CHAPTER IX.

To aid thy mind's development, to watchThe dawn of little joys, to sit and seeAlmost thy very growth, to view thee catchKnowledge of objects, wonders yet to see!To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss.

—Byron's Childe Harold.

To Bruce Conway the months of slow and tardy convalescence seemed like dead weights on his impatient, restless soul; to Grace Winans, in her splendid but strangely silent home, where but few guests were received, and which she rarely left, time passed as it did to Mariana in the Moated Grange. But for all that, the summer passed like a painful dream, and the "melancholy days" had come; "time does not stop for tears."

Mrs. Conway had prevailed on Bruce to compromise his intention of going abroad again by spending the winter with her amid the gayeties of Washington—the "Paris of America."

How far a pretty face had influenced him in making this decision it is impossible to say; but Mrs. Conway, in her gratitude to the Clendenons for their kindness to her idol, had fairly worried them into consenting to let Lulu pass the winter with her in the gay capital city. For Lulu it may be said that no persuasion was needed to obtain her consent, and how far her fancy for a handsome face had influencedher, we will not undertake to say either. However this may be, the Washington newspapers duly chronicled for the benefit of fashionable society the interesting intelligence that the elegant Mr. Bruce Conway, the hero of the much talked of Norfolk duel, and his stillbrilliant aunt, Mrs. Conway—both so well known in Washington circles—had taken a handsome suite of rooms at Willard's Hotel for the winter. And the newspapers—which will flatter any woman in society, be she fair or homely—added the information that Mrs. Conway had one of the belles of Norfolk for her guest—the lovely Miss C.—concluding with the stereotyped compliment that her marvelous beauty and varied accomplishments would create a stir in fashionable society; and thus was Lulu Clendenon launched on the sea of social dissipation.

A deep flush of shame and annoyance tinged the girl's dimpled cheeks, as leaning back in a great sleepy hollow of a chair in their private parlor, skimming lightly over the "society news," she came upon this paragraph about a week after their arrival.

Bruce Conway, lounging idly in an opposite chair, marked that sudden rose-flush under his half-closed lids, and wondered thereat.

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light.

"As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the Northern night," he spouted, in his old non-commital fashion of quoting Tennyson to pretty girls.

She glanced across at him, her color brightening, "all the spirit deeply dawning in the dusk of hazel eyes," but she uttered no word.

"Well, Brownie, what is it?" he queried, giving her the name he often called her for her nut-brown hair and eyes.

"This."

She folded down the paragraph and tossed it across to him, with a willful pout of her red lips, and watched with solicitude for the sympathetic indignation she expected to read in his eyes.

He finished it, and laughed.

"Umph! Some people wake up and find themselves famous. Well, what is the matter with that? Is not the notice sufficiently flattering?"

"It is not that!" She sprang up and began walking excitedly up and down the floor. "I do not like it—I—it is a shame to drag a young girl's name before the public that way. It puts a modest girl to the blush. A 'stir in society,' indeed!" her lipcurling, a comical anger in her brown eyes. "I have a great mind to go home to mamma and Brother Willie."

Bruce Conway opened his sleepy eyes in polite amazement at this home-bred girl, whose pure modesty recoiled from what was so grateful to the ears of most modern belles.

"Well, but you are a novelty," he laughed. "In these days of women's rights, and shoddyism, and toadyism, and all the rest of the isms! Why, the majority of the belles of society would give their ears for a notice like that! That is why they court the journalists—assiduously inviting them to receptions, soirees, and the like. They always expect a flaming compliment. And new arrivals are always honored by a flattering notice. The thing is quitea la mode."

"Well, I do not like it. I think it is an abominable fashion," persisted the little maiden.

"I agree with you," said Bruce, seriously. "It is 'brushing the delicate bloom from the grape.' But don't air such opinions in public, Lulu, or Barnum will be wanting you for one of his curiosities."

His glance turned from her and roved down the society column—then he rose, his face a trifle paler, and crossing to the window, read a paragraph almost directly beneath the one which had incited the indignant protest of the little Norfolk beauty.

"And by the way, society will miss its most brilliant jewel from its setting, in the absence of the youthful and lovely Hon. Mrs. Winans, of Norfolk. Rumor reports that the fair lady is so devoted to her infant son that, with the concurrence of the indulgent Senator, she gladly foregoes the dissipations of fashionable life to watch the budding and unfolding of his infantile charms."

And it, this grandiloquent style society, which knew perfectly well all about the difference between Senator Winans and his lovely wife, was informed that he did not intend to bring her to Washington during the ensuing session of Congress.

Conway ground his firm white teeth.

"So he dares show the world how he neglects her," crushing the paper viciously in his hand as though it were Paul Winans himself. "Poor Gracie—poor wronged and injured girl!" sighing deeply. "Neither Winans nor I was worthy of her."

Lulu, who had resumed her seat, looked up wondering at the clouded brow and unintelligibly muttered words. He smiled, subduing his emotion by a strong effort of will.

"You have not told me yet what are your plans for to-day—ah! here comes my lady aunt. Dear madam, will you kindly designate what are your plans for to-day, and command your humble servant?"

