"But, if Ernest Dalton be in love with Hortense de Beaumont," said the little voice on the plaintiffs side, "why does he show you such signs of preference as these; is that the course, of a truly honourable man?"
"Surely!" said the defence "If I magnify evidences of a substantial friendship into something more serious, that is not his fault—besides, he may love me in a way, but he must love her better—and, in any case, supposing he should love me best, if I offer him no encouragement, if I even positively refuse him, Hortense's happiness cannot but be ultimately benefited by it."
I arose, in a little while, and bathed my face, for the dinner-hour was near, and I had to play my part for the last time, before the trio below.
When I went down, they were already seated around the table, my step-mother in solemn consciousness at one end, and her solicitous brother looking meekly up at her from the other. Fred had all one side to himself, the other, was reserved for me.
It was a quiet, formal meal, disturbed now and then by a curt monosyllable from one or the other of us. We had not much to say to each other, considering that it was our last repast around that family board, the dishes and cutlery had all the chat and confusion among themselves. When it was over, I went back to my own quarters and attended to my final preparations, the time of my departure was now near at hand.
Next morning I looked in vain for some friendly face at the depot. No one had thought of me at the last, though most of my friends had heard of my intended departure. I could not be convinced so soon that I was no longer the same person whom these people had flattered and courted a few short months ago.
Our home, disturbed by the hand of death, was no longer a temple of society worship where gas-light revels would be held and the comets of the gay world gathered together to feast. Henceforth, I was an orphan girl with limited means and uncertain prospects. Some day, if I married well, these people would suddenly remember my past glories and then, these slumbering friendships would be likely to revive; to open their hearts and homes to me again. Until then I must consider myself as set aside, not rudely, nor coldly, but with a negative intimation of my altered circumstances which has quite sufficient force for any soul so keen and sensitive as mine.
In one sense, of course, it was all the same to me. I had never counted upon these social ties to any extent, and would not feel their loss acutely but—these poor human hearts of ours—how they will yearn for other human sympathies and regards? I could have been resigned to leave my home and early associations if I might take away with me the soothing conviction that my absence left a void somewhere, anywhere, that would always be a void until I came back to fill it. I had an exalted notion of fidelity and remembrance then, which has been roughly used upon the touchstone of experience since.
But as even this frail compensation was denied me, I saw more clearly than ever how urgent it was for me to go forth resignedly where thousands of my fellow-toilers were struggling already, and, without looking back upon my brighter yesterday, press onward patiently and forbearingly in the course which an unexpected reverse had opened out for me.
When night fell I was lodged in my new home.
My cousin Bessie, or Mrs. Robert Nyle, lived in a small, comfortable house, on a quiet street, in a small comfortable city, not more than a day's journey from the place of my former residence.
I had, of course, made many conjectures about the relative merits and demerits of the new home towards which I was travelling in all haste. With nothing more accurate to build upon than my cousin's reserved letters and my own vivid imagination, it could hardly be expected that I could arrive very near the truth in my speculations about my uncertain destiny.
Nor did I. I had pictured my cousin Bessie as quite a morbid and prosy character, suspended midway between a hopeless resignation and a helpless despair. I thought there must be lines of sadness about her mouth and a profusion of silver in her hair, I had almost heard her plaintive sighs, and had begun to invent cures for her nervous headaches. I do not know why such gloomy foresights loomed up before me, unless it be because I fancied she was poor and yet educated, and in our circle at that time it was generally believed that people so situated were eminently miserable and uncomfortable. We will not be satisfied with the uncertain until we have made mental sketches of the people and places connected with it, even though they be all awry, as mine were in this instance.
Cousin Bessie was a tall, graceful woman with chestnut brown hair and fine soft eyes, her figure was slight as a girl's, though she was no longer young, and her step was as active and light as ever it could have been in her maiden days. She was not a beautiful woman, but there was as much kindness and dignity combined in her dear face as to make it more attractive than many a handsome one. I was simply charmed with her appearance and manner, and made up my mind that I had no further reason to be solicitous about my future happiness after she had taken me securely under her charge.
Cousin Bessie's household consisted of her husband, Robert Nyle, and their two children, Zita and Louis. Mr. Nyle, who was somewhat older than his wife, was one of these placid, easy going husbands that the world knows little about on account of their retirement and admirable domestic qualities. Zita was then a pretty, growing girl of sixteen summers and Louis a handsome boy of eighteen.
I lived with cousin Bessie for many seasons, and at the end of that time I had become more truly attached to her and her dear family than I had ever been to my own. Yet they were plain people, living a quiet, unostentatious life in the very heart of social exuberances, they were not rich either, in fact they had little more than medium comforts, of those which it takes money to buy, but the sweetness and happiness of their home was not of that kind which gold can gather, it is richer and rarer far than that.
It pleased me to find that they were not wealthy nor worldly. I had so little now, myself, that richer relatives would have pitied me and been urged to bestow petty charities upon me now and then, when my own diminished income proved insufficient to meet the great demands that stylish living could not fail to make upon it.
"I hope you won't feel like a captive bird in this little cage of ours," cousin Bessie remarked with a quiet smile the morning after my arrival. "I offered it only as a shelter, Amey, you know, until you can make yourself more comfortable elsewhere."
I looked at her reproachfully and answered without hesitation:
"I am glad you do not specify my time. I hope I may take as long as I like, to find some place I prefer to this."
"Oh certainly!" said she, with a covert amusement. "You are more than welcome to remain here, as long as you are contented."
There was a time, when I would have doubted the possibility of my being satisfied under circumstances such as these, but to look upon respectable seclusion from a distance, is not really to see, and understand what it is; there is a latent charm about it, which is known only to those who embrace it with cheerful hearts.
Cousin Bessie had no servants, not even one, fashionable humanity, think ofthat! This surprised and even disappointed me at first, but soon it also became absorbed by that all prevailing spirit of quiet contentment that presided over their domestic circle, and kept the sun shining when it was shadow outside.
I did not question cousin Bessie about the necessity for dispensing with menial assistance. It was a delicate subject, but when Zita and Louis and Mr. Nyle went away, one morning after breakfast, I began to clear away the dishes and make myself generally useful.
Cousin Bessie watched me from her corner by the kitchen table, where she was engaged in preparing some sundries for the next meal and when I had made my last trip with an armful of the breakfast equipage, she looked up with a meaning smile, and said,
"This is the see-saw of life, Amey, yesterday you were away up, and to-day you are away down."
"It is the safer place of the two, Cousin Bessie, don't you think so?"
"Well, if I did not think it, Amey, my life would hardly be worth living," she answered with a quiet emphasis.
"Why? You don't think you will always be down, do you?" I asked timidly, plunging a cup and saucer into the boiling water.
"I don't know; we were better off once, in one way, but it is a long time ago," she answered, taking a large white apron from a peg beside her in the wall, and offering it to me, "Put this over your dress, child, and take off your pretty rings," she put in parenthetically, and then went on—
"Robert was a man of wealth when we married, we had a fine house with servants and horses and every such luxury—while the money was there he lavished it upon us: but he lost heavily one year, there was a bank failure first, and a series of smaller misfortunes followed quickly in its wake. We had to sacrifice house and horses, and all, and come down the ladder to our present station. The children found it hard in the beginning, but they have come to look upon it now, nearly as their father and I do."
