III.
Euphemiacould hardly have said what it was that had brought her home,—some vague yet potent impulse, some occult, unimagined power of divination, some subjection to her mother’s will constraining her, or simply the intuition that there was some opportunity for mischief unimproved. Tubal Cain Sims shook his head dubiously as he canvassed each theory. He ventured to ask the views of Mrs. Sims, after he had partaken of the supper set aside for him—for the meal was concluded before his return—and had lighted his pipe.
“What brung her home? Them stout leetle brogans,—that’s what,” said Mrs. Sims, chuckling between the whiffs of her own pipe.
“Course I know the chile walked. I reckon she’ll hev stone-bruises a plenty arter this,—full twelve mile. But what put it inter her head ter kem? She ’lowed ter me she ain’t dreamed o’ nuthin’, ’ceptin’ Spot hed a new calf, which she ain’t got. Reckon ’twar a leadin’ or a warnin’ or”—
“I reckon ’twar homesickness. Young gals always pine fur home, special ef thar ain’t nuthin’ spry goin’ on in a new place.” And once moreJane Ann Sims, in the plenitude of her triumph, chuckled.
It chanced, that afternoon, that when the red sunset was aflare over the bronze-green slopes that encircled the Cove, and the great pine near at hand began to sway and to sing and to cast forth the rich benison of its aroma to the fresh rain-swept air, the juggler roused himself, pushed back his hat from his eyes, and gazed with listless melancholy about him. Somehow the sweet peace of the secluded place appealed to his world-weary senses. The sounds,—the distant, mellow lowing of the kine, homeward wending; the tinkle of a sheep-bell; the rhythmic dash of the river; the ecstatic cadenzas of a mocking-bird, so intricate, delivered with such dashingélan, so marvelously clear and sweet and high as to give an effect as of glitter,—all were so harmoniously bucolic. He was soothed in a measure, or dulled, as he drew a long sigh of relief and surcease of pain, and began to experience that facile renewal of interest common to youth with all its recuperative faculties. It fights a valiant fight with sorrow or trouble, and only the years conquer it at last. For the first time he noted among the budding willows far down the stream a roof all aslant, which he divined at once was the mill. He rose to his feet with a quickening curiosity. As he released the futile fishing-rod and wound up the line he remarked the unbaited hook. His face changed abruptly with the thought of his absorption and trouble. He pitied himself.
The road down which he took his way described many a curve seeking to obviate the precipitousness of the descent. The rocks rose high on either side for a time, and when the scene beyond broke upon him in its entirety it was as if a curtain were suddenly lifted. How shadowy, how fragrant the budding woods above the calm and lustrous water! The mill, its walls canted askew, dark and soaked with the rain, and its mossy roof awry, was sombre and silent. Over the dam the water fell in an unbroken crystal sheet so smooth and languorous that it seemed motionless, as if under a spell. Ferns were thick on a marshy slope opposite, where scattered boulders lay, and one quivering blossomy bough of a dogwood-tree leaned over its white reflection in the water, fairer than itself, like some fond memory embellishing the thing it images.
With that sudden sense of companionship in loneliness by which a presence is felt before it is perceived, he turned sharply back as he was about to move away, and glanced again toward the mill. A young girl was standing in the doorway in an attitude of arrested poise, as if in surprise.
Timidity was not the juggler’s besetting sin. He lifted his hat with a courteous bow, the like of which had never been seen in Etowah Cove, and thus commending himself to her attention, he took his way toward her along the slant of the corduroy road; for this fleeting glimpse afforded to him a more vivid suggestion of interest than the Cove had as yet been able to present. For thefirst time since reaching its confines it occurred to him that it might be possible to live along awhile yet. Nevertheless, he contrived to keep his eyes decorously void of expression, and occupied them for the most part in aiding his feet to find their way among the crevices and obstacles with which the road abounded. When he paused, he asked, suffering his eyes to rest inquiringly on the girl, “Beg pardon, but will you kindly inform me where is the miller?”
