoes which I cannot condescend to notice. Mr. Leigh is my friend, and gave me this ring as a birthday present. As your mother advised me to accept it, and indeed placed it on my finger, her sanction should certainly exempt me from your censure."
"Censure! Pardon me! It is no part of my business; but I happen to know something of gem symbols, and must be allowed to suggest that this selection is scarcely comme il faut for a betrothal ring."
Edna's face crimsoned, and the blood tingled to her fingers' ends.
"As it was never intended as such, your carping criticism loses its point."
He stood with the jewel between his thumb and fore-finger, eyeing her fixedly, and on his handsome features shone a smile, treacherous and chilling as arctic snowblink.
"Pliny's injunction to lapidaries to spare the smooth surface of emeralds seems to have been forgotten when this ring was fashioned. It was particularly unkind, nay, cruel to put it on the hand of a woman, who of course must and will follow the example of all her sex, and go out fishing most diligently in the matrimonial sea; for if you have chanced to look into gem history, you will remember what befell the fish on the coast of Cyprus, where the emerald eyes of the marble lion glared down so mercilessly through the nets, that the fishermen could catch nothing until they removed the jewels that constituted the eyes of the lion. Do you recollect the account?"
"No, sir, I never read it."
"Indeed! How deplorably your education has been neglected! I thought your adored Dominie Sampson down yonder at the parsonage was teaching you a prodigious amount?"
"Give me my ring, Mr. Murray, and I will leave you."
"Shall I not enlighten you on the subject of emeralds?"
"Thank you, sir, I believe not, as what I have already heard does not tempt me to prosecute the subject."
"You think me insufferably presumptuous?"
"That is a word which I should scarcely be justified in applying to you."
"You regard me as meddlesome and tyrannical?"
She shook her head.
"I generally prefer to receive answers to my questions. Pray, what do you consider me?"
She hesitated a moment, and said sadly and gently:
"Mr. Murray, is it generous in you to question me thus in your own house?"
"I do not claim to be generous, and the world would indignantly defend me from such an imputation! Generous? On the contrary, I declare explicitly that, unlike some 'whited supulchres' of my acquaintance, I do not intend to stand labeled with patent virtues! Neither do I parade mezuzoth on my doors. I humbly beg you to recollect that I am not a carefully-printed perambulating advertisement of Christianity."
Raising her face, Edna looked steadfastly at him, and pain, compassion, shuddering dread filled her soft, sad eyes.
"Well, you are reading me. What is the verdict?"
A long, heavily-drawn sigh was the only response.
"Will you be good enough to reply to my questions?"
"No, Mr. Murray. In lieu of perpetual strife and biting words, let there be silence between us. We can not be friends, and it would be painful to wage war here under your roof; consequently, I hope to disarm your hostility by assuring you that in future I shall not attempt to argue with you, shall not pick up the verbal gauntlets you seem disposed to throw down to me. Surely, sir, if not generous you are at least sufficiently courteous to abstain from attacks which you have been notified will not be resisted?"
"You wish me to understand that hereafter I, the owner and ruler of this establishment, shall on no account presume to address my remarks to Aaron Hunt's grandchild?"
"My words were very clear, Mr. Murray, and I meant what I said, and said what I meant. But one thing I wish to add: while I remain here, if at any time I can aid or serve you, Aaron Hunt's grandchild will most gladly do so. I do not flatter myself that you will ever require or accept my assistance in anything, nevertheless I would cheerfully render it should occasion arise."
He bowed and returned the emerald, and Edna turned to leave the library.
"Before you go, examine this bauble."
He took from his vest pocket a velvet case containing a large ring, which he laid in the palm of her hand.
It was composed of an oval jacinth, with a splendid scarlet fire leaping out as the light shone on it, and the diamonds that clustered around it were very costly and brilliant. There was no inscription, but upon the surface of the jacinth was engraved a female head crowned with oak leaves, among which serpents writhed and hissed, and just beneath the face grinned a dog's head. The small but exquisitely carved human face was savage, sullen, sinister, and fiery rays seemed to dart from the relentless eyes.
"Is it a Medusa?"
"No."
"It is certainly very beautiful, but I do not recognize the face.Interpret for me."
"It is Hecate, Brimo, Empusa—all phases of the same malignant power; and it remains a mere matter of taste which of the titles you select. I call it Hecate."
"I have never seen you wear it."
"You never will."
"It is exceedingly beautiful."
Edna held it toward the grate, flashed the flame now on this side, now on that, and handed it back to the owner.
"Edna, I bought this ring in Naples, intending to ask your acceptance of it, in token of my appreciation of your care of that little gold key, provided I found you trustworthy. After your pronunciamento uttered a few minutes since, I presume I may save myself the trouble of offering it to you. Beside, Gordon might object to having his emerald over-shadowed by my matchless jacinth. Of course, your tender conscience will veto the thought of your wearing it?"
"I thank you, Mr. Murray; the ring is, by far, the most beautiful I have ever seen, but I certainly can not accept it."
"Bithus contra Bacchium!" exclaimed Mr. Murray, with a short, mirthless laugh that made his companion shrink back a few steps.
Holding the ring at arm's length above his head, he continued:
"To the 'infernal flames,' your fit type, I devote you, my costly Queen of Samothrace!"
Leaning over the grate, he dropped the jewel in the glowing coals.
"Oh, Mr. Murray! save it from destruction!"
She seized the tongs and sprang forward, but he put out his arm and held her back.
"Stand aside, if you please. Cleopatra quaffed liquid pearl in honor of Antony, Nero shivered his precious crystal goblets, and Suger pounded up sapphires to color the windows of old St. Denis! Chacun a son gout! If I choose to indulge myself in a diamond cremation in honor of my tutelary goddess Brimo, who has the right to expostulate? True, such costly amusements have been rare since the days of the 'Cyranides' and the 'Seven Seals' of Hermes Trismegistus. See what a tawny, angry glare leaps from my royal jacinth! Old Hecate holds high carnival down there in her congenial flames."