"But you are not poor, cousin Bessie," I interrupted, as I dried a plate briskly with my linen cloth.
"No: not poor exactly: but we must be careful and economical for awhile, until Zita and Louis are educated: we will make every sacrifice that is necessary to grant them a thorough education. When they are rich in knowledge they won't mind how empty their purses are; they will feel themselves equal to the best in the land. When they have finished their courses here, if they show themselves susceptible to a still higher training, we will make still greater restrictions upon our household expenses to favor any particular talent they may have developed. Robert and I decided that long ago."
"I suppose it is a good plan," I said half doubtfully, "if it does not unfit them for their after-life."
"You mean it may raise them above their station?" cousin Bessie interrupted eagerly. "Well, you are not the only one who thinks that, but it never shall. We have seen such a possible danger ahead and have laboured to avert it I have done my utmost all their lives to bring them up to frugal habits. We have taught them to live sparingly in every way; to shun those people and places that tempt one to idle amusements and questionable pastimes, and never to seek the society of such persons as are brought up to pity or ridicule poverty and struggling gentility. They are fond of one another, and in their mutual companionship do not miss the intercourse which is denied them with the outside world. I have explained to Zita that the saint whose name she bears was a poor servant-maid, who was looked down upon and ignored by those who were better favored by the world; and that like her, she must be poor and humble in spirit, satisfied to be a little nobody here if she can be happy hereafter. Louis learned the story of his royal patron saint when he was a lisping baby at my knee, and understands now, I think, how secondary material prosperity is to the advancement of the moral man. I am almost sure he could wear a crown and rule a nation, and yet look upon such glories as mere accidents of existence, that must be subject to higher aims and occupations."
"Then you are happy in the possession of very exceptional children, Cousin Bessie," said I, shaking my towel and hanging it up to dry. My task was finished, and I sat down beside my industrious cousin who was now up to her elbows in a basin of flour.
"They are my chief comfort, to tell you the truth," she answered, as if in soliloquy, while she sifted handfuls of the white powder through her busy fingers, "and I thank God for this great compensation that has survived all my other pleasures. There is no wretchedness, I think, like that which must fill the heart of a mother whose children have strayed away from her loving, clinging solicitude into the by-ways of folly or vice. It is a dark blight upon the most buoyant heart that ever swelled with maternal devotion. I sometimes think I would rather have never existed, that I could forfeit all the grand privileges of a created being destined for a noble end, rather than have become the mother of impious and vicious children."
"Then it is well you have saved yours from such a common fate," I put in warmly, "for I think in the world's present stage, young people have a monopoly of all the evil tendencies to which our flesh is prone."
"You are right there Amey, and more's the pity," cousin Bessie answered, leaning her white palms on the sides of the dish and looking out of the kitchen window away over the steeples of the distant church, as if her glance fell upon the whole wicked world at once. "There is hardly a channel of sin and guilt that has not been explored by these young persons, who should not even know of the existence of such dangers. So much fine manhood is wasted in folly and dissipation; so many noble energies devoted to degrading causes, so much mental greatness given to solving the mysteries of villainy and roguery. Oh! it is written on the brow of modern youth, in flaming characters," she exclaimed, closing her fingers tightly over the edges of the dish, upon which her hands still rested. "When I pass along the busy streets of the town, I see the wickedness of the world on many a fair young face, and my heart swells with a great desire to know whose life is being saddened by their extravagances. 'They are dear to someone, surely,' I say to myself, 'there must be some one from whom they are trying to hide their deeds of darkness,' and I could almost stop to plead in favor of that lingering love, that they turn back from the beck and call of temptation to that other wholesome course which yields reward both here and hereafter. I cannot help this strong sentiment that stirs within my breast. I love the beauty of blooming human nature; I like to see the glow of physical and moral health upon its beaming countenance, and the stimulus to noble purposes in its restless heart, but it seems as if this never can be again with the majority."
"It is a sad outlook, Cousin Bessie, but there must be a remedy somewhere," I suggested, full of the enthusiasm which had characterized her remarks.
"Remedy? Yes, of course there's a remedy," she retorted emphatically, "but the world's votaries have elbowed it out. What can one expect from a baby girl who has been brought up for the world, but that she shall be of the world? Little misses who can waltz before they know the 'Our Father,' who are taught manners before morals, and are given for their absolute standard 'what others will say.' Can they become good women? It would be a paradox to suppose so. And our boys in knickerbockers who smoke cigars and buy ten cent novels, who speculate in the market of experience with ill-gotten gain, who form opinions of life from dime shows and contact with veterans in vice; can they grow in virtue and integrity after such an initiation as this? It would be nothing less than a moral phenomenon if they did. Yes there is a remedy, and its application is needed at the very root of the evil. Let fathers and mothers look abroad over the heads of their prattling offspring, and realize the fate that is awaiting them if they do not take proper and timely precautions. I attribute much blame to them because I have seen results of their carelessness grow and magnify under my own eyes."
Here the door-bell rang violently, and interrupted cousin Bessie's wholesome homily on the social irregularities of the day. As her hands were still buried in flour I started to my feet and answered the hasty summons. A man in ragged attire stood leaning against the outer post of the doorway. His soft hat was slouched over one eye, and his turned-up faded coat-collar but half-concealed the fragments of a soiled shirt front that lay open on his breast inside. When I confronted him, he advanced a step and said, with his eyes directed towards his boots,
"Will you give me a little help, miss, for God's sake. I am starving and can get no work."
Cousin Bessie from her place by the window could hear his words, and coming to the door, she looked at him from head to foot. He was young and stalwart, though so destitute.
"I will give you some work and pay you well for it" she said. "Come, you are a strapping young fellow and won't find it hard to do."
He was silent for a moment and still kept looking at his dilapidated boots.
"I will give you the price of an honest, independent supper" she continued, "that is better than begging it. You will relish it, I know."
"It's done ma'am" said he, kicking his dusty toes against the step where he stood. "Show me the work."
Cousin Bessie looked significantly at me and led him out to where his occupation lay. As she turned to leave him, with a strict injunction to do it well, he raised his hat from his head and turned reverently towards her.
"I'll do it as well as mortal hands can do it ma'am" he said with a tremor in his hoarse husky voice. "You're the first woman as has spoken a kind word to me since—since—I buried the one that 'ud have made my life different if she'd lived."
"Your mother?" Asked Cousin Bessie gently.
"No, ma'am, she was more, she was my wife, but only for a year. When I lost her I lost my luck and my courage, and everything. I've hardly done a day's good since."
He drew the back of one brawny, dirty hand across his eyes and turned away his head. Cousin Bessie was looking at him with a great pity in her countenance.
"Have you a child?" she next asked.
"One, ma'am, a little girl, but not like the mother."
"Where is she?"
"On the streets, like myself, begging her bread and going to ruin," he answered in dogged despair.
"How old is she?" cousin Bessie asked, with renewed interest.
"Maybe thirteen or thereabout, ma'am, poor, small thing," he replied with a dash of fatherly love.
"Can she read or write?" was cousin Bessie's next query.