The glimpse that had so attracted him was, he felt, all inadequate, as he stood and gazed, privileged by virtue of his simulated interest in the absent miller. He could not have seen from the distance how fair, how dainty, was her complexion, nor the crinkles and sparkles of gold in her fine brown hair. It waved upward from her low brow in a heavy undulation which he would have discriminated as “à la Pompadour,” but its contour was compassed by wearing far backward a round comb, the chief treasure of her possessions, the heavy masses of hair rising smoothly toward the front, and falling behind in long, loose ringlets about her shoulders. She had a delicate chin with a deep dimple,—which last reminded him unpleasantly of Mrs. Sims, for dimples were henceforth at a discount; a fine, thin, straight nose; two dark silken eyebrows, each describing a perfect arc; and surely there were never created for the beguilement of man two such large, lustrous gray-blue eyes, long-lashed, deep-set, as those whichserved Euphemia Sims for the comparatively unimportant function of vision. He had hardly been certain whether her attire was more or less grotesque than the costume of the other mountain women until she lifted these eyes and completed the charm of the unique apparition. She wore a calico bought by the yard at the store, and accounted but a flimsy fabric by the homespun-weaving mountain women. It was of a pale green tint, and had once been sprinkled over with large dark green leaves. Lye soap and water had done their merciful work. The strong crude color of the leaves had been subdued to a tint but little deeper than the ground of the material, and while the contour of the foliage was retained, it was mottled into a semblance of light and shade here and there where the dye strove to hold fast. The figure which it draped was pliant and slender; the feet which the full skirt permitted to be half visible were small, and arrayed in brown hose and the stout little brogans which had brought her so nimbly from Piomingo Cove. Partly amused, partly contemptuous, partly admiring, the juggler remarked her hesitation and embarrassment, and relished it as of his own inspiring.
“Waal,” she drawled at last, “I don’t rightly know.” She gazed at him doubtfully. “Air ye wantin’ ter see him special?”
He had a momentary terror lest she should ask him for his grist and unmask his subterfuge. He sought refuge in candor. “Well, I was admiringthe mill. This is a pretty spot, and I wished to ask the miller’s name.”
There was a flash of laughter in her eyes, although her lips were grave. “His name be Tubal Sims; an’ ef he don’t prop up his old mill somehows, it’ll careen down on him some day.” She added, with asperity, “I dunno what ye be admirin’ it fur, ’thout it air ter view what a s’prisin’ pitch laziness kin kem ter.”
“That’s what I admire. I’m a proficient, a professor of the science of laziness.”
She lifted her long black lashes only a little as she gazed at him with half-lowered lids. “Ye won’t find no pupilsin that science hyar about. The Cove’s done graduated.” She smiled slightly, as if to herself. The imagery of her response, drawn from her slender experience at the schoolhouse, pleased her for the moment, but she had no disposition toward further conversational triumphs. There ensued a short silence, and then she looked at him in obvious surprise that he did not take himself off. It would seem that he had got what he had come for,—the miller’s name and the opportunity to admire the mill. He experienced in his turn a momentary embarrassment. He was so conscious of the superiority of his social status, knowledge of the world, and general attainments that her apparent lack of comprehension of his condescension in lingering to admire also the miller’s daughter was subversive in some sort of his wonted aplomb. It rallied promptly, however,and he went on with a certain half-veiled mocking courtesy, of which the satire of the sentiment was only vaguely felt through the impervious words.
“I presume you are the miller’s daughter?”
She looked at him in silent acquiescence.
“Then I am happy to make an acquaintance which kind fortune has been holding in store for me, for my stay in the Cove is at the miller’s hospitable home.” He concluded with a smiling flourish. But her bewitching eyes gazed seriously at him.
“What be yer name?” she demanded succinctly.
“Leonard,—John Leonard,—very much at your service,” he replied, with an air half banter, half propitiation.
“Ye be the juggler that mam’s been talkin’ ’bout,” she said as if to herself, completing his identification. “I drawed the idee from what mam said ez ye war a old pusson—at least cornsider’ble on in years.”
“And so I am!” he cried, with a sudden change of tone. “If life is measured by what we feel and what we suffer, I am old,”—he paused with a sense of self-betrayal,—“some four or five hundred at least,” he added, relapsing into his wonted light tone.
She shook her head sagely. “’Pears like ter me ez it mought be medjured by the sense folks gather ez they go. I hev knowed some mighty young fools at sixty.”
The color showed in his face; her unconsciousintimation of his youth according to this method of estimate touched his vanity, even evoked a slight resentment.
“You are an ancient dame, on that theory! I bow to your wisdom, madam,—quite the soberest party I have seen since I entered the paradisaical seclusion of Etowah Cove.”