He stood with one arm extended to bar Edna's approach, the other rested on the mantel; and a laughing, reckless demon looked out of his eyes, which were fastened on the fire.
Before the orphan could recover from her sorrowful amazement the library door opened and Henry looked in.
"Mr. Leigh is in the parlor, and asked for Miss Edna."
Perplexed, irresolute, and annoyed, Edna stood still, watching the red coals; and after a brief silence, Mr. Murray smiled, and turned to look at her.
"Pray, do not let me detain you, and rest assured that I understand your decree. You have entrenched yourself in impenetrable silence, and hung out your banner, 'noli me tangere!' Withdraw your pickets; I shall attempt neither siege nor escalade. Good morning. Leave my De Guerin on the table; it will be at your disposal after to-day."
He stooped to light a cigar, and she walked away to her own room.
As the door closed behind her, he laughed and reiterated the favorite proverb that often crossed his lips, "Bithus contra Bacchium!"
The darling scheme of authorship had seized upon Edna's mind with a tenacity that conquered and expelled all other purposes, and though timidity and a haunting dread of the failure of the experiment prompted her to conceal the matter, even from her beloved pastor, she pondered it in secret, and bent every faculty to its successful accomplishment. Her veneration for books—the great eleemosynary granaries of human knowledge to which the world resorts—extended to those who created them; and her imagination invested authors with peculiar sanctity, as the real hierophants annointed with the chrism of truth. The glittering pinnacle of consecrated and successful authorship seemed to her longing gaze as sublime, and well-nigh as inaccessible, as the everlasting and untrodden Himalayan solitudes appear to some curious child of Thibet or Nepaul; who gamboling among pheasants and rhododendrons, shades her dazzled eyes with her hand, and looks up awe-stricken and wondering at the ice-domes and snow-minarets of lonely Deodunga, earth's loftiest and purest altar, nimbused with the dawning and the dying light of the day. There were times when the thought of presenting herself as a candidate for admission into the band of literary esoterics seemed to Edna unpardonably presumptuous, almost sacrilegious, and she shrank back, humbled and abashed; for writers were teachers, interpreters, expounders, discoverers, or creators—and what could she, just stumbling through the alphabet of science and art, hope to donate to her race that would ennoble human motives or elevate aspirations? Was she, an unknown and inexperienced girl, worthy to be girded with the ephod that draped so royally the Levites of literature? Had God's own hand set the Urim and Thummim of Genius in her soul? Above all, was she mitred with the plate of pure gold—"Holiness unto the Lord?"
Solemnly and prayerfully she weighed the subject, and having finally resolved to make one attempt, she looked trustingly to heaven for aid and went vigorously to work. To write currente calamo for the mere pastime of author and readers, without aiming to inculcate some regenerative principle, or to photograph some valuable phase of protean truth, was in her estimation ignoble; for her high standard demanded that all books should be to a certain extent didactic, wandering like evangels among the people, and making some man, woman, or child happier, or wiser, or better—more patient or more hopeful—by their utterances. Believing that every earnest author's mind should prove a mint, where all valuable ores are collected from the rich veins of a universe—are cautiously coined, and thence munificently circulated—she applied herself diligently to the task of gathering, from various sources the data required for her projected work: a vindication of the unity of mythologies. The vastness of the cosmic field she was now compelled to traverse, the innumerable ramifications of polytheistic and monotheistic creeds, necessitated unwearied research, as she rent asunder the superstitious veils which various nations and successive epochs had woven before the shining features of truth. To-day peering into the golden Gardens of the Sun at Cuzco; to-morrow clambering over Thibet glaciers, to find the mystic lake of Yamuna; now delighted to recognize in Teoyamiqui (the wife of the Aztec God of War) the unmistakable features of Scandinavian Valkyrias; and now surprised to discover the Greek Fates sitting under the Norse tree Ygdrasil, deciding the destinies of mortals, and calling themselves Nornas; she spent her days in pilgrimages to mouldering shrines, and midnight often found her groping in the classic dust of extinct systems. Having once grappled with her theme, she wrestled as obstinately as Jacob for the blessing of a successful solution, and in order to popularize a subject bristling with recondite archaisms and philologic problems, she cast it in the mould of fiction. The information and pleasure which she had derived from the perusal of Vaughan's delightful Hours with the Mystics, suggested the idea of adopting a similar plan for her own book, and investing it with the additional interest of a complicated plot and more numerous characters. To avoid anachronisms, she endeavored to treat the religions of the world in their chronologic sequence, and resorted to the expedient of introducing pagan personages. A fair young priestess of the temple of Neith, in the sacred city of Sais—where people of all climes collected to witness the festival of lamps—becoming skeptical of the miraculous attributes of the statues she had been trained to serve and worship, and impelled by an earnest love of truth to seek a faith that would satisfy her reason and purify her heart, is induced to question minutely the religious tenets of travellers who visited the temple, and thus familiarized herself with all existing creeds and hierarchies. The lore so carefully garnered is finally analyzed, classified, and inscribed on papyrus. The delineation of scenes and sanctuaries in different latitudes, from Lhasa to Copan, gave full exercise to Edna's descriptive power, but imposed much labor in the departments of physical geography and architecture.
Verily! an ambitious literary programme for a girl over whose head scarcely eighteen years had hung their dripping drab wintry skies, and pearly summer clouds.
One March morning, as Edna entered the breakfast-room, she saw unusual gravity printed on Mrs. Murray's face; and observing an open letter on the table conjectured the cause of her changed countenance. A moment after the master came in, and as he seated himself his mother said:
"St. Elmo, your cousin Estelle's letter contains bad news. Her father is dead; the estate is wretchedly insolvent; and she is coming to reside with us."
"Then I am off for Hammerfest and the midnight sun! Who the deuce invited her I should like to know?"
"Remember she is my sister's child; she has no other home, and I am sure it is very natural that she should come to me, her nearest relative, for sympathy and protection."
"Write to her by return mail that you will gladly allow her three thousand a year, provided she ensconces herself under some other roof than this."
"Impossible! I could not wound her so deeply."
"You imagine that she entertains a most tender and profound regard for both of us?"