Mrs. Conway smiled her brightest smile on her idol.

"Let me see," glancing at her watch: "only ten o'clock. You can be off for your morning cigar and stroll on the avenue—when you come back we will have decided."

He rose, handsome, smiling,debonaire, but desperately ennuied, and glad, if truth must be told, to get away. Small talk was a bore to him just then, in his perturbed mood. He picked up Lulu's embroidered handkerchief that she had carelessly let fall to the floor, and presenting it with a jaunty "by-by," went his way followed by their admiring eyes. He was his aunt's acknowledged idol; Lulu's unconscious one.

Mrs. Conway plunged at once into the subject of amusements for the day.

"Let us see—there is Mrs. R's reception at two—we musn't fail them. You will see thecreme de la cremethere, my dear. When we get away we will have a drive over to the little city of Alexandria; at six, dinner; at eight, the opera; at twelve, you and Bruce shall have an hour for the German at Mrs. Morton's ball, and then—well, home again."

"Quite an attractive programme," smiled her companion, from the depths of the "sleepy hollow."

Mrs. Conway smiled musingly, as she fixed her dark eyes on the pattern of autumn-tinted leaves that trailed over the velvet carpet.

"Yes," she said, with the indifference of one who is used to it all, "it is last season over again; it is all very charming to one unaccustomed to the round. Poor Gracie was here last winter—these, by the by, were her rooms then, the handsomest suite in the hotel—we went everywhere together. She enjoyed it all so much."

A look of interest warmed the listless gaze of Lulu. The pet curiosity of her soul was Grace Winans, heightened, perhaps,by an indefinable jealousy that went far back into the past, when Grace Grey's violet-pansy eyes had been the stars of Bruce Conway's adoration. She said, regretfully:

"Is it not a wonder that I have never seen Mrs. Winans? And there is no one I would like so much to see. Is she so very beautiful?"

"'Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless,'" was Mrs. Conway's warmly accorded praise, "and as lovely in mind as in person. She inherits both qualities, I believe, from her mother, who was, I have heard, the most amiable and beautiful woman in Memphis to the day of her death."

"Ah! Is Mrs. Winans not a Virginian, then?"

"No, only by adoption. Her father was a slave-holder before the war—one of the out and out aristocrats of Memphis. He was a colonel in the Confederate army, and killed at the head of his regiment during the first of the war. He was a very noble young fellow, I believe, and devoted to his wife and little daughter. The wife died broken-hearted at his loss, and left this little Grace to the care of relatives, who placed her in a boarding-school, where she remained until the close of the war freed the slaves her father left her, and she was penniless. I advertised about this time for a companion; she answered, and I engaged her. She has been in Virginia ever since. She was just sixteen when she came to me—a charming child—she is about twenty-one now."

A tender throb of sympathy stirred Lulu's heart as she listened. Brought up in the warm fold of a mother's love, caressed, petted, beloved, all her life, she could vaguely conjecture how sad and loveless had been the brief years of Grace Grey's life.

"I regret that Bruce's unfortunate affair has, in some sort, put an end to our intimacy," Mrs. Conway went on, pensively. "I was fond of Grace, and had grown so used to her in her long stay with me, that she seemed almost like one of my own family. I would have been proud of her as my daughter. She might have been something almost as dear but for—well, let us call it an error of judgment on my part and my nephew's." She paused a moment, sighed deeply, and concluded with, "I wouldlike you to know her, Lulu. Your brother admired her very much, I think."

"I think he did," Lulu answered, simply.

"Next week Congress convenes," said the older lady, brightening; "then I shall take you quite frequently to the capitol to hear the speeches of the eminent men. Winans will be there, I presume. I hear he has been traveling all summer, but he must, of course, be here in time for the session. He is quite a brilliant speaker, and was excessively admired last session."

"Has all the far-famed Louisiana eloquence and fire, I presume?" says Lulu, curiously.

"Yes, although he has been many years away from there, but he has the hot temper and unreasoning jealousy of the extreme South, as one may see from his cruel treatment of his wife and child."

"I have just seen him," said Bruce's voice at the door.

"Seen whom?"

"Winans, to be sure, the man you're talking of," sauntering in and flinging his handsome person recliningly on the divan and looking extremely bored and fatigued in spite of the shy smile that dawned on Lulu's lip at his entrance.

"Where did you see him?" Mrs. Conway queried, in some surprise and anxiety.

"Oh, tearing down the avenue on a magnificent black horse as if he were going to destruction as fast as the steed would carry him—that is just his reckless way though."

"You recognized each other?" his aunt made haste dubiously to inquire.

"Oh, certainly," says Bruce, with a light smile. "I threw away my cigar to make him a polite bow; he returned it with a freezing salutation, but there was something in his face that would have stirred a tender heart like Brownie's here into pity for him, though stronger ones like mine, for instance, acknowledge no such sentimental feelings."

"How did he look?" queried Brownie, unmoved by his half-jesting allusion to her.