She appreciated the belligerent note in his voice, although she scarcely apprehended thecasus belli. There was, however, a responsive flash in her eye, which showed she was game in any quarrel. No tender solicitude animated her lest unintentionally she had wounded the feelings of this pilgrim and stranger. He had taken the liberty to be offended when no offense was intended, and perhaps with the laudable desire to give him, as it were, something to cry for, she struck back as best she might.
“Not so sober ez some o’ them folks ye gin yer show afore, over yander at the Notch. I hearn they war fit ter weep an’ pray arterward. Mam ’lowed ye made ’em sober fur sure.”
He was genuinely nettled at this thrust. His feats of jugglery had resulted so contrary to his expectations, had roused so serious a danger, that he did not even in his own thoughts willingly revert to them. He turned away on one heel of the pointed russet shoes that had impressed the denizens of Etowah Cove hardly less unpleasantly than a cloven hoof, and looked casually down the long darkly lustrous vista of the river; for the millso projected over the water that the point of view was as if it were anchored in midstream. The green boughs leaned far over the smooth shadowy current; here and there, where a half-submerged rock lifted its jagged summit above the surface, the water foamed preternaturally white in the sylvan glooms. He had a cursory impression of many features calculated to give pleasure to the eye, were his mind at ease to enjoy such trifles, and his sense alert to mark them: the moss on the logs, and the lichen; the tangle of the trumpet-vines, all the budding tendrils blowing with the breeze, that clambered over the rickety structure, and hung down from the apex of the high roof, and swayed above the portal; even the swift motion of a black snake swimming sinuously in the clear water, and visible through the braiding of the currents as through corrugated glass.
“No,” he said, his teeth set together, his eyes still far down the stream, “I did my little best, but my entertainment was not a success; and if that fact makes you merry, I wish you joy of your mirth.”
His eyes returned to her expectantly; he was not altogether unused to sounding the cultivated feminine heart, trained to sensibility and susceptible to many a specious sophistry. Naught he had found more efficacious than an appeal for sympathy to those who have sympathy in bulk and on call. The attribution, also, of a motive trenching on cruelty, and unauthorized by fact, was usuallywont to occasion a flutter of protest and contrition.
Euphemia Sims met his gaze in calm silence. She had intended no mirth at his expense, and if he were minded to evolve it gratuitously he was welcome to his illusion. Aught that she had said had been to return or parry a blow. She spoke advisedly. There was no feigning of gentleness in her, no faltering nor turning back. She stood stanchly ready to abide by her words. She had known no assumption of that pretty superficial femininetendresse, so graceful a garb of identity, and she could not conceive of him as an object of pity because her sarcasm had cut deeper than his own. He had an impression that he had indeed reached primitive conditions. The encounter with an absolute candor shocked his mental prepossessions as a sudden dash of cold water might startle the nerves.
He was all at once very tired of the mill, extremely tired of his companion. The very weight of the fishing-rod and its unbaited hook was a burden. He was making haste to take himself off—he hardly knew where—from one weariness of spirit to another. Despite the lesson he had had, that he would receive of her exactly the measure of consideration that he meted out, he could not refrain from a half-mocking intimation as he said, “And do you propose to take up your abode down here, that you linger so long in this watery place,—a nymph, a naiad, or a grace?” He glanced slightingly down the dusky bosky vista.
She was not even discomfited by his manner. “I kem down hyar,” she remarked, the interest of her errand paramount for the moment, “I kem down ter the mill ter see ef I couldn’t find some seconds. They make a sort o’ change arter eatin’ white flour awhile.”
He was not culinary in his tastes, and he had no idea what “seconds” might be, unless indeed he encountered them in their transmogrified estate as rolls on the table.
“And having found them, may I crave the pleasure of escorting you up the hill to the paternal domicile? I observe the shadows are growing very long.”
“You-uns may kerry the bag,” she replied, with composure, “an’ I’ll kerry the fishin’-pole.”
Thus it was he unexpectedly found himself plodding along the romantic road he had so lately traversed, with a bag of “seconds” on his shoulder,—“a veritable beast of burden,” he said sarcastically to himself,—while Euphemia Sims’s light, airy figure loitered along the perfumed ways in advance of him, her cloudy curls waving slightly with the motion and the breeze; the fishing-rod was over her shoulder, and on the end of it where the unbaited hook was wound with the line her green sunbonnet was perched, flouncing like some great struggling thing that the angler had caught.