"Certainly, my son; we have every reason to believe that she does."
Leaning back in his chair, St. Elmo laughed.
"I should really enjoy stumbling upon something that would overtax your most marvellous and indefinitely extensible credulity! When Estelle Harding becomes an inmate of this house I shall pack my valise, and start to Tromso! She approaches like Discord, uninvited, armed with an apple or a dagger. I am perfectly willing to share my fortune with her, but I'll swear I would rather prowl for a month through the plague-stricken district of Constantinople than see her domesticated here! You tried the experiment when she was a child, and we fought and scratched as indefatigably as those two amiable young Theban bullies, who are so often cited as scarecrows for quarrelsome juveniles. Of course, we shall renew the battle at sight."
"But, my dear son, there are claims urged by natural affection which it is impossible to ignore. Poor Estelle is very desolate, and has a right to our sympathy and love."
"Poor Estelle! Hoeredipetoe! The frailties of old Rome survive her virtues and her ruins!"
Mr. Murray laughed again, beat a tattoo with his fork on the edge of his plate, and, rising, left the room.
Mrs. Murray looked puzzled, and said: "Edna, do you know what he meant? He often amuses himself by mystifying me, and I will not gratify him by asking an explanation."
"Hoeredipetoe were legacy-hunters in Rome, where their sycophantic devotion to people of wealth furnished a constant theme for satire."
Mrs. Murray sighed heavily, and the orphan asked:
"When do you expect your niece?"
"Day after to-morrow. I have not seen her for some years, but report says she is very fascinating, and even St. Elmo, who met her in Europe, admits that she is handsome. As you heard him say just now, they formerly quarreled most outrageously and shamefully, and he took an unaccountable aversion to her; but I trust all juvenile reminiscences will vanish when they know each other better. My dear, I have several engagements for to-day, and I must rely upon you to superintend the arrangement of Estelle's room. She will occupy the one next to yours. See that everything is in order. You know Hagar is sick, and the other servants are careless."
Sympathy for Miss Harding's recent and severe affliction prepared Edna's heart to receive her cordially, and the fact that an irreconcilable feud eristed between the stranger and St. Elmo, induced the orphan to hope that she might find a congenial companion in the expected visitor.
On the afternoon of her arrival, Edna leaned eagerly forward to catch a glimpse of her countenance, and as she threw back her long mourning-veil, and received her aunt's affectionate greeting, the first impression was, "How exceedingly handsome—how commanding she is!" But a few minutes later, when Mrs. Murray introduced them, and the stranger's keen, bright, restless eyes fell upon the orphan's face, the latter drew back, involuntarily repelled, and a slight shiver crept over her, for an unerring instinctive repulsion told her they could never be friends.
Estelle Harding was no longer young; years had hardened the outline of her features, and imparted a certain staidness or fixedness to her calm countenance, where strong feeling or passionate impulse was never permitted to slip the elegant mask of polished suavity. She was surprisingly like Mrs. Murray, but not one line of her face resembled her cousin's. Fixing her eyes on Edna, with a cold, almost stern scrutiny more searching than courteous, she said:
"I was not aware, Aunt Ellen, that you had company in the house."
"I have no company at present, my dear. Edna resides here. Do you not remember one of my letters in which I mentioned the child who was injured by the railroad accident?"
"True. I expected to see a child, certainly not a woman."
"She seems merely a child to me. But come up to your room; you must be very much fatigued by your journey."
When they left the sitting-room Edna sat down in one corner of the sofa, disappointed and perplexed.
"She does not like me, that is patent; and I certainly do not like her. She is handsome and very graceful, and quite heartless. There is no inner light from her soul shining in her eyes; nothing tender and loving and kind in their clear depths; they are cold, bright eyes, but not soft, winning, womanly eyes. They might, and doubtless would, hold an angry dog in check, but never draw a tired, fretful child to lean its drooping head on her lap. If she really has any feeling, her eyes should be indicted for slander. I am sorry I don't like her, and I am afraid we never shall be nearer each other than touching our finger-tips."
Such was Edna's unsatisfactory conclusion, and dismissing the subject, she picked up a book, and read until the ladies returned and seated themselves around the fire.
To Mrs. Murray's great chagrin and mortification her son had positively declined going to meet his cousin, had been absent since breakfast, and proved himself shamefully derelict in the courtesy demanded of him. It was almost dark when the quick gallop of his horse announced his return, and, as he passed the window on his way to the stables, Edna noticed a sudden change in Estelle's countenance. During the next quarter of an hour her eyes never wandered from the door, though her head was turned to listen to Mrs. Murray's remarks. Soon after, Mr. Murray's rapid footsteps sounded in the hall, and as he entered she rose and advanced to meet him. He held out his hand, shook hers vigorously, and said, as he dropped it:
"Mine ancient enemy, declare a truce and quiet my apprehensions; for I dreamed last night that, on sight, we flew at each other's throats, and renewed the sanguinary scuffles of our juvenile acquaintance. Most appallingly vivid is my recollection of a certain scar here on my left arm, where you set your pearly teeth some years ago."
"My dear cousin, as I have had no provocation since I was separated from you, I believe I have grown harmless and amiable. How very well you look, St. Elmo."
"Thank you. I should like to return the compliment, but facts forbid. You are thinner than when we dined together in Paris. Are you really in love with that excruciating Brummell of a Count who danced such indefatigable attendance upon you?"
"To whom do you allude?"
"That youth with languishing brown eyes, who parted his 'hyacinthine tresses' in the middle of his head; whose moustache required Ehrenberg's strongest glasses—and who absolutely believed that Ristori singled him out of her vast audiences as the most appreciative of her listeners; who was eternally humming 'Ernani' and raving about 'Traviata.' Your memory is treacherous—as your conscience? Well, then, that man, who I once told you reminded me of what Guilleragues is reported to have said about Pelisson, 'that he abused the permission men have to be ugly.'"
"Ah! you mean poor Victor! He spent the winter in Seville. I had a letter last week."
"When do you propose to make him my cousin?"
"Not until I become an inmate of a lunatic asylum."