"Like a proud man who was trampling on the heart he had torn from his bosom to save his pride; pale, cynical, melancholy,defiant—pshaw! That sounds like a novel, doesn't it, Lulu?"

"Poor Paul Winans!" she answered only; but the compassion in her voice for him was not so great as the pained sympathy that looked out of her speaking glance for Bruce Conway.

For Lulu saw with preternaturally clear vision, the struggle that was waging in the young man's soul; saw how truth, and honor and every principle of right were battling for one end—the overthrow of the love that having struck down its intertwining roots in his soul for years, was hard to be torn up. She pitied him—and, ah! pity is so near akin to love.

Something of her pity he read in her expressive face, and straightway set himself to work to dispel her gloom. Bruce never could bear to see the face of a beauty overshadowed.

"Brownie, have you tried that new song I sent you yesterday?"

Lulu confessed she had not.

"Try it now, then," he answered, rising, and throwing open the piano.

She rose, smiling and happy once more, and took the seat at the piano. He leaned by her side to turn the pages, and presently their voices rose softly together in a sweet and plaintive love-song. But his heart was full of another, and, as he turned the pages for Lulu with patient gallantry, he remembered how he had turned them for another, how his voice had risen thrillingly with hers in sweeter songs than this, mingling with her bird-like notes as it never should "mingle again."

"WHEN A WOMAN WILL, SHE WILL."

"AlthoughThe airs of Paradise did fan the house,And angels offic'd all, I will be gone!"

—Shakespeare.

"And underneath that face, like summer's oceans,Its lip as noiseless, and its cheek as clear,Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions,Love—hatred—pride—hope—sorrow—all, save fear."

—Fitz-Green Halleck.

It was January, and the keen, cold sea-air swept over Norfolk, freezing the snow as it fell, and chilling the very marrow of the few pedestrians whom necessity compelled to be abroad that inclement morning. The fast-falling flakes obscured everything from view, but Mrs. Winans stood at a window of her elegant home gazing wistfully out at the scene, though the richly appointed room, the fragrance of rare exotic flowers that swung in baskets from the ceiling, the twitter of two restless mockingbirds, all invited her gaze to linger within. But the delicious warmth, the exquisite fragrance, the sweet bird-songs, held no charm for the fair and forlorn young wife to-day. Now and then she moved restlessly, disarranging the fleecy shawl of soft rose-color that was thrown about her shoulders, and turning at last, she began to walk swiftly across the floor, wringing her little white hands in a sort of impotent pain.

"I can't bear this, and I won't!" stopping suddenly, and stamping a tiny slippered foot on the velvet carpet that scarcely gave back the sound. "I am to stay here becausehesays so; because he chooses to desert me. He wearies, perhaps, of his fetters. Why cannot I go to Washington, if I choose, for a few days anyhow? I could go up to the capitol vailed, and seehisface, hear his voice once more. Ah, heaven! that I should have to steal near enough tosee him! My darling—beloved,though so cruel to me—how can I bear this and live? I must, must go—must look in for the last time in life, on your dear, too cruelly dear face!"

The violet eyes brightened strangely as the words fell from her lips whose firm curves showed a fixed resolution.

"Yes," she whispered to herself, firmly, "Iwillgo!"

What was it that seemed to clutch at her heart like an icy hand, freezing in her veins the warm blood that but a moment before had bounded with passionate joy at thought of seeing her husband again? What meant that chill presentiment of evil that seemed to whisper to her soul, "You are wrong—do not go!"

"Iwillgo!" she said again, as if in defiance of that inward monitor, and folding her arms across her breast, she resumed her slow walk across the floor.

The pretty shawl fell from her shoulders, and lay, like a great brilliant rose, unheeded on the floor; the long, sweeping train of her blue cashmere morning-dress flowed over it as she walked, the white ermine on her breast and at her throat trembling with the agitated throbs of her heart. Her pure, pale cheek, her eyes darkening under their black lashes, the white, innocent brow, the mobile lips, all showed the trace of suffering bravely borne; but now the patient spirit, tried too deeply, rose within her in desperate rebellion.

For this one time she would take her own way, right or wrong. Go to Washington she would, see her husband, herself unseen, once more, she would; then she would go back to her dull, wearisome life—her rebellion extended no farther than that. But she wanted, oh, so much, to see how he looked; to see if suffering had written its dreary line on his face as on hers; to see him because—well—because her whole warm, womanly heart hungered, thirsted for a sight of the dusk-proud beauty of her husband's face.

The honest Irish face of Norah, entering with little Paul, clouded as she took in the scene. She had grown wise enough to read the signs of emotion in the face of the young lady, and now she saw the stamp of pain too plainly written there to be misunderstood.

"Pretty mamma!" lisped the toddling baby, stumbling overthe pink shawl in his eagerness to grasp the skirt of the blue dress in his baby fingers.

She stooped and lifted her idol in her arms, pressing him closely and warmly to her aching heart.

"What should I do without my baby, my darling? Why, I should die," she cried, impulsively, as she sunk among a pile of oriental cushions and began to play with the little fellow, her soft laugh blending with his as he caught at her long sunny curls, his favorite playthings, and wound them like golden strands about his fingers.