It did not occur to him, so impressed was he with the grotesque office to which he had descended and the absurd result of the interview, that hererrand to the mill must have anticipated some burlier strength than her own to carry the “seconds” home, until as they turned an abrupt curve where the high rocks rose on either side they met a man with an axe in his hand walking rapidly toward them. He paused abruptly at the sight of them, and the juggler laughed aloud in scornful derision of his burden.
Then recognizing Ormsby he cried out cheerily, “Hello, friend, whither bound?” So acute had his sensibilities become that he had a sense of recoil from the surly mutinous stare with which his friendly young acquaintance of the previous evening received his greeting. Ormsby mumbled something about a fish-trap and passed on swiftly toward the river. Swift as he was it was obviously impossible that he could even have gained the margin and returned without a pause when he passed again, walking with a long rapid stride, swinging his axe doggedly, his hat pulled down over his brow, his eyes downcast, and with not even a flimsy affectation of an exchange of civilities.
“Now, the powers forbid,” thought the juggler, “that I shall run into any such hornet’s nest as interfering with this Corydon and Phyllis. Surely sufficient vials of wrath have been poured out on my head without uncorking this peculiar and deadly essence of jealousy which all three of us cannot hope to survive.”
He looked anxiously up from his bent posture, carrying the bag well up on his shoulders, at thequickly disappearing figure of the young mountaineer. He did not doubt that Ormsby knew that Euphemia’s domestic errands would probably bring her to the mill at this hour, and the bearing home of the bag of “seconds” was his precious dévoir most ruthlessly usurped. “I only wish, my friend,” thought the juggler, “that you had the heavy thing now with all its tender associations.” He glanced with some solicitude at the delicate lovely face of the girl. It was placidity itself. He had begun to be able to read it. There was an implication of exactions in its soft firmness. She would make no concessions. She would assume no blame not justly and fairly to be laid at her door. She would not rend her heart with those tender lies of false self-accusation common to loving women who find it less bitter to censure themselves than those they love, and sometimes indeed more politic. She would not bewail herself that she had not lingered, that Ormsby, who came daily to examine his fish-traps, might have had the opportunity of a long talk with her which he coveted, and the precious privilege of going home like a mule with a flour-bag on his back. It was his own fault that he was too late. She could not heft the bag. If he were angry he was a fool. On every principle it is a bad thing to be a fool. If God Almighty has not seen fit to make a man a fool, it is an ill turn for a man to make one of himself.
As the juggler divined her mental processes and the possible indifference of her sentiments towardthe disappointed Ormsby, he realized that naught was to be hoped from her, but that probably Ormsby himself might be less obdurate. Doubtless he had had experience of the stern and unyielding quality of her convictions, and had learned that it was the part of wisdom to accommodate himself to them. Surely he would not indulge so futile an anger, for it would not move her. After an interval of solitary sulking in the dank cool woods his resentment would wane, his jealousy would prompt a more zealous rivalry, and he would come to her father’s house as the evening wore on with an incidental expression of countenance and a lamblike manner. The juggler made haste because of this sanguine expectation to leave the field clear for the reconciliation of the parties in interest. He deprecated the loss of one of the very few friends, among the many enemies, he had made since his advent into Etowah Cove. The frank, bold, kindly young mountaineer had, in the absence of all other prepossessions, somewhat won the good opinion of the juggler. With that attraction which mere youth has for youth, he valued Ormsby above the other denizens of the Cove. Jane Ann Sims was possessed of more sterling worth as a friend than a battalion of such as Ormsby. But the juggler was a man of prejudices. Mrs. Sims’s unwieldy bulk offended his artistic views of proportion. The slow shuffle of her big feet on the floor as she went about irritated his nerves. The creases and dimples of herbroad countenance obscured for him its expression of native astuteness and genuine good will. Therefore, despite her appreciation of the true intent of the feats of a prestidigitator he was impatient of her presence and undervalued her hearty prepossessions in his favor. He heard with secret annoyance her voice vaguely wheezing a hymn, much off the key, as after supper she sat knitting a shapeless elephantine stocking beside the dying embers, for the night was chilly. Her husband now and again yawned loudly over his pipe, as much from perplexity as fatigue. Outside Euphemia was sitting alone on the step of the passage. The juggler had no inclination to linger by her side. Except for a lively appreciation of the difference in personal appearance she was not more attractive to him than was her mother. He passed stiffly by, with a sense of getting out of harm’s way, and ascended to his room in the roof, where for a long time he lay in the floundering instabilities of the feather-bed, which gave him now and again a sensation as of drowning in soft impalpable depths,—a sensation especially revolting to his nerves. Nevertheless, it was but vaguely that he realized that Ormsby did not come, that he heard the movements downstairs as the doors were closed, and when he opened his eyes again it was morning, and the new day marked a change.