"Poor wretch! If he only had courage to sue you for breach of promise, I would, with pleasure, furnish sufficient testimony to convict you and secure him heavy damages; for I will swear you played fiancee to perfection. Your lavish expenditure of affection seemed to me altogether uncalled for, considering the fact that the fish already floundered at your feet."
The reminiscence evidently annoyed her, though her lips smiled, and Edna saw that, while his words were pointed with a sarcasm lost upon herself, it was fully appreciated by his cousin.
"St. Elmo, I am sorry to see that you have not improved one iota; that all your wickedness clings to you like Sinbad's burden."
Standing at his side, she put her hand on his shoulder.
As he looked down at her, his lips curled.
"Nevertheless, Estelle, I find a pale ghost of pity for you wandering up and down what was once my heart. After the glorious intoxication of Parisian life, how can you endure the tedium of this dullest of humdrum—this most moral and stupid of all country towns? Little gossip, few flirtations, neither beaux esprits nor bons vivants—what will become of you? Now, whatever amusement, edification, or warning you may be able to extract from my society, I here beg permission to express the hope that you will appropriate unsparingly. I shall, with exemplary hospitality, dedicate myself to your service—shall try to make amends for votre cher Victor's absence, and solemnly promise to do everything in my power to assist you in strangling time, except parting my hair in the middle of my head, and making love to you. With these stipulated reservations, command me ad libitum."
Her face flushed slightly, she withdrew her hand and sat down.
Taking his favorite position on the rug, with one hand thrust into his pocket and the other dallying with his watch-chain, Mr. Murray continued:
"Entire honesty on my part, and a pardonable and amiable weakness for descanting on the charms of my native village, compel me to assure you, that, notwithstanding the deprivation of opera and theatre, bal masque and the Bois de Bologne, I believe you will be surprised to find that the tone of society here is quite up to the lofty standard of the 'Society of Areueil,' or even the requirements of the Academy of Sciences. Our pastors are erudite as Abelard, and rigid as Trappists; our young ladies are learned as that ancient blue-stocking daughter of Pythagoras, and as pious as St. Salvia, who never washed her face. For instance, girls yet in their teens are much better acquainted with Hebrew than Miriam was, when she sung it on the shore of the Red Sea (where, by the by, Talmudic tradition says Pharaoh was not drowned), and they will vehemently contend for the superiority of the Targum of Onkelos over that on the Hagiographa, ascribed to one-eyed Joseph of Sora! You look incredulous, my fair cousin. Nay, permit me to complete the inventory of the acquirements of your future companions. They quote fluently from the Megilloth, and will entertain you by fighting over again the battle of the school of Hillel versus the school of Shammai! Their attainments in philology reflect discredit on the superficiality of Max Muller; and if an incidental allusion is made to archaeology, lo! they bombard you with a broadside of authorities, and recondite terminology that would absolutely make the hair of Lepsius and Champollion stand on end. I assure you the savants of the Old World would catch their breath with envious amazement, if they could only enjoy the advantage of the conversation of these orthodox and erudite refugees from the nursery! The unfortunate men of this community are kept in pitiable terror lest they commit an anachronism, and if, after a careful reconnoissance of the slippery ground, they tremblingly venture an anecdote of Selwyn or Hood, or Beaumarchais, they are invariably driven back in confusion by the inquiry, if they remember this or that bon mot uttered at the court of Aurungzebe or of one of the early Incas! Ah! would I were Moliere to repaint Les Precieuses Ridicules!"
Although his eyes had never once wandered from his cousin's face, toward the corner where Edna sat embroidering some mats, she felt the blood burning in her cheeks, and forced herself to look up. At that moment, as he stood in the soft glow of the firelight, he was handsomer than she had ever seen him; and when he glanced swiftly over his shoulder to mark the effect of his words, their eyes met, and she smiled involuntarily.
"For shame, St. Elmo! I will have you presented by the grand jury of this county for wholesome defamation of the inhabitants thereof," said his mother, shaking her finger at him.
Estelle laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"My poor cousin! how I pity you, and the remainder of the men here, surrounded by such a formidable coterie of blues."
"Believe me, even if their shadows are as blue as those which I have seen thrown upon the snow of Eyriks Jokull, in Iceland, where I would have sworn that every shade cast on the mountain was a blot of indigo. Sometimes I seriously contemplate erecting an observatory and telescope, in order to sweep our sky and render visible what I am convinced exist there undiscovered—some of those deep blue nebulae which Sir John Herschel found in the southern hemisphere! If the astronomical conjectures be correct, concerning the possibility of a galaxy of blue stars, a huge cluster hangs in this neighborhood and furnishes an explanation of the color of the women."
"Henceforth, St. Elmo, the sole study of my life shall be to forget my alphabet. Miss Earl, do you understand Hebrew?"
"Oh, no; I have only begun to study it."
"Estelle, it is the popular and fashionable amusement here. Young ladies and young gentlemen form classes for mutual aid and 'mutual admiration' while they clasp hands over the Masora. If Lord Brougham, and other members of the 'Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' could only have been induced to investigate the intellectual status of the 'rising generation' of our village, there is little room to doubt that, as they are not deemed advocates for works of supererogation, they would long ago have appreciated the expediency of disbanding said society. I imagine Tennyson is a clairvoyant, and was looking at the young people of this vicinage, when he wrote:
'Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.'
Not even egoistic infallible 'Brain Town'—that self-complacent and pretentious 'Hub,' can show a more ambitious covey of literary fledgelings!"
"Your random firing seems to produce no confusion on the part of your game," answered his cousin, withdrawing her gaze from Edna's tranquil features, on which a half smile still lingered.
He did not seem to hear her words, but his eyebrows thickened, as he draw a couple of letters from his pocket and looked at the superscription.
Giving one to his mother, who sat looking over a newspaper, he crossed the room and silently laid the other on Edna's lap.
It was post-marked in a distant city and directed in a gentleman's large, round business handwriting. The girl's face flushed with pleasure as she broke the seal, glanced at the signature, and without pausing for a perusal, hastily put the letter into her pocket.