The shadow of her clouded life never fell upon her child. In her darkest hours she was always ready to respond to his mirth, to furnish new diversion for his infant mind, though sometimes her heart quailed with a great pang of bitterness as the laughing dark eyes, so like his father's, looked brightly up into her face.

But sad as her life was, it would have been unendurable without her baby. He was so bright, so intelligent, so full of rosy, sturdy health and beauty. The slowly increasing baby-teeth, the halting baby-walk, the incoherent attempts at speech, were all sources of daily interest to Grace, who was ardently fond of babies in general, and her own in particular. And this baby did for Grace Winans what many another baby has done for many another wretched wife—saved her heart from breaking.

"Norah," she said, looking suddenly up with a flitting blush, "what do you say to a trip to Washington next week, after this snow-storm is quite cleared away—do you think it would be safe for little Paul?"

"Hurt him! I think not. He is so strong and healthy; but has the Senator written for you to come on?" asked Norah, eagerly.

"No"—her brow clouded, and that warm flush hung out its signal-flag on her cheek again—"he has not. I do not mean for him to know anything about it. I shall stay but a day or two, only taking you and baby; then we shall return as quietly as we went, and no one be the wiser; and now, Norah, baby is falling asleep, take him to his nursery, and bring me the Washington papers, if they have come in yet."

"They came hours ago; it is eleven o'clock, Mrs. Winans, andyou have taken no breakfast yet. Won't you have it sent up here to you?" said the kind-hearted nurse, solicitously.

"Have I not taken breakfast? I believe I do not want any; I have been thinking so intently I have lost my appetite, and was actually forgetting that I had not breakfasted," then noting the pained look that shaded Norah's face, "Oh, well, you may bring me a glass of milk with the papers."

But Norah, after depositing her sleeping burden in his crib in the nursery, brought with the papers a waiter holding a cup of warm cocoa, a broiled partridge, stewed oysters, warm muffins and fresh butter, the specified glass of milk crowning all. Depositing the waiter on a little marble table, she wheeled up a comfortable chair and installed Mrs. Winans therein.

"You are to take your breakfast first," she said, with the authority of a privileged domestic, "then you can read the papers."

She laid them on a stand by the side of her mistress and softly withdrew to the nursery. And lifting the glass of milk to her lips with one hand, Grace took up the WashingtonChroniclewith the other and ran her eyes hastily over the columns, devouring the bits of Congressional news.

As she read her cheek glowed, her pearly teeth showed themselves in a smile half-pleased, half-sorrowful. Praise of her husband could not but be dear to her, but her pride in him was tempered by the thought that he cared not that she—his wife—should be witness of and sharer in his triumphs.

And turning away from the record of his brilliant speech on Southern affairs, she glanced indolently down the column of society news, recognizing among the names of women who stood high in the social scale many who had been among her most intimate friends the preceding winter. She had been the queen of them all then, reigning by right of her beauty and intellect no less than by her wealth and high position—best of all, queen of her husband's heart—and as the thought of all that she had been "came o'er the memory of her doom," the dethroned queen sprang from her chair and paced the floor again, burning with passionate resentment, stirred to her soul's deepest depths with the bitter leaven of scorn, not less a queen to-day though despoiled of her kingdom.

And thus one vassal, still loyal, found her as the servant ushered him quite unceremoniously into the bright little parlor, startling her for a moment as he came forward, a few wisps of snow still clinging to his brown curls, and melting and dripping down upon his shoulders in the pleasant warmth diffused around.

She glanced at him, shrank back an instant, then came forward with rising color and extended hand.

"Captain Clendenon! This is indeed a pleasant and very welcome surprise."

He bowed low over the slim white hand, murmured some inarticulate words of greeting, and stooped to replace the shawl that still lay unheeded where she had dropped it on the floor.

"Allow me," he said, with grave courtesy, and folded it with his one arm very carefully, though perhaps awkwardly, about her shoulders.

Then a momentary embarrassing silence ensued, during which he had seated himself in a chair indicated by her, and opposite the one into which she had languidly fallen.

In that silence she glanced a little curiously at the face whose dark gray eyes had not yet lifted themselves to hers. She had not seen him in some months before, and he looked a little altered now—somewhat thinner, a trifle more serious, but still frank and noble, and with an indescribable respect and sympathy in the clear, honest eyes that lifted just then and met her glance full.

"I must ask your pardon for intruding on the entire seclusion that you preserve, Mrs. Winans," he said, with the slight pleasant smile she remembered so well. "The fact that I am your husband's lawyer, and that I come on business, must plead my excuse."

She bowed, then rallied from her surprise sufficiently to say that an old and valued friend like Captain Clendenon needed no excuse to make him welcome in her home.

A faint flush of gratification tinged his white forehead an instant, then faded as a look of pain on the lovely face before him showed that some indefinable dread of his mission to her filled her mind.

"I am not the bearer of any ill news," he hastened to remark.