If anything were needed to further his alienation from the beautiful daughter of the house, it might have been furnished by her own voice, the firstsounds of which that reached his ears were loud and somewhat unfilial.
“It’s a plumb sin not ter milk a cow reg’lar ter the minit every day,” she averred dictatorially.
“Show me the chapter an’ verse fur that, ef it’s a sin; ye air book-l’arned,” wheezed her mother, on the defensive.
“I ain’t lookin’ in the Bible fur cow-l’arnin’,” retorted Euphemia. “There’s nuthin’ in the Bible ter make a fool of saint or sinner.”
“Thar’s mo’ cows spoke of in the Bible ’n ever you see,” persisted Mrs. Sims, glad of the diversion. “Jacob hed thousands o’ cattle, an’ Aberham thousands, an’ Laban thousands, not ter count Joseph’s ten lean kine an’ ten fat kine, what I reckon war never viewed out’n a dream, an’ mought be accounted visions.”
“Waal, I ain’t ez well pervided with cattle ez them folks, neither sleepin’ nor wakin’,” said Euphemia. “I ’lowed ye’d milk pore Spot reg’lar like I does, else I wouldn’t hev gone away.”
“I slep’ till nigh supper-time,” apologized Mrs. Sims unctuously, pricked in conscience at last, “else I’d hev done it. Want me ter go walkin’ in my sleep, an’ milk the cow?”
Euphemia said no more, but there rose an energetic clashing of pans and kettles, intimating that the explanation had not mitigated the enormity of the offense. It was with a distinct sentiment of apprehension that the juggler made himself ready and descended the stairs. The place was evidentlyunder martial law. The slipshod, easy-going liberty which had characterized it was a thing of the past. He might hardly have recognized it, so different was the atmosphere, but for the fixtures. The perfumed air swept through and through the rooms that he had found so close, from open window to open door. The floors had been scrubbed white, and were still but half dry. The breakfast-table was set in the passage, and the graceful vines which grew over the aperture at the rear showed the morning sunshine only in tiny interstices, as they waved back and forth with a fluctuating glimmer and an undertone of rustlings and murmurs; through the drooping boughs of the elm at the opposite entrance might be caught glimpses of the silver river and the gray rocks and the purple mountains afar off.
Here he found Euphemia and her parents. The irate flush was still red on the young girl’s cheeks, and her eyes were bright with the stern elation of victory. But if submission entailed on Mrs. Sims no effort, she was not averse to subjugation. The juggler was pleased for once to perceive no diminution in the number and depth of her dimples as she welcomed him.
“Ye’ll hev ter put up with Phemie’s cookin’, now. I don’t b’lieve in no old ’oman cookin’ whenst she hev got a spry young darter ter do it fur her. I reckon ye’ll manage ter make out. She does toler’ble well fur her, bein’ inexperienced an’ sech; but I can’t sense it into the gal how tergit some sure enough strong rich taste on ter the vittles.”
Old Sims’s grizzled, stubbly, unshaven countenance expressed a rigid neutrality, as if he intended to abide by this impartiality or perish in the attempt. His art had sufficed to keep him out of the engagement this morning, and his success had confirmed his resolution.
It seemed afterward to the juggler that this meal saved his life. He ate as if he had not tasted food for a week. He partook of mountain trout broiled on the coals, and of “that most delicate cate” constructed of Indian meal and called the corn dodger. The potatoes were roasted in the ashes with their jackets on, and crumbled to powder at the touch of a fork. He drank cream instead of buttermilk,—it had been too much trouble for Mrs. Sims to skim the big pans when she could tilt the churn instead; and there was a kind of dry, crisp, crusty roll compounded of the seconds that he had brought to the house on his shoulder yesterday, and which was eaten with honey and the honeycomb. He watched the river shimmer between the green willows of the banks. He noted the white mists rise on the purple mountain sides, glitter prismatically in the sun, tenuously dissolve in fleecy fragments, and vanish in mid-air. The faint tinkle of a sheep-bell sounded,—pastoral, peaceful; he heard a thrush singing with so fresh, so matutinal a delight in its tones.
“If this is the line of march,” he said to himself,as he maintained a decorous silence, for the state of the temper of the family was too precarious to admit of conversation, “I don’t care how soon I fall into ranks.”