"Who can be writing to you, Edna?" asked Mrs. Murray, when she had finished reading her own letter.
"Oh! doubtless some Syrian scribe has indited a Chaldee billet-doux, which she can not spell out without the friendly aid of dictionary and grammar. Permit her to withdraw and decipher it. Meantime here comes Henry to announce dinner, and a plate of soup will strengthen her for her task."
Mr. Murray offered his arm to his cousin, and during dinner he talked constantly, rapidly, brilliantly of men and things abroad; now hurling a sarcasm at Estelle's head, now laughing at his mother's expostulations, and studiously avoiding any further notice of Edna, who was never so thoroughly at ease as when he seemed to forget her presence.
Estelle sat at his right hand, and suddenly refilling his glass with bubbling champagne, he leaned over and whispered a few words in her ear that brought a look of surprise and pleasure into her eyes. Edna only saw the expression of his face, and the tenderness, the pleading written there astonished and puzzled her. The next moment they rose from the table, and as Mr. Murray drew his cousin's hand under his arm, Edna hurried away to her own room.
Among the numerous magazines to which St. Elmo subscribed was one renowned for the lofty tone of its articles and the asperity of its carping criticisms, and this periodical Edna always singled out and read with avidity.
The name of the editor swung in terrorum in the imagination of all humble authorlings, and had become a synonym for merciless critical excoriation.
To this literary Fouquier Tinville, the orphan had daringly written some weeks before, stating her determination to attempt a book, and asking permission to submit the first chapter to his searching inspection. She wrote that she expected him to find faults—he always did; and she preferred that her work should be roughly handled by him, rather than patted and smeared with faint praise by men of inferior critical astuteness.
The anxiously expected reply had come at last, and as she locked her door and sat down to read it, she trembled from head to foot. In the centre of a handsome sheet of tinted paper she found these lines:
"MADAM: In reply to your very extraordinary request I have the honor to inform you, that my time is so entirely consumed by necessary and important claims, that I find no leisure at my command for the examination of the embryonic chapter of a contemplated book. I am, madam,
"Very respectfully,
Tears of disappointment filled her eyes and for a moment she bit her lip with uncontrolled vexation; then refolding the letter, she put it in a drawer of her desk, and said sorrowfully:
"I certainly had no right to expect anything more polite from him. He snubs even his popular contributors, and of course he would not be particularly courteous to an unknown scribbler. Perhaps some day I may make him regret that letter; and such a triumph will more than compensate for this mortification. One might think that all literary people, editors, authors, reviewers, would sympathize with each other, and stretch out their hands to aid one another! but it seems there is less free-masonry among literati than other guilds. They wage an internecine war among themselves, though it certainly can not be termed 'civil strife,' judging from Mr. Douglass Manning's letter."
Chagrined and perplexed she walked up and down the room, wondering what step would be most expedient in the present state of affairs; and trying to persuade herself that she ought to consult Mr. Hammond. But she wished to surprise him, to hear his impartial opinion of a printed article which he could not suspect that she had written, and finally she resolved to say nothing to any one, to work on in silence, relying upon herself. With this determination she sat down before her desk, opened the MS. of her book, and very soon became absorbed in writing the second chapter. Before she had finished even the first sentence a hasty rap summoned her to the door.
She opened it, and found Mr. Murray standing in the hall, with a candle in his hand.
"Where is that volume of chess problems which you had last week?"
"It is here, sir."
She took it from the table, and as she approached him, Mr. Murray held the light close to her countenance, and gave her one of those keen looks which always reminded her of the descriptions of the scrutiny of the Council of Ten, in the days when "lions' mouths" grinned at the street-corners in Venice.
Something in the curious expression of his face, and the evident satisfaction which he derived from his hasty investigation, told Edna that the book was a mere pretext. She drew back and asked:
"Have I any other book that you need?"
"No; I have all I came for."
Smiling half mischievously, half maliciously, he turned and left her.
"I wonder what he saw in my face that amused him?"
She walked up to the bureau and examined her own image in the mirror; and there, on her cheeks, were the unmistakable traces of the tears of vexation and disappointment.
"At least he can have no idea of the cause, and that is some comfort, for he is too honorable to open my letters."
But just here a doubt flashed into her mind.
"How do I know that he is honorable? Can any man be worthy of trust who holds nothing sacred, and sneers at all religions? No; he has no conscience; and yet—"
She sighed and went back to her MS., and though for a while St. Elmo Murray's mocking eyes seemed to glitter on the pages, her thoughts ere long were anchored once more with the olive-crowned priestess in the temple at Sais.
If the seers of geology are correct in assuming that the age of the human race is coincident with that of the alluvial stratum, from eighty to one hundred centuries, are not domestic traditions and household customs the great arteries in which beat the social life of humanity, linking the race in homogeneity? Roman women suffered no first day of May pass without celebrating the festival of Bona Dea; and two thousand years later, girls who know as little of the manners and customs of ancient Italy, as of the municipal regulations of fabulous "Manoa," lie down to sleep on the last day of April, and kissing the fond, maternal face that bends above their pillows, eagerly repeat:
"You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear: To-morrow'll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year; Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother; I'm to be Queen o' the May."
For a fortnight Edna had been busily engaged in writing colloquies and speeches for the Sabbath-school children of the village, and in attending the rehearsals for the perfection of the various parts. Assisted by Mr. Hammond and the ladies of his congregation, she had prepared a varied programme, and was almost as much interested in the success of the youthful orators, as the superintendent of the school, or the parents of the children. The day was propitious—clear, balmy, all that could be asked of the blue-eyed month—and as the festival was to be celebrated in a beautiful grove of elms and chestnuts, almost in sight of Le Bocage, Edna went over very early to aid in arranging the tables, decking the platforms with flowers, and training one juvenile Demosthenes, whose elocution was as unpromising as that of his Greek model.