"I couldn't say, ma'am. I never taught her. I've been a heartless wretch and didn't mind about her much."
"I am afraid you have done her a great injustice," said cousin Bessie, turning to re-enter the house. "I hope you will try to make some amends. Begin your work, like a good fellow, and I will see you again before you go."
She came back to her duties in the kitchen with a thoughtful face and a slow, measured step.
"Is your hero in rags at his work?" I asked playfully, when she had closed the door behind her.
"Yes, I am glad to say," she answered, "manual labor is what these fellows want. I shall keep him busy until evening, now that he has started, it will only cost me a few pence, and it will keep him out of so much harm."
There was a pause of a few moments after this. Cousin Bessie then looked up and said, half regretfully:
"I wish I had a few spare dollars now. I could, perhaps do some good with them."
"What is your latest freak?" asked I, returning her steady glance.
"I would like to send for his little girl," said she, "the winter is coming on, and there will be extra work to do, in consequence. She may be smart enough to clean our windows and wash the wainscoting. She could run errands and answer the door for a trifle, and we might teach her her prayers and her catechism and send her to church on Sunday, which is never done for her now."
"But you do not know who or what she may be," I argued dissuasively.
"That is nothing," she persisted. "She is only a child, and our house is so small that no harm can be done in it unknown to me. I think it would do her good if she came. You and Zita might take an interest in her and make something respectable of her poor, empty life."
"Perhaps you are right, Cousin Bessie," I conceded, "let us send for her, I can easily afford to clothe her, it will be such a pleasure to me to contribute towards the success of one of your good works."
And so we sent for her. Next day she arrived, carrying a miniature wooden box in one hand and a little old faded umbrella in the other. She was small and dark, with sharp, black eyes and pale features. Her short hair clustered thickly around her brow and over her ears, from which hung suspended a pair of long brass ear-rings. A ring of the same valuable material was conspicuous on one small finger. She was very ragged and careless-looking, but had an intelligent sparkle in her quick glance that diverted one's attention from her appearance.
"What is your name?" asked Cousin Bessie, admitting her into the hall.
"Snip, ma'am," she answered, sweeping a glance from the ceiling to the floor.
"Snip!" we both exclaimed.
"Well, that's what the Grimes and the Dwyers and all them calls me, anyhow," she argued, with a perfectly placid countenance.
"What does your father call you?" cousin Bessie asked.
"Sometimes he says 'little 'un,' and more times it's 'girly.' I ain't particular about names, ma'am, suit yourself," she said, without a change of expression, which was one of stolid earnestness.
"Well, then, we'll call you 'Girly' for the time being," cousin Bessie interposed, smiling and directing a glance of sly amusement at me.
"I hope you will be a very good little girl while you are in my house and we shall all be very good to you," Cousin Bessie began in a premonitory tone. "You must give up your old friends now and listen to us instead and—" here she paused, as if the next sacrifice had to be delicately proposed. "I don't like to see those ear-rings nor that ring with you, they are not becoming to a poor little girl."
Up went the two small hands to the ear-rings, which were hurriedly dragged out, she pulled the tight brass ring from her finger, revealing a dark blue circle where it had lain, and gathering them together in her little palm she looked us straight in the face and said with great earnestness
"D'ye suppose I care a continental for finery?" Then curling her red lips as if she had discovered that we so misjudged her, she shook her bushy head sideways with an emphatic gesture and said with a fiery indignation, which amused us intensely
"Not I! I hate it! I wore it for spite. I'll give this to either of you ladies now, and I'll never ask to lay eyes on it again."
Cousin Bessie took them from her saying,
"You look better without them, Girly," then changing her tone to one of gentle, solicitous enquiry, she asked the pert little stranger,
"Do you ever go to church, Girly, or say any prayers?"
The child's face became shadowed for a moment and her lips quivered. When she spoke, her voice had lost its bright carelessness, it was low and broken.
"I'll tell you the truth ma'am, if I died for it. P'raps you'll think me awful wicked but I'll tell you, now you asked me. One Sunday morning I was walking past the big church in the far end of the town, an' the bells began to ring and ring, an' says I, 'I think I'll just go in an' watch them prayin' but when I peeped in no one was inside. I turned to the man that pulled the ropes an' asked him when it 'ud begin. 'In fifteen minutes' says he, like a growl, 'this is the first bell.' So I ran back to our house, for father and I had a room then with the Grimes, an' I got some water in the little basin an' washed my face an' hands good an' clean. I brushed my hair down an' took out my green shawl that I keep clean an' whole for sometimes, an' put it on. I got back in lots of time to the church an' crep' into one of the big seats, waitin' for the music to begin. In a few minutes, along came a grand little lady, all dressed in velvet, with yellow hair and a big bonnet, an' a gentleman with her, an' she stood at the door of the pew an' beckoned me out. 'There's room enough for us all, Miss,' I whispered, pushing farther down the seat, but here the gentleman rapped his stick on the wood an' said so cross 'Hurry out, hurry out there.'"
Here her voice broke into a sob which, however, she swallowed bravely, and went on after a moment's pause "So I went then to another, a little one with no cushings on it, 'cause I thought grand people didn't own that, but I was only there a little while when a fat woman came rollin' up to me an' catchin' me by the arm said, 'Here, I am not payin' for this pew for other people to sit in, this is my pew.' I was mad then, I knew she wasn't a lady, an' I made a face when I was gettin' out, an' says I, 'Oh, dear' Missis Porpoise, who said it wasn't your pew, you want a whole pew to yourself anyhow.' The aisles was all wet, for 'twas a rainy mornin', an' I wasn't goin' to kneel there with my green shawl on, so I made a bold stroke and darted into another pew. This time 'twas alright: this was a kept one for strangers, an' I had it all to myself. The music began, an' oh! it was so nice! I was quite gettin' over all my temper when such a swell of a lady came up the aisle with such a swell of a gentleman, an' landed in beside me. They didn't turn me out, 'cause they'd no right to, but they did worse. She looked at me an' turned such a mouth on her, then gathered up her fine flounces as if I was goin' to eat 'em, an' looked at the gentleman so complainin'-like. Then she pulled out a little bit of a red and white handkerchief, an' hides her nose in it. I knew well enough what she was up to, an' didn't mind her at first, but it ain't pleasant havin' people makin' faces an' stuffin' their noses before you, an' so I got up an' asked 'em to let me out. When I was passin' her I gathered in my rags tight an' held my shawl up to my nose just like she had done, an' says I, in a whisper, as if to myself, 'oh, you dirty beggars, let me get away from you.' The people in the next pew looked back an' laughed, an' I saw the color risin' up in her face as I turned away. I left the church after that, an' says I, 'there's no room for the poor to be good, I guess I won't try it again; an' you can bet I didn't," she added, with an emphatic nod of her bushy head, and a sparkling wrath in her black eyes.
"But that wasn't right, Girly," said cousin Bessie, "it is not that way in every church, nor is everybody like those three persons you happened to come across."
"It's equal to me, ma'am; I got enough of it," she retorted, quickly, "when its fine on a Sunday now, I go to the grave-yard, my mother is there an' it's a big place, there's room for all kinds in it. I sit down an' cry a bit, an' ask her to pray for the poor, for they have a hard time of it here, but I don't think she can hear me, for I'm not much the better of my prayers."