It is supposed by those who affect to know that the seat of the intellectual faculties is the cerebrum situated in the brain-pan. Still, science cannot deny that the stomach is a singularly intelligent organ. Through its processes alone the juggler perceived how well subjection becomes parents, especially a female parent addicted to the use of the frying-pan; realized Euphemia’s strength of character, unusual in so young a person, and conceived a deep respect for her mental and industrial capacities. He appreciated an incongruity in his bantering style and his mocking high-sounding phrases. His manner toward her became characterized by a studious although apparently incidental courtesy, which was, however, compatible with a certain cautious avoidance.
These days passed eventlessly to him. Much of the time he strolled listlessly about, so evidently immersed in some absorbing mental perturbation that Tubal Sims marveled that its indicia should not attract the attention of the womenfolk, who esteemed themselves so keen of discernment in such matters. He still affected to angle at times, but his hook was hardly less efficient when it dangled bare and farcical in the deep dark pool than when the forlorn minnow it pierced stirred an eddy in the shadowy depths. He did not seemannoyed by his non-success. Mrs. Sims’s banter scarcely grated on his nerves or touched his pride. But indeed Mrs. Sims herself did not think ill of the unachieving; somehow the aggressive capability of Euphemia made her lenient. If there were more people like Euphemia, Mrs. Sims might have felt in conscience bound to move on herself. As to the daughter, her little world hastily conformed itself to its dictator, and she ruled it with an absolute sway. Triumphs of baking or butter-making ministered amply to her pride. Even the dumb creatures seemed ambitious to meet her expectations and avoid her censure. The dogs, who had sat so thick around the hearthstone in her absence as to edge away the human household, and had so independently tracked mud over the floors, now never ventured nearer than the threshold; yet there was much complimentary wagging of tails when she appeared on the porch. Sometimes the clatter of the treadle and the thumping of the batten told that the great loom in the shed-room was astir. Sometimes the spinning-wheel whirred. Occasionally she was busily carding cotton, and again she was hackling flax.
One afternoon he found her differently employed. She sat near the window and caught the waning light upon the newspaper which she held with both arms half outstretched as she read aloud. Mrs. Sims glanced up at the young man with a radiance of maternal pride that duplicated every crease and every dimple. Even Tubal Sims, who, as thejuggler had fancied of late, was wont to look at his guest askance, lifted his eyes now with a smile distending his gruff, lined countenance, as he sat with his arms folded in his shirt-sleeves across his breast, his chair tilted back on its hind legs against the frame of the opposite window, his gaze reverting immediately to the young elocutionist. With a good-natured impulse to minister to the satisfaction of the old couple, the juggler silently took a chair hard by, and suppressed his rising sense of ridicule.
For, alack, Euphemia’s accomplishments were indeed of manual achievement. He listened with surprise that this should be the extent of her vaunted book-learning, knowing naught of how scanty were her opportunities, and what labor this poor proficiency had cost. Subjugation is possible only to superior force. In the instant his former attitude of mind toward her had returned, on this pitiful exhibition of incapacity which she herself and her prideful parents were totally incompetent to realize. She droned on in a painful sing-song, now floundering heavily among unaccustomed words, now spelling aloud one more difficult than the others, while he had much ado to keep the contemptuous laugh from his face, aware that now and again his countenance was anxiously yet triumphantly perused by the delighted old people, to lose no token of his appreciation and wonder.
To bear this scrutiny more successfully he sought to occupy his thoughts in other matters. Hispracticed eye noted even at the distance that the newspaper must be some county sheet,—published perhaps in the town of Colbury. He congratulated himself that the girl had evidently exhausted the columns of local news, and was now deep in the contents of what is known as the “patent outside.” Otherwise his polite martyrdom might have been of greater duration. He felt that neither her interest nor that of her audience would long sustain her in the wider range of subjects and the more varied and unaccustomed vocabulary of the articles, copied from many sources, which made up this portion of the journal.
The next moment he could have torn it from her hands. His heart gave a great bound and seemed to stand still. His eyes were fixed and shining. He half rose from his chair; then by an absolute effort resumed his seat and resolutely held himself still. In the throe of an inexpressible suspense every fibre of his being was stretched to its extremest tension as, slowly, laboriously, pausing often, the drawling voice read on anent “Young Lucien Royce. Details of his Terrible Death.” For so the head-lines ran.