Despite her patient teaching this boy's awkwardness threatened to spoil everything, and as she watched the nervous wringing of his hands and desperate shuffling of his feet, she was tempted to give him up in despair. The dew hung heavily on grass and foliage, and the matin carol of the birds still swelled through the leafy aisles of the grove, when she took the trembling boy to a secluded spot, directed him to stand on a mossy log, where two lizards lay blinking, and repeat his speech.
He stammered most unsatisfactorily through it, and, intent on his improvement, Edna climbed upon a stump and delivered his speech for him, gesticulating and emphasizing just as she wished him to do. As the last words of the peroration passed her lips, and while she stood on the stump, a sudden clapping of hands startled her, and Gordon Leigh's cheerful voice exclaimed:
"Encore! Encore! Since the days of Hypatia you have not had your equal among female elocutionists. I would not have missed it for any consideration, so pray forgive me for eavesdropping." He came forward, held out his hand and added: "Allow me to assist you in dismounting from your temporary rostrum, whence you bear your 'blushing honors thick upon you.' Jamie, do you think you can do as well as Miss Edna when your time comes?"
"Oh! no, sir; but I will try not to make her ashamed of me."
He snatched his hat from the log and ran off, leaving his friends to walk back more leisurely to the spot selected for the tables. Edna had been too much disconcerted by his unexpected appearance, to utter a word until now, and her tone expressed annoyance as she said:
"I am very sorry you interrupted me, for Jamie will make an ignominious failure. Have you nothing better to do than stray about the woods like a satyr?"
"I am quite willing to be satyrized even by you on this occasion; for what man, whose blood is not curdled by cynicism, can prefer to spend Mayday among musty law books and red tape, when he has the alternative of listening to such declamation as you favored me with just now, or of participating in the sports of one hundred happy children? Beside, my good 'familiar,' or rather my sortes Proenestinoe, told me that I should find you here; and I wanted to see you before the company assembled: why have you so pertinaciously avoided me of late?"
They stood close to each other in the shade of the elms, and Gordon thought that never before had she looked so beautiful, as the mild perfumed breeze stirred the folds of her dress, and fluttered the blue ribbons that looped her hair and girdled her waist.
Just at that instant, ere she could reply, a rustling of the undergrowth arrested further conversation, and Mr. Murray stepped out of the adjoining thicket, with his gun in his hand, and his grim pet Ali at his heels. Whatever surprise he may have felt, his countenance certainly betrayed none, as he lifted his hat and said:
"Good morning, Leigh. I shall not intrude upon the Sanhedrim, on which I have happened to stumble, longer than is necessary to ask if you are so fortunate as to have a match with you? I find my case empty."
Mr. Leigh took a match from his pocket, and while Mr. Murray lighted his cigar, his eyes rested for an instant only on Edna's flushed face.
"Are you not coming to the children's celebration?" asked Gordon.
"No, indeed! I own that I as lazy as a Turk; but while I am constitutionally and habitually opposed to labor, I swear I should prefer to plough or break stones till sundown, sooner than listen to all the rant and fustian that spectators will be called on to endure this morning. I have not sufficient courage to remain and witness what would certainly recall 'the manner of Bombastes Furioso making love to Distaffina!' Will you have a cigar? Good morning."
He lifted his hat, shouldered his gun, and calling to his dog, disappeared among the thick undergrowth.
"What an incorrigible savage!" muttered Mr. Leigh, replacing the match-case in his pocket.
His companion made no answer and was hurrying on, but he caught her dress and detained her.
"Do not go until you hear what I have to say to you. More than once you have denied me an opportunity of expressing what you must long ago have suspected. Edna, you know very well that I love you better than every thing else—that I have loved you from the first day of our acquaintance; and I have come to tell you that my happiness is in your dear little hands; that my future will be joyless unless you share it; that the one darling hope of my life is to call you my wife. Do not draw your hand from mine! Dear Edna, let me keep it always. Do I mistake your feelings when I hope that you return my affection?"
"You entirely mistake them, Mr. Leigh, in supposing that you can ever be more to me than a very dear and valued friend. It grieves me very much to be forced to give you pain or cause you disappointment; but I should wrong you even more than myself, were I to leave you in doubt concerning my feeling toward you. I like your society, and you have my entire confidence and highest esteem; but it is impossible that I can ever be your wife."
"Why impossible?"
"Because I never could love you as I think I ought to love the man I marry."
"My dear Edna, answer one question candidly. Do you love any one else better than you love me?"
"No, Mr. Leigh."
"Does Mr. Murray stand between your heart and mine?"
"Oh! no, Mr. Leigh."
"Then I will not yield the hope of winning your love. If your heart is free, I will have it all my own one day! O Edna! why can not you love me? I would make you very happy. My darling's home should possess all that fortune and devoted affection could supply; not one wish should remain ungratified."
"I am able to earn a home; I do not intend to marry for one."
"Ah! your pride is your only fault, and it will cause us both much suffering, I fear. Edna, I know how sensitive you are, and how deeply your delicacy has been wounded by the malicious meddling of ill-mannered gossips. I know why you abandoned your Hebrew recitations, and a wish to spare your feelings alone prevented me from punishing certain scandal-mongers as they deserved. But, dearest, do not visit their offences upon me! Because they dared ascribe their own ignoble motives to you, do not lock your heart against me and refuse me the privilege of making your life happy."
"Mr. Leigh, you are not necessary to my happiness. While our tastes are in many respects congenial, and it is pleasant to be with you occasionally, it would not cause me any deep grief if I were never to see you again."
"O Edna! you are cruel, unlike yourself!" "Forgive me, sir, if I seem so, and believe me when I assure you that it pains me more to say it than you to hear it. No woman should marry a man whose affection and society are not absolutely essential to her peace of mind and heart. Applying this test to you, I find that mine is in no degree dependent on you; and, though you may have no warmer friend, I must tell you it is utterly useless for you to hope that I shall ever love you as you wish, Mr. Leigh, I regret that I can not; and if my heart were only puppet of my will, I would try to reciprocate your affection, because I appreciate so fully and so gratefully all that you generously offer me. To-day you stretch out your hand to a poor girl, of unknown parentage, reared by charity—a girl considered by your family and friends an obscure interloper in aristocratic circles, and with a noble magnanimity, for which I shall thank you always, you say, 'Come, take my name, share my fortune, wrap yourself in my love, and be happy! I will give you a lofty position in society, whence you can look down on those who sneer at your poverty and lineage.' O, Mr. Leigh! God knows I wish I loved you as you deserve! Ambition and gratitude alike plead for you; but it is impossible that I could ever consent to be your wife."