"Ah! thank you—I am glad," the fading color flowing back to her lips, "we women are so nervous at thought of ill news—and—and I get so depressed sometimes—I suppose all women do—that I can conjure up all sorts of terrors at that word—the woman's bugbear—'business.'"

"Yes, I presume all womendoget depressed who preserve such inviolate seclusion as you do, Mrs. Winans," he answered, gravely, "and that brings me to my object in coming here this morning. I had a letter from your husband yesterday, in which he made special mention of you in alluding to various reports which have reached him relative to your utter retirement from society."

"Well," she asked, coldly, as he paused, a little disconcerted by her steady gaze, and by his consciousness of touching on a delicate subject.

"And," he went on, "your husband seemed annoyed, or rather fearful that your health might suffer from such unwonted seclusion. He begged me to speak with you on the subject, and assure you that he would rather hear that you took pleasure in the society of your friends, and passed your time in walking, driving, and, in short, all the usual pursuits that are so conducive to your health and the diversion of your mind from brooding over troubles that cannot at present be remedied."

A faint sarcastic curve of her red lip betrayed her contempt before it breathed in her voice:

"Is that all?"

"Not quite," he flushed again beneath her steady gaze, and said, abruptly, "Mrs. Winans, I trust you do not blame me for fulfilling your husband's trust. It is not intended, either by him or myself to wound you, and I have undertaken it, not—well, because I thought I could express his wishes regarding you, to you better than another."

"I am not thinking of blaming you," she said, gently, "not at all. I thank you for your kindness; I do indeed. Captain Clendenon, you should know me well enough to think better of me than that implied. Please go on."

"There is but little more," he answered, more at ease. "Youwill recollect, I suppose, having signified to Senator Winans a wish to revisit the home of your childhood?"

She slightly bowed her head.

"He merely wished me to tell you that should you still desire it, you are at liberty to visit Memphis now, or whenever you wish to do so, to remain as long as you please."

He rose at the last word, and she rose also, pale, proud, defiant, woman-like, having the "last words."

"Ah, indeed! I may go to Memphis, then, if it so please me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Winans;" and taking a step forward, he looked down at the fair face that he saw for the first time shaded with contempt and anger. "You are not angry?"

A mutinous quiver of the red lip answered him; just then it seems impossible for her to speak. A great, choking lump seems to rise into her throat, and prevent her from speech. Her heart is in a whirl of contending emotions—joy that her husband remembers and cares for her comfort—grief, pain, indignation evoked by his message—he is willing she should go far away from him, he is indifferent about seeing her, while she—she has been so wild to see him.

While she stands thus, the captain says, in his grave, singularly sweet tones:

"Mrs. Winans, I have known you so long, and am so much older, and perhaps, wiser, than you—I have learned wisdom knocking around this hard old world, you know—that you will pardon a word of advice from an old friend, as you were kind enough to call me just now. Try and overlook what seems to you injustice in your husband. His course toward you seems to him the wiser one, and he is perhaps the best judge of what was right for him—in this lately expressed wish of his he seems actuated solely by a desire for your comfort and happiness—he wishes ardently that you may content yourself during the period of his voluntarily enforced absence. Think as kindly as you can of him. I am sure that all this tangled web of fate will come straight and plain at last."

She responded to his wistful smile with another, as chill and pale as moonlight.

"Thank you; and, Captain Clendenon, you may tell your correspondentthat I shall avail myself of his gracious permission to visit another city—not Memphis. I have no desire to visit there at present."

He looked down at the sweet, flushed, mutinous face with a yearning pity in his eyes, and a great throb of pain at his heart—the anguish of a man who sees a woman that is dear to him bowed beneath sufferings that he cannot alleviate.

All he could do was to clasp the small hand in sympathetic farewell, and beg her earnestly to call on him if ever she needed a friend's services.

"Since you will not go to Memphis," he said, relinquishing the small hand.

"No, I will not go—at least, not now," she answered, supplementing the harsh reply by a very gentle good-by.

When shedidgo, Paul Winans would have given all he possessed on earth to have recalled that freely accorded consent.

"I like Captain Clendenon so much," she wrote, in daintiest of Italian text, that night, within the sacred pages of her journal. "There is something so supremely noble about him, and to-day he looked at me so sorrowfully, so kindly, as I have fancied a dear brother or sister might do, had I ever been blessed with one. I used to shrink at seeing him; he brought back the first great shock of my life so vividly, and does still, though not so painfully as of old. It is only like touching the spot where a pain has been now—'what deep wound ever healed without a scar?' And I do not mind it now, though the unspoken sympathy in his great gray eyes used to wound my proud spirit deeply. I don't think he ever dreamed of it, though. Mrs. Conway used to think that he liked me excessively. I don't know—I think she was mistaken. I cannot fancy Willard Clendenon loving any woman except with the calm, superior love of a noble brother for a dear little sister. And he has a sister, though I have never seen her—charmingly pretty, Norah says she is. I believe I should like to know her, if she is at all like her brother. But all women, as a rule, are so frivolous—or, at least, all those whom fate has thrown in my way. At least, I should like to have a brother like this quiet, unselfish captain—this sterling, irreproachable character with the ring of the true metal about it—and a sister like what I fancy his pretty sister must be. Oh,Paul, were you not so cruel my poor heart would not be throwing out its bruised tendrils so wildly, seeking for some sure support on which to lean its fainting strength. It is so hard to stand alone——"