Cousin Bessie and I here exchanged glances again. Such a hardened little heart as this was in one so young. We did not remonstrate with her then, but attended to her more immediate physical wants, there was something worth caring for in the little waif, and we determined to do it slowly and surely.
Before the week expired we had initiated her into the ways of the house, and transformed her exterior, to begin with, into that of a civilized and respectable member of the great human family.
The winter was coming on, as Cousin Bessie had said every leaf was blown from its bough, and the Autumn sky was grayer and cloudier than ever.
It was a lonely season, especially for one with such a heart full of memories as mine, the wind spoke to me in the most plaintive of whispers, now with the voice of one absent friend, now with that of another. I had no definite grief at this period under the safe protecting roof of my good, kind relatives, only that there was an emptiness about my comfort, which made it incomplete and not quite as satisfactory as it should have been.
Something was stirring in my breast as if with fluttering wings against these fetters of the flesh! Something was always asking, always wishing, always urging me, to do I knew not what 'Taedium vitae.' It is the merciless enemy of mortal man! the robber of our peace, the skeleton in the closet, the dreg in our pleasure-cup, the ruthless spoiler of our fancy-woven webs! It is the separate sorrow of men and women, and is the summing up of the stones of all human lives.
Some have grown weary of idleness, pleasure and wealth, and some are more weary of cold and starvation, and toil, the student is weary of study, and the artist is weary of art, the vicious grow weary of vice, and great men grow weary of fame; old men grow tired on their journey, and children get tired at their play, it is one of those "touches of nature" that makes our world become "kin." For a sigh is a whisper of sorrow, no matter what breast may have heaved it, and pain is a pall, thick and heavy, laid over hopes that are dead.
Some of us have strange lives! secrets, known only to ourselves, that change the face of all nature before our eyes, we are sent adrift on every passing current, to explore the truths of experience for ourselves, and sad lessons some of them are, which we read through our gathering tears, and learn with a beating heart!
As the autumn months drifted on towards a bleak November, I became more and more absorbed, looking wistfully out of the windows, or sitting dreamily before the fire. I often thought of that better land, whither my angel-mother had flown years ago, my father had gone there now, too. Would it not be well if I were with them? Only one more little mound of earth, rising beside theirs, one solitary little mortal falling back from the weary pilgrimage, and lying down to rest by the roadside, one heavy heart less among that throbbing multitude, one faint toiler more, borne from the crowded vineyard.
With my elbows resting on my knees and my face buried in my palms, I sat and thought of all such weird possibilities, as I looked vacantly into the fire. There are times when the world, with its exuberance of pleasure and wealth, is powerless to tempt or cheer us, when its most splendid pageantry is vapid and shallow to our tired gaze, when its laughter and song are a noisy discord, that deafens and distracts us! when its pledges and promises are instruments of selfish purposes and hidden cunning, and its policy, the exponent of a rabid and far-reaching materialism. These are moments, when our passions are at high tide, with our conscience riding on the topmost surface-waves, they are propitious intervals, if we choose to make the best of them, or they may only be fitful breaks in the glad monotony of our sensual, easy-going lives—breaks, that our evil tendencies most often survive, seeing them rise, and surge, and ebb, in fearless defiance, and then quietly resuming their old sway, when the moral struggle has subsided!
One afternoon, I made an effort to rouse myself from this growing lethargy, which had begun to undermine the whole tenor of my character. Zita and Louis were away, at their schools, and cousin Bessie was busy as usual over household duties, Girly was frying meat in the kitchen, and the frizzling, seething noises had almost sent me to sleep in my chair, where I sat sewing. It wanted a half hour yet of dinner-time, so I put on my hat and jacket and sauntered out into the open air.
It was a bracing November day, the dead leaves lay crisp and trodden by the roadside, and the gray clouds flitted in their solemn silence across the low-leaden sky, a light wind swayed the naked tree-tops, and tinged the beaming faces of pedestrians with a healthy roseate hue. This was a happy contrast to my cheerless mood, and with a quickened step, I overtook the stream of gayer people that thronged the lively thoroughfare, and gave myself wholly up to every passing distraction.
I had no particular business to discharge, except to run away from myself, and therefore every little peculiarity, every minute feature of men, women, or things, that suggested themselves to my aimless scrutiny were carefully reviewed and criticized. I went placidly on now casting a passing glance on exhibitions of stale confectionery, now on a display of attractive millinery, again it was a "ten cent" establishment, offering such bargains as might puzzle the most economical house-wife, and finally my attention was caught by a succession of dazzling windows, with their bewildering panorama of Japanese figures and colouredbric-a-brac, windows crowded with fans and parasols, and variegated lamp-shades, oriental trays and glove-boxes, pieces of ware, from whose dirty green surface emptily peered the pale faces of native Japanese, there were whisk-holders, and wall-baskets, and all sorts of ornaments trimmed in Japanese fabrics, looking coaxingly out at the public.
Scrolls and mats, panels and firescreens, whereon the hand of art had caused to spring and flourish these slender Eastern stalks, which sprout in drooping foliage, at the summit of their lanky height. There was an endless variety gathered into this limited space, it was a scene which should provoke a regretful tear, for memory's sake, from the patriotic oblong eye of any exiled Japanese.
My eyes still wandered over these many-hued trifles, and my mind was still busy with its vagrant reflections, when a gruff voice said in my ear:
"Move on there—do you hear."
I started, and saw Zita on one side and Louis on the other; they were returning from their day's mental toil, and had spied me loitering by the shop windows. I joined them, and in happy, careless concourse, we trod our way towards our home. When we reached the house the lamps had been lighted and the curtains drawn, dinner steamed upon the table.
Feeling better for my walk, I sat down with rosy cheeks and sharpened appetite to my evening meal. As I was about to begin Mr. Nyle handed me a letter, which had arrived during my absence. I took it up and looked at it curiously, a smile broke over my countenance as I did so, for I recognized Hortense's delicate handwriting.
All during dinner this welcome little letter lay in my lap. Every now and then I touched it caressingly, as if trying to read it with my finger-tips, and wondered how long it would be before cousin Bessie would move her chair away from the table, that I might retire and gratify myself with its contents.
So much for human foresight and wisdom! We hold our misery in our own hand, and we do not know it, we look with impatient smiles and longing, upon that whose fruit is sorrow for our hearts, and we cannot see it or realize it.
Dinner was over at last, and I glided away from the happy circle to the quietude of my own quarters I lit the lamp, and seating myself comfortably in a rocking chair, tore open my friend's letter, and read as follows:
"My dearest Amey
"I have looked forward with such impatient eagerness to this pleasure of answering your last dear letter, and now that an opportunity occurs, I hardly know what to say to you.
"Perhaps it is because there is so much Imighttell, if it were only time, when the time comes you, and only you, shall know all, you must not blame me for my present reserve, for at best, I could but half tell it now, any way.
"It is something that has lain on my heart, day and night, for some years, and that is likely at last to make me happier than I have been for many a day. You will be glad of it, because it will have made your poor Hortense so happy. It concerns some one else, about whom, you must have made many strange conjectures, since your recent visit to me, I was doubtful then, or I would have told you a little, but now I feel more sure, and see my way better.