Her eyes were full of tears as she looked in his handsome face, hitherto so bright and genial; now clouded and saddened by a bitter disappointment; and suddenly catching both his hands in hers, she stooped and pressed her lips to them.
"Although you refuse to encourage, you cannot crush the hope that my affection will, after a while, win yours in return. You are very young, and as yet scarcely know your own heart, and unshaken constancy on my part will plead for me in coming years. I will be patient, and as long as you are Edna Earl—as long as you remain mistress of your own heart—I shall cling fondly to the only hope that gladdens my future. Over my feelings you have no control; you may refuse me your hand—that is your right—but while I shall abstain from demonstrations of affection, I shall certainly cherish the hope of possessing it. Meantime, permit me to ask whether you still contemplate leaving Mrs. Murray's house? Miss Harding told my sister yesterday that in a few months you would obtain a situation as governess or teacher in a school."
"Such is certainly my intention; but I am at a loss to conjecture how Miss Harding obtained her information, as the matter has not been alluded to since her arrival."
"I trust you will pardon me the liberty I take, in warning you to be exceedingly circumspect in your intercourse with her, for I have reason to believe that her sentiments toward you are not so friendly as might be desired."
"Thank you, Mr. Leigh. I am aware of her antipathy, though of its cause I am ignorant; and our intercourse is limited to the salutations of the day, and the courtesies of the table."
Drawing from her finger the emerald which had occasioned so many disquieting reflections, Edna continued:
"You must allow me to return the ring, which I have hitherto worn as a token of friendship, and which I cannot consent to retain any longer. 'Peace be with you,' dear friend, is the earnest prayer of my heart. Our paths in life will soon diverge so widely that we shall probably see each other rarely; but none of your friends will rejoice more sincerely than I to hear of your happiness and prosperity, for no one else has such cause to hold you in grateful remembrance. Good-bye, Mr. Leigh. Think of me hereafter only as a friend."
She gave him both hands for a minute, left the ring in his palm, and, with tears in her eyes, went back to the tables and platforms.
Very rapidly chattering groups of happy children collected in the grove; red-cheeked boys clad in white linen suits, with new straw hats belted with black, and fair-browed girls robed in spotless muslin, garlanded with flowers, and bright with rosy badges. Sparkling eyes, laughing lips, sweet, mirthful, eager voices, and shadowless hearts. Ah! that Mayday could stretch from the fairy tropic-land of childhood to the Arctic zone of age, where snows fall chilling and desolate, drifting over the dead but unburied hopes which the great stream of time bears and buffets on its broad, swift surface.
The celebration was a complete success; even awkward Jamie acquitted himself with more ease and grace than his friends had dared to hope. Speeches and songs were warmly applauded, proud parents watched their merry darlings with eyes that brimmed with tenderness; and the heart of Semiramis never throbbed more triumphantly than that of the delighted young Queen of May, who would not have exchanged her floral crown for all the jewels that glittered in the diadem of the Assyrian sovereign.
Late in the evening of that festal day Mr. Hammond sat alone on the portico of the old-fashioned parsonage. The full moon, rising over the arched windows of the neighboring church, shone on the marble monuments that marked the rows of graves; and the golden beams stealing through the thick vines which clustered around the wooden columns, broidered in glittering arabesque the polished floor at the old man's feet.
That solemn, mysterious silence which nature reverently folds like a velvet pall over the bier of the pale, dead day, when the sky is
"Filling more and more with crystal light,As pensive evening deepens into night,"
was now hushing the hum and stir of the village; and only the occasional far-off bark of a dog, and the clear, sweet vesper-song of a mocking-bird singing in the myrtle tree, broke the repose so soothing after the bustle of the day. To labor and to pray from dawn till dusk is the sole legacy which sin-stained man brought through the flaming gate of Eden, and, in the gray gloaming, mother Earth stretches her vast hands tenderly over her drooping, toil-spent children, and mercifully murmurs nunc dimillis.
Close to the minister's armchair stood a small table covered with a snowy cloth, on which was placed the evening meal, consisting of strawberries, honey, bread, butter and milk. At his feet lay the white cat, bathed in moonshine, and playing with a fragrant spray of honeysuckle which trailed within reach of her paws, and swung to and fro, like a spicy censer, as the soft breeze stole up from the starry south. The supper was untasted, the old man's silvered head leaned wearily on his shrunken hand, and through a tearful mist his mild eyes looked toward the churchyard, where gleamed the monumental shafts that guarded his mouldering household idols, his white-robed, darling dead.
His past was a wide, fair, fruitful field of hallowed labor, bounteous with promise for that prophetic harvest whereof God's angels are reapers; and his future, whose near horizon was already rimmed with the light of eternity, was full of that blessed 'peace which passeth all understanding.' Yet to-night, precious reminiscences laid their soft, mesmeric fingers on his heart, and before him, all unbidden, floated visions of other Maydays, long, long ago, when the queen of his boyish affections had worn her crown of flowers; and many, many years later, when, as the queen of his home, and the proud mother of his children, she had stood with her quivering hand nestled in his, listening breathlessly to the Mayday speech of their golden-haired daughter,
"Why does the sea of thought thus backward roll? Memory's the breeze that through the cordage raves, And ever drives us on some homeward shoal, As if she loved the melancholy waves That, murmuring shoreward, break o'er a reef of graves."
The song of the mocking-bird still rang from the downy cradle of myrtle blossoms, and a whip-poor-will answered from a cedar in the churchyard, when the slamming of the parsonage gate startled the shy thrush that slept in the vines that overarched it, and Mr. Leigh came slowly up the walk, which was lined with purple and white lilies whose loveliness, undiminished by the wear of centuries, still rivaled the glory of Solomon.