She closed the book abruptly at a sound of baby laughter from the nursery, and gliding into the room stood looking at Norah's busy movements. She was giving Master Paul his nightly bath on the rug in front of the fire. Up to his white and dimpled shoulders, in the marble bath of perfumed water, the little fellow was laughing and enjoying the fun to his heart's content. It won the child-like young mother to laughter too. She seated herself on a low ottoman near him, and watched the dear little baby, with its graceful, exquisite limbs flashing through the water, a rosy, perfect little Cupid, and something like content warmed her chilled and perturbed spirit.

"I can never be utterly desolate while I have him," she murmured, running her taper, jeweled fingers through the clustering rings of his dark hair.

Norah, looking across at her mistress, asked, timidly, if she were quite resolved on going to Washington next week.

Mrs. Winans' soft eyes fixed themselves on the bright anthracite fire in the grate, as if an answer to the question might be evoked from its mystic hearth. Her baby seized the opportunity thus afforded to catch the nearest end of one of her floating ringlets, and dip it in the bath with mischievous fingers. She caught it from his fingers with a fitful smile, and began wringing the water from the golden tendrils, and asking absently:

"What was it you asked me, Norah?"

"I asked if you really intended visiting Washington next week," explained Norah, clearly and intelligibly. She was an educated Irishwoman, and did not affect the brogue of her countrymen.

"Yes, I certainly do so intend," decisively this time, and leaning a little forward, twisting the damp curl into a hundred glittering little spirals, she went on: "for a few days only though, as I believe I told you this morning."

"You will not take much baggage, then, I suppose?"

"No," smiling at the baby's antics in the water, and dodgingthe drops he mischievously splashed in her direction, "only a small trunk with necessary changes for baby and myself. I certainly shall not stay more than three days at the most."

Shall not?On the mystic page of our irrevocable destiny our resolves are sometimes translated crosswise, andwillsometimes becomeswill not, andshall notoft becomesshall! We, who cannot see a moment beyond the present hour, undertake in the face of God to say what we shall or shall not do in the unknown future! But poor human hearts,

"Feeble and finite, oh! what can we know!"

AT THE CAPITOL.

"Alone she sat—alone! that worn-out word,So idly spoken and so coldly heard;Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known,Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word—alone!"

—The New Timon.

"How changed since last her speaking eyeGlanced gladness round the glittering room;Where high-born men were proud to wait,And beauty watched to imitate."

—Byron.

It was a crisp, cold, sunny morning toward the last of January, and all the world—at least, all the Washington world—was packed in the Senate galleries at the capitol, the occasion being the speech of one of the master minds of the Senate on a very important subject that was just then agitating the country North and South. But we have nothing to do with this brilliant speech. We will leave the gentlemen in the Reporters' Gallery to report it in irreproachable short-hand. For ourselves we are looking for friends of ours who have eddied thither with the crowd, and are occupying seats on the east side, where they command a good view of the Senate floor. There they are—Mrs.Conway in black silk, bonnet to match, gold eye-glasses, and the yellowest and costliest of real lace shading throat and wrists—an out-and-out aristocrat from the tip of her streaming ostrich plume to her small kid boot. Near her sits Lulu Clendenon, the brilliant center of many admiring eyes. The little Norfolk beauty has become a noted belle under the chaperonage of Mrs. Conway, and to-day she looks rarely beautiful in her brown silk dress, with soft facings and trimmings of seal-brown velvet, her soft brown furs, and a sash of fringed scarlet silk at her throat, confining the soft lace frill. Her great velvet-brown eyes hold two restless stars, her round cheeks are dashed with fitful scarlet, all her nut-brown hair is arranged on the top of her head in a mass of lustrous braids, and one long heavy ringlet floats over her sloping shoulder. The daintiest little hat of seal-brown velvet, with the scarlet wing of a bird fluttering one side crowns the small head, whose stately poise is grace itself. Bruce Conway, languid, handsome, elegant, in attendance on the little beauty, is the envy of half the Washington fops.

They sit dutifully still and listen to the learned harangue from the Senator on the floor below, admire his tropes, follow his gestures, wonder how much longer he is going to continue, until Bruce, who has come there every day that week, and listened to "that sort of thing" till he wearies of it all, loses his interest in the subject, and allows his appreciative glance to wander over the galleries at the beaming faces of the "fair."

"Lots of pretty girls here," he whispers to Lulu.

"Yes," she murmurs back, then stifling a pretty yawn. "What a long speech this is! Don't you think so?" bending one ear to him and the other to the speaker.

"Awfully slow," he answers, glancing at his watch. "Oh! I say, did I tell you, Brownie, or did you know that Winans is expected to reply to this speech?"

"No. Is he?" she asks, eagerly.