"However, I must not bewilder you with words in the beginning. I shall only repeat that I see much happiness in the near distance for Hortense de Beaumont. Heaven grant that nothing shall now come between me and this long-looked for realization. Mamma sends you her fondest love, and so does your own HORTENSE."
"You will be glad, because it will have made your poor Hortense so happy!" These words seemed to stand out from all the rest, and attract my attention more forcibly. "Some one about whom you must have made many strange conjectures since your recent visit to me." Ah! it was clear enough to me now. She may as well have written her story through; but, was it not what I had expected? What I had prepared for? Why should the announcement of its accomplishment shock or surprise me now? He was nothing tome,—but a friend! as friends we had parted, and if we ever met again, it should only be as friends—perhaps not even as the friends we were then, if he were Hortense de Beaumont's husband.
I folded her letter slowly and quietly, and put it safely away; I wanted never to see it, or read it again, it was the story of my dear friend's happiness, and it should not bring sorrow, or disappointment to me, so long as I professed to love her, or sympathize with her. So kind, so thoughtful, so affectionate a little creature as she had ever shown herself to me. How many of her heart's treasures she had freely lavished upon me during the course of our eventful friendship!
If she had had the better fortune of the two, it was her luck, and she deserved it. "Heaven grant that nothing now shall come between me and this long-looked for realization!" Poor child! how fond she was of him, could any one cast an impediment between such loves as these?
I turned down the light, and left the room: there were laughter and merry-making below, perhaps they would help me to forget these gloomy thoughts. I stepped lightly down the narrow stairway, and entered the cosy sitting room, where the family were assembled, with a pleasant, careless countenance.
They were engaged in a lively discussion when I came into the room; cousin Bessie had just conveyed the tidings, that an invitation had been left that afternoon for "Zita and Amey" from Mrs. Wayland Rutherby, asking them to go in on the following day, as Pansy and Lulu Rutherby had a young lady staying with them, and would like to introduce her to their friends. "Louis and Papa and myself" she was just adding, "are expected to drop in after dinner, when there will be music and a little dancing."
"Did you say we would go, Cousin, Bessie?" I put in, coming towards her and drawing up a seat beside hers.
"Of course, you will go," she answered emphatically. "Sophie Rutherby is my old school-friend, and we never refuse her."
"But I prefer not to go Cousin Bessie, I have not been out anywhere since—my father's death."
"Nonsense child! you are not going to mope away your young life like this," she broke in indignantly, "however, if you have any scruples, you can come away after dinner, before the active pleasures begin—there will be no one there in the afternoon but you and Zita. Surely you cannot object to that."
So it was settled, that we were to go to Mrs. Rutherby's, and the eventful afternoon came in due time. Zita was a little longer than usual before her looking-glass on that occasion, and was as pretty and fresh as a mountain daisy, when she came down at last to join me below.
We were received with gushing, girlish enthusiasm, by Pansy and Lulu Rutherby, in their rare and expensive toilets, they were both pretty and lively, and we talked and laughed during our first half-hour together, as though we had been old friends all our lives. Pansy and Lulu took poor Zita by storm, they showed their latest programmes of dances, and repeated for her benefit the newest compliments which had been paid to them by their respective admirers, since they had last entertained her.
Mrs. Rutherby and her senior guest, the mother of the younger lady, sat side by side on a remote sofa exchanging confidential whispers about their daughters. Miss Longfield, the Rutherby's "girl friend," and I, of necessity found ourselves thrown together, a little way from the rest. She was a tall, pale girl with a very highchignon, a very stiff satin dress, and very queer little shoes with very pronounced heels.
"You belong to Canada, I suppose?" she began looking at me speculatively from head to foot.
"Yes, I have always lived here," I answered, returning the speculative glance and concluding that Miss Longfield's complexion was decidedly sallow.
"Then you've been to Court, I guess?" she next asked.
"To Court," I exclaimed, raising my voice and my eyebrows.
"Why, yes" she retorted somewhat indignantly, "you've got Royalty over here, haven't you?"
"Oh! now I understand," said I with a covert smile, "you mean, have I been presented to Her Royal Highness?"
She nodded herchignonaffirmatively with a satisfied air, and began biting her under lip, which operation, however, was immediately interrupted by an expressive—"It must be awfully nice."
I took the trouble to give my American friend a lengthy description of our drawing-room receptions, in which she became ardently interested, never interrupting me until I had come to the end. She then surprised me with the question.
"Don't you have any refreshments?" put in a high key.
"Not until we get home," said I laughing. "The ceremony is virtually over when the people have been presented."
This rather disappointed her, I am afraid, but what could I do? She dismissed the subject summarily by touching upon another new one—that of our winter sports. I had to describe the tobogganing costumes, their effect at night when bonfires were burning in the vicinity of the hills, the sensation of going down, and the excitement of trudging back again to the top. She listened admirably and seemed thoroughly appreciative of my generous effort to entertain her. When I had finished, she remarked very quietly.
"It must be real nice, and ever such good fun, but I could never try it. It would smother me right there—I'm always under doctors' orders, you know," she added in a subdued, confidential whisper, "I've got seven diseases?"
"Have you indeed?" I exclaimed in genuine consternation. "You don't look as if you had," I continued by way of encouragement, but without effect, for she interrupted me, fretfully saying:
"Oh, yes I do! Anyone would know I had anaemia, I am so pale, and dyspepsia, for I eat so few things, and such a little at a time; then there's dyscrasia, comes from poverty of the blood, and my palpitations, that prevent me from having any pleasures worth calling so, besides these," she added, putting her reckoning finger upon her thumb, "I suffer from neuralgia, and acute rheumatism, and," (on the second finger of the other, hand, which represented seven) "an inflammation of the spine. So now, what do you think of that?"
"Well, really I am very sorry for you, poor Miss Longfield'" I said with an effort to let my sympathy overcome my burning desire to laugh outright; "you have been very unfortunate indeed, to have contracted so many diseases at once."
"Oh my constitution has always been weak," she sighed; "I take some twenty different medicines, I believe," she added, as if she were trying to frighten me out of the room, "you'd hardly believe it, I know, you are so healthy."
Here we were interrupted by Mrs. Longfield's plaintive voice reminding her invalid daughter that she had been sitting "to one side too long," and would "excite her spinal inflammation" if she did not "straighten up against the cushions of her chair."
Miss Longfield sighed peevishly, as she fell back in languid obedience to this solicitous injunction; she was constantly exposing herself thus rashly to the mercy of her chronic complaints. Shortly after this, dinner was announced, and we were mutually delighted, I expect, to find the latest turn of our conversation, which threatened to be flat and uninteresting, thus brought to a happy, though abrupt termination.
As soon after dinner as manners would allow me to leave, I bade good evening to my amiable hostesses, who were profuse in their regrets and expressions of disappointment at my early departure, and I sauntered quietly back to cousin Bessie's house.
It was not yet dark, though the moon was visible in the clear sky, and relieved, to find myself once more alone, I walked with purposely slow and leisure steps towards my home, rehearsing in my mind, with much genuine amusement, my recent brilliant and highly intellectual conversation with Miss Longfield.
As I drew near the Nyles' gate, its familiar squeak and the accompanying clash of its iron latches, broke upon my ear. I started, and peering through the gathering dusk, I saw the figure of a man turn into the street and stride rapidly away in the opposite direction from the one I was then pursuing. My heart gave a great leap, I hardly knew why, and the blood rushed into my face, something caught in my throat and I gave a short, hysterical cough. I had reached the gate, and the air around it was yet laden with the scent of a rich cigar, though the figure had passed into the distant gloom.
I pushed it open nervously, and it fell to with the same squeak and clash as before. I stopped for a moment, and leaning over the low railing I looked eagerly up and down the silent street. The moon struggled through a feathery cloud at this instant, and flooded the scene before me with its gentle light; I saw a figure again, beyond the shadows of the tall, bare trees that lay upon the white moonlit walk, it stopped, and turned sharply around, a little red light was moving with it, back towards where I was standing.
My heart beat loud and fast, as the footsteps drew nearer and nearer. I recoiled impulsively behind the projecting post beside me: I was a coward at the last moment, the scent of the cigar became stronger and stronger, the ring of advancing footsteps quicker and louder—they had reached the gate and paused—there was only the post between us now. I held my breath, and did not dare to move while this suspense lasted. Would he never move on? I asked myself. How foolish I was to have waited there at all? I felt tempted to make one bound and spring up the garden-steps, but I had not courage enough even for this.
While I was busy with these thoughts, the interesting figure receded to the outer end of the sidewalk and scanned the upper portion of the house eagerly. I then heard him mutter an impatient "Pshaw!" under his breath, and he turned to walk away.
All my deserted courage rushed back to me the instant I saw him moving from me. I sprang from my hiding-place, and leaning my arms upon the bars of the gate as before, I said timidly:
"Who is that?"
The figure halted suddenly and turned around. In a moment he was standing beside me with his hat in one hand, the other extended towards me.
"Why, Dr Campbell, can this beyou?" I cried in slow bewilderment.
"Yes, Miss Hampden, it is I" he answered nervously, "Are you glad to see me?"
"Glad" I repeated, half reproachfully, "why should I not be glad? I am delighted to see you. Won't you come in" I asked, making a movement to open the gate.
"I have just been to the house, asking for you," he said. "They told me you had gone out to dine, and they could not say exactly when you would come back. I have only to-day to spend in the town, and was feeling quite disappointed at not finding you at home, when the clashing of the gate arrested my attention. But tell me," he interrupted gently, "How are you, how have you been since I saw you last?"
"Oh, I have been well enough, thank you. Cousin Bessie is the very personification of kindness, and gives me every comfort. I only hope you have been as well treated as I have," I returned, with an effort at ordinary civility.
He did not answer immediately; he looked away from me and then said slowly.
"I have been pretty well—but not well enough. I have been studying and working very hard."
"What,you?" escaped me before I could control it. He laughed an odd little laugh and added: "Yes—me, I have not gone out to a dance or pleasure party of any kind since—since you left. I have lived with my books, day and night."
"You must have had some ominous vision in your sleep, Dr. Campbell," I said with unrestrained surprise, "to have become converted to such sedentary habits in so short a time."
"Yes, you are right," he answered curtly and somewhat eagerly, "I had a strange, beautiful vision that showed me the folly and emptiness of my life more plainly than anything else could ever have done, and I thank that vision that I have been able to make amends in time for the omissions and transgressions of the past."
I was half frightened at his earnest voice and serious expression, I hardly knew what to answer him. When I did speak, I was conscious of a tremor in my voice that must have betrayed something of the suspicion his words had awakened in me.
"Your better life is worthier of you, Dr Campbell," I managed to reply. "You were disposed, I must admit, to make too little of your energies, which are above the ordinary level."
"It was hardly my fault," he said sadly, "I was in a sort of stupor, I believe. I rejected the light of faith and morals from my life, and tried to imagine myself above it. What else could I expect but the result which followed?"
He was terribly in earnest, his brow was deeply contracted and his face was whiter than the pale moonlight.
"Then you are a better man for it in every way, I perceive," was my timid rejoinder.
"I hope so, Amey, I have tried hard to be."
I was startled by the mention of my own name in such a solemn tone, but my heart was swelling with a rushing tide of sympathy for the man who had so pronounced it.
"Then you will not regret it, believe me," I said, infusing a buoyant encouragement into my voice.
"No, I will not, I feel sure," he answered, disengaging his hands and leaning one elbow on the bar to support his face in his palm. We stood for a few seconds in silence, during which I looked abstractedly into the space before me. I knew that his eyes were turned upon me, although I could not see them. Suddenly he said in a low tone, almost in a whisper.
"I wish I could read your thoughts, Amey?"
I looked at him quickly, and laughed. Before I had time to make any reply, the door of the house was opened wide, and cousin Bessie accompanied by her husband and Louis, stepped out upon the platform. A beam of lamplight fell full upon Arthur Campbell's face, which was stern and white, he gave me his unsteady hand, and said brusquely:
"Good-night! I will come and see you to-morrow if you will let me?"
He raised his hat, and bowing with a touch of his old grace and gallantry, he strode away.
"Well, well Amey!" said Mr. Nyle, in a teasing voice as I turned and confronted the family trio. "I never would have thought this ofyou! you might have told us something about it, I'm sure—eh Bessie?"
"Oh we have no right to know her little secrets" cousin Bessie gently answered, while she drew on one glove. "Amey is sure not to do anything foolish, I feel certain of that. Is that the gentleman who called to see you a little while ago, Amey?" she asked, with a very discreet curiosity.
"Yes, Cousin Bessie, it is Dr. Campbell, he attended my father in his last illness, you know, I told you about him," I explained very earnestly.
"Oh yes, dear I remember! he seems to be a very nice person: I hope he will come again to see you before he goes."
"He asked leave to come to-morrow!" I answered "I suppose you don't mind?"
"Not in the least, child, why should I?" she put in, somewhat playfully. "Come Robert! come Louis!" she added, as she descended the steps leading to the gate. "We are not over early. I hope you won't be lonesome, Amey," she said, turning back, with one hand on the open gate.
"Not she," Mr. Nyle broke in, with mischief in his tone, "she'll keep herself busy with such pleasant thoughts that she will never miss us—go on."
He held the gate open until Cousin Bessie and Louis had passed out. I was standing on the topmost step waiting to see them off, and Mr. Nyle, looking at me to attract my attention, struck an attitude exactly like that in which they had surprised Dr. Campbell, leaning just as languidly upon the bars.
"How silver-sweet sound lovers tongues by night,Like softest music to attending ears!"
He exclaimed, in such a ridiculously sentimental tone, that we all laughed outright, and cousin Bessie pulling him forcibly away by the coat-sleeve, looked over his shoulder at me and said consolingly:
"Never mind, Amey, he can't throw stones from a glass house, he did this kind of thing many a time in his own day—you know you did," she added, linking her arm within his, and turning her eyes upon his beaming face with a dash of revived tenderness and old love. I caught his answering glance, with its accompanying smile so full of a deep meaning, and the tears came into my eyes. I bade them good-night and went quietly into the house.
Next day Arthur Campbell came to see me, as he had said, and in Cousin Bessie's humble little parlor, by the cheerful glowing embers, asked me to become his wife. I might have known it—perhaps I did know it, in spite of my wilful perverseness in denying it to myself, but I had not imagined it to be like this. There was no thrill or joy for me in the sound of his earnest voice, no definite sensation of that happiness which is said to attend this circumstance, no prospect of golden pleasures in the near future, that would find us united in these holy bonds.
It was a simple proposal of marriage from the lips of a man I respected and liked; a man of talent, and wealth and position, who flattered me by so generous an offer of his love. There was a glow of fire about his sentiment, mine had none, and yet I could not have given him up at that moment for all the world. I liked him, and I wanted to teach myself to like him still more. He had given up the attractions of worldly life on my account, and had gone back to the simple faith of his boyhood, he said my memory had been his only safe-guard where he had hitherto known no law, that I had "started up in the darkness of his life" like a steady and hopeful beacon-light that beckoned him on to better purposes.
"Whether you consent to marry me, or not" said he "I shall always be the better of having known and loved you, and, if you cannot love me in return, it will satisfy you perhaps to know that you have done me a great good otherwise."
I sat in silence for a moment, listening to the deep vibrations of his solemn voice, ringing through the quiet little room, the hand that supported my thoughtful face had grown cold and clammy, something weighed upon my heart, like an unfolded mystery, pregnant with sorrow or joy, I knew not which. He stood beside me, leaning one elbow against the broad, old fashioned mantel, and looking into the fire—at length I raised my eyes, and said with a timid voice.
"I do not deserve your love, Arthur—though I would now, if I could, if it were in my power."
"What do you mean Amey?" he interrupted with solemn enquiry.
I fidgeted with the folds of my drapery, for another few seconds, and then answered nervously:
"I hardly know, myself," then lifting up my eyes to his serious face again, I said as frankly as I knew how. "You have not asked me, Arthur, whether I have ever loved any one else before?"
He kept on, looking steadily at me, until his blue eyes seemed to have penetrated the very farthest depths of my soul; then, he answered, slowly, and with thrilling emphasis.
"You have loved Ernest Dalton, I know. Is there any one else?"
I dropped my lids instantly, and folded my hands tightly together, his words went through and through me. I hardly knew what to say next, but feeling that it was urgent upon me to speak in some way, I asked in a subdued tone, with my eyes still lowered upon my folded hands,
"How do you know I loved Ernest Dalton?"
He laughed, not gaily, nor carelessly, and taking a stride across the room, turned and said, "It is enough, that I know it, Amey. I don't ask you to confide your past secrets to me—neither do I blame you for having been attached to Dalton, he is a good fellow, and though I am not half as worthy as he is, I presume to covet the same prize that he does—our luck is in your hands!"
"Ernest Dalton has never spoken to me, of love or marriage," I put in hastily.
"And Arthur Campbell has" said he, pausing in his rapid strides again, and standing close beside me—"that should make some difference?"
"So it does, and I give him the preference!" I said, rising from my seat, and extending my cold, nervous fingers towards him. "It is true that I have dwelt upon Ernest Dalton's memory with a glowing, girlish enthusiasm. I have thought of him by day and by night. I have fancied my love returned, and imagined how happy we could be together. I have watched him with jealous eyes as he came and went, in and out of our circles at home. I have wished him near me, when I was desolate and miserable, and could endure no one else—but now, I would not have things different from what they are: all that can be a finished, sealed irrevocable past to you and me. I will marry you, if you are satisfied with my disposition; I will devote my whole life to your happiness, Arthur, and if I can help it you shall never have cause to reproach me, or regret the step you have taken. If you love me, you will not find it hard to trust me enough, even for this!"
"Amey, that is all I want to hear—you have spoken openly and honourably, you have done me the fullest justice I could ask. I believe your simple, earnest promises, I could not do otherwise, it would kill me to doubt you now. I shall go back to my toil with a lighter heart than I have had for many a day."
He left for home on the following morning, and as he rolled out of the depot of our little town I sat alone by the fireside, where, yesterday, I had pledged myself to him, twisting and turning a sparkling diamond upon my finger. It was a handsome seal of our plighted loves; inside, on the smooth round gold, the words "Arthur and Amey" with the date of the month and year were neatly inscribed.
Alice Merivale came home for Christmas, that is, in the early part of December. She had been announced for weeks before, and her immediate circle were considerably agitated over the welcome tidings, and in quite a flutter of conjecture and expectation concerning the result of her extended trip.
Two days after her arrival I received a hasty little note from her, in which she insisted upon my going to spend the holidays with her, as she had thousands of topics to discuss with me, and was longing to lay eyes on me again after so protracted an interval of separation.
The prospect was a pleasant one to me; that interval to which she alluded had brought me many a reason for wishing to return to my old home, for a little sojourn among those friends and scenes that had special claims upon my memory and affections. I submitted her kind offer to cousin Bessie for a decision, and was of course, encouraged to accept it, on the grounds that I had never taken a day of real recreation since I had come to live with her.
The day before I left was snowy and windy, and cold; it was my birthday. Cousin Bessie took me by the hand, and leading me into the sitting-room after luncheon, said:
"Sit there, Amey," motioning me to a low rocker that stood on one side of the fire, while she drew up an easy chair for herself on the other, "I want to talk to you."
With wondering surprise I threw myself into my seat and looked at her with eager impatience, waiting for her to begin. She did not lose much time, only while she picked up her knitting from a work-basket on the table beside her. When she had put her needle safely through the first stitch she turned her eyes kindly upon me and began:
"So this is your birthday, Amey? Poor Amey; I remember the day you were born, well. I never thought at that time the world would be such a see-saw as it has since shown itself to be. I never expected I would be called upon to offer you the shelter of my humble roof."
I rocked myself slowly to and fro, and with a sigh answered:
"What would I have done without you, Cousin Bessie?"
This brought a sudden thought into my mind, it was so strange that it should never have crossed my mind before, I looked up quickly into cousin Bessie's face and asked with a puzzled and eager curiosity:
"How did you come to know I wanted a home, Cousin Bessie. Who told you of my father's death?"
She laughed a quiet, suspicious little laugh and then replied:
"I have been waiting for this question ever since you came, and it has been a continual wonder to me that you have not asked it. However, I will tell you all about it to-day, and it is a long, long story from the beginning," said she, laying her knitting down upon her lap and taking off her glasses, which she wore only while working.
"Your mother and I, as I told you already, were brought up together in her father's house She was as like you, my child, as your image in the glass, and on this account I have felt that ever since you have been with me, I have been living my young days over again with my poor, dead Amelia, that was as dear as life to my heart. I have told you about our school days and earlier experiences. I will now tell you the strange sequel, for I think it is time you knew it.