As he ascended the steps and removed his hat, the pastor rose and placed a chair for him near his own.
"Good evening, Gordon. Where did you immure yourself all day? I expected to find you taking part in the children's festival, and hunted for you in the crowd."
"I expected to attend, but this morning something occurred which unfitted me for enjoyment of any kind; consequently I thought it best to keep myself and my moodiness out of sight."
"I trust nothing serious has happened?"
"Yes, something that threatens to blast all my hopes, and make my life one great disappointment. Has not Edna told you?"
"She has told me nothing relative to yourself, but I noticed that she was depressed and grieved about something. She was abstracted and restless, and went home very early, pleading fatigue and headache."
"I wish I had a shadow of hope that her heart ached also! Mr. Hammond, I am very wretched, and have come to you for sympathy and counsel. Of course you have seen for a long time that I loved her very devotedly, that I intended if possible to make her my wife. Although she was very shy and guarded, and never gave me any reason to believe she returned my affection, I thought—I hoped she would not reject me, and I admired her even more because of her reticence, for I could not value a love which I knew was mine unasked. To-day I mentioned the subject to her, told her how entirely my heart was hers, offered her my hand and fortune, and was refused most decidedly. Her manner more than her words distressed and discouraged me. She showed so plainly that she felt only friendship for me, and entertained only regret for the pain she gave me. She was kind and delicate, but oh! so crushingly positive! I saw that I had no more place in her heart than that whip-poor-will in the cedars yonder. And yet I shall not give her up; while I live I will cling to the hope that I may finally win her. Thousands of women have rejected a man again and again and at last yielded and accepted him; and I do not believe Edna can withstand the devotion of a lifetime."
"Do not deceive yourself, Gordon. It is true many women are flattered by a man's perseverance, their vanity is gratified. They first reproach themselves for the suffering they inflict, then gratitude for constancy comes to plead for the inconsolable suitor, and at last they persuade themselves that such devotion can not fail to make them happy. Such a woman Edna is not, and if I have correctly understood her character, never can be. I sympathize with you, Gordon, and it is because I love you so sincerely that I warn you against a hope destined to cheat you."
"But she admitted that she loved no one else, and I can see no reason why, after a while, she may not give me her heart."
"I have watched her for years. I think I know her nature better than any other human being, and I tell you, Edna Earl will never coax and persuade herself to marry any man, no matter what his position and endowments may be. She is not a dependent woman; the circumstances of her life have forced her to dispense with companionship, she is sufficient for herself; and while she loves her friends warmly and tenderly, she feels the need of no one. If she ever marries, it will not be from gratitude or devotion, but because she learned to love, almost against her will, some strong, vigorous thinker, some man whose will and intellect masters hers, who compels her heart's homage, and without whose society she can not persuade herself to live."
"And why may I not hope that such will, one day, be my good fortune?"
For a few minutes Mr. Hammond was silent, walking up and down the wide portico; and when he resumed his seat, he laid his hand affectionately on the young man's shoulder, saying:
"My dear Gordon, your happiness as well as hers is very dear to me. I love you both, and you will, you must, forgive me if what I am about to say should wound or mortify you. Knowing you both as I do, and wishing to save you future disappointment, I should, even were you my own son, certainly tell you. Gordon, you will never be Edna's husband, because intellectually she is your superior. She feels this, and will not marry one to whose mind her own does not bow in reverence. To rule the man she married would make her miserable, and she could only find happiness in being ruled by an intellect to which she looked up admiringly. I know that many very gifted women have married their inferiors, but Edna is peculiar, and in some respects totally unlike any other woman whose character I have carefully studied. Gordon, you are not offended with me?"
Mr. Leigh put out his hand, grasped that of his companion, and his voice was marked by unwonted tremor as he answered:
"You pain and humiliate me beyond expression, but I could never be offended at words which I am obliged to feel are dictated by genuine affection. Mr. Hammond, might not years of thought and study remove the obstacle to which you allude? Can I not acquire all that you deem requisite? I would dedicate my life to the attainment of knowledge, to the improvement of my faculties."
"Erudition would not satisfy her. Do you suppose she could wed a mere walking encyclopaedia? She is naturally more gifted than you are, and, unfortunately for you, she discovered the fact when you were studying together."
"But, sir, women listen to the promptings of heart much oftener than to the cold, stern dictates of reason."
"Very true, Gordon; but her heart declares against you."
"Do you know any one whom you regard as fully worthy of her—any one who will probably win her?"
"I know no man whose noble, generous heart renders him so worthy of her as yourself; and if she could only love you as you deserve, I should be rejoiced; but that I believe to be impossible."
"Do you know how soon she expects to leave Le Bocage?"
"Probably about the close of the year."
"I cannot bear to think of her as going among strangers—being buffeted by the world, while she toils to earn a maintenance. It is inexpressibly bitter for me to reflect, that the girl whom I love above everything upon earth, who would preside so gracefully, so elegantly over my home, and make my life so proud and happy, should prefer to shut herself up in a school-room, and wear out her life in teaching fretful, spoiled, trying children! Oh, Mr. Hammond! can you not prevail upon her to abandon this scheme? Think what a complete sacrifice it will be."
"If she feels that the hand of duty points out this destiny as hers, I shall not attempt to dissuade her; for peace of mind and heart is found nowhere, save in accordance with the dictates of conscience and judgment. Since Miss Harding's arrival at Le Bocage, I fear Edna will realize rapidly that she is no longer needed as a companion by Mrs. Murray, and her proud spirit will rebel against the surveillance to which I apprehend she is already subjected. She has always expressed a desire to maintain herself by teaching, but I suspect that she will do so by her pen. When she prepares to quit Mrs. Murray's house I shall offer her a home in mine; but I have little hope that she will accept it, much as she loves me, for she wants to see something of that strange mask called 'life' by the world. She wishes to go to some large city, where she can command advantages beyond her reach in this quiet little place, and where her own exertions will pay for the roof that covers her. However we may deplore this decision, certainly we can not blame her for the feeling that prompts it."