"Yes; and the other is winding up his peroration now, I think. Ah! there he sits down, and there is my lordly Winans rising now—how kingly he looks!" says Bruce, in honest admiration of the man who is his enemy.

Lulu settled herself for strict attention, as did every one else, a low hum of admiration echoed through the galleries, and thensilence fell as the musical, resonant voice of Paul Winans filled the grand old Senate Chamber, weakening the strong points of his opponent in the political field with clear practical reasoning, handling his subject skillfuly and well, keen shafts of wit and sarcasm flashing from his lips, his dark eyes burning with inspiration, his whole frame expanding with the fiery eloquence that carried his audience along with him on its sparkling tide. He had never spoken so ably and brilliantly before, and low murmured praises echoed on all sides from the audience and the members, and pencils flew fast in the Reporters' Gallery.

Lulu sat still and speechless, charmed with the eloquence of the speaker, her eyes shining, her full red lips apart. At some argument more telling than the rest, something that appealed forcibly to her clear mind, she turned instinctively to seek sympathy in the eyes of Bruce Conway, only to discover, with dismay, that he was not looking at her nor the speaker. His face was strangely white, his eyes were looking across at the opposite gallery at some one—a pretty girl Lulu judged from the expression of rapt interest he wore. Silently her glance followed his, roving over the sea of faces till it found the focus of his, and this is what she saw:

Near to, and on the right of the Reporters' Gallery, a lady leaning forward against the railing, her dark, passionately mournful eyes following Paul Winans with deep, absorbing interest. All the faces of fair women around her paled into insignificance as Lulu looked at that pale, clear profile, as classically chiseled, as "faultily faultless," as if cut in white marble by some master-hand; the vivid line of the crimson lips, the black, arched brows so clearly defined against the pure forehead, the ripple of pale-gold hair that, escaping its jeweled comb at the back, flowed in a cascade of brightness over the black velvet dress, that fitted so closely and perfectly to the full yet delicate figure as to reveal the perfection of gracefulness to the watcher. A tiny mask vail of black lace that she wore had been pushed unconsciously back over the top of her little black velvet hat, and so she sat in her pure, melancholy loveliness before the eyes of the girl who interpreted Bruce Conway's look aright, and knew before she asked a word that this could be no other than the being she had so long wished to gaze upon—the fair, forsakenwife, the beautiful and determined recluse—Grace Winans.

She touched his arm with an effort, her heart throbbing wildly, her breath coming in a sort of gasp.

"Will you tell me the earthly name of the divinity who absorbs your flattering notice?"

He started violently and looked round like one waking from a dream. Her voice in its tones was much like her brother's, and she had used almost his very words at Ocean View when he first saw Grace. No effort of his will could subdue his voice into its ordinary firmness, as he answered:

"Oh, that is the Hon. Mrs. Paul Winans."

And Lulu answered, with an unconscious sigh:

"I could not have imagined any one so perfectly lovely."

"Grace here—is it possible?" commented Mrs. Conway, lifting her eye-glass to stare across at the young wife. "Well, really, I wonder what has happened, and why she is here, and where she is staying? I must find out and call."

In which laudable desire she continued to gaze across, trying to catch the young lady's eye; but Mrs. Winans had neither eyes nor ears for any one but her husband. Her whole soul was intent on him, and when the speech came to an end she remained in the same rapt, eager position until, just as he was resuming his seat amid the prolonged applause, one of those strange psychological impressions that inform one of the intense gaze of another caused him to look up, and his dark eyes, still blazing with eloquent excitement, met the deep, impassioned gaze of her violet orbs, swimming in unshed tears; he sank into his seat as if shot.

As for her, she started up, horrified at having betrayed her presence, and was trying to get out of the thronged gallery when a sudden request to have the galleries cleared while the Senate went into executive session set all the crowd on their feet and moving toward the doors. Mingling with them and quite unaccustomed to visiting the capitol unaccompanied, Grace found herself suddenly alone, and quite lost in a maze of corridors far away from the moving throng of people. Perplexed and frightened at she knew not what, she hurried on, only losing herself more effectually, seeing no outer door to thevast, wandering building, and, strangely enough, meeting no one of whom to learn the way out, until as she desperately turned into yet another long corridor she stumbled against a gentleman coming in the opposite direction. Looking up she met the surprised eyes of Bruce Conway, and remembering only that she wanted to get out of that place, that she was in trouble, and that he had been her friend, her white detaining hand caught nervously at his coat-sleeve.

"Oh, Mr. Conway," she almost sobbed, "I have lost my way and cannot get out of the capitol; will you set me right?"

Before a word had passed his lips, while she yet stood with her dark, uplifted, appealing eyes burning in Conway's soul, a quick, ringing step came along the corridor, and Paul Winans stood beside them, towering over both in his kingly height and beauty.

And the untamed devil of a jealous nature rose in his eyes and shone out upon the two.

"Great God!" he breathed, in tones of concentrated passion, "Grace Winans, are you as false as this?"

The small hand fell nervelessly from Conway's coat-sleeve and transferred itself to her husband's arm, her eyes lifted proudly, gravely to his.