"When your mother was in her eighteenth year she went to visit a widowed aunt of hers who was very wealthy, and whose entire fortune was supposed to be accumulating for your mother's ultimate inheritance. While she was there she met a young student who fell violently in love with her, and whose regard she fully reciprocated. They were both young, and handsome and ardent; both well educated and highly accomplished, and both devotedly attached to each other. When your mother came back he nearly died of loneliness and grief, and she was little better, moping around the house in quiet corners, brooding over the fire and losing interest in her former occupations. Her father noticed the change and suspecting the truth, discountenanced it from the very first. He did not say much to Amey herself, but I saw that he was resolved to throw impediments in the way of their love's progress. He called it 'stuff' and in his desire to suppress and condemn it, he was warmly supported by his maiden sister, who had long ago decided that Amey's husband should be entirely of her choosing, and should be one whose social position would restore to the Hartney family some of theprestigewhich they had lost through reverses.
"Amey's mother was dead at this time, which accounts for the domestic reins being altogether in the severe Miss Hartney's hands. For awhile, however, all bade fair to progress favorably between the young people, some letters even had been exchanged between them, when one day Miss Hartney came sailing into the library with a covert light of triumph in her little piercing eyes, with the announcement to your mother, her father and myself, who were seated around the table with our different occupations, that she was 'going off for a few days, to Aunt Liddy's,' and wanted to know whether we had 'any messages to send?'
"The color rushed into your poor mother's cheeks. She bowed her head very low over her papers and muttered.
"'Oh yes, give Aunt Liddy my fondest love and tell her I am making all haste with the screen I have promised her. I shall send it to her in less than three weeks,' she added, daring now to look up when her agitation had subsided.
"'Perhaps you would rather take it up yourself, eh?'" said her aunt, pinching her ears in malicious playfulness. 'I guess I know something about this screen for Aunt Liddy, it is a screen in more ways than one—ha-ha,' she exclaimed in taunting mockery, but still with an effort to keep up a simpering pretence to good-humor.
"Your mother was afraid to say a word, her father had brought her up to look upon this sister of his as a limb of a jealous law, that would crush or annihilate her if she slighted or disrespected her in any way. But the crimson spots came back into her cheeks, and she fell into a sullen, indignant silence, that lasted long after her contemptible relative had left us with her incisive good-byes. That was a fatal visit for your poor mother's hopes, when her aunt returned she was armed to the teeth for her combat, it began the day after her arrival; she had invited herself to come and sit with us as we busied ourselves around the table in the library, as before; she wheeled her chair towards the window, and leaning back among its cushions, she began artfully.
"'Aunt Liddy was asking me what would make a nice wedding present, girls; she expects to be called upon to make one very soon;' the color crept into your mother's cheeks, and her brown hair almost touched the paper she wrote upon. 'I told her I would ask you,' Miss Hartney added, pointedly, 'as you're likely to know more about modern tastes than I.'"
"'It depends on the sort of person it is intended for,' I said, very indifferently, without looking up from my work; 'no two people appreciate the same gift in exactly the same way.'
"'Well, Aunt Liddy does not know very much about the prospective bride; the groom is her friend, he is a young student of the University there,' your mother paused, but did not raise her eyes. 'His name is—Dalton,' Miss Hartney went on with an insinuation of malicious triumph.
"Cousin Bessie!" I cried, leaning forward with quick eagerness and interrupting her story, "Dalton, did you say?"
"Yes, Ernest Dalton," she answered me quietly. "Ernest Dalton whom you now know, and who is the cause of your being with me to-day."
I looked at her vacantly for a moment, and falling back languidly in my seat, muttered faintly, "Go on."
"Where was I?" she resumed, looking wistfully into the space between us; "Oh, yes—where Miss Hartney pronounced Ernest Dalton's name so flourishingly—your mother looked up at her with a blanched face when she said this, and asked:
"'Do you know for certain that what you say is true?'
"'Oh! my dear Amey—really—you frighten me,' her aunt exclaimed, with dilated eyes and recoiling gesture, 'I am sure I can't say whether it is Gospel truth or not, I only know what I heard and what I saw!'
"'What yousaw?' your mother interrupted, huskily. 'What did yousee, Aunt Winnie?'
"'I saw this Mr. Dalton paying such attentions to a young lady while I was there as would convince anyone of the truth of the rumours that are afloat about him,' she simpered out, half-defiantly.
"'His sister, perhaps' your mother muttered, knocking her ivory pen-handle nervously against her white teeth.
"'No, indeed—nor his cousin neither,' Miss Hartney retorted, with a covert little sneer. 'What is it to you any way, child, who she is, or what he does?' she then asked with cruel mischief.
"'It is all the world to me, Aunt Winnie,' your mother made answer, rising up in solemn dignity, with a white face and quivering lips, 'It is my life to me, for I love this man.'
"'Whatever are you talking of, child!' her aunt screamed, leaning her thin hands on the arms of her chair, and bending towards her niece in furious consternation. 'Pretty work this is; how will your father like it, I wonder,' she gasped, sinking back again among her cushions in a dry rage.
"'I don't care how anyone likes it,' said your mother quietly and sadly. 'I am old enough now to know my own duty. I shall love, and marry whoever I please.'
"'Well! upon my word—you don't mean to say so—do you, Queen Amelia?' Miss Hartney returned in cold irony. 'Well then, my dear, you had better be wider awake to your own interests,' she went on, 'for your first attempt is going sadly against you already, poor child. I'm glad your choice pleases you, you are not fastidious—but to all appearances your regard is not reciprocated very warmly. May be, he is only amusing himself during your absence, I can't say. He would be a great fool not to take you when you are so willing, and aunt Liddy is so fond of you, and getting old now—but it is evident that he enjoys the society of the other girl. Aunt Liddy herself, with all her partiality for you, confessed that Ernest Dalton's manner is much more distant and reserved with you, than with this Inez Campuzano, with her Spanish beauty, enough to intoxicate any silly, sentimental youth.'
"'Go on, aunt Winnie, said your suffering mother,' looking up at her tormentor, with a glance of reproachful sarcasm. 'Go on, this is very comforting, and you seem to relish it. What else?'
"'What else?' Miss Hartney repeated, with all the dainty sarcasm of a disappointed old maid. 'Well! since you will know, child, I may as well tell you—the brave Mr. Dalton is not alone in the field; he has a powerful rival; one of those dark, heroic-looking Frenchmen of high birth and fierce tempers. He swears he will have Mlle. Campuzano's hand, or Ernest Dalton's heart-blood—at least this is the story I have heard; she, in all her rich southern foreign loveliness, plays a becomingly passive part, and is wooed, they say, first by one and then by the other. If I were you, Amelia, I would never marry any one who was not more faithful to me, than this, there will be little happiness in store for you, if you do; he has plainly slighted you, in giving cause for such vile rumours while I was in the town, and could hear of his unbecoming behaviour—give him up child, he is altogether unworthy of you.' Miss Hartney added, infusing something of a would-be sympathy and solicitude unto her shrill accents.
"Your mother stood for a moment toying nervously with her white, trembling fingers. She was so proud. My poor, dear Amelia, and this taunting intelligence smote her to her heart's core. She swallowed a great choking sob, and drove the blinding tears that lay upon the surface of her large sad eyes back into the deep caverns from whence they had sprung. She then sat quietly down, and resumed her writing. In a month from that date, my dear Amey," cousin Bessie added in a low hushed voice, "she was married to your father, Alfred Hampden, who had wooed her in the meantime."