"I am not false," she answered, in a ringing voice; "you know that I am not, Paul."

"Am I to disbelieve my eyes?" he questioned, in fiery tones. "I saw you in the gallery—here in Washington, without my knowledge or consent—I go to seek you and place you under proper protection, and find you—youmywife—clinging to this man's arm, your eyes uplifted in such graceful adoration as would make your fortune on the tragic stage—and yet you are notfalse! It would seem that Mr. Conway has not suffered enough at my hands already."

The latent nobility in Bruce Conway's nature passed over the taunt unnoticed in his solicitude for the young creature who stood trembling between them, beloved by each, rendered so fatally unhappy by both.

"Senator Winans," he said, coldly, but earnestly and remarkably for one of his wavering nature, "there is no need for this scene. I encountered your wife in a purely accidental manneronly this moment. She could not find her way out, and requested me to show her the entrance. She was frightened and alarmed, and had you not come up as you did, I should have complied with her wish, placed her in her carriage, and left her. I could not do less for any lady who needed my momentary protection. This is all for which you have to upbraid Mrs. Winans, whom, pardon me, you have injured enough already."

Senator Winans passed over the concluding home thrust, and bowed coldly but disbelievingly. He turned to his wife, still burning with resentful anger, but the words he would have spoken faltered on his lips as he looked at her.

She had removed her hand from his arm, and fallen back a pace or two from him, her slender figure thrown back, the trailing folds of her rich black velvet robe sweeping far behind her on the marble floor. Her small hands hung helpless at her sides, her fair face looked stony in a fixed despair that seemed as changeless as the expression on the marble face of the statue that stood in a niche near by.

Poor child! Her heart was aching with its unmerited humiliation. Here stood the man who had won her young heart in earlier days, only to cast it aside as a worthless toy, a mute witness of the same thing re-enacted by another, and that other one who had promised to love, cherish, and protect her through all the storms of life. To her proud, sensitive soul it was like the bitterness of death to stand there as she stood between these two men.

"Well, madam, I am waiting to hear what you have to say for yourself," her husband said, coldly.

She whirled toward him, a sudden contempt burning under her black lashes, her voice cool, clear, decisive.

"This: that I do not choose to stand here and bandy words with you, Senator Winans, exposed to the comment of any chance passer-by. Whatever more on the subject you can have to say to me I will hear at my private parlor at Willard's Hotel this evening between eight and nine o'clock, if you will do me the honor to call. At present, if one of you gentlemen will take me to my carriage, which is in waiting, I will put an end to this scene."

She looked quite indifferently from one to the other, feeling all her latent pride rise hotly to the surface, as neither stirred for an instant. Then her lawful master drew her hand through his arm, with the cold deference he might have accorded a stranger. She bowed to Mr. Conway, and was led away and placed in the carriage that awaited her, without a word on either side.

And Bruce went back to his aunt and Lulu, whom he had left talking with some friends in the rotunda. He said nothing to them, however, of the scene that had just occurred.

But the fact of Mrs. Winans' presence at the capitol was very well known by this time. Some of her "dear five hundred" friends had seen her when the little mask vail had been unconsciously thrown back in her eager excitement, and those who had not seen her were told by those who had. Many eyes curiously followed the hero of that long past love affair, whose shadow still brooded so pitilessly over Grace Winans' life, as he moved away by the side of the brown-eyed belle to whom society reported him asaffianced.

"What next?" he queried, smiling down into the slightly thoughtful face.

"I don't know—that is—I believe Mrs. Conway spoke of the Art Gallery next," she answered, listlessly.

"After luncheon, though. We go to the hotel first for lunch," interposed Mrs. Conway, briskly, who not being young, nor in love, was blessed with a good appetite. "After that the Art Gallery, and there is that masquerade ball, you know, to-night."

"As if our daily life were not masquerade enough," he thinks, with smothered bitterness, as he attends them down the terraced walks to the park, thence to the avenue, for they decide on walking to the hotel, Lulu having a penchant for promenading the avenue on sunny days like this when all the city is doing likewise.

"For I like to look at people's faces," she naively explains to the young man, "and build up little romances from the materials culled thereby."

"Ah, a youthful student of human nature! Can you read faces?" he retorts, brusquely.

"Sometimes, I fancy, but very imperfectly," she says, flushinga little under his keen gaze, as she walks on, her silken skirts sweeping the avenue, in the perfection of grace.

"Read mine, then," he answers, half jestingly, half curious as to her boasted power, as they fall a little behind the elder lady.

"I cannot," she answers, "I would not attempt it."

"Nay," he insists, "fair seeress, read me even one expression that has crossed my tell-tale face to-day—come, I want to test your power."

"Well," she answers, half-reluctantly, "once to-day in the gallery, there was a look on your face—flitting and momentary, though—that reminded me of this line which I have somewhere read:

"'Despair that spurns atonement's power.'"

"Was I right?" looking away from him half-sorry that she had said it, and fearful of wounding him.

And "silence gave consent."

"IT MAY BE FOR YEARS, AND IT MAY BE FOREVER